Opinion ID: 205890
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Failure To Call Pfaltzgraff as a Defense Witness

Text: For virtually the same reasons that Cohn did not ineffectively assist Orr in advising Orr not testify, counsel also did not err in refusing to call Orr's girlfriend, Pfaltzgraff, as a witness. As already stated, Orr offers no persuasive reason to vary from the usual deference to counsel's legitimate trial strategy. See Watkins, 486 F.3d at 465. At the evidentiary hearing, Pfaltzgraff proffered the testimony she would have given at trial. Specifically, Pfaltzgraff claimed that she would testify that the shotgun found under the master bed at the Washington Avenue house had been inadvertently left there by Nelsonthe man who claimed to have traded the gun and the X-box to Orr for crack. Additionally, she would have stated that she, not Orr, purchased the X-box secondhand from Nelson with no knowledge that it had been stolen. Pfaltzgraff also claimed that she would have testified at trial that Orr's actual residence on September 14, 2006, the time of the first search warrant's execution, was 803 Summer, not 1305 Washington. Pfaltzgraff recollected that Orr did not begin living with her at the Washington Avenue house until just prior to the second search warrant's execution on June 1, 2007. Finally, Pfaltzgraff proffered that she would have testified that she has never seen or met Christofferson at her house, nor has she seen Orr sell drugs to Christofferson or anyone else. Having considered this proffer by Pfaltzgraff at the evidentiary hearing, the district court properly concluded that Cohn's decision not to call her was reasonable because `the potential costs of calling the witness[] outweighed the potential benefits.' (quoting Staples, 410 F.3d at 488). Undoubtedly, the government would have attacked Pfaltzgraff's credibility with the same effectiveness it did at her evidentiary hearing. On cross-examination at the evidentiary hearing, Pfaltzgraff had no explanation as to why Orr's state-issued identification listing the Washington Avenue home as his address, was recovered from the master bedroom dresser. Similarly, Pfaltzgraff was unable to account for Orr's tax records in her home which also listed the Washington Avenue property as his address, or further, why those tax records listed Pfaltzgraff's children as Orr's dependents. Finally, the government merely sampled the voluminous recordings of jailhouse phone conversations between Orr and Pfaltzgraff, to probe Pfaltzgraff regarding her comment to Orr that he should have gotten a job during the time he was under investigation. Under these facts, [b]ecause [Pfaltzgraff's] testimony was potentially damaging and would not have exonerated [Orr], counsel's decision not to call her to testify at [Orr's] trial was not objectively unreasonable. Watkins, 486 F.3d at 465 (citing Strickland, 466 U.S. at 688, 104 S.Ct. 2052). Therefore, the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying Orr's new trial motion on these grounds.