Opinion ID: 782567
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Failure to Investigate the Crime Scene

Text: 173 At trial, two expert witnesses testified for the prosecution about the crime scene and Samsoe's remains: a criminalist, Margaret Kuo, and a pathologist, Dr. Sharon Schnittker. Kuo testified that she found a single, tiny drop of human blood on the blade of the knife recovered from the scene. As noted above, the prosecutor used this testimony, along with Dana Crappa's testimony that Samsoe's body was pretty cut up, to argue that the knife was the murder weapon. Schnittker testified that there was no evidence of knife wounds on the skeletal remains but stated that it was possible for fatal stab wounds to leave no mark on a skeleton. 174 Alcala claims that his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to investigate the crime scene and to introduce competing expert testimony to show that Crappa's observations were factually impossible. He suggests that a full investigation by a forensic pathologist and a criminalist would have revealed additional details to impeach Crappa and discredit the prosecution's theory. The district court found that Alcala's trial counsel was not deficient in failing to investigate the crime scene. We disagree and, contrary to the district court, include the prejudice resulting from this deficiency in our cumulative error analysis. 175 Alcala has met his burden of demonstrating that an adequate investigation could have resulted in additional evidence favorable to the defense. At the evidentiary hearing, Alcala presented the testimony of a forensic pathologist that, due to the condition of Samsoe's skeleton, it is highly unlikely that Robin Samsoe died as a result of multiple stab wounds, as well as a criminalist, who testified that the condition of the knife was inconsistent with its purported use as a murder weapon. The criminalist noted that, even after disassembly, there was no blood in any crack or crevice of the knife as would typically be found if it had been used as a murder weapon. Moreover, the spot of blood on the knife was consistent with a blood splatter rather than a wipe or smear mark. 176 [D]efense counsel must, `at a minimum, conduct a reasonable investigation enabling him to make informed decisions about how best to represent his client.' Rios, 299 F.3d at 805 (quoting Sanders v. Ratelle, 21 F.3d 1446, 1456 (9th Cir.1994)). While a lawyer is under a duty to make reasonable investigations, a lawyer may make a reasonable decision that particular investigations are unnecessary. Babbitt v. Calderon, 151 F.3d 1170, 1173 (9th Cir.1998). The district court found trial counsel's performance adequate primarily because he managed to elicit enough information from the prosecution's own experts to rebut the prosecution's case. 177 Although it may have been reasonable for trial counsel not to retain specific experts, such as a pathologist or a criminalist, it cannot have been reasonable for him not to investigate the crime scene at all. 11 Strickland v. Washington itself was in part a duty-to-investigate case and sheds some light on the applicable analysis. Washington, a death row inmate, asserted that his lawyer was ineffective for failing to investigate psychological and character evidence for his sentencing trial. 466 U.S. at 675-77, 104 S.Ct. 2052. The Supreme Court found that the decision not to investigate was a strategically reasonable one because the attorney could reasonably surmise from his conversations with [Washington] that character and psychological evidence would be of little help. Id. at 699, 104 S.Ct. 2052. 178 Here, by contrast, trial counsel apparently had decided that evidence to impeach Dana Crappa would be of help; he went to the trouble of calling an astrophysicist to refute Crappa's testimony as to the phase of the moon on one of the nights in question. Impeaching Crappa was central to Alcala's defense, and without an investigation, trial counsel could not reasonably have known whether the crime scene evidence was consistent with her testimony. 179 As to the argument that trial counsel reasonably relied on the prosecutor's own witnesses, we find that such reliance, if any, was unreasonable. In Rios, we considered the government's argument that defense counsel's failure to investigate was not deficient because he reasonably relied upon the investigation conducted for a co-defendant. 299 F.3d at 807-08. In rejecting this argument, we held that it would have been unreasonable for him to rely solely on the investigation performed for a co-defendant, because the co-defendant's interests in the case might well conflict with [the defendant's]. Id. at 808. There is no question but that the prosecution's interests in this case conflicted with Alcala's, and so trial counsel's reliance on the prosecution's investigation is no more reasonable than the reliance on a co-defendant's investigation in Rios. 12 180 In Holsomback v. White, 133 F.3d 1382 (11th Cir.1998), the Eleventh Circuit considered an analogous failure to investigate in the context of sexual abuse. The prosecution's case rested entirely on the testimony of one witness, the purported abuse victim. Id. at 1384. The prosecution's own investigation revealed that there was no medical evidence of sexual abuse. Id. The court determined that it was error for defense counsel simply to rely on the prosecutor's references to the lack of physical evidence as the sole source of information on the subject, id. at 1387-88, and that defense counsel should have conducted his own investigation into the medical evidence or lack thereof. Id. at 1388. Having made no investigation, defense counsel could not have made an informed tactical decision not to call medical expert witnesses. Id. Similarly, the prosecution's case against Alcala rested largely on the credibility of Dana Crappa. The prosecution's own witnesses established that there was no physical evidence to establish the cause of death as testified to by Crappa, and Alcala's trial counsel elected simply to rely on the prosecution's investigation as the sole source of information on the subject. Id. at 1387-88. He could not have made an informed decision about whether the inability to establish a cause of death and other objective crime scene evidence should be used to impeach Crappa's testimony. 181 Following Rios and consistent with Holsomback, we hold that the failure to investigate the crime scene was deficient. Alcala has shown some prejudice resulting from this deficiency, suggesting that if his trial counsel had investigated the crime scene, he would have retained the services of a criminalist and a forensic pathologist. The resulting evidence would have helped to discredit Crappa's testimony and the prosecution's inferences drawn therefrom. The district court should have included the prejudice flowing from this deficiency in the cumulative error analysis, and we will do so here. 182