Ryan Ramey v. Warden (2012)

MEMORANDUM OF DECISION

THE COURT:  The Court is, at this time, prepared to rule.   As we're all aware and counsel's aware, I mean the standard for determining whether or not an attorney has rendered ineffective assistance or not is a seminal case of Strickland v. Washington.

The Court needs to make a finding that A, counsel's performance was not that of a reasonably competent defense attorney under the circumstances and The Court also then—assuming that was found, also needs to make a finding that but for whatever errors counsel's alleged to have made, that there would've likely been a different or more favorable result for the petitioner.   And within that context of counsel's conduct, reasonableness is determined, again, by the facts and circumstances of what counsel did, how counsel acted, their thoroughness in going through the case, their consideration of the issues, their communications with clients—all of those things fall within what is considered reasonable and/or unreasonable conduct.

I mean in this case, frankly, The Court heard testimony from the defense attorney who is very experienced, appears to be supremely educated and competent, and skilled in what he does.   He testified, at the time he handled this matter he had already done some 60 to 70 criminal trials including some serious felony and Part A matters.   But, more importantly, and the law is—and it's mentioned in numerous cases—first, as we all know, the decision as to legal strategy, what strategies to attack, what motions to file, what defense there is to present, with the extremely limited things such as whether or not a mental health defense is going to be presented, falls squarely and solely within the discretion of the attorney to make.   The law says and This Court believes, rarely is there a case when counsel can be shown to have considered the options and made the conscious decision to reject one option in lieu of another option which he or she believes to be the better strategic move, can find that an attorney has failed to provide ineffective assistance of counsel.

Again, this is not an examination that looks hindsight at whether or not counsel's decision ultimately was successful.   The determination is at the time whether or not under the circumstances, that counsel's decision to forego one strategy over another was reasonable.   Here—and again, it did not prove to be successful, but I don't know that the defense attorney could wish to have anything better in their possession than the state's own witness in an arson case that's going to have to take the stand and admit that they wrote a report that said, we can't determine that the fire was actually started by anyone intentionally, we can't determine where it started, nor can we find that there were any accelerants used.   And in lieu of that, there's this potential of presenting essentially what would've been a claim of intoxication, and again, the theory was just because he had a high alcohol level.

The Court heard the petitioner testify here today as to what he may or may not have been able to offer, and consider the fact that it's possible he may have had to testify to support such a defense since he was alone in the apartment.   The testimony here, frankly was not sufficiently compelling to make The Court believe that even if it was presented, there's a likelihood that it would've led to any sort of different result or compelled the jury to disregard the rest of the evidence it had.   The petitioner really simply testified, I couldn't remember anything.

But again, in any event, under the circumstances, what counsel has—what probably can be considered a smoking gun, which is that the state's own witness is going to have to get on the stand and say, we're claiming it's arson but we can't prove that it was started intentionally, where it was started, or that there was anything used to help it along.

Counsel indicates he made the conscious decision to say, I'm going to go with this, and that in his belief, presenting this alternative issue which he determined—and again, The Court can see from what I've heard today—didn't really appear to be fully able to be developed, but instead of confusing the jury, decided I'm going to present them, which is my best defense, which is the state can't prove it because their witness is going to get on the stand and say, I can't tell you how the fire started, where the fire started or that anybody did anything to start it or help it along.

That's what we ask of attorneys.   Attorneys are not required to be perfect, they're not required to present a defense and to not potentially make a mistake, and all of their decisions in hindsight are not required to be successful.   It's required only that at the time they make those decisions, and under all the facts and circumstances, that decision is considered to be generally reasonable and competent of a defense attorney.

And This Court finds, again, listening to the testimony of defense counsel, he clearly considered and he and his client clearly talked about whether or not the potential of presenting an intoxication defense would be something they would do.   Ultimately, counsel determined, again, that he thinks generally it comes across as an excuse to the jury and that he had a much better theory that he would rather present and leave for the jury to consider without confusing them.   The Court finds that that is more than competent and that counsel did what is expected.   And having found that defense counsel's performance was not, again—was not incompetent or was that of a competent defense attorney, the petitioner has failed to prove, again, the first prong of the test—again, even assuming that there was some claim here that defense counsel's performance was not that of a competent defense attorney.

The Court can also find here, today, that there has been no evidence here presented.   Again, the only testimony presented here today was the petitioner's testimony that he can't remember, but there was otherwise no testimony presented here before The Court to leave This Court to make a finding that even if the testimony heard today was presented, that the likelihood would be that there would've been some sort of different result or more favorable result on the petitioner's behalf.   In other words, meaning that the jury would not have convicted him on one or more of these arson counts.

So, for one or both of those reasons, The Court finds that the petitioner has failed to meet his burden of proof either by proving deficient performance by his attorney or by he's also failed to prove that he was prejudice in any manner.   For those reasons, the Court will deny the petition.

The record will reflect that the clerk, through the marshal, is presenting the petitioner with notice of his rights to appeal.   The Court will order a copy of its comments which will stand as The Court's memorandum of decision in this matter.   If there is to be an appeal, counsel is notified that he must prepare and submit a judgment file to the clerk's office within 30 days.

Anything additional from either side before we adjourn?

ATTY. KRAUS:  No, Your Honor, thank you.

THE COURT:  All right,

ATTY. LENCZEWSKI:  No, Your Honor.

THE COURT:  All right, so we'll stand adjourned in this matter and in this courtroom until 10:00 A.M. tomorrow morning.

John M. Newson, Superior Court Judge

Newson, John M., J.