Court Opinion

ID: 9906274
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-12-01 16:03:40.940707+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:24:13.079253
License: Public Domain

IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE

STATE OF DELAWARE                       )
                                        )
        v.                              )        ID No. 2004002455
                                        )
JOSHUA MCGRIFF,                         )
                                        )
                     Defendant.         )

                                       ORDER

        This 30th day of November, 2023, the Court enters the following Order:

        1.    Defendant was convicted by a jury of Attempted Robbery 2nd degree

and Conspiracy 2nd degree. Upon conviction, he was sentenced and his appeal to the

Delaware Supreme Court was ultimately denied. He thereupon filed a petition under

Rule 61, pro se, alleging a smorgasbord of errors by his trial counsel.1 The Court

has received an affidavit from trial counsel2 and is satisfied that his Rule 61

complaint should be dismissed without further ado.

        2.    Defendant was convicted after trial before Judge Carpenter, who has

since retired. The Delaware Supreme Court, in affirming the conviction, recited the

evidence at trial, so the curious reader might consult that opinion for a more fulsome

1
    Def.’s Mot. for Postconviction Relief.
2
    Johnson Aff.
                                             1
review of the evidence.3 In summary, a driver began using a drive up ATM when

McGriff and another individual came up to the car and began punching the driver in

the chest.4 The driver, equipped with a can of bear mace, dissuaded them. 5 The

driver called police when the would-be robbers ran away.6 Police responded and

saw the defendant in the vicinity.7 Unsure if this was the perpetrator, they took his

photo and I.D. card and let him go.8 When the ATM surveillance footage was

reviewed later, police put together an “attempt to identify” flyer, which yielded them

a copy of the photo and ID card.9 When police showed McGriff the photos, he said

“showing me this is pretty much like showing me that you got me” and “so I can’t

really say that oh, it’s not me. Nah, man, it’s me, but I don’t recall.”10 He was

convicted at trial.

       3.     On appeal, McGriff’s counsel filed a motion to withdraw under

Supreme Court Rule 26(c), finding no good faith basis to press any issue in the

record.11 McGriff, for his part, asked the Court to review claims of 1) his right to a

3
  McGriff v. State, 2023 WL 469122, at *1-2 (Del. Jan. 27, 2023).
4
  Trial Tr., 34-35, Jul. 20, 2021.
5
  Trial Tr., 35-36, Jul. 20, 2021.
6
  Trial Tr., 37-38, Jul. 20, 2021.
7
  Trial Tr., 62; 66-67, Jul. 20, 2021.
8
  Trial Tr., 68-69; 72-73, Jul. 20, 2021.
9
  Trial Tr., 90-93, Jul. 20, 2021.
10
   McGriff, 2023 WL 469122, at *2.
11
   Id. at *2.
                                          2
speedy trial, 2) the alleged withholding of Brady material, 3) a suggestive

identification and 4), insufficiency of the evidence and 5) ineffective assistance of

counsel.

      4.     Citing the COVID pandemic, the Court rejected his speedy trial claim.

The Court found no “plain error” in his Brady allegations, which included no specific

claim of withheld exculpatory or impeaching evidence. Neither did it find any plain

error in an alleged suggestive identification or the sufficiency of the evidence.

Finally, in accord with its long-standing practice, the Court refused to consider

claims of ineffective assistance of counsel on direct appeal.12

      5.     Within weeks of the Supreme Court’s affirmance of the conviction,

McGriff filed the instant petition under Rule 61.13 This pro se pleading is hardly a

work of art. But it does raise a host of issues concerning trial counsel’s handling of

his case. There are failures to “pursue leads,” failure to object to evidence, failure

to move to suppress, failure to move for acquittal, to name just a few.14 In addition,

12
   Desmond v. State, 654 A.2d 821, 829 (Del. 1994).
13
   Commensurate with his filing the instant Rule 61 petition, Mr. McGriff filed a
motion for appointment of counsel. Because Judge Carpenter had retired by the time
the request was filed, the request passed to President Judge Jurden, who denied the
request for counsel by Order dated, March 15, 2023, finding petitioner’s pleading
insufficient to warrant the appointment of counsel under Rule 61(e)(4). President
Judge Jurden subsequently reassigned the Rule 61 petition to this Judge for
disposition of the underlying claims.
14
   Def.’s Mot. for Postconviction Relief, p. 2.
                                          3
he claims that the State was guilty of prosecutorial misconduct because it withheld

the “attempt to identify” flier until trial.15 Finally, he repeats his rejected claim of

violation of his right to a speedy trial.

         6.     Because McGriff adds nothing new to his speedy trial claim that was

not already litigated in his direct appeal, the Court views the matter as res judicata

and it will not be further addressed here.

         7.     There is no record reflecting exactly when the “attempt to identify”

flyer was shared with defense counsel, but counsel’s affidavit declares that she

reviewed the State’s evidence pretrial16 and there is no reason to doubt that she did.

Moreover, the Court notes that trial counsel usually shows opposing counsel exhibits

they intend to introduce, at least before the break immediately preceding the

introduction of the evidence. If that happened here, it is of no moment. Even with

a late disclosure, there was no basis to preclude its introduction, it was not

prosecutorial misconduct or objectionable.

         8.     This leaves us with the laundry list of allegations of ineffective

assistance of counsel. Most of these are complaints that Defendant’s trial counsel

should have objected or should have done more. But nowhere in any of these

15
     Id. at p. 2.
16
      Johnson Aff. ¶ 7.
                                             4
pleadings is any hint that doing so would have yielded a different result. The

Defendant confessed to the crime. It is not as if defense counsel can ride into the

fracas, waive her hands and make the evidence go away.

      9.     In an effort to determine if there was any “there” there, the Court

solicited the affidavit of Defendant’s trial counsel. Trial counsel assiduously broke

down each of Defendant’s rambling complaints and responded to them.17

      10.    For example, to the claim that defense counsel “failed to obtain legally

relevant facts from the Defendant,” trial counsel advises that she had “more than 13

communications with Mr. McGriff as well as other public defender staff including a

PFE” (psycho forensic evaluation).18 She asked him for the names and addresses of

any witnesses, the Defendant provided nothing.19 Moreover, McGriff told counsel

he was properly Mirandized, spoke freely with the officers and admitted it was him

in the security footage.20

      11.    As to the claim that counsel did no pretrial investigation, counsel

swears that she,

      went to the scene of the incident to see the location where Mr. McGriff
      was stopped and a photograph was taken of him the night of the
      incident. I reviewed the distance between the scene of the incident and

17
   Johnson Aff.
18
   Id. ¶ 1.
19
   Id.
20
   Id.
                                         5
           where Mr. McGriff was stopped and photographed, the time of Mr.
           McGriff’s stop and photo and the closeness of time to the incident. It
           was clear that the timing in this analysis would have easily placed Mr.
           McGriff at the scene of the incident during the time of the incident.21

           12.   Clearly, Defendant is mistaken that counsel did no pretrial

investigation. Rather, defense counsel, having done so, wisely chose not to point it

out in the state’s evidence, which was already quite strong.

           13.   There are at least a dozen more of these claims, each one answered by

trial counsel’s affidavit.22 The Court has reviewed each of Defendant’s claims and

finds that none of them “undermine confidence in the outcome” of the trial, the sine

qua non of finding constitutional ineffective assistance of counsel, mandating a new

trial.23

           14.   To succeed on these claims of ineffective assistance of trial counsel, the

pleadings must demonstrate two things: first that trial counsel’s performance fell

below an objective standard of reasonableness.24 In connection with this showing,

it is wise to remember that "[i]t 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

21
   Id. ¶ 4.
22
   Johnson Aff.
23
   Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 694 (1984).
24
   Id. at 687-88.
                                         6
court, examining counsel's defense after it has proved unsuccessful, to conclude that

a particular act or omission of counsel was unreasonable.”25

         15.       In addition to showing that counsel’s conduct was objectively

unreasonable, the pleader must demonstrate that “but for counsel’s unprofessional

errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different.”26 The petitioner does

not even attempt to meet this important element, rendering his petition fatally

deficient.

         16.       The fact that the Defendant has had the time to reflect on the trial and

consider what might have been does not mean he had a constitutionally deficient

counsel or a fundamentally unfair trial. Trial counsel has adequately responded to

Petitioner’s complaints alleged in his Rule 61 motion and the Court is convinced that

nothing he has pled suggests the outcome of his trial is in doubt. His petition under

Rule 61 is therefore subject to summary dismissal.

         For the reasons stated above, Defendant’s Motion for Postconviction Relief is

hereby DENIED.

         IT IS SO ORDERED.

                                                   /s/ Charles E. Butler
                                                   Charles E. Butler, Resident Judge

25
     Id. at 689.
26
     Id. at 694.
                                               7
cc:   Prothonotary
      William L. Raisis, Deputy Attorney General
      Kevin J. O’Connell, Esquire
      Joshua McGriff (SBI 00614682)

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