Opinion ID: 1737862
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 11

Heading: Penalty Phase Investigation

Text: As we have delineated in reviewing Brown's claims of ineffective assistance of counsel in the penalty phase of his trial, we have reviewed the trial record and the record of the postconviction evidentiary hearing. We recognize, as we did in our discussion of the guilt-phase claims, that under Strickland we must presume that counsel provided reasonable professional assistance and that Brown bears the burden of proving that such representation was unreasonable. 466 U.S. at 688-89, 104 S.Ct. 2052. Similar to Jones v. State, 732 So.2d 313 (Fla.1999), this is not a case in which trial counsel engaged in no investigation at all. The issue here is whether the investigation into mitigating circumstances undertaken by Chalu and Alldredge was so unreasonable that defense counsel was not functioning as the `counsel' guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment. Strickland, 466 U.S. at 687, 104 S.Ct. 2052. Brown contends in this appeal that counsel failed to provide Brown's mental health experts with a 1967 presentence investigation report and other background materials such as school records, juvenile records, or family background. Brown argues that such collateral data would have helped to refute the State's focus on Dr. Berland's statement that Brown seemed to be malingering or faking his psychiatric symptoms during interviews with the mental health experts. Actually, however, Dr. Berland only testified at trial that in his opinion Brown was exaggerating. In the postconviction hearing, he stated that he took this tendency into account when drawing his conclusions as to Brown's true mental state. Brown also argues that the trial judge's failure to find statutory mental mitigators was due to conflicting and insubstantial penalty-phase testimony from Drs. Berland and Afield as to Brown's mental state at the time of the murder. However, both experts arrived at essentially the same conclusion: Brown was suffering from organic brain damage and psychosis, manifested as paranoia or schizophrenia. Dr. Berland testified at the postconviction hearing that he had interviewed Brown in 1986 prior to his trial and had testified in Brown's penalty phase that Brown was psychotic. Also at the postconviction hearing, Dr. Berland testified that, if he had been able to review Brown's presentence investigation report and his school records before Brown's trial, all that information would have done was to corroborate what I had already concluded, that he was psychotic. Brown also argues ineffectiveness in that counsel did not call as lay witnesses additional family members and friends to testify concerning Brown's abuse as a child and his low intelligence. Upon their appointment to represent Brown, Chalu and Alldredge began inquiring into Brown's family history and mental state at the time of the murder. The investigator assigned to their case contacted various relatives and acquaintances of Brown. Alldredge testified that it was difficult to find and secure them as witnesses partly because the investigator assigned to Brown's case was not as aggressive as Alldredge would have preferred in uncovering Brown's history. However, Alldredge also testified that, based on conversations with potential witnesses, he made a strategic decision not to call certain lay witnesses because their testimony as to Brown's history, which included other convictions and a history as a sex offender, would have produced aggravating rather than mitigating factors. Alldredge determined that he had sufficient evidence of Brown's background even without the school records and presentencing investigation report. In view of the fact that Dr. Berland stated at the postconviction evidentiary hearing that such collateral data would not have changed his testimony, we conclude that the performance of Brown's penalty-phase counsel did not fall below the Strickland standard. See Mills v. Singletary, 63 F.3d 999, 1023-26 (11th Cir.1995).