Opinion ID: 2525464
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 15

Heading: Failing to adequately impeach the testimony of two witnesses

Text: Evans claims that his trial counsel failed to investigate Joseph Salley and Alicia Ventura and thus to fully impeach their testimony. We perceive no prejudicial deficiency in trial counsel's cross-examination of Ventura. In fact, the record shows that Ventura testified to most of the facts which Evans claims his counsel failed to elicit. Evans complains that his counsel failed to impeach Salley with two felony convictionsgrand theft in California and attempted possession of a stolen vehicle in Nevadaand the fact that he lied to police about his identity on numerous occasions. Evans also claims that Salley's criminal history could have been used to establish that he expected to receive benefits from the police in return for his cooperation in this case and to contradict the time period he gave for speaking to Evans. The time period claim remains conclusory and unsupported by specific factual allegations, but we conclude that trial counsel were deficient in not impeaching Salley with his criminal history, although counsel did confront Salley forcefully with inconsistencies between his testimony and a prior statement. The question is whether there was a reasonable probability of a different result if such impeachment had occurred. Salley's testimonythat Evans made two incriminating admissions regarding the murderswas significant, and jurors might have discounted it if they knew he was a felon or suspected he had benefited from testifying. On the other hand, Shirannah Rice and Tina Jackson also testified that Evans made incriminating admissions about the murders. Therefore, we conclude that even if jurors had given Salley's testimony little or no weight, a different result was not reasonably probable.