Court Opinion

ID: 9587718
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:25:33.560068+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:34:31.628431
License: Public Domain

Carley, Justice,
dissenting.
William Anthony Lipham raped and then shot the 79-year-old *221victim in the head. For the murder, a jury sentenced him to death and, on appeal, this Court affirmed his conviction and death sentence. Lipham v. State, 257 Ga. 808 (364 SE2d 840) (1988). Lipham sought habeas corpus relief and, after conducting a hearing, the habeas court determined that trial counsel was ineffective in the sentencing phase and vacated Lipham’s death sentence. Today, a majority of this Court affirms the habeas court’s order. In my opinion, both the habeas court and the majority have simply given lip service to Strickland v. Washington, 466 U. S. 668 (104 SC 2052, 80 LE2d 674) (1984), while completely ignoring the controlling principles of that decision. Therefore, I dissent to what I firmly believe is the majority’s erroneous affirmance of the habeas court’s order vacating Lipham’s death sentence.
Lipham has no constitutional guarantee of counsel who would insure that a life sentence would be returned. Under the constitution, he has only the right to counsel who was reasonably likely to, and who did, render him reasonably effective assistance. McGill v. State, 263 Ga. 81, 82 (2) (428 SE2d 341) (1993). In determining whether the performance of Lipham’s trial counsel passed constitutional muster, the habeas court was not authorized to presume that his attorneys were ineffective simply because a death sentence was returned. To the contrary, the burden was entirely on Lipham to rebut the strong presumption that his trial counsel “rendered adequate assistance and made all significant decisions in the exercise of reasonable professional judgment.” Strickland, supra at 690 (III) (A).
The habeas court concluded that trial counsel was ineffective because of his “total failure to read, review, interpret, or otherwise utilize the voluminous social and psychological records concerning” Lipham. I agree with the majority that there is no evidence that trial counsel himself read, reviewed and interpreted the entirety of the voluminous records. However, neither the habeas court nor the majority cite any authority for the proposition that a trial counsel must personally read and review each and every record which documents the life of his client to the date of trial. The proper test is “reasonableness under prevailing professional norms.” Strickland, supra at 688 (III) (A). Under the record before us, there is absolutely nothing to support the conclusion that, in accordance with those professional norms, no reasonable defense lawyer would have failed to read and review Lipham’s voluminous records for himself. The appropriate test for determining whether the constitutional right to reasonably effective assistance of counsel
“has nothing to do with what the best lawyers would have done. Nor is the test even what most good lawyers would have done. We ask only whether some reasonable lawyer at trial could have acted, in the circumstances, as defense *222counsel acted at trial ... we are not interested in grading lawyers’ performances; we are interested in whether the adversarial process at trial, in fact, worked adequately.” [CitJ
Jefferson v. Zant, 263 Ga. 316, 318 (3) (a) (431 SE2d 110) (1993).
The habeas court also incorrectly found that the trial attorneys did not undertake any review and interpretation of Lipham’s records, since it is undisputed that counsel did have those records reviewed and interpreted by a family counselor. The majority justifies the habeas court’s erroneous finding of the lawyers’ “total failure” in this regard on the basis that the family counselor was not an expert. Again, however, there is no authority cited for the proposition that review of a defendant’s records by anyone other than an expert is so contrary to prevailing professional norms as to be unreasonable as a matter of law. Moreover, the family counselor reported to Lipham’s counsel that the records could show that Lipham was a “poor, institutionalized soul from a neglected background or . . .an outright sociopath who only did things for his immediate gratification.” There is no contention that this summary of the records is in any way inaccurate or that an expert would disagree with that assessment. While an expert’s review might result in a more detailed report, the lack of detail in the family counselor’s assessment does not in any way demonstrate that it was unreasonable. Accordingly, there should be no question that the counselor’s accurate, though non-expert, opinion was a reasonable basis upon which the defense attorneys could determine that a further inquiry into the records by an expert was unnecessary.
[CJounsel has a duty to make reasonable investigations or to make a reasonable decision that makes particular investigations unnecessary. In any ineffectiveness case, a particular decision not to investigate must be directly assessed for reasonableness in all circumstances, applying a heavy measure of deference to counsel’s judgments.
Strickland, supra at 691 (III) (A).
The habeas court also erred in its finding that there was a total failure on the part of trial counsel to utilize the records. To the contrary, Lipham’s lawyer made the tactical decision to introduce the records into evidence and he urged the jury to consider those records in its deliberations. Moreover, counsel presented witnesses who succinctly testified to certain material elements of mitigation contained in the records, such as Lipham’s family life and his history of hospitalizations in various institutions. Presumably, the habeas court would have used the records differently than did the attorneys repre*223senting Lipham at the sentencing phase of his trial, and the majority criticizes counsel’s performance because, in offering the records into evidence, he did not dwell on specific details of Lipham’s life story. However, the lawyers conducting Lipham’s defense offered as the explanation for this trial strategy their reasonable belief that following a low-key approach was better than a plan which would accentuate the records and which might prompt the State to stress the aggravating evidence contained therein. Clearly, offering minimal testimony while hoping that the jury would discover the mitigating, but not the aggravating, material in the records was not an unreasonable strategy. Even assuming that whatever different approach the habeas court or the majority might have followed in presenting the information contained in the documentary evidence would have been more effective, there still is nothing to show that the strategy which was actually followed was ineffective. The issue is not whether counsel could have been more effective, but whether he was actually ineffective at the time of trial. “There are countless ways to provide effective assistance in any given case. Even the best criminal defense attorneys would not defend a particular client in the same way. [Cit.]” Strickland, supra at 689 (III) (A).
We must accept a habeas court’s factual findings unless clearly erroneous. Linares v. State, 266 Ga. 812, 813 (2) (471 SE2d 208) (1996). Here, however, the habeas court’s finding of trial counsel’s “total failure” of performance with regard to the records is clearly erroneous, because it is undisputed that trial counsel did not fail to make any investigation into and any employment of the records. Thus, the finding of a “total failure” represents no more than the habeas court’s subjective opinion that the effort which was made by Lipham’s lawyers was not comparable to that which the habeas court itself would have undertaken had it been acting as defense counsel. It is just this sort of erroneous after-the-fact second-guessing by habeas courts that this Court has the obligation to correct.
[I]t is all too easy for a court, examining counsel’s defense after it has proved unsuccessful, to conclude that a particular act or omission of counsel was unreasonable. [Cit.] A fair assessment of attorney performance requires that every effort be made to eliminate the distorting effects of hindsight, to reconstruct the circumstances of counsel’s challenged conduct, and to evaluate the conduct from counsel’s perspective at the time.
Strickland, supra at 689 (III) (A). Unfortunately, rather than acting to ameliorate the problem, this Court increasingly has become an instrument for perpetuating it. See Turpin v. Christenson, 269 Ga. 226 (497 SE2d 216) (1998). In Strickland, supra at 690 (III) (A), the *224Supreme Court of the United States gave the following warning:
Decided November 23, 1998.
Thurbert E. Baker, Attorney General, Paula K. Smith, Senior Assistant Attorney General, for appellant.
Gary A. Alexion, John Youngblood, for appellee.
The availability of intrusive post-trial inquiry into attorney performance or of detailed guidelines for its evaluation would encourage the proliferation of ineffectiveness challenges. Criminal trials resolved unfavorably to the defendant would increasingly come to be followed by a second trial, this one of counsel’s unsuccessful defense. . . . Thus, a court deciding an actual ineffectiveness claim must judge the reasonableness of counsel’s challenged conduct on the facts of the particular case, viewed as of the time of counsel’s conduct.
(Emphasis supplied.) It is apparent that, with this Court’s blessing, the predicted dire consequence of failing to maintain a strict adherence to the principles of Strickland has now come to pass in Georgia. The availability of unbridled post-trial inquiry, as sanctioned by the Court today, has transformed Georgia’s state habeas proceedings into nothing more than a second trial wherein the habeas petitioner’s trial attorney becomes, in effect, the defendant and, if he did not obtain a life sentence for his client, he is presumed to be constitutionally ineffective. Because I cannot subscribe to this consequence, I dissent.
I am authorized to state that Justice Hunstein joins in this dissent.