Opinion ID: 222859
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Cross-examination of witness Johnny Knight

Text: Woods alleges that counsel did not properly cross-examine Johnny Knight about (1) his prior theft conviction and (2) his statements to police that increasingly incriminated Woods over time. We address those arguments in turn. Johnny Knight, one of the State's key witnesses, falsely denied any prior theft conviction during direct and cross-examination. Woods argues that his counsel was constitutionally deficient in failing to impeach Knight's testimony with a copy of the theft conviction record. In rejecting this argument, the Washington Supreme Court held: [T]he failure to obtain the certified copy of judgment and conviction does not establish deficiency. We say that because questioning from the prosecution and defense established that all parties were aware that Knight had a theft conviction. In fact, during the questioning, Knight volunteered information about other convictions as well. Thus, it is clear that the jury was aware they were listening to a witness with multiple convictions. In effect, Knight impeached himself. In re Woods, 114 P.3d at 619 (internal footnote omitted). This characterization of the record is not quite accurate. Rather, Knight denied having a theft conviction and, after Woods's attorney objected, admitted that he had been convicted of a drug transaction. After a brief colloquy with counsel, the trial judge stated in open court: [Knight is] subject to recall or you can just put in the evidence about the conviction. Woods's counsel then moved on to other lines of questioning without asking any further questions about the theft conviction or introducing any evidence pertaining to it. Whether or not the failure to introduce the certified copy of Knight's prior judgment and conviction was deficient, we are convinced that the state supreme court's determination that Woods was not prejudiced by that failure was not objectively unreasonable. The jury was indeed made aware that Knight had been convicted of a crime. Woods argues that Knight's admission of his drug conviction is irrelevant because a conviction for a drug transaction is not comparable to a theft conviction because drug crimes are not crimes of dishonesty under Washington law. See State v. Hardy, 133 Wash.2d 701, 946 P.2d 1175, 1178 (1997). While we agree that a drug conviction may not be as valuable for impeachment purposes as a theft conviction, we cannot say that the counsel's failure to elicit Knight's admission to a theft conviction was sufficiently prejudicial to render the state supreme court's determination objectively unreasonable. Nor is Woods entitled to relief on the basis of his counsel's failure to confront Knight with evidence that his statements to police changed significantly after he was charged with three felonies. On April 28, 1996, the police questioned Knight and reported: Johnny Knight denied having knowledge of the assaults or intention of any assaults that [Woods] may have been involved in. On May 7, 1996, Knight was reinterviewed by the police and again said nothing about Woods confessing to the assaults. On February 13, 1997, however, Knight was arrested for drug and firearm crimes for which he could face significant prison time. A week later, police interviewed Knight in jail, and he alleged for the first time that on the day after the murders, Woods confessed that he had killed the women. During this interview, Knight also told police that when he met up with Woods after the murders, Woods had women's jewelry, cash, and some credit cards which had been taken from the victims. Additionally, Knight claimed that Woods said he needed to get out of Spokane. By the time of Woods's trial, Knight had been convicted of several felonies stemming from his arrest and had been sentenced to 10 years in prison. The jury at Woods's trial did not learn of Knight's conviction and sentence. Woods argues that counsel's failure to make the jury aware of Knight's arrest as a possible reason for the change in Knight's story constituted a Strickland violation. The Washington Supreme Court never addressed this sub-issue in its decision, nor did Woods's personal restraint petition raise it. Nonetheless, the district court concluded that this claim had been properly exhausted because the new factual allegations did not fundamentally alter the legal claim already considered by the state court. [13] The district court thus considered this issue on the merits, as do we. Irrespective of whether Woods's counsel was deficient in failing to raise Knight's arrest at trial, that failure did not prejudice Woods. Ample evidence was presented to the jury that Knight was an untrust-worthy witness: he had admitted to a drug conviction and to receiving a reward for information leading to Woods, and defense counsel impeached Knight on the stand for having misrepresented the amount he received as a reward. Moreover, as discussed above, the evidence against Woods from other sources was overwhelming, including eyewitness testimony from Venus and Sherry Shaver and a multitude of forensic and circumstantial evidence. That being the case, there is not a reasonable probability that ... the result of the proceedings would have been different had Knight been further impeached with his February 1997 arrest and related convictions. Strickland, 466 U.S. at 694, 104 S.Ct. 2052. Accordingly, Woods is not entitled to habeas relief on this claim.