Court Opinion

ID: 9703015
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 23:36:58.126976+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:44.869522
License: Public Domain

MACK, Associate Judge,
dissenting:
The trial court has found that appellant Frost was convicted of armed robbery after a trial at which he was denied effective assistance of counsel. The trial court has vacated that conviction, and ordered a new trial after hearing three days of post-trial testimony, and finding, under the two-part test of Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984), that defense counsel’s performance was constitutionally deficient, and that such performance prejudiced the defense. I would not disturb that ruling.
In this court the majority declines even to address the question of defense counsel’s performance. Significantly, it assumes the deficiency of that performance (which it would be hard-pressed to challenge). There can be no doubt that Frost met his burden in showing this deficiency. Indeed it is undisputed that defense counsel failed to interview, as possible witnesses, three men who were jointly charged with his client, who were negotiating pleas, and who had been sentenced prior to his client’s trial.
In Strickland v. Washington, supra, 104 S.Ct. at 2065, the Supreme Court held that “[t]he proper measure of attorney performance remains simply reasonableness under prevailing professional norms.” In setting this standard the court borrowed its own language from McMann v. Richardson, 397 U.S. 759, 770-71, 90 S.Ct. 1441, 1448-49, 25 L.Ed.2d 763 (1970), where it required “a reasonably competent attorney” whose advice fell “within the range of competence demanded of attorneys in crim*465inal cases.” Our own court, prior to Strickland, had already recognized the McMann reasonableness standard as that applicable to pretrial claims of inadequate preparation. Monroe v. United States, 389 A.2d 811, 819 (D.C.), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 1006, 99 S.Ct. 621, 58 L.Ed.2d 683 (1978). Moreover, it is hardly necessary to elaborate on the need for counsel to attempt to locate and interview witnesses prior to trial.
[Representation involves more than the courtroom conduct of the advocate. The exercise of the utmost skill during the trial is not enough if counsel has neglected the necessary investigation and preparation of the case or failed to interview essential witnesses or to arrange for their attendance.
Moore v. United States, 432 F.2d 730, 739 (3rd Cir.1970) (footnote omitted). See also Hampton v. United States, 340 A.2d 813, 817 (D.C.1975).
In this case counsel’s failure to talk to three witnesses, despite their availability, places his performance below the reasonableness standard set forth in McMann and adopted in Strickland and Monroe. Moreover it seems clear here that counsel’s failure to interview these witnesses amounted to inadequate preparation as a matter of law. I have read very few, if any, records, where counsel (at risk to his own self interest) has exhibited in post-trial testimony more candor than has counsel in the instant case — candor which deflects the ofttimes advanced theory that the deficiency was the result of a calculated “tactical decision.” Thus counsel testified that his client gave him the names of the men who could help his defense and that counsel made no attempt to pursue the matter with these men or their counsel1 because counsel 1) was cynical despite his client’s repeated protestations of innocence; 2) paid more attention to what he was hearing from the government than what he was hearing from his client; 3) was led to believe by the prosecutor2 that the men would testify against his client; and 4) felt punitive toward his client.3 This record speaks for itself. Omission to contact potentially useful witnesses constitutes ineffective assistance of counsel and results in reversal unless lack of prejudice is shown. Farrell v. United States, 391 A.2d 755, 758-61 (D.C.1978); Coles v. Peyton, 389 F.2d 224, 226 (4th Cir.), cert. denied, 393 U.S. 849, 89 S.Ct. 80, 21 L.Ed.2d 120 (1968).
The majority finds it more palatable to dispose of Frost’s claim on the ground that the assumed deficiencies were not sufficiently prejudicial to the defense to warrant vacating the conviction. The majority is met at the outset with the trial court’s finding that there was a reasonable possibility that, but for counsel’s error, the result at trial would have been different; it therefore seeks to weaken the exculpatory impact of the testimony given by the three men at the post-trial hearing, and at the same time to bolster, with a “totality of the evidence” argument, the weak circumstantial evidence against Frost. As to the trial court’s crediting of the testimony of the three men, the majority begins by noting that it is not up to this court to pass on the credibility of this testimony and ends by concluding that the testimony was vague and often contradictory. The fact is that *466the three men, all of whom had been sentenced (two serving time at the D.C. jail, and one at Occoquan) testified at the post-trial hearing only under duress; they admitted that they knew each other and saw each other at the crime site where a “loaded” dice game was in progress (and where with guns they had attempted to recoup their losses) but (in substance) denied knowing Frost until after their arrests (despite persistent and sometimes intimidating questioning). While exhibiting some reluctance to answer the questions of the prosecutor or of new defense counsel, the three appeared to fully cooperate when the court made inquiries. This is the testimony that the trial court found credible.
As to the strength of the evidence at trial, it is an exaggeration to say, as does the majority, that the government’s evidence was compelling. This record presents a question of identity; Frost was never identified by anyone as one of the robbers. All we know is that Frost was one of “at least four individuals” who in a chaotic scene ran from an “after hours” premises at four o’clock in the morning and, when chased by police, sought to hide in an area where scattered proceeds of the crime were found, some in close proximity. The record simply does not support the majority’s implication that only the “perpetrators [of the robbery] ran” or that Frost joined in the robbery by taking a wooden box.
As against this backdrop, I agree with the trial court that the teaching of Strickland requires a new trial. Appellant has shown that “counsel was not functioning as the ‘counsel’ guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment”; he has established also that the omission was so serious as to deprive him of a “fair trial, a trial whose result is reliable.” Strickland, supra, 104 S.Ct. at 2064. I cannot believe that a factfinder, on hearing the testimony of the three men who admitted their complicity in the events culminating in a crime and who denied the complicity of Frost, might not have had a reasonable doubt as to the guilt of Frost. I respectfully dissent.

. Counsel testified “and I think I slapped him down, and I basically said that is a waste of time.”

. This is the same prosecutor who sought to elicit from counsel (at the post-trial hearing) admissions that his trial conduct was "tactical.”

. Counsel explained that this antipathy developed after he had unsuccessfully sought the aid of a woman whose name Frost had given him. Frost told his lawyer that the jewelry found in his pocket (and not identified as proceeds of the robbery) belonged to a woman who was with him at the "after-hours joint” and who, knowing a robbery was to take place, gave him the jewelry for safekeeping. When counsel sought verification from the woman, whom he evaluated as a "middle class person," she signed an affidavit — the gist of which was “I have known ... Jerome for a long time. We’re very close. I care for him. I wasn’t at the crap game." Counsel angrily confronted his client who said, "she did not want to get involved.”