Court Opinion

ID: 9478200
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:42:53.805638+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:46:17.848874
License: Public Domain

BREYER, Circuit Judge,
(dissenting).
The law does not permit us to find ineffective assistance of counsel in this case, for the record fails to show that counsel’s trial decisions were, professionally speaking, “unreasonable” and likely made a difference to the outcome. Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984). The Supreme Court has made clear that, when considering such a claim we must “indulge a strong presumption that counsel’s conduct falls within the wide range of reasonable professional assistance.” Strickland, 466 U.S. at 689, 104 S.Ct. at 2065. It has added that “strategic choices made after thorough investigation of law and facts relevant to plausible options are virtually unchallengeable.” Strickland, 466 U.S. at 690, 104 S.Ct. at 2066. (Emphasis added.) It is difficult for me to see how the majority can find that petitioner has met the burden that this law imposes.
1. Counsel’s challenged choices were “strategic.” Petitioner does not claim any failure to make a “thorough investigation of law and facts;” and, those “strategic choices” are “relevant to plausible options.” To be more specific, counsel decided (a) to tell the jury he would call two psychiatric witnesses; (b) he changed his mind; and (c) he did not call them. Consider each of these matters separately:
The decision not to call the two witnesses. The Supreme Judicial Court clearly explained why counsel’s strategic decision not to call the two psychiatric witnesses was reasonable. Commonwealth v. Anderson, 398 Mass. 838, 501 N.E.2d 515 (1986). Counsel’s trial strategy was not to *20deny that his client killed the victim, but instead to try to secure a manslaughter (as opposed to a murder) verdict. As the trial judge pointed out, a manslaughter verdict would mean a major reduction in sentence; a second degree murder conviction would not. In order to carry out his strategy, counsel needed to show both (1) a state of anger sufficient to eclipse defendant’s capacity for restraint, Commonwealth v. McLeod, 394 Mass. 727, 738, 477 N.E.2d 972, cert. denied sub nom. Aiello v. Massachusetts, 474 U.S. 919, 106 S.Ct. 248, 88 L.Ed.2d 256 (1985) and (2) a provocation sufficient to make an ordinary man that angry. Commonwealth v. Walden, 380 Mass. 724, 728, 405 N.E.2d 939 (1980).
Given his options, counsel might reasonably have thought that the introduction of the psychiatric testimony would put an end to his “manslaughter” hopes. The jury had heard that defendant was in a rage; it knew he had seen his wife in bed with another man. If one reads counsel’s closing jury statement, he makes a decent argument based on the evidence introduced. If the psychiatrist and psychologist testified, however, their reports indicate the prosecution could have focused upon facts that could have hurt severely counsel’s manslaughter efforts. For example, the reports contained the following evidence:
(1) Defendant deliberately hid his wife’s car before entering the house; when he arrived he unplugged the telephone. (These facts suggest, not sudden rage, but premeditation.)
(2) Defendant previously had been in physical fights with his wife; she had obtained a restraining order against him; defendant had once beaten up both his ex-wife and her lover when he discovered them together in bed. (These facts suggest a particular sensitivity to circumstances that might not necessarily provoke an ordinary man.)
(3) According to the psychologist, defendant was not ordinary; instead, he had a “personality configuration” that “can, under severe stress, demonstrate bizarre behavior and hyperactivity.”
In addition, the jury could have learned from the expert testimony that defendant was involved with drugs, had married twice and fathered a child by a third woman, had several prior criminal convictions, and had been a member of a motorcycle gang. One can simply compare counsel’s closing argument with the psychiatric reports. It would not have been easy to argue reasonable provocation (to homicidal anger) had those reports been before the jury.
Of course, had counsel been trying for a second-degree murder conviction, rather than manslaughter, he might have weighed the pros and cons differently (unless, as the trial judge suggested, counsel felt that, by arguing manslaughter, he could create a situation where the jury would compromise on second-degree murder). This, however, was not trial counsel’s strategy.
The change of mind. The majority points to the damaging effect of not calling the witnesses after having told the jury about them. But, assume the worst; assume that it was simply a mistake to mention them to the jury. Must counsel perpetuate that mistake? Why are the reasons just given not enough to persuade a rational counsel to change his trial strategy? If not, are we not instructing criminal defense lawyers to continue to pursue trial strategies after they conclude that the strategies are mistaken?
The majority seems to do just this, for it writes that, it “might have no quarrel with counsel’s decision to call, or not to call, as a strategic decision, had that matter stood alone,” Maj. op. at 18 (1st Cir.1988), but, once having promised to call them, not doing so “was a very bad decision ..., id. at 18. Consider the pressure that such a view places upon a criminal defense attorney (once having mentioned a witness) to call that witness, even if doing so will hurt his client. Surely, counsel need not, in order to render “effective assistance,” produce a previously mentioned witness at all costs. But, if not, how can the majority say (as it must under Strickland, 466 U.S. at 690, 104 S.Ct. at 2066) that, despite the reasons for not calling these witnesses, *21counsel’s strategic change of mind was not even a “plausible option”?

The decision to tell the jury about the witnesses.

Perhaps the majority means that mentioning the two witnesses in the opening, in and of itself, was so egregious a mistake as to constitute “ineffective assistance of counsel.” That is what it seems to think, for it writes that “it was inexcusable to have given the matter so little thought at the outset as to have made the opening promise.” Id. at 18. But, I do not see how it can draw that conclusion from the partial and incomplete record that is before us. As far as the record is concerned, counsel, when opening, might have felt the psychiatrists and a “second degree” effort represented his most likely defense; he might have later decided that the jury was responding more sympathetically to his ordinary-man-finds-wife-in-bed-with-lover argument than he had originally calculated, thus leading him to put more eggs in the manslaughter basket. We do not know whether this reason, or some other reason, or no reason, was at work, for there was no district court hearing exploring this matter; nor do we have a full transcript of the state trial. The habeas corpus petition focused primarily upon counsel’s change of mind, his decision not to call the witnesses, rather than his initial decision to call them. Thus, the parties’ briefs do not elaborate upon the initial mention of the witnesses. On the present state of the record, one cannot say that petitioner has met his burden, see Strickland, 466 U.S. at 687, 104 S.Ct. at 2064, of proving that it was not a “plausible option” to mention the witnesses in the opening, though hindsight may have led his counsel to regret it. At the least, counsel should have a chance to explain why he did so.
2. To check my own judgment that this matter is not so cut and dried as to be disposed of without a hearing, I have examined a fair sampling of “ineffective assistance of counsel” cases, namely those decided in the federal appellate courts in 1986 and 1987. I found 157 published habeas decisions with “ineffective assistance” headnotes. Courts denied the claim in 129. They found “ineffective assistance” in 20 cases, and they remanded for an evidentia-ry hearing in 8 others. The 20 cases in which the court granted habeas involve matters at sentencing (5), incorrect legal advice (4); failure to make an objection at trial (5); failure to appear at a hearing (lb-conflict of interest (2); failure to investigate or to raise a meritorious defense (3). No case involves a strategic decision of the sort here at issue, a decision in respect to which counsel must balance, from his client’s perspective, different courses of action, each with significant pros and cons of its own. All of these cases involve a failure to follow a course of action that was likely only to benefit the client. Each involves a “mistake” in judgment considerably more obvious and less strategic, professionally speaking, than the decision now before us.
At the same time, there is one “ineffective assistance” case in which the court specifically held that a change of strategy in the midst of a trial did not constitute ineffective assistance. Howard v. Davis, 815 F.2d 1429 (11th Cir.), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 108 S.Ct. 184, 98 L.Ed.2d 136 (1987). A highly analogous state court case also holds that defense counsel’s decision not to call a psychiatric expert in a murder trial, despite having promised to do so in his opening, does not constitute ineffective assistance of counsel. State v. Eby, 342 So.2d 1087 (Fla.App.Ct.), cert. dismissed, 346 So.2d 1248 (Fla.1977). See also State v. Farni, 112 Ariz. 132, 539 P.2d 889 (1975). And, of course, there are numerous cases (including First Circuit cases) that reiterate Strickland — that hold that informed strategic decisions “even if erroneous in retrospect do not constitute ineffective assistance of counsel.” Shraiar v. United States, 736 F.2d 817, 818 (1st Cir.1984). See, e.g., Cuevas v. Henderson, 801 F.2d 586 (2d Cir.1986), cert. denied, 480 U.S. 908, 107 S.Ct. 1354, 94 L.Ed.2d 524 (1987); Martin v. McCotter, 796 F.2d 813 (5th Cir.1986); Krist v. Foltz, 804 F.2d 944 (6th Cir.1986); U.S. ex rel Smith v. Lane, 794 F.2d 287 (7th Cir.1986); Campbell v. Lockhart, 789 F.2d 644 (8th Cir.1986); *22Woratzeck v. Ricketts, 820 F.2d 1450 (9th Cir.1987); Thompson v. Wainwright, 784 F.2d 1103 (11th Cir.1986).
3. The panel majority does not adequately consider Strickland’s additional requirement that the petitioner demonstrate prejudice, i.e., that “there is a reasonable probability that, absent the errors, the fact finder would have had a reasonable doubt in respect to guilt.” 466 U.S. at 695, 104 S.Ct. at 2068. Of the four 1986-87 cases in which federal courts remanded habeas petitions for an evidentiary hearing based on a claim of failure to raise a viable defense, two of the hearings were to resolve specifically the issue whether defendant had actually been harmed by counsel’s ineffective conduct. Maddox v. Lord, 818 F.2d 1058 (2d Cir.1987); Wade v. Armontrout, 798 F.2d 304 (8th Cir.1986).
While we do not have the trial record before us, the Supreme Judicial Court opinion, Anderson, 398 Mass. at 839-41, 501 N.E.2d 515, the closing arguments, and undisputed portions of the briefs refer to such additional evidence as two eyewitnesses who testified that the defendant brandished a knife at them when they asked him not to kill the victim, a forensic expert who testified that defendant stabbed the victim 13 times in 2 separate attacks separated by a brief trip out of the apartment, and a tape recording of the stabbings made when the victim dialed the police emergency 911 number while she was being attacked, in which the defendant told the victim that she was “going to die.” Given this strong evidence of cruelty, it may well be that the error the panel majority seems to find, namely, initially mentioning the psychiatric witnesses to the jury, made no difference. It could even be that the evidence of deliberate premeditation was such that no attorney and no strategy (with or without the benefit of hindsight) could have saved defendant from a first-degree murder conviction. I might find the majority’s opinion convincing if I thought it rested upon an examination of the trial record. But I do not see how the majority can deduce prejudice, or professionally unreasonable strategic decision-making, from such a scanty record on appeal without at least reviewing a transcript of the trial, let alone without the factual record that could be developed at an evidentiary hearing, and particularly when the parties have not briefed the reasons for the initial reference to the witnesses, the matter that so disturbs the court.
In my view, we should at least remand this case for a full hearing; without one, the record is insufficient to support the petitioner’s claim.