Failure to Investigate Constituted Ineffective Assistance of Counsel
In affirming the vacation of defendant’s conviction, the Court of Appeals, in a full-fledged opinion by Judge Rivera, determined the defendant did not receive effective assistance of counsel. The People’s case rested on the defendant’s statement. The defense was based on the defendant’s mental weakness, which undermined the voluntariness of the statement. Yet the defense attorney did not investigate critical documents relevant to the defendant’s mental condition. The Court of Appeals wrote:
The record reveals that trial counsel sought to build a defense based on defendant’s mental weakness undermining the voluntariness of his admissions of guilt. Despite the focus on defendant’s mental abilities, trial counsel chose to forgo any investigation of the critical documents concerning defendant’s mental condition, and instead, sought to present this defense through the testimony of defendant’s mother, an obviously biased witness. Regardless of whether the decision to present defendant’s condition through his mother’s testimony was a valid strategy, it was, as trial counsel admitted at the post-conviction hearing, a “strategy” “born in the blind.” One he admittedly pursued without benefit of the contents of defendant’s records.
This is not simply a case of a failed trial strategy …. Rather, this is a case of a lawyer’s failure to pursue the minimal investigation required under the circumstances. Given that the People’s case rested almost entirely on defendant’s inculpatory statements, trial counsel’s ability to undermine the voluntariness of those statements was crucial. The strategy to present defendant’s mental capacity and susceptibility to police interrogation could only be fully developed after counsel’s investigation of the facts and law, which required review of records that would reveal and explain defendant’s mental illness history, and defendant’s diagnosis supporting his receipt of federal SSI benefits. People v Oliveras, No 105, CtApp, 6-6-13