Opinion ID: 1795741
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: Alleged Sexual Abuse

Text: Fourth, Henyard claims that trial counsel was ineffective because the defense conducted no investigation and presented no testimony regarding childhood sexual abuse during the penalty phase. Several witnesses at the evidentiary hearing testified that Henyard told them he was molested. However, none of these individuals said they informed defense counsel of Henyard's allegations. Additionally, there is some question about the extent to which Henyard relayed this information to his defense team. J.T. Williams, an investigator for the Public Defender's Office, testified that he asked Henyard in a questionnaire soon after the arrest if he had ever been sexually abused and Henyard wrote that he did not remember ever being sexually abused. According to lead counsel T. Michael Johnson's notes, Henyard also denied ever being sexually abused to a jail psychiatrist. However, although Johnson could not recall what effort he made in investigating the alleged sexual abuse, the notes also indicated that Henyard had told him that he had been fondled by an older man when he was eight or nine, roughly a decade before the murders. Initially, we would note that the evidence of abuse introduced at the evidentiary hearing came from witnesses who were repeating what Henyard had told them and there was no indication that these witnesses shared this information with Henyard's trial counsel. Moreover, defense counsel was aware of at least two instances where Henyard had specifically said that he was not sexually abused. As noted above, according to Strickland, the reasonableness of counsel's actions may be determined or substantially influenced by the defendant's own statements or actions. 466 U.S. at 691, 104 S.Ct. 2052. Strickland further states, [W]hen a defendant has given counsel reason to believe that pursuing certain investigations would be fruitless or even harmful, counsel's failure to pursue those investigations may not later be challenged as unreasonable. Id. When determining reasonableness, there is a heavy measure of deference to counsel's judgments. Id. Although we recognize the difficulty individuals may have in reporting such abuse, in this situation where Henyard had specifically denied on at least two occasions that he had been sexually abused, it is not clear that trial counsel's failure to investigate the conflicting evidence that Henyard may have been molested amounts to ineffective assistance of counsel. Of course, Henyard was able to introduce evidence that at least one member of his defense team was aware that Henyard claimed he had been abused. Nevertheless, even if we were to determine that trial counsel should have conducted further investigations into the allegations of molestation, the evidence that Henyard introduced at the evidentiary hearing does not demonstrate that he was prejudiced in this case. The only information introduced at the hearing consisted of brief, second-hand accounts by witnesses of what Henyard had told them. There was no additional evidence that the alleged molestation had in fact occurred. Likewise, there was no testimony from mental health experts as to how the alleged molestation, which occurred a decade before the crime, had affected Henyard. Therefore, the trial court did not err in finding that Henyard has not demonstrated prejudice on this claim.