Opinion ID: 386012
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: claims of alessi

Text: 30 Alessi claims that the district court improperly admitted evidence of his prior conviction on similar charges and that he was denied effective assistance of counsel. 31 Alessi had been convicted in 1972 of violating 18 U.S.C. § 371 by conspiring to defraud airline companies by purchasing airline tickets with unlawfully obtained credit cards. The conviction, admitted near the end of the Government's proof, was clearly relevant to the question of whether he had knowledge that the tickets sold by him in this case were purchased with stolen credit cards. It therefore was admissible under Fed.R.Evid. 404(b). 7 The court gave a proper limiting instruction, telling the jury: 32 You may not consider it to prove the character of Mr. Alessi, in order to show that he acted in conformity with that. But you may consider it in determining Mr. Alessi's knowledge or intent or plan or motive. 33 The court offered to give a further instruction, but Alessi's counsel refused on the ground that it would do more harm than good, drawing attention to the evidence. The Government in summation argued that the prior conviction demonstrated knowledge of the use of stolen credit cards. 34 Alessi contends here that the prosecutor did not sufficiently advise the trial judge concerning the issue to which the evidence was directed and that the judge consequently failed to determine whether the probative value of the evidence outweighed the danger of unfair prejudice, Fed.R.Evid. 403. We disagree. A reading of the transcript persuades us that the judge understood fully the reason for which the evidence of the prior conviction was offered and that, while he did not utter the ritualistic incantation that its probative value outweighed the danger of unfair prejudice, this was his considered holding. 35 We have instructed that normally evidence of a defendant's prior conviction introduced to show knowledge or intent should not be admitted until the conclusion of the defendant's case, since by that time the court is in a better position to determine whether knowledge or intent is truly a disputed issue and whether the probative value of the evidence outweighs the risk of unfair prejudice. United States v. Figueroa, 618 F.2d 934 (2d Cir. 1980); United States v. Danzey, 594 F.2d 905, 913-14 (2d Cir.), cert. denied sub nom. Gore v. United States, 441 U.S. 951, 99 S.Ct. 2179, 60 L.Ed.2d 1056 (1979); United States v. Benedetto, 571 F.2d 1246, 1248-49 (2d Cir. 1978). In this case it was admitted near the end of the Government's case. However, no defendant objected to the timing of the admission. In view of the absence of any objection to timing, and the further facts that throughout the trial knowledge was the key issue with respect to Alessi as well as other appellants and that Alessi's knowledge of the use of stolen cards was not (and, short of admitting guilt, could not have been) stipulated, compare United States v. Manafzadeh, 592 F.2d 81 (2d Cir. 1979), we find no reversible error in the timing of the evidence. 36 Turning to Alessi's claim that he was denied effective assistance of counsel at trial, contrary to the guarantee of the Sixth Amendment, we are once again confronted with the difficulty of evaluating an ineffective assistance claim which has not been presented to a district court for development of a full factual record. See United States v. Aulet, 618 F.2d 182, 185-86 (2d Cir. 1980). Upon careful consideration of the record and the deficiencies alleged by Alessi on appeal, however, we find no need to remand the case for an evidentiary hearing. Whether governed by this circuit's farce and mockery of justice standard for evaluating ineffective assistance claims, Indiviglio v. United States, 612 F.2d 624, 626-27 (2d Cir. 1979), or the reasonable competence standard adopted by all other circuits, see Brinkley v. Lefevre, 621 F.2d 45, 47-48 (2d Cir. 1980) (Weinstein, J., dissenting); Bellavia v. Fogg, 613 F.2d 369, 375 n.1 (2d Cir. 1979) (Mansfield, J., concurring), we do not believe that Alessi was deprived of his Sixth Amendment rights. 37 The specific deficiencies alleged on appeal are failure to prepare properly, inept cross-examination, incompetent handling of the Government's offer of other crimes evidence, and failure to explore a purported double jeopardy issue growing out of Alessi's prior conviction (which occurred before the events on which the Government's case here rested). While a reading of the transcript does not reveal any modern-day Clarence Darrow at work, it discloses that counsel attempted reasonably to show that the witnesses could not reliably identify Alessi, that they lacked first-hand knowledge, or that they were attempting to get themselves out of trouble with the law by testifying against Alessi. Counsel's summation was competent, arguing that Alessi lacked knowledge that the tickets were purchased with stolen credit cards and following up on the arguments pursued on cross-examination. We are informed of no motions which counsel might have made with any substantial likelihood of success. We therefore cannot conclude that Alessi was deprived of effective assistance of counsel.