Court Opinion

ID: 9615505
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 04:37:43.364141+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:03:48.488292
License: Public Domain

LANSING, Judge,
dissenting.
I join in parts 11(A)(2), and 111(A) of the Court’s opinion. I respectfully dissent, however, from part 11(A)(1), concerning Guz*375man’s assertion that his defense counsel labored under a conflict of interest. Because in my view Guzman should be granted a new trial due to such a conflict of interest, I would not address the issue resolved in part III(B) of the Court’s opinion.
As the majority notes, where a conflict of interest arising from joint representation of criminal defendants adversely affects a lawyer’s performance on behalf of one defendant, that defendant’s right to effective assistance of counsel is violated. Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 692, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 2067, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984); Cuyler v. Sullivan, 446 U.S. 835, 100 S.Ct. 1708, 64 L.Ed.2d 333 (1980). In such event prejudice to the defendant is presumed. Strickland, 466 U.S. at 692, 104 S.Ct. at 2067; State v. Koch, 116 Idaho 571, 574, 777 P.2d 1244, 1247 (Ct.App.1989). Therefore, the defendant is entitled to relief without the necessity of showing that, but for the conflict, the outcome of the proceeding would have been different.
The American courts’ diligence in guarding against such conflicts is well-explained by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in United States v. Curcio, 680 F.2d 881 (2nd Cir.1982):
Our uneasiness about sanctioning the joint representation of criminal defendants persists because the dangers of prejudicial conflict are both ubiquitous and insidious. “[A] possible conflict inheres in almost every instance of multiple representation,” Cuyler v. Sullivan, swpra, 446 U.S. at 348, 100 S.Ct. at 1718, in part because the interests of the defendants may diverge at virtually every stage of the proceeding, see generally Geer, Representation of Multiple Criminal Defendants: Conflicts of Interests and the Professional Responsibilities of the Defense Attorney, 62 Minn. L.Rev. 119 (1978). Thus, the joint attorney may have to prefer the interests of one defendant over the other in deciding, for example, whether to accept or reject a plea bargaining offer to one defendant conditioned on that defendant’s testifying against the other; whether or not to present a defense that helps one defendant more than the other; whether or not to cross-examine a witness whose testimony may help one defendant and hurt the other; whether to have one defendant testify while the other remains silent; whether to have either defendant testify because one would be a poor or vulnerable witness; whether or not to emphasize in summation that certain evidence is admitted only against (or is less compelling against) one defendant rather than the other; whether or not to argue at sentencing that one defendant’s role in the criminal enterprise was shown only to be subordinate to that of the other defendant. These dilemmas are insidious because it often is not clear that the conflict of interests, and not pure trial strategy, are the reasons for the tactics adopted — or forgone — at trial. As the Supreme Court observed in Holloway v. Arkansas, “[jjoint representation of conflicting interests is suspect because of what it tends to prevent the attorney from doing,” 435 U.S. at 489-90, 98 S.Ct. at 1181; “in a case of joint representation of conflicting interests the evil — it bears repeating — is in what the advocate finds himself compelled to refrain from doing____” Id. at 490, 98 S.Ct. at 1181 (emphasis in original).
Id., at 887.
Impairment of defense counsel’s performance is shown where the attorney had to make a choice between possible alternative courses of action such as eliciting or avoiding evidence that is helpful to one client but harmful to the other, United States v. Mers, 701 F.2d 1321, 1328 (11th Cir.1983), cert. denied, 464 U.S. 991, 104 S.Ct. 481, 78 L.Ed.2d 679 (1983), where a plausible strategy of shifting blame to co-defendants was available but foreclosed by the multiple representation, United States v. Romero, 780 F.2d 981, 986 (11th Cir.1986); Fitzgerald v. United States, 530 A.2d 1129, 1139-40 (D.C.1987), and where the lawyer is prevented from zealously pursuing the strategy of emphasizing the relatively slight amount of evidence against one defendant as compared to the greater evidence against the other. Fitzgerald, 530 A.2d at 1139.
I am persuaded that such a conflict of interest is demonstrated here because Guzman’s attorney was precluded from arguing *376to the jury that the State’s evidence identified only Brandt as a robber and, at most, indicated that Guzman was involved after the fact in handling some of the stolen property. The joint representation prevented Guzman’s attorney from contrasting as zealously as possible the quantity and quality of evidence against Brandt, who was identified by eyewitnesses to the robbery and by fingerprints in the get-away car, with the circumstantial evidence against Guzman. The attorney’s dual role foreclosed a defense strategy on behalf of Guzman of shifting the blame to Brandt and prevented the attorney from pointing to a third party, Rafael Silva — an individual who physically resembled Guzman and was a known associate of Brandt — as the person who likely participated with Brandt in the robbery.
I cannot agree with the majority’s suggestion that there is no qualitative difference between the defense actually presented— holding the State to its burden of proof as to both defendants — and the one that was foreclosed by the joint representation, which could have placed the blame on Brandt and identified his likely accomplice as Silva. Because Guzman’s attorney was foreclosed from even considering such a strategy by reason of his representation of both defendants, I would hold that Guzman has shown a conflict that affected the adequacy of his representation, entitling him to a new trial with a conflict-free attorney.