Background
Frank Delmar Raines, Jr. was convicted of attempted rape and attempted aggravated kidnapping of a seventeen-year-old girl in January 2022. He was sentenced to an effective thirty-year sentence. His direct appeal was unsuccessful in June 2023. Raines then filed a pro se petition for post-conviction relief, later amended with appointed counsel, raising two ineffective assistance of counsel claims under the Sixth Amendment.
At trial, Raines’ son—age seventeen or eighteen at the time of the offenses and present when they occurred—testified as a State’s witness. The son had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and had a history of psychiatric hospitalizations. Trial counsel was aware of the son’s mental health condition and cross-examined him at trial regarding his psychiatric issues and their impact on memory, but did not obtain an independent mental health evaluation. During the sentencing phase, trial counsel did not call any character witnesses, including the Petitioner’s family members, despite the Petitioner expressing a desire for his brother to testify.
The Court’s Holding
The Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the trial court’s denial of post-conviction relief on both ineffective assistance claims. On the first claim regarding the son’s testimony, the court found that trial counsel adequately investigated the son’s mental health by interviewing him, learning about his schizophrenia diagnosis and hospitalizations, and developing a coherent cross-examination strategy that portrayed the son as “vulnerable and susceptible to coercion and suggestion by law enforcement.” The court noted that Raines himself did not request counsel to seek an independent evaluation. Critically, Raines failed to present evidence at the post-conviction hearing showing what an independent evaluation would have revealed, thus failing to establish prejudice.
On the second claim regarding character witnesses, the court found counsel’s strategy reasonable and well-informed. After Raines admitted during a psychosexual evaluation that he had sex with the victim and made inculpatory statements in a recorded jail call, counsel shifted strategy from arguing innocence to emphasizing mitigating evidence of childhood abuse. Counsel reasonably determined that calling family members would be risky—they might be problematic witnesses on cross-examination or might undermine the abuse narrative if they denied key facts. Raines failed to present the proposed character witnesses at the post-conviction hearing to demonstrate what favorable testimony they could have offered, thus failing to establish prejudice under the Strickland standard.
Key Takeaways
- Post-conviction petitioners must prove both deficient performance and prejudice under Strickland v. Washington; failure on either prong defeats the claim.
- Trial counsel has wide latitude in strategic decisions, including decisions not to call witnesses, and courts defer to reasonable trial strategy absent evidence the strategy was uninformed.
- A petitioner claiming counsel should have called a witness must present that witness at the post-conviction hearing to demonstrate what testimony would have been offered and how it would have changed the outcome.
- Counsel’s investigation is adequate when it is reasonably thorough under the circumstances, even if an independent expert evaluation is not obtained.
Why It Matters
This decision reinforces the high bar for post-conviction ineffective assistance claims in Tennessee. Petitioners cannot rely on speculation about what evidence might have been discovered or what witnesses might have said; they must affirmatively present such evidence at the post-conviction hearing. The court’s deference to trial counsel’s strategic judgments—including the decision to shift sentencing strategy based on changed circumstances and to avoid calling family members as witnesses—demonstrates that tactical choices made for sound reasons, even if unsuccessful, are generally protected from second-guessing on appeal.
The decision also illustrates the importance of adequate investigation at trial. While counsel need not obtain every possible expert evaluation, counsel must demonstrate reasonable investigation based on available information. When counsel is aware of a witness’s mental health issues and has interviewed that witness, courts may find that adequate investigation occurred without independent evaluation, particularly where the petitioner did not request such evaluation and fails to present comparative evidence at the post-conviction stage.