Clark v. Nooth

395 P.3d 32, 284 Or. App. 762, 2017 Ore. App. LEXIS 480
CourtCourt of Appeals of Oregon
DecidedApril 12, 2017
Docket12069496P; A155558
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 395 P.3d 32 (Clark v. Nooth) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Oregon primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Clark v. Nooth, 395 P.3d 32, 284 Or. App. 762, 2017 Ore. App. LEXIS 480 (Or. Ct. App. 2017).

Opinion

FLYNN, J., pro tempore

In this post-conviction case, petitioner seeks relief from his conviction for first-degree rape, ORS 163.375. On appeal, petitioner assigns error to the post-conviction court’s denial of two claims for relief that are based on the allegation that petitioner was restrained by a leg brace during his criminal trial without findings to justify the restraint—both a “stand-alone” claim that the restraint violated his state and federal constitutional rights as well as a claim that he was denied constitutionally adequate and effective assistance of counsel, in violation of Article I, section 11, of the Oregon Constitution, and the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution,1 when his trial attorney failed to object to the restraint. Petitioner also assigns error to the post-conviction court’s refusal to issue a subpoena to the victim to provide testimony that, petitioner contends, would have helped him prove other allegations of ways in which petitioner’s defense attorney was constitutionally inadequate and ineffective. We conclude that the court did not err in denying petitioner’s “stand-alone” claim regarding the leg restraint and did not err in refusing to allow petitioner to subpoena the victim. However, we conclude that the post-conviction court erred in denying the claim based on counsel’s failure to object to the restraint, because the court applied an overly narrow test in finding no prejudice. We reverse and remand as to that claim and otherwise affirm.2

I. BACKGROUND

A jury convicted petitioner of two counts of first-degree rape. Although petitioner denied having had any [765]*765sexual contact with the victim, much of the evidence at petitioner’s criminal trial was undisputed. At the time that the victim reported the rape, she and petitioner both lived with petitioner’s mother. Petitioner lived in a trailer on the property, and the victim was staying in the mother’s house. The victim was involved in an intimate relationship with D, whom petitioner had known for many years, who was also staying at the house. The day before the incident, petitioner and D had brought the victim back from a house where she had been staying for several days and using methamphetamine.

The following morning, petitioner and the woman whom he was dating at the time returned to his trailer after using methamphetamine and staying awake most of the night. While the woman took a shower in petitioner’s trailer, petitioner walked to the main house to use the shower and do laundry, bringing with him methamphetamine and a syringe. When he knocked on the door, the victim let him in. Later that morning, the victim called D at work and told him that she had been raped by petitioner. D called petitioner’s mother, who called the police.

The victim reported that, after she let petitioner into the house, they had talked for a bit, he had injected her with methamphetamine, and she had immediately collapsed and lost consciousness. She awoke to petitioner raping her. At trial, a criminologist testified for the state that the victim’s DNA was found on petitioner’s penis in a concentration that indicated contact with a “high source of DNA,” such as the vagina, mouth, or mucous. There were also injuries to the victim’s vaginal wall consistent with “forceful intercourse.”

Petitioner denied having given the victim drugs or having had any sexual contact with her. He testified at his criminal trial that, for some time, he had suspected that the victim was taking his mother’s financial documents in an attempt to commit identity theft. When the victim let petitioner into the house on the morning of the incident, petitioner tried to confront her about his suspicion, but she appeared to have used methamphetamine and was too distracted to have that conversation. Petitioner then went to the bathroom to take a shower, but the victim followed him, [766]*766took off her clothes and tried to get into the shower with him. He testified that the victim slipped and fell on him in his groin area.

Throughout his trial, petitioner was required to wear a leg brace under his pants. The brace fit around petitioner’s leg from mid-calf to mid-thigh and was made of hard plastic.

In this post-conviction proceeding, petitioner alleged that his criminal trial counsel had been suffering from a drug addiction at the time of petitioner’s trial and had been arrested for driving under the influence of controlled substances just four days before the trial. He alleged that the attorney’s condition made him “functionally absent,” thus depriving petitioner of his right to counsel. Petitioner also alleged numerous specific ways in which his attorney’s performance denied petitioner constitutionally adequate and effective assistance of counsel. As pertinent to this appeal, petitioner alleged that his attorney failed to object to petitioner being required to wear the leg restraint, failed to hire an investigator, failed to adequately cross-examine the victim about potential bias, failed to adequately examine defense witnesses, and failed to seek a continuance or move for a mistrial when the victim failed to “appear as ordered to testify as a witness for the defense.” The post-conviction court denied all of petitioner’s claims for relief.

II. ANALYSIS

A court must grant post-conviction relief when there has been a “substantial denial” of a federal or state constitutional right, “which denial rendered the conviction void.” ORS 138.530(1)(a). The constitutional right to counsel is the right to “adequate performance by counsel concerning the functions of professional assistance which an accused person relies upon counsel to perform on his behalf.” Montez v. Czerniak, 355 Or 1, 6, 322 P3d 487, adh’d to as modified on recons, 355 Or 598, 330 P3d 595 (2014) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Strickland v. Washington, 466 US 668, 686, 104 S Ct 2052, 80 L Ed 2d 674 (1984) (United States Constitution requires not just counsel, but “effective” counsel). To prevail on a claim that he has been denied [767]*767constitutionally adequate assistance of counsel, a petitioner has the burden to show,

“by a preponderance of the evidence, (1) deficient performance (i.e., that trial counsel failed to exercise reasonable professional skill and judgment based on the law at the time trial counsel acted) that resulted in (2) prejudice to the petitioner (i.e., that trial counsel’s deficient performance had a tendency to affect the result of the petitioner’s prosecution).”

Real v. Nooth, 268 Or App 747, 752, 344 P3d 33, rev den, 357 Or 550 (2015). When considering trial counsel’s performance, we “make every effort to evaluate a lawyer’s conduct from the lawyer’s perspective at the time, without the distorting effects of hindsight.” Lichau v. Baldwin, 333 Or 350, 360, 39 P3d 851 (2002).

A. Leg Restraint Claims

We begin by addressing petitioner’s claims that he was entitled to post-conviction relief because he was forced to wear a leg brace during his criminal trial, without findings to support use of the restraint.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
395 P.3d 32, 284 Or. App. 762, 2017 Ore. App. LEXIS 480, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/clark-v-nooth-orctapp-2017.