Opinion ID: 3150586
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: post-conviction court proceedings

Text: [¶46] In his post-conviction filings, and in advocacy before the post-conviction court, Theriault asserted numerous claims of ineffective assistance by trial counsel. The record indicates that the principal focus of advocacy before the post-conviction court were claims that trial counsel had not (1) adequately consulted with Theriault and prepared him to testify at trial; (2) asserted and 28 presented evidence identifying the victim’s brother and step-father as alternative suspects; and (3) sufficiently investigated the case and identified facts or expert witnesses to support Theriault’s defense and attack the victim’s credibility. [¶47] The specific claims of ineffective assistance directed at trial counsel in the post-conviction proceeding included: 1. Insufficient pretrial communication and contacts with Theriault; 2. Failure to prepare Theriault to testify and to allow Theriault to make a rational decision to testify in his own defense; 3. Failure to hire a private investigator to investigate his case and perhaps develop evidence that the victim had a motive to lie and that the victim’s brother and stepfather should be considered alternative suspects; 4. Failure to call unnamed witnesses who allegedly would have testified to inconsistences in the victim’s statements, without indication of who the witnesses were or what they might have testified to; 5. Failure to retain expert witnesses to (a) discuss the impact of suggestive interview techniques on children, and (b) explain the significance of the lack of physical findings of an assault; 15 15 The record does not disclose the basis for the claim that calling an expert witness to testify about the lack of physical findings of an assault might have benefited the defense in an unlawful sexual contact case. In such cases, testimony about the lack of physical findings indicating an assault usually is offered by and benefits the State. Theriault’s claim on this point may be an example of making every conceivable 29 6. Failure to request an order to allow review of the victim’s alleged DHHS records, but without any indication, by post-conviction counsel, that DHHS records existed, or that, if they did exist, what relevant information they might contain; 7. Failure to challenge the by then nine-year-old victim’s competency to testify at trial, but without any indication of any basis that trial counsel or the trial court might have had to question the victim’s competence at trial; 8. Failure to call character witnesses to testify to Theriault’s good character traits, although such evidence would have opened the door for the State to ask questions about Theriault’s prior bad acts, including a Connecticut conviction for child endangerment and a possible sexual assault charge in New Mexico; 9. Failure to call a police officer who had recorded some inconsistent statements from the victim and other family members, although such an inquiry could have opened the door to the officer’s testimony about a conversation with Theriault, in which Theriault admitted to unrelated criminal conduct in other states and got into a heated argument with the officer “flip[ping] him off”; 10. Failure to cross-examine the victim about her trial testimony that on the day of the incident, she played a PlayStation video game at Theriault’s home, after Theriault had informed trial counsel that he did not own a PlayStation; and criticism about things that trial counsel allegedly failed to do in the hope that some claim might find traction. 30 11. Failure to cross-examine the victim about the Spurwink interview during which she initially stated that Theriault had not sexually assaulted her and no one had touched her privates, but later stated that someone had touched her privates and that Theriault had sexually assaulted her. [¶48] On this last point, Theriault’s brief to the post-conviction court, his memorandum to us in support of allowing this appeal, M.R. App. P. 19(c), and his brief to us on appeal, each, using nearly identical language, argued only that trial counsel should have cross-examined the victim about her statements made during the Spurwink interview. Theriault’s only argument regarding the Spurwink interview, in his brief to us, is under a heading “Cross-examination of [the victim].” There Theriault argues, after referencing the Spurwink interview, that “[t]rial counsel utterly failed in this most basic role of cross-examining a complainant.” None of Theriault’s advocacy suggested, as the Court now determines, that trial counsel may have erred by not affirmatively presenting a witness describing the victim’s inconsistent statements in the Spurwink interview. [¶49] The trial transcript indicates that at trial, Theriault’s counsel questioned the State’s witnesses about inconsistencies between the victim’s trial testimony and her prior statements to family members and personnel at the local hospital. Trial counsel’s examination of the State’s witnesses also raised the issue of whether the witnesses’ questioning of the victim may have suggested or 31 prompted her statements that Theriault had sexually assaulted her. In closing arguments, trial counsel argued that reasonable doubt about guilt was created by the inconsistencies in the victim’s trial testimony and her prior statements and by the possible influence the questions she was asked on the evening of the event may have had on her statements. [¶50] Trial counsel’s reasons for not cross-examining the victim more extensively were demonstrated at the post-conviction hearing. There, trial counsel testified that, while the victim was testifying, he could see members of the jury making a connection with her and that some jurors were crying. Consequently, trial counsel testified, he decided it was most important to limit cross-examination of the victim to get her off the stand as quickly as possible. [¶51] Trial counsel’s choice to limit cross-examination of the victim in light of his concerns about jury sympathy for the victim cannot be characterized as ineffective assistance—a deficiency indicating “serious incompetency, inefficiency, or inattention of counsel amounting to performance . . . below what might be expected from an ordinary fallible attorney,” Aldus v. State, 2000 ME 47, ¶ 12, 748 A.2d 463.16 As a nationally respected text on trial advocacy by a Maine 16 The post-conviction court referenced the same standard for determining ineffective assistance, citing Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984), and Lang v. Murch, 438 A.2d 914, 915 (Me. 1981), one of our earlier post-conviction opinions that used nearly identical language. 32 author notes, sometimes the best cross-examination is no cross-examination at all.17