Court Opinion

ID: 9836880
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-02 03:15:21.495307+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:45:19.139897
License: Public Domain

CRAWFORD, Chief Judge
(concurring in part and dissenting in part):
The majority has again1 lost track of the real issue and refused to heed then-Chief Judge Cox’s admonition in United States v. Ingham: the issue “is not what a certain expert might or might not have opined, but whether defense counsel was ineffective in contesting the assertions of the victim. Thus the question is — how did counsel deal with the witness’ testimony.” 42 MJ 218, 226 (1995), cert. denied, 516 U.S. 1063, 116 S.Ct. 745, 133 L.Ed.2d 693 (1996). Instead, this Court appears to be fashioning a rule that requires a trial defense counsel to submit a written explanation for his or her strategy whenever experts are used by defense counsel in pretrial preparation, but are not called to testify at trial. As I do not agree that this or any appellant can meet the first prong of the test set forth in United States v. Polk, 32 MJ 150 (CMA 1991), and establish ineffective representation by merely showing “some expert would have said something consistent with an accused’s views,”2 I dissent from so much of the Court’s opinion as holds that appellant has met the threshold for compelling defense counsel’s explanation for not calling Dr. Underwager to testify.
In applying the Supreme Court’s test for effectiveness of counsel, the starting point for examining counsel’s presumed competence is ‘Whether counsel had a reasonable trial strategy — one supported by the law and evidence.” Ingham, supra at 224. My analysis of this record of trial shows the trial defense counsel had a reasonable strategy — attack the victim’s credibility and put her truthfulness “squarely before the court members.” Id. at 227. Since counsel is presumed competent, United States v. Cronic, 466 U.S. 648, 658, 104 S.Ct. 2039, 80 L.Ed.2d 657 (1984), this Court should accord trial defense counsel the presumption that he evaluated all the evidence and selected the strategy that would most likely be successful. See United States v. Fluellen, 40 MJ 96, 98 (CMA 1994).
I completely agree with the majority’s evaluation of this case as “a classic credibility contest between appellant and DW.” 52 MJ at 315. Cross-examination of DW showed the factfinders that DW held appellant responsible for breaking up her home, for taking her brother away, and for marital fights. She further explained that appellant had treated her less fairly than he treated his natural child. Finally, both DW and appellant’s father labeled him as a strict, no-nonsense disciplinarian. Coupled with testimony from the victim’s mother that DW had made false statements in the past, trial defense counsel’s strategy was to portray DW as a revenge-seeking liar and convince the court members that her allegations of being raped and sodomized by her stepfather were more falsehoods.
As the majority notes, the military judge’s ruling, granting trial defense counsel’s request for Dr. Underwager or other expert testimony, was “conditioned ... on the defense’s ability to produce evidence of the underlying hypothetical facts on which Dr. Underwager would base his expert opinion.” 52 MJ at 314. By returning this case to the lower court for additional factfinding concerning defense counsel’s failure to produce expert testimony, the majority appears to assume that defense counsel could have laid the foundation that would have permitted Dr. Underwager to testify. I can make no such assumption.
Even if Dr. Underwager, a witness who had never interviewed the victim, had testified within those parameters laid out by the military judge and in accordance with his post-trial affidavit, his testimony would have been cumulative. In comparing Dr. Under-wager’s opinion, which trial defense counsel had during his pretrial preparations, to the defense counsel’s trial strategy, the evidence of record convinces me that appellant’s counsel effectively utilized Dr. Underwager’s advice in his presentation of the defense case. *317Finally, had Dr. Underwager testified, the record of trial shows that the Government would have been allowed to counter with an expert of its own.
The Court’s action today expands the first prong of the test we adopted in Polk, 32 MJ at 153, to now require a written explanation for counsel’s actions in the defense of a court-martial, at least when dealing with expert testimony. It is clear that the majority will “second-guess” the strategic and tactical decisions of a trial defense counsel, contrary to our decision in United States v. Morgan, 37 MJ 407, 410 (1993). When use of expert testimony is at issue, I cannot agree that the requirement for a “reasonable explanation for counsel’s actions,” set out in Polk (32 MJ at 153) contemplated a written explanation from the trial defense counsel when the record of trial otherwise provides a cogent reason for a tactical decision. As I fear that this Court has fashioned a rule that will lead us back down the slippery slope of “battling affidavits,” a practice we wisely discarded in United States v. Lewis, 42 MJ 1 (1995), and United States v. Ginn, 47 MJ 236 (1997), I respectfully dissent. Having found a plausible explanation within the pages of appellant’s record of trial for trial defense counsel’s failure to call Dr. Underwager as a witness, I would affirm the findings and sentence now.

. See United States v. Clark, 49 MJ 98, 101 (1998)(Crawford, J., dissenting).

. Ingham, supra at 226.