Court Opinion

ID: 9790874
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:00:42.710035+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:32.329626
License: Public Domain

Winsor, J.
(dissenting)—The majority concludes that Carter was deprived of effective assistance of counsel because defense counsel failed to make a motion to dismiss under CrR 4.3(c)(3) at the beginning of the second trial on the assault charge. Because the majority converts the Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 80 L. Ed. 2d 674, 104 S. Ct. 2052 (1984) test for effective assistance of counsel from an inquiry into whether counsel's representation fell below an objective standard of reasonableness to a standard requiring counsel to have a perfect understanding of the interplay between court rules and case law, I must dissent from the majority's holding.
The test to determine whether an accused has been effectively represented by counsel is correctly set out in footnote 1 of the majority opinion. Majority, at 218-19. Strickland requires the appellant to show that "counsel made errors so serious that counsel was not functioning as the 'counsel' guaranteed the defendant by the Sixth Amendment." Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 687, 80 L. Ed. 2d 674, 104 S. Ct. 2052 (1984). To meet this burden, an appellant must demonstrate that "counsel's representation fell below an objective standard of reasonableness" when looking at all the circumstances. Strickland, 466 U.S. at 688; State v. Thomas, 109 Wn.2d 222, 225-26, 743 P.2d 816 (1987).
In deciding as a matter of law that defense counsel's performance in this case fell below an objective standard of reasonableness, the majority concludes that counsel should have known that: (1) although a trial that results in a hung jury mistrial does not always constitute "jeopardy" for double jeopardy purposes, such that a defendant may be *227retried on the same charges, State v. Jones, 97 Wn.2d 159, 163, 641 P.2d 708 (1982), it will constitute a "trial" for the purposes of CrR 4.3(c)(3), State v. Russell, 101 Wn.2d 349, 353, 678 P.2d 332 (1984); (2) the assault, as charged by amended information at the beginning of the second trial, and the robbery were "related offenses" within the meaning of CrR 4.3(c)(1), see Russell, 101 Wn.2d at 352-53; and (3) defense counsel could have successfully moved to dismiss the assault charge under CrR 4.3(c)(3) at the beginning of the second trial, when the prosecutor chose to charge the lesser-included crime of assault rather than the original charge of robbery.
In Strickland, the Supreme Court recognized the inherent difficulties of assessing at the appellate level the requisite degree of knowledge and skill an attorney should be required to exhibit at trial:
Judicial scrutiny of counsel's performance must be highly deferential. It is all too tempting for a defendant to second-guess counsel's assistance after conviction or adverse sentence, and it 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. 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. Because of the difficulties inherent in making the evaluation, a court must indulge a strong presumption that counsel's conduct falls within the wide range of reasonable professional assistance^]
(Citation omitted.) Strickland, 466 U.S. at 689. Absent a persuasive showing by appellant in this case that the average criminal lawyer would have knowledge of the three points of law as charged by the majority, I would "indulge a strong presumption" in favor of the reasonableness of defense counsel's conduct.
The majority hinges its conclusion on the strength of its statement that ''[a]n attorney is presumed to know the rules of the court." Majority, at 224. Surely a lawyer is not charged with having all the rules and all possible interpretations of those rules in mind at all times. If the issue before us were an obvious legal error, such as a lawyer *228allowing the statute of limitations to run without commencing suit in a civil matter, I would have no qualms in ruling on whether counsel's performance fell below a requisite level of reasonableness, as a matter of law from the appellate bench. The error in this case, however, is not so obvious: this case involves an unusual set of facts requiring knowledge of infrequently used court rules with even less frequently used constructions of those rules. Apparently, neither counsel below or the trial judge had this requisite knowledge.
By disagreeing with the majority's conclusion, I do not assume that defense counsel's actions in this case necessarily fell within the acceptable standard of practice to meet Sixth Amendment concerns. Rather, the question is of sufficient complexity to warrant further investigation by the trial court. In actions for medical, legal, architectural and other professional malpractice, the plaintiff is required to present expert testimony as to the standard of practice.10 We ought to require no less here.
Certainly, the Sixth Amendment requirements for effective assistance of counsel merit special concern to ensure that the accused received a fair and impartial trial. Thomas, 109 Wn.2d at 225. But to successfully claim ineffective assistance of counsel, the defendant has the burden of making the requisite showing. See Thomas, 109 Wn.2d at 225-26. That burden cannot be met without a more in-depth inquiry into the reasonableness of counsel's actions than can be conducted on the appellate level. I would remand to the trial court for a determination of whether *229counsel's performance fell below the Sixth Amendment reasonableness standard.

That is not to say, however, that every defendant claiming ineffective assistance of counsel need present expert testimony. Unlike medical and other professional malpractice cases in which a nearly blanket rule mandates expert testimony as to the violation of standard of practice, in some cases involving the evaluation of effective assistance of counsel, judges will be able to make the determination without need for expert testimony. Such is not the case here.