Opinion ID: 2086451
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Claims Relating to Ineffective Assistance of Counsel

Text: The defendant next claims that he was denied effective assistance of counsel because his counsel (1) failed to object to the hearsay testimony from two police officers which established that the defendant's daughter had run away during the time period the murder was committed and (2) failed to object to the prosecutor's closing argument comments concerning the prior consistent statements of the Walterses and Egan. In order to evaluate ineffectiveness of counsel claims, this court follows the two-part test set forth by the United States Supreme Court in Strickland v. Washington (1984), 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674. (See People v. Albanese (1984), 104 Ill.2d 504, 85 Ill.Dec. 441, 473 N.E.2d 1246 (adopting Strickland standard).) First, the defendant must show that his counsel's performance fell below the objective standard of reasonableness. Second, the defendant must demonstrate that there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different. Strickland, 466 U.S. at 694, 104 S.Ct. at 2068, 80 L.Ed.2d at 698. The defendant cannot meet the first prong of the Strickland test. We do not think that it was unreasonable for defense counsel to fail to object to the alleged hearsay statements. Our review of the record indicates that defense counsel did object to the testimony of Officer McCarthy, but did not object to the testimony of Officer Ptak. Officer Ptak merely testified to his investigatory procedures; his testimony was not hearsay. Further, since the existence of the Walterses' and Egan's prior statements was testified to at trial, the prosecutor, in his closing argument, was allowed to make reasonable inferences from them. Defense counsel cannot be deemed incompetent for choosing not to object to those remarks. However, even if one were to conclude that defense counsel should have objected to this testimony, the failure to do so would not rise to a Strickland level error. The defendant argues that in United States v. Cronic (1984), 466 U.S. 648, 104 S.Ct. 2039, 80 L.Ed.2d 657, the Supreme Court noted that a single error by defense counsel at trial may be sufficient to constitute ineffective assistance of counsel. This creative reading of Cronic is belied by other language from the same opinion: The right to the effective assistance of counsel is thus the right of the accused to require the prosecution's case to survive the crucible of meaningful adversarial testing. When a true adversarial criminal trial has been conductedeven if defense counsel may have made demonstrable errorsthe kind of testing envisioned by the Sixth Amendment has occurred. Cronic, 466 U.S. at 656, 104 S.Ct. at 2045, 80 L.Ed.2d at 666. Our review of the record indicates that the defendant was represented by skilled, conscientious defense counsel. We decline the defendant's invitation to hold otherwise.