Ineffective assistance of trial counsel reversal

Travis Haney v. United States (decided July 23, 2015).

The Players: Judges Glickman and Blackburne-Rigsby, Senior Judge Reid.  Opinion by Senior Judge Reid.  PDS for Travis Haney.  Trial Judge: Ronna L. Beck.

The Facts: Trial counsel had failed to file a motion to suppress Mr. Haney’s custodial statement on Miranda grounds even though the videotape showed that Mr. Haney asserted his right to remain silent after the detective kept accusing him of the shooting.  The detective simply ignored Mr. Haney’s invocation of Miranda and kept grilling him.  The government introduced at trial an excerpt from the video – the portion immediately following the Miranda violation – in which Mr. Haney stated that he knew that the victim had snitched on “his man” (Deangelo Foote) and put him in prison, that he could see the victim’s fear of him in her eyes every time he passed her on the street, and repeatedly calling the victim a b*tch.  The prosecutor highlighted Mr. Haney’s remarks in her closing and rebuttal arguments, arguing that Mr. Haney was motivated to kill the victim because she had snitched on his friend, and quoting his hateful language.  During post-conviction proceedings, the trial court ruled that trial counsel had rendered deficient performance by failing to move to suppress a statement that would have been suppressed had a motion been filed, but denied a new trial under the second prong of Strickland, ruling that Mr. Haney had failed to show a reasonable probability of a different outcome had the statement been suppressed. 

The Holding: The DCCA disagreed, holding that Mr. Haney had met the Strickland prejudice standard.  The Court reinforced several important rules of law for applying this standard, including:  1) the trial judge erred by relying on her personal estimation that admission of Mr. Haney’s statement was not prejudicial. She thought that the victim’s identification was compelling, that defense-favorable evidence was not, and that the motive established by Haney’s statement did not hurt him because it was a weak motive. The question under Strickland is not what evidence the judge found persuasive, but what evidence reasonably could have influenced the jury; and 2) Haney was prejudiced by the government’s emphasis on his damaging words in closing and rebuttal arguments. SF

Read full opinion here.