The battle over the admission of the prior conviction and the exclusion of the defense witnesses, as described in the Trial Court errors section, was lost with hardly a fight.
Riverside County Deputy Public Defender, Linda Petrovich, had a number of cases to support her position that a defendant is allowed to present rebuttal evidence to 1108 propensity evidence.
She had rock solid case law to show that a specific instance of good behavior similar to that used to show propensity was admissable, yet she used none of it.
There is no doubt that the trial would have been won if the prior had been excluded, or rebuttal evidence presented.
Failure to present the relevant case law couldn't have been a strategic decision. She must not have been familiar with the law.
Even a month later, in a motion for a new trial, she still did not support her argument with case law that seems irrefutable.
That makes her ineffective as counsel.
Jeff is against my calling Petrovich ineffective, (although he himself did so in his Petition for a Writ of Habeas Corpus)
He stated that he felt she was an excellent attorney who worked very hard on his case.
He said he would let her represent him again if he gets a new trial.
I guess we will have to agree to disagree.
