Inadequate defense - Autopsy report

[Marina]

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http://www.sccourts.org/opinions/displa ... seNo=26484

IV. Autopsy report

McKnight argues that counsel was ineffective for failing to introduce the autopsy report into evidence. We agree.

After introducing the report at the first trial, counsel’s only reason for neglecting to introduce the report at the second trial is that she “just forgot.” The PCR court found that this error did not prejudice McKnight because the author of the autopsy report testified to its contents, and therefore, the report itself would have merely been cumulative evidence.

We find that the autopsy was a powerful piece of documentary evidence that was crucial to McKnight’s defense because it contradicted the State’s theory of the case. The State’s own expert authored the autopsy report which listed three causes of death: chorioamnionitis, funisitis, and cocaine. After McKnight’s own expert could not rule out cocaine as a cause of death, the autopsy report itself would have served as hard evidence to (1) undermine the conclusion of Dr. Woodard, the only expert who opined that cocaine alone caused the fetal demise, and (2) remind jurors of the inconsistencies in the State’s experts’ testimony.

For these reasons, we hold that counsel’s failure to introduce the autopsy report into evidence was deficient, and that this deficiency, in the absence of otherwise helpful testimony from her own expert, was prejudicial to McKnight. Accordingly, the PCR court erred in determining counsel was not ineffective on these grounds.

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