Court Opinion

ID: 9622049
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 06:11:32.544249+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:33:19.551028
License: Public Domain

BAKES, Chief Justice,
dissenting:
I disagree with the majority’s conclusion that the defendant met his burden of showing that he was denied effective assistance of counsel. The majority is no doubt correct that, if objected to, the expert’s statement that “I believe it was Mr. Walters” who set the fire, would have been inadmis*60sible under I.R.E. 704. However, the defendant’s trial counsel, in the post conviction proceeding, testified that as a matter of strategy he did not object to the expert’s testimony because they were admitting that the defendant started the fire, and it would have been inconsistent to object to the expert’s opinion and then to admit to the jury that the defendant started the fire. Since the defense counsel made a conscious decision not to object, any claim of error, fundamental or otherwise, was invited and cannot be the basis for a claim of error on appeal. State v. Caudill, 109 Idaho 222, 226, 706 P.2d 456, 460 (1985) (“We will not reverse for the reason that one may not successfully complain of errors one has consented to or acquiesced in. In other words, invited errors are not reversible.”). See also State v. Owsley, 105 Idaho 836, 673 P.2d 436 (1983); State v. Sadler, 95 Idaho 524, 511 P.2d 806 (1973).
Thus, the only issue we are facing in this appeal is a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel under Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984). Strickland sets forth a two-pronged test, which the majority opinion sets out on page 5, both prongs of which must be satisfied before a defendant may prevail on an ineffective assistance of counsel claim. As we stated in Carter v. State, 108 Idaho 788, 702 P.2d 826 (1985):
The Supreme Court recently set out the test for analyzing an ineffective assistance of counsel claim under the sixth amendment.
“The benchmark for judging any claim of ineffectiveness must be whether the counsel’s conduct so undermined the proper function of the adversarial process that the trial cannot be relied on as having produced a just result.” Strickland, supra, 104 S.Ct. at 2064.
The Court outlined a two-pronged test that the defendant must meet in order to prevail on an ineffective assistance of counsel claim. First, the defendant must show that counsel’s performance was deficient, that counsel made errors “so serious that counsel was not functioning as the ‘counsel’ guaranteed by the sixth amendment.” 104 S.Ct. at 2064. Second, the defendant must show that counsel’s errors prejudiced the defense. “The defendant must show that there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different.” 104 S.Ct. at 2068.
108 Idaho at 794-95, 702 P.2d at 832-33.
As noted by the majority, to satisfy the second prong of the Strickland test, “the defendant ‘must show that there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different.’ ” Ante at 56, 813 P.2d at 867. Arguing that the defendant satisfied this requirement, the majority states:
There is little question that Dillard’s opinion was prejudicial to Walters’ defense. When an arson expert declares that it was the defendant who set the fire, there can be little doubt that a jury will be impressed and influenced by the authoritative statement. Had Dillard been prevented from declaring his damaging opinion, there is at least a reasonable probability that the outcome of the proceeding would have been different.
However, the trial court, which heard the testimony at the post conviction proceeding, concluded otherwise. The trial court concluded that the expert’s opinion that the defendant started the fire was harmless because the defendant’s strategy was to admit that he started the fire. The theory of the defense was that, while the defendant had started the fire, it was done accidentally, not intentionally. The defendant’s trial counsel set forth two reasons for not objecting to the aforementioned testimony in an affidavit filed prior to the hearing on application for post conviction relief and in his testimony at the hearing. First, he stated that he did not object to the testimony because he intended to offer evidence that would establish that the defendant did start the fire, but had done so accidentally. He further explained at the hearing that he wished to have the jury focus on the question of whether the fire was started intentionally or accidentally, and that it would have been inconsistent to *61object to the investigator’s opinion that the defendant started the fire when the later defense testimony would effectively admit that he had done so, albeit accidentally. As trial counsel explained at the hearing:
The strategy was that we wished to demonstrate that apparently the fire was of an accidental origin. That it would have come from the defendant; therefore, the statement that, “Did he start the fire,” is a true statement. And to deny it would be to deny our defense strategy by, on the one hand, saying “no, he didn’t start the fire,” then on the other hand saying “well, yes, he did.” And we felt that would be confusing to the jury if we tried to get the facts going both ways, whereas if we tried to steer them in one direction, that they would have a better chance of understanding that. What we wanted to show was yes, he did start the fire, but it was an accident, and therefore not arson.
The majority opinion ignores the testimony of the appellant’s trial counsel, and the trial court’s reliance upon it. If you consider the testimony of appellant’s trial counsel, then the expert’s opinion that he believed Walters started the fire is completely immaterial. How can it be said that the trial judge’s ruling was clearly erroneous when the State’s expert and the defense both said the same thing? Accordingly, I cannot concur with the majority that the trial result and the jury’s verdict of guilty would probably have been different because of the expert’s testimony that the defendant started the fire.5
The real issue at trial was not whether the defendant started the fire, but whether it was accidental or intentionally started. The expert Dillard, after explaining the foundation for his opinion, concluded that “the evidence suggests to me that it was deliberately set. A case of arson.” This portion of the expert’s testimony was admissible under the Rules of Evidence, and there is no claim here that this opinion was inadmissible. There was an abundance of evidence to support the expert’s opinion that the fire was deliberately set. For example, Mr. Dillard testified that, based upon his investigation of the premises it was obvious that an accelerant, i.e., gas, gun powder, etc., had been used. Mr. Dillard testified that, though they weren’t able to actually identify the type of accelerant, “just the fact that we had the type of charring, we had a fire that was identified to me as a rip-roaring fire within five minutes — you don’t have a rip-roaring fire within five minutes unless you have some kind of accelerant to induce that type of a fire.” Dillard explained that, “This fire also, through examination, was a fast and hot fire as opposed to a slow, smoldering fire. A slow smoldering fire, you have baked on residue on the window,” and that Mr. Dallman had indicated to him that, “He saw a flash, then saw the fire up to the top of a window, a big window. You don’t have that in five minutes in a normal fire.”
In addition to this testimony, there was testimony tending to implicate defendant. The testimony of Mr. Tarter and Mr. Dallman provided ample evidence that the defendant had been the last one to leave the *62house on the morning of the fire, and that he had left only three to five minutes before the fire was detected. The testimony of the defendant and his fire investigator also established that the defendant’s actions had caused the fire.
The circumstantial evidence, together with the expert’s opinion that the fire was deliberately set, added to the defendant’s concession that he accidentally started the fire, makes it clear that the expert’s opinion that Walters started the fire was completely immaterial and did not affect the jury’s verdict. Accordingly, even assuming that the failure to object to the expert’s opinion violated the first prong of the Strickland test, the second prong of the test has not been satisfied, and the trial court’s denial of the post conviction relief petition should be affirmed.

. Both the Court’s opinion and the special concurring opinion suggest that the expert was permitted to testify as to the guilt of the defendant. However, the expert rendered only two opinions: (1) that the fire was intentionally started (which apparently all the members of this Court agree was an admissible expert opinion), and (2) that the defendant was the one that started the fire, which is the questionable evidence under Rule 704. Both the Court’s opinion and the special concurring opinion conclude that by those two statements the expert was permitted to render an opinion on the ultimate issue to be decided by the trier of fact, i.e., who the guilty party was. However, that is not what the expert testified to. He never rendered an opinion that the defendant was "guilty." Merely because an expert renders an opinion which factually suggests that the defendant is guilty does not mean that the expert has rendered an opinion as to the guilt of the defendant, although a jury may well conclude that the defendant is guilty based upon the expert’s opinion. Although guilt may be inferred from the expert’s opinion, that does not mean that the expert has rendered an opinion as to guilt. In this case the expert rendered two opinions — that the fire was intentionally started, which the Court agrees was admissible, and the defendant was the one that started the fire, to which the defendant did not object, although he might have. Because his own trial strategy was to acknowledge that he had started the fire, albeit accidentally, any error in not objecting to the second opinion was harmless.