Tag Archives: Pre-trial Investigation

Post-conviction petitions must be supported by evidence; if that is in the form of an affidavit, then the affidavit must be notarized (People v. Brown, 2015 IL App (1st) 122940)

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People v. Brown, 2015 IL App (1st) 122940 (March 11, 2015) Cook Co. Affirmed. The defendant in Brown was convicted of unlawful use of a weapon by a felon after a jury trial. He was sentenced to 13 year DOC, and his conviction and sentence were affirmed on appeal. Brown filed a post-conviction petition alleging that his trial counsel provided ineffective assistance for “failing (a) to investigate and present four witnesses whose testimony would have supported the one defense witness at trial who testified Brown did not have a weapon and (b) to inform Brown of the State’s guilty plea offer and the extended sentence he faced if convicted at trial” and laboring under a conflict of interest because trial counsel also represented a man who could have been a potential defense witness. ¶ 1. Brown’s Petition was dismissed at second stage because “allegations in Brown’s petition, with his supporting documentation, fail to make a substantial showing of any constitutional deprivation to warrant a third-stage proceeding when viewed against the full and complete record…” ¶ 2.

Brown attached his own affidavit in support of his petition, as well as an affidavit from trial counsel, an affidavit from a potential witness named Arnold Misher, and a handwritten statement entitled “affidavit” from another individual. Brown’s affidavit attested that he told trial counsel that another person had possessed the weapon that Brown was convicted of possessing, and that this person would testify to this, but that his lawyer indicated to Brown that she would not call this witness because he was a “trouble maker.” The affidavit also averred that trial counsel never communicated the State’s 3-year DOC offer to the defendant. Trial counsel’s affidavit indicated that she was concerned about the effect that any plea agreement would have on Brown’s federal parole and that Brown was not interested in accepting the State’s 3-year DOC offer. Misher’s affidavit recalled the arrest of defendant and did not mention defendant having a gun. The handwritten statement that was entitled “affidavit” but was unsigned, undated, and not notarized, was from a witness who made vague reference to seeing a man wearing a white shirt with a machine gun prior to the police arriving. The statement did not mention Brown. Brown later amended the petition and attached two additional documents entitled “Affidavit” that were not notarized. These were purportedly from additional witnesses with similar stories. Both “Affidavits” stated that the witnesses had not seen Brown with a gun.

Brown’s petition had advanced first stage proceedings, but was dismissed at the second stage. The relevant question raised during a second-stage postconviction proceeding is whether the petition’s allegations, supported by the trial record and accompanying affidavits, demonstrate a substantial showing of a constitutional deprivation, which requires an evidentiary hearing. People v. Coleman, 183 Ill. 2d 366, 381 (1998). All well-pled facts in the petition and affidavits are taken as true, but assertions that are really conclusions add nothing to the required showing to trigger an evidentiary hearing under the Act. Id.

The appellate court held that Brown’s petition was properly denied at the second stage. As to the ineffective assistance of counsel claim that Brown’s trial counsel failed to call these various witnesses who have testified that they did not see him with a gun, “the defendant’s allegation must be supported by an affidavit from that witness that contains the witness’s proposed testimony.” 725 ILCS 5/122-2 (West 2010); People v. Enis, 194 Ill. 2d 361, 380 (2000); see also People v. Dean, 226 Ill. App. 3d 465, 468 (1992) (when defendant attacks competency of trial counsel in postconviction petition for failure to call or contact certain witnesses, defendant must attach affidavits from those witnesses). “In the absence of such an affidavit, a reviewing court cannot determine whether the proposed witness could have provided testimony or information favorable to the defendant, and further review of the claim is unnecessary.” Enis, 194 Ill. 2d at 380. Affidavits must be notarized in order to satisfy the pleading requirements of section 5/122-2 of the Act. The “affidavits” purportedly made by these various witnesses that Brown sought to have trial counsel call at trial were legally insufficient because they were not notarized, and Brown did not offer any explanation for why they were not notarized.

However, even “Construing the notarization requirement as a technicality, we find the affidavits Brown offered in support of his allegations are still insufficient to support his allegation that trial counsel was ineffective for failing to call each of his proposed witnesses to testify. Brown cannot overcome the strong presumption that counsel strategically decided which witnesses to call to testify at his trial and he has not made a substantial showing of prejudice based on counsel’s decision not to call any of his proposed witnesses.” ¶ 55. The appellate court also dismissed Brown’s claim that trial counsel did not communicate the State’s offer to him because 1) the trial court independently recalled defense counsel communicating the offer to Brown, and 2) Brown failed to show prejudice, even if he could prove that trial counsel failed to communicate the offer to him. The court found that the remainder of Brown’s claim lacked evidentiary support from his affidavits.

Brown demonstrates 1) the importance of supplying evidence to accompany the legal claims made in the post-conviction petition, and 2) if that evidence is in the form of an affidavit, that document needs to be notarized in order to meeting the pleading requirements of the Act.

Defendant who was absent at trial could not later argue that counsel failed to consult with him about trial strategy (People v. Montes, 2014 IL App (2d) 140485)

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People v. Montes, 2014 IL App (2d) 140485 (February 6, 2015) Kane Co. Affirmed. Defendant Augustine Montes was convicted of attempted first-degree murder and aggravated battery following a jury trial in absentia. He received concurrent sentences of 26 years on the attempted murder charge and 10 years on the aggravated battery charge. His convictions and sentences were affirmed on direct appeal. Montes then filed a post-conviction petition alleging actual innocence based on a theory of entrapment and ineffective assistance of counsel.

Montes’ post-conviction petition alleged that he obtained evidence after trial that would have supported an entrapment defense in the form of an affidavit from a man who indicated that, contrary to his trial testimony, another man “‘induced and incited” the incident by possessing a firearm and putting everyone in a position to commit a crime.” ¶ 12. An additional affidavit from defendant’s trial attorney was attached to the petition indicating that it was defense counsel’s understanding that the affiant who would testify to these events was unavailable to be interviewed or called as a witness because he had several pending criminal cases.

Montes also argued that his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to discuss with him tendering a jury instruction on the lesser-included offense of reckless discharge of a firearm. An affidavit from trial counsel was attached indicating that trial counsel did not discuss this jury instruction with defendant and that defendant was not advised of the possibility of asking for it. Montes also argued that trial counsel was ineffective for not seeking a plea deal from the State.

The trial court summarily dismissed the defendant’s petition, finding that the affidavit from the witness was not “newly discovered evidence,” nor was it non-cumulative or so conclusive that it was likely to change the result on retrial. The court also found that defendant’s ineffective assistance claim was forfeited by failing to raise it on direct appeal and that the claim was factually insufficient because defendant did not attach an affidavit asserting that he would have demanded the submission of the lesser-included-offense instruction. ¶ 16. Montes appealed.

The appellate court affirmed the trial court’s dismissal of the petition, holding that defendant forfeited his entrapment defense because he failed to raise it at trial, he never complained that counsel failed to raise that defense, he did not raise the defense on direct appeal, and he did not complain of ineffective assistance of counsel on appeal for his appellate lawyer’s failure to raise it there. Accordingly, this claim was forfeited. ¶ 19, citing People v. Davis, 2014 IL 115595, ¶ 13 (in a postconviction setting, issues that were raised and decided on direct appeal are barred by res judicata, while issues that could have been raised on direct appeal, but were not, are forfeited).

On the issue of whether the information from the witness was considered “newly discovered,” the court explained that “‘Usually, to qualify as new evidence, it is the facts comprising that evidence which must be new and undiscovered as of trial, in spite of the exercise of due diligence. Generally, evidence is not ‘newly discovered’ when it presents facts already known to the defendant at or prior to trial, though the source of those facts may have been unknown, unavailable, or uncooperative.” (Emphases added.) ¶24, quoting People v. Barnslater, 373 Ill. App. 3d 512, 523 (2007). The affidavit from the witness was therefore not “newly discovered” because the defendant knew of the existence of these facts prior to trial, but did not raise them at trial. The court acknowledged that defendant may counter that even if he knew these facts, the witness who would testify to them was unavailable because he would be unwilling to testify. However, the court noted, defendant could have testified to these facts himself at trial, but he chose not to even be present at the trial.

Related to that is defendant’s second claim that defense counsel failed “to discuss with defendant whether to submit to the jury a lesser-included-offense instruction, but defendant was not present at trial for counsel to do so. Counsel could not submit a lesser-included-offense instruction without the opportunity to discuss it with defendant and without defendant’s consent. Id. at 230. Thus, by absenting himself from trial, defendant precluded counsel from fulfilling the obligation to discuss with him the availability of a lesser-included-offense instruction.” Dismissal of the petition was therefore affirmed.

The somewhat unique aspect of this case is that the defendant was tried for this serious charge in abensentia. That severely impacted his ability to argue that certain evidence that he knew existed should have been presented and to argue that defense counsel failed to consult with him about tendering a lesser-included instruction. If the defendant had been present for his trial, he could have asked his attorney to go into certain lines of questioning, and the defense attorney would have then had an obligation to discuss with him the possibility of tendering a lesser-included instruction. The defendant just being present could have positively impacted the result of the trial.

How investigators can be crucial in post-conviction cases (People v. Bolden, 2014 IL App (1st) 123527)

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People v. Bolden, 2014 IL App (1st) 123527 (June 18, 2014) Cook Co., 3d Div. Reversed and remanded.
(Modified upon denial of rehearing 8/6/14.). Syllabus: Where defendant’s postconviction petition challenging his conviction for two murders was dismissed without an evidentiary hearing, the appellate court reversed the dismissal and remanded for an evidentiary hearing, since defendant made a substantial showing that he was prejudiced by his trial counsel’s unprofessional errors, including his failure to move for the dismissal of the indictment after two firearms defense counsel requested in discovery were destroyed by the police and his failure to interview three witnesses in connection with a possible alibi, especially when there was a reasonable likelihood that a better result could have been achieved absent those errors.

The defendant here made two ineffective assistance claims. First, that trial counsel erred by not moving to dismiss the charges based on the State’s discovery violation. The State destroyed guns involved in the case after the defendant requested access to them in his discovery motion, and the defendant argued that he was prejudiced by his inability to send the guns to a lab to have them independently tested after they were destroyed. The Bolden court held that counsel’s performance was deficient under Strickland on this allegation because there would have been no strategic purpose in not filing a motion for sanctions. Nevertheless, the court held that the defendant did not satisfy the “prejudice” prong of Strickland because, essentially, the results from the tests that could have been performed on the guns would only be speculative as far as their probative value, so the case likely would not have been dismissed because the depravation to the defendant would not be great enough to warrant dismissal of the charges.

The second issue that the defendant raised–and actually prevailed on here–was a failure to investigate claim. These claims are quite common in post-conviction petitions. Usually the defendant alleges that he told his attorney to talk to so-and-so, and his attorney failed to do so and then failed to call that person as a witness. This type of claim usually fails, because counsel’s failure to call the witness is usually chalked up to trial strategy and the defendant is thereafter unable to meet the Strickland test. But that is exactly what the defendant was able to do in this case.

The defendant claimed that he told his attorney to talk to an alibi witness and two other witnesses who corroborated the alibi witness’ story. In support of his petition, the defendant “presented a form on which his trial counsel submitted a written request for an investigator working for the public defender to contact Vondell Goins, Octavia Jackson, and Todd Henderson. Trial counsel supplied phone numbers, addresses, and dates to contact the witnesses. The forms show that an investigator wrote “oral response has been given” to trial counsel.”¶ 31. The defendant “also attached to the petition affidavits from Goins, Jackson and Henderson. Goins swore that she spoke to police in J&J after the shooting, but no investigator or attorney contacted her between the night of the murders in 1994 and 2011, when an investigator working on the postconviction petition contacted her.” ¶ 32. The other affidavits were similar. Based on counsel’s failure to investigate these witnesses, the court held that Bolden made a substantial showing of a reasonable likelihood that he would have achieved a better result but for trial counsel’s errors. ¶ 51.

There are some exceptional things about this case that made it a winning case. This case underscores the importance of investigators. The original investigator was tasked with contacting these witnesses. The defendant was able to provide evidence (which itself is unusual) that he had asked the investigator (through counsel) to contact these witnesses. Because the investigator was acting as trial counsel’s agent, trial counsel ultimately became responsible for the investigator’s failure to contact these witnesses. But while the first investigator caused the error, the second investigator (who was working with post-conviction counsel and later contacted these witnesses) was able to prove the error of the first. The second investigator was really the key to making this claim successful, which demonstrates how invaluable good investigators can be to post-conviction claims that are usually very difficult to prove. The defense team’s investigation in this case was exceptional and it yielded exceptional results.