DocketNumber: No. SD 35000
Citation Numbers: 556 S.W.3d 609
Judges: Burrell
Filed Date: 8/21/2018
Status: Precedential
Modified Date: 1/21/2022
*610Joseph V. Williams ("Movant") was serving sentences totaling 734 years in the Department of Corrections ("DOC") when a jury found him guilty of a class B felony for punching a DOC employee in the face. See section 217.385.
To prevail on his ineffective-assistance of-counsel ("IAC") claim, Movant must "show (1) that his attorney failed to exercise the customary skill and diligence that a reasonably competent attorney would perform under similar circumstances, and (2) that he was thereby prejudiced." Klarr v. State ,
Movant took the stand in his criminal trial and freely admitted that he knowingly struck the DOC employee with his fists. The assault was also captured on videotape. When trial counsel asked Movant if he wanted "to be found guilty or not guilty[,]" he responded:
Personally, I'm never getting out of prison. I'm going to die in prison. I've come to that realization years ago. So it would be better to be found guilty so I can file an appeal, possibly take another road trip up here, enjoy, you know, all the amenities afforded to me by this county jail, you know, and break the humdrum of everyday prison life.
Movant now claims that appearing before the jury in jail clothing-without adequate justification-was inherently prejudicial, and a reasonably competent attorney would have objected to it.
The motion court found that it was reasonable trial strategy for trial counsel not to object to Movant's appearing in jail clothing during the trial based upon, among other things, the following portion of Movant's motion-hearing testimony:
[Motion counsel:] Okay. And you actually did testify at your trial in your own defense?
*611[Movant:] Yes.
[Motion counsel:] Okay. And why did you testify?
[Movant:] Well, [trial counsel] thought that it would be a good idea with his strategy for me to, you know, basically get up there and tell everybody that I got all this prison time and it doesn't matter what happens in court. You know, just the whole thing was to make the jury feel as if this trial was pointless. It was wasting the tax payer's time, their money, the jurors' time. You know, the whole thing and purpose was because of the sentence that I'm serving. That was mostly a purpose for me getting up there like that.
We begin our analysis with a strong presumption that trial counsel's conduct was reasonable and effective. McIntosh v. State ,
Movant's argument on appeal mistakenly relies primarily upon the statement in Deck v. Missouri that the State cannot, without adequate justification, order the defendant to wear shackles visible to the jury, and if it does, the defendant need not demonstrate actual prejudice to make out a due process violation.
Movant was charged with committing his crime while in prison, and the assault was captured on a videotape that would inevitably be played for the jury. "No prejudice can result from seeing that which is already known." Estelle v. Williams ,
That having been accomplished, and faced with limited options, trial counsel decided to inform the jury that, regardless of what happened at the trial, Movant would spend the rest of his life in prison. The hope was that doing so would elicit either jury sympathy or nullification. In pursuit of that strategy, Movant appeared in jail clothing and told the jury that he was currently serving a 734-year sentence and had "[p]retty much" exhausted all of his appeals.
*612Consequently, the courts have refused to embrace a mechanical rule vitiating any conviction, regardless of the circumstances, where the accused appeared before the jury in prison garb. Instead, they have recognized that the particular evil proscribed is compelling a defendant, against his will, to be tried in jail attire. The reason for this judicial focus upon compulsion is simple; instances frequently arise where a defendant prefers to stand trial before his peers in prison garments. The cases show, for example, that it is not an uncommon defense tactic to produce the defendant in jail clothes in the hope of eliciting sympathy from the jury[.]
Estelle ,
The "not uncommon" tactic mentioned in Estelle was employed here. The motion court did not clearly err in finding that trial counsel's decision not to object to Movant appearing before the jury in jail clothing was a reasonable trial strategy in light of all the circumstances.
Movant's point is denied, and the decision of the motion court is affirmed.
NANCY STEFFEN RAHMEYER, C.J.-CONCURS
GARY W. LYNCH, J.-CONCURS
Unless otherwise noted, all statutory references are to RSMo 2000.
We grant the State's request to take judicial notice of our own court file in this case. Hodge v. State ,
Unless otherwise noted, all rule references are to Missouri Court Rules (2018).
We have independently verified the timeliness of the motion as required by Moore v. State ,
We will refer collectively to the two attorneys who represented Movant at trial as "trial counsel."
The record also reveals that Movant was not dissatisfied with trial counsel's decision not to object to Movant appearing before the jury in jail clothing. When the trial court asked Movant, after the close of the evidence, if he was satisfied with trial counsel's representation, Movant responded, "Yes, I am." Movant added that trial counsel had not refused to do anything that Movant had asked for, and Movant affirmatively indicated that he did not have any complaints to voice about their performance. The motion court was free to disbelieve Movant's subsequent hearing testimony that he did not want to appear at trial in prison clothes. See Wilkins v. State ,