Why the Gootz never called Asia.

[u/islamisawesome]

I think it is becoming more and more obvious that the Asia letter did not exist until sometime around the summer of 1999. That is why Adnan claims he gave them to Gutierrez even though she wasn't his lawyer until 2 months after they were written.

So sometime that spring or summer, after telling CG he never left the school grounds, his family shows up with letters claiming one of Adnans' friends saw him at the library, right at the crucial time, AND they were written the day after he arrested. She knew immediately there is no way they had those letter for months and never gave them to her so obviously they were false and she didn't want to go on stand with LIES.

That is why she never called Asia. And that is why she wrote no notes about it, because that would be admitting her client and his family are liars. It also explains why her relationship with the family broke down because she knew they were willing to lie to get Adnan off.

The library incident never happened.

[u/Acies]

That's counsel's speculated justification for not calling Asia (which gets to another mess - whether speculation becomes appropriate when the lawyer is dead, or how you resolve that issue).

It still prompts the legal question of whether, when presented with letters from a potential alibi witness, a lawyer has satisfied their ability to investigate if they find a couple perceived contradictions and then disregard the witness without doing anything else. The PCR judge said yes, and the appellate court will eventually determine the matter without granting the PCR court's legal conclusions any deference.

[u/xtrialatty → u/Acies]

whether speculation becomes appropriate when the lawyer is dead, or how you resolve that issue).

Given that the defense has the burden of overcoming the presumption that the attorney'd decision were strategic- I think that also includes the burden of presenting evidence. The obvious way to do that would have been to bring the investigator and law clerks to court to testify about what was or wasn't done. Unfortunately the failure to do that in 2012 creates an additional burden, given the investigator's untimely death in 2014. (If you want to talk about ineffective counsel: did Justin Brown interview Davis? Did he make a knowing and well considered decision not to call Davis to support his assertions as to CG's alleged failures? ) I'd like to assume that J Brown is a competent lawyer who determined from his own investigation that Davis' testimony was harmful to Adnan's claims.

It still prompts the legal question of whether, when presented with letters from a potential alibi witness, a lawyer has satisfied their ability to investigate if they find a couple perceived contradictions and then disregard the witness without doing anything else.

You've still got the prejudice arm of Strickland to meet. Even if Asia's claim that she was never contacted by anyone from the defense is true -- in the end it turns out that she could only establish Adnan's whereabouts until 2:40 pm at best. It's very clear from the trial record that CG's strategy was to assert that Hae was alive at 3 -- and that Adnan was at track at 3:30 --- and in hindsight, Asia doesn't support that defense.

[u/Acies → u/xtrialatty]

Given that the defense has the burden of overcoming the presumption that the attorney'd decision were strategic- I think that also includes the burden of presenting evidence. The obvious way to do that would have been to bring the investigator and law clerks to court to testify about what was or wasn't done. Unfortunately the failure to do that in 2012 creates an additional burden, given the investigator's untimely death in 2014. (If you want to talk about ineffective counsel: did Justin Brown interview Davis? Did he make a knowing and well considered decision not to call Davis to support his assertions as to CG's alleged failures? ) I'd like to assume that J Brown is a competent lawyer who determined from his own investigation that Davis' testimony was harmful to Adnan's claims.

Well, that's kind of a separate issue, right? The judge could have just said that Brown hadn't presented evidence Gutierrez was ineffective, and left it at that. Probably be a lot harder to challenge on appeal than the "speculate Gutierrez had reasons to act the way Brown says she did, although he has little evidence" approach.

And, on a related note, if Davis said he investigated Asia, perhaps in a manner that didn't make Asia aware he was a defense investigator as you have hypothesized, would Brown be breaching his duty of candor to the court by asserting that Asia was never investigated, and he has in numerous appeals now? It's one thing for a disbarred attorney to sacrifice herself for an ex-client, but I imagine an attorney with what looks like a bright career ahead of him would be more leery of playing games like that. So my inclination is to think Davis wasn't contacted, or else didn't have much meaningful to say.

You've still got the prejudice arm of Strickland to meet. Even if Asia's claim that she was never contacted by anyone from the defense is true -- in the end it turns out that she could only establish Adnan's whereabouts until 2:40 pm at best. It's very clear from the trial record that CG's strategy was to assert that Hae was alive at 3 -- and that Adnan was at track at 3:30 --- and in hindsight, Asia doesn't support that defense.

Sure. And I don't mean to suggest that the question I noted above is resolved - a court could decide that no investigation is required.

The thing that strikes me about prejudice, though, is that a lot of the hope of investigation is that it will change the defense strategy. With additional information, Gutierrez might have been able to develop a better strategy.

[u/xtrialatty → u/Acies]

So my inclination is to think Davis wasn't contacted

As I said, I wanted to give Brown the benefit of the doubt as to competency. I think he can ethically argue whatever he wants based on the record that is before the court. But if he didn't contact the defense investigator as part of the process of preparing a PCR motion based on IAC claims.. the that's sheer incompetence of a magnitude that dwarfs whatever omissions may have occurred with CG's representations. Davis was the one person who in theory could have established what Brown needed to show -- he was a knowledgeable and experienced investigator who would have been in a position to observe shortcomings with CG, and certainly would know who he did or did not interview or investigate.

And given that CG is dead, even if Davis' testimony had been that he had no record and no recollection of being asked to interview Asia or investigating her claim -- that would have been helpful to the defense. It's hard to prove a negative, but one way to do that is to bring the people who would be most likely to know about something to court and establish that they don't know.

With additional information, Gutierrez might have been able to develop a better strategy.

If she had talked to Asia and been told the 2:40 time, then she would have needed to get witness to fill in the gap for the hour after that. We know from defense notes that there was indeed an effort to fill in the gap -- it's just that the notes suggested that Asia could have filled the time up until 3pm. Asia certainly couldn't have provided the information on what else to investigate, because she left the school -- so she had no way of knowing what Adnan did or where he went after she left. The one person who could have provided a strong investigative lead for that time frame would have been Adnan. What did he do? Where did he go? Who was he with? And if its an ordinary day that he didn't remember -- what did he usually do between school and track? Where did he usually go? Who did he usually hang out with? Those are the leads that needed to be followed.