Cunningham v. Thompson

71 P.3d 110, 188 Or. App. 289, 2003 Ore. App. LEXIS 724
Court of Appeals of Oregon·Decided June 12, 2003·No. 95C-11416; A107806·Published·Cited by 43 cases

Opinion

*291 BREWER, J.

Petitioner seeks reconsideration of our decision affirming the post-conviction court’s denial of his petition for post-conviction relief. Cunningham v. Thompson, 186 Or App 221, 62 P3d 823 (2003). Specifically, he seeks reconsideration of his tenth assignment of error, pertaining to his criminal trial counsel’s failure to impeach the testimony, in the penalty phase of petitioner’s criminal trial, of a psychologist, Dr. Cochran. 1 We allow the petition, modify our opinion, and adhere to it as modified.

For convenience, we set out in full our discussion, in our opinion, of petitioner’s tenth assignment of error.

“We turn to petitioner’s tenth assignment of error, in which he argues that his trial counsel was inadequate by failing to impeach a witness, Dr. Cochran, for his ‘licensing and reputation problems’ which, petitioner asserts, would have affected the jury’s verdict. As relevant to that assignment, Cochran, a forensic clinical psychologist at the Oregon State Hospital, testified in the penalty phase of petitioner’s criminal trial that he had reviewed the autopsy report and the police investigation reports in petitioner’s case, as well as petitioner’s previous juvenile and criminal records. Cochran had formed the opinion (relevant to the question of petitioner’s future dangerousness) that petitioner ‘would enact crimes of violence in the future that would act as a continuing threat to society.’ Later in the penalty phase, after [another psychologist, Dr.] Wise had testified * * * Cochran returned to the witness stand and testified regarding frontal lobe dysfunction and other matters to which Wise had testified.
“In the post-conviction proceeding, petitioner adduced evidence that, in 1994, a defendant in another aggravated murder case had attempted to impeach Cochran’s testimony in that case by challenging his qualifications and *292 expertise by means of evidence derived from records maintained by the Board of Psychologist Examiners (the board), the agency that licensed Cochran. The records included a letter from a former employer of Cochran indicating that he would not rehire Cochran and stating his reasons therefor; a letter from the board to Cochran criticizing Cochran’s conduct in regard to a client who was seeking executive clemency; a record indicating that, when Cochran first applied for a license, a committee of the board voted not to pass him on an oral examination component of the application; and a 1990 notice by the board of its proposed suspension of Cochran’s license on the ground that testimony by Cochran in other specified judicial proceedings had violated certain applicable ethical principles. 19 The state presented evidence in the post-conviction hearing that the defendant in the 1994 case, McDonnell, had been convicted and sentenced to death. The post-conviction court found that petitioner was not prejudiced by his criminal trial counsel’s failure to make a similar attempt to impeach Cochran because, at the time of petitioner’s trial, Cochran was licensed by the board and the board’s investigation of his alleged ethical violations had not been resolved; and because Cochran had been easily rehabilitated by the prosecutor in the 1994 case, resulting in the defendant in that case receiving the death penalty notwithstanding his attempted impeachment of Cochran.
“On appeal, petitioner argues that trial counsel’s failure to impeach Cochran, based on what he asserts was available evidence at the time of his criminal trial, amounted to a failure adequately to investigate his defense. Petitioner also argues that he was prejudiced by that failure because Cochran was an ‘important’ witness whose testimony in the penalty phase regarding petitioner’s future dangerousness ‘undoubtedly influenced’ the jury and therefore clearly had a tendency to affect the result of his trial. The state responds that the record of the 1994 criminal trial on which petitioner relies demonstrates that the defendant in that trial was not able to impeach Cochran successfully. According to the state, nothing about the status of Cochran’s license at the relevant time suggested that he was not a qualified expert, and his ‘self-described efforts to keep dangerous criminals locked up would almost certainly appeal to many jurors.’ The state argues that petitioner therefore was not prejudiced. 20
*293 “The post-conviction court’s findings are supported by evidence in the record. In addition, we conclude that, even assuming that petitioner’s criminal trial counsel failed to investigate and present at trial possible impeachment evidence concerning Cochran and that counsel’s performance therefore did not meet the constitutional standard for a reasonable exercise of professional skill and judgment, petitioner did not demonstrate that he was prejudiced. In the 1994 criminal trial, Cochran contested the significance of the defendant’s attempted impeachment evidence. 21 Nor do we view the attempted impeachment evidence, as ultimately presented to the jury at the 1994 trial and in light of Cochran’s testimony in that trial explaining and refuting it, as necessarily tending to affect a jury’s verdict. See Horn [v. Hill, 180 Or App 139, 148, 41 P3d 1127 (2002)] (whether a criminal defense counsel’s failure to investigate, discover, or adduce evidence had a tendency to affect the outcome of a case must be assessed in light of the totality of the circumstances). Finally, as the record of the post-conviction proceeding demonstrates, 22 the jury in the 1994 case sentenced the defendant to death in spite of his attempt to impeach Cochran. For all of those reasons, this is not a case like Loveless v. Maass, 166 Or App 611, 999 P2d 537 (2000), in which the evidence that the post-conviction petitioner’s criminal trial counsel had failed to adduce would likely have impeached the credibility of the key witness (who was also the victim) in, and therefore had a tendency to affect the result of, the petitioner’s criminal trial. Petitioner’s tenth assignment of error fails.

*294 186 Or App at 250-53.

On reconsideration, petitioner first contends that the analysis quoted above misstates the test under Article I, section 11, of the Oregon Constitution for prejudice by requiring that he demonstrate that counsel’s unprofessional performance “necessarily’ tended to affect the jurys verdict. According to petitioner, consistently with Krummacher v. Gierloff, 290 Or 867, 883, 627 P2d 458 (1981), the proper test is whether counsel’s errors “have a tendency to affect the result of the prosecution.” Petitioner acknowledges that, in address-. ing his other assignments of error, we “did not expressly misdescribe the prejudice test.” He asserts, however, that, at the least, we should modify our description of the test in the challenged portion of our opinion.

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Cunningham v. Thompson, 71 P.3d 110, 188 Or. App. 289, 2003 Ore. App. LEXIS 724 (Or. Ct. App. 2003).

71 P.3d 110 (Cunningham v. Thompson) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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