Court Opinion

ID: 9758755
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 23:44:05.473339+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:55.540428
License: Public Domain

*621ZAPPALA, Justice,
dissenting.
I dissent. The Majority Opinion rests in large part on the premise that counsel could not have been found ineffective for failing to interview certain witnesses because those witnesses would have offered testimony contradictory to the defendant’s own trial testimony. This premise ignores the remainder of the defendant’s claim, that his trial testimony was contradictory to what actually happened. If the claimed ineffectiveness for failure to interview and present witnesses stood alone, and the evidence to be offered by those witnesses did not square with the defense presented, the Majority’s reasoning would be beyond question. The defendant here, however, challenged the entire choice of strategy chosen by his counsel — presentation of false testimony by the defendant himself, and failure to present true testimony by other witnesses. Accepting the defendant’s argument on its own terms, the “inconsistency” between the course of action foregone and the course actually chosen, which the Majority so heavily relies on, disappears.
Moreover, the Majority’s determination that counsel had a reasonable basis designed to effectuate his client’s interests for foregoing the “victims conspiracy/consent” defense contains within itself the seeds of a finding that it was in fact counsel who made the decision to present the defense of denial. If counsel was aware that the “victims conspiracy/consent” defense was in fact true, although difficult of proof and fraught with danger in the presentation of evidence of other charges to the jury, he could not have a reasonable basis for presenting a case that the defendant did not know the victim based on the defendant’s false testimony. (A defense strategy based solely on testing the credibility of Commonwealth witnesses would, of course, not fall under the same analysis.)
Because of these internal inconsistencies, I am unable to agree with the Majority Opinion and would affirm on the basis of the Opinion of the Superior Court.