Court Opinion

ID: 9781193
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 16:21:52.201729+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:34:20.879982
License: Public Domain

Justice BEATTY.
I concur in result only. In my view trial counsel was clearly deficient in his representation of petitioner. Counsel’s failure to call co-defendant as a witness is irrational. Co-defendant testified at his guilty plea that petitioner had nothing to do with the murder and was shocked by it. It is unreasonable to conclude that co-defendant’s testimony would not have been very beneficial to petitioner. Moreover, in my view it is unreasonable to classify counsel’s deficient performance as a reasonable trial strategy.
Defense counsel gave two reasons for his strategic decision not to call co-defendant as a witness. The first reason was that he did not believe codefendant’s version of the facts because co-defendant gave several versions of the facts. However, neither version alleged that petitioner participated in the murder. The second reason was that he was concerned about co-defendant’s ability to withstand cross-examination. Assuming that to be true, how does this concern outweigh the exonerating testimony of the only eyewitness to the crime? Further, trial counsel’s deficient performance is not ameliorated by arguing that co-defendant’s exonerating testimony was merely cumulative to evidence presented by a policeman. It should be noted that the policeman’s testimony was not corroborative, it merely restated petitioner’s statement given at time of arrest.
In my view, trial counsel’s performance was clearly deficient. However, I concur in the result reached by the majority because I do not believe that the trial results would be different given the amount of circumstantial evidence against petitioner.
*462Justice PLEICONES.
I agree with Justice Beatty that trial counsel’s performance was deficient, but unlike him, and the majority, I cannot agree there was sufficient circumstantial evidence that petitioner was an accomplice to murder such that I am confident that the jury’s verdict would not have been affected by Marshall’s testimony. Instead, in my view, the evidence that petitioner helped hide the victim’s body, that he had the victim’s wallet in his car, had spent some of the victim’s money and still had some on his person, and had the victim’s breath spray under his mattress is evidence that petitioner may have been an accessory after the fact, and circumstantial evidence that petitioner had engaged in an armed robbery, but not sufficient evidence of murder to find that conviction reliable.
I would grant petitioner post-conviction relief on the murder charge.