Court Opinion

ID: 9666269
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 01:09:31.158823+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:25.679502
License: Public Domain

S. T. Finch, J.
(concurring in part and dissenting in part). I concur in the result reached by the majority on the res gestae issue. I must, however, respectfully dissent from the subsequent portion of the majority opinion which concludes that defendant was not denied effective assistance of counsel.
The majority holds that defendant has failed to show prejudice sufficient to overcome the presumption of effective assistance of counsel and given the "nature of the evidence” against defendant, it cannot be said that defense counsel made a serious mistake but for which defendant would have had a reasonably likely chance of acquittal.
In Strickland v Washington, — US —; 104 S Ct 2052; 80 L Ed 2d 674 (1984), the United States Supreme Court adopted standards for ineffective assistance of counsel claims not unlike those promulgated by the Michigan Supreme Court in People v Garcia, 398 Mich 250, 264, 266; 247 NW2d 547 (1976). Under Strickland, the court must examine: (1) the reasonableness of the performance of defense counsel’s representation and (2) prejudice to defendant from any deficient representation. In order to show prejudice, defendant must show that "there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different. A reasonable probability is a probability sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome.” 104 S Ct 2068. More Specifically, "[w]hen a defendant challenges a conviction, the question is whether there is a reasonable probability that, absent the errors, the factfinder would have had a reasonable doubt *454respecting guilt”. 104 S Ct 2069. Under either this standard or that of People v Garcia, I cannot conclude that in the present case defendant was not prejudiced. I also do not believe that the other evidence against defendant was so overwhelming that the deficiency of counsel can be considered harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.
At the time of his arrest, defendant was working as an informant with the county sheriff. He was charged with the armed robbery of a cab driver. The jury heard the complainant and two other witnesses unhesitatingly identify defendant as the robber. (These two other witnesses had seen the person who called the cab in the bar earlier that evening.) The entire case rested on the identification, by these three witnesses, of the person they saw call the cab and the person who was the cab passenger. Following the robbery, a 7-Up can was found in the cab and yielded a fingerprint which was not that of the defendant.
During the appellate process, appellate defense counsel discovered that the police report stated that the cab driver had told the police that on the night of the robbery he had been smoking marijuana with the robber-passenger and could not identify him. Since this police report was not furnished to defendant’s trial counsel (who had not requested it, either informally or by discovery motion), the jury never heard about the cab driver’s statement. No explanation was ever given by the cab driver as to how he was later able to give a positive identification when at first he could make no identification at all.
The police report further revealed that one of the two people who had been in the bar, and who at the trial identified defendant as the person who called the cab, was unable to identify defendant from a photo lineup held soon after the event. *455Likewise, this discrepancy in identification, or any explanation for it, was never brought before the jury.
Certainly where the identification is the main thrust of the people’s case, defense counsel has a strong duty to look behind it. Here no effort was made in this direction.
If we assume that the cross-examination on the contents of the police report would have either shaken the witnesses’ in-court identification or impaired their credibility, which I believe we must, there is a strong possibility the conviction would not have occurred. It troubles me, as it did appellate counsel, that the prosecution argued "unshaken identification” while knowing the weakness of those identifications.
Defense counsel says he would not have brought out the marijuana smoking at trial because the jury might believe his client was a "dope addict”. This sounds reasonable — until we realize that it was the robber who was smoking marijuana — and the whole defense was that defendant was not the robber. So it would not affect the jury’s estimation of defendant unless they believed he was the robber, in which case they would find him guilty anyway. No one has even raised the point that this jury would apparently have thought the complainant was a drug addict and what that would do to their evaluation of complainant’s testimony.
The majority concludes that there was additional strong evidence against the defendant. I do not see it. There was a can, which the robber presumably placed in the back seat, which bore a fingerprint which was not defendant’s. While there was one witness who identified defendant without difficulty, there were two other witnesses who were unable to identify the defendant immediately after the event, one of whom was admittedly un*456der the influence of marijuana at the time of the offense. The trial judge and the majority rely on defense counsel’s testimony at the Ginther1 hearing that other people (not trial witnesses) told defense counsel that on the night of the robbery, defendant was wearing the same color clothing as the robber. Defendant denied wearing the same color clothing. Such collateral (and hearsay) corroboration of guilt hardly seems to warrant the appellation "strong evidence”.
The passenger-robber gave the cab driver the defendant’s home address as his destination. This would seem to be damaging evidence until we consider that defendant was a police informant— certainly a prime target for a frame by disgruntled associates if they discovered they had been informed against by him. There are two additional possibilities which come immediately to mind. First, that the robber, though not the defendant, was in fact on the way to defendant’s house when he entered the cab. Second, that the robber gave an altogether false address — which turned out to be the defendant’s. Certainly the least likely possibility is that the robber gave the cab driver his own address just prior to robbing him.
So, with knowledge of the contents of the police report, we have the following "strong evidence”:
1) three positive identifications — two of which are not so positive — and one by a jury-determined drug addict;
2) a fingerprint which is not the defendant’s;
3) arguably matching clothing (if the prosectution had found the people from whom defense counsel got this information — which did not happen at trial); and,
4) defendant’s home address given to the cab *457driver (certainly a death wish if defendant was in fact the robber, and not even explained by the smoking of the marijuana since it was smoked after the address was given).
I am convinced that defendant did not receive effective assistance of counsel under the standards of Garcia and Strickland, supra, and that defendant was prejudiced thereby. I believe that defendant has shown that there is a reasonable probability that, absent the errors, the factfinder would have had a reasonable doubt respecting guilt, Strickland, supra, and an injustice may well have been done in convicting him on this weak evidence. I would, therefore, reverse.

 People v Ginther, 390 Mich 436; 212 NW2d 922 (1973).