Terry Monty Pattarozzi v. State ( 2021 )

SECOND DIVISION
MILLER, P. J.,
MERCIER, J., and SENIOR APPELLATE JUDGE PHIPPS.
NOTICE: Motions for reconsideration must be
physically received in our clerk’s office within ten
days of the date of decision to be deemed timely filed.
http://www.gaappeals.us/rules
March 3, 2021
In the Court of Appeals of Georgia
A20A1994. PATTAROZZI v. THE STATE.
PHIPPS, Senior Appellate Judge.
A jury convicted Terry Monty Pattarozzi of two counts of failure to register as
a sex offender, and the trial court denied his motion for a new trial. On appeal,
Pattarozzi contends that his trial counsel rendered ineffective assistance by failing to
object to four exhibits going out with the jury. For the following reasons, we affirm.
“On appeal from a criminal conviction, we view the evidence in the light most
favorable to the verdict, with the defendant no longer enjoying a presumption of
innocence.” Reese v. State, 270 Ga. App. 522, 523 (607 SE2d 165) (2004).
The record shows that, as the result of a 1993 conviction, Pattarozzi was
required to register as a sex offender with the Chattooga County Sheriff’s Office. On
December 13, 2018, a deputy in the Chattooga County Sheriff’s Office received
information regarding Pattarozzi. Based on this information, the deputy began an
investigation into Pattarozzi, first by pulling his file to see if any new addresses had
been added, then by attempting unsuccessfully to make contact with Pattarozzi and
his wife by phone. On December 17, 2018, the deputy went to Pattarozzi’s house.
When she arrived, no one was home. There were no vehicles in the driveway, and
there was no sign of the dog that had always barked when the deputy had previously
been to Pattarozzi’s house. The next day, the deputy, who had never had difficulty
reaching Pattarozzi before, was again unable to contact Pattarozzi. The information
that she had received and her inability to contact Pattarozzi led the deputy to believe
that he had absconded. The deputy applied for and received a warrant for Pattarozzi’s
arrest on December 18, 2018.
Pattarozzi called the deputy on December 27, 2018, asking whether there was
a warrant for his arrest. She told him that she could not give him that information over
the phone, but he could come into the office with identification to find out. Pattarozzi
was arrested at his house later that afternoon. On December 31, 2018, after he was
released from jail, Pattarozzi went to the deputy’s office and filled out a change of
employment form. On the change of employment form, Pattarozzi stated that he had
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changed his employment on September 30, 2018. Pattarozzi told the deputy that he
had been in Colorado starting a business.
Pattarozzi was charged with two counts of failure to register as a sex offender.
In the first count, Pattarozzi was charged with failing to give the Chattooga County
Sheriff’s Office updated information regarding his address within 72 hours after his
address information changed. In the second count, he was charged with failing to
provide updated information regarding his place of employment within 72 hours after
his employment information changed.
The evidence introduced by the State at trial included an annual verification
form sent to Pattarozzi notifying him that he was due to re-register with the Chattooga
County Sheriff’s Office within 72 hours prior to his September 21 birthday (exhibit
3); a Georgia sex offender registration notification form with a checklist initialed and
signed by Pattarozzi (exhibit 4); the warrant for Pattarozzi’s arrest (exhibit 5); and the
change of employment information form that Pattarozzi completed on December 31,
2018 (exhibit 6). The affidavit supporting the arrest warrant included the following
statement: “Subject is registered at the listed address and has not been located there
in over 72 hours. Subject was located by Colorado DOC parole [division] to be
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residing at 1362 Wolff Street, Denver, CO 80204. Subject failed to [register] this
address.”
The jury found Pattarozzi guilty on both counts. He filed a motion for new trial,
which the trial court denied after a hearing. This appeal followed.
On appeal, Pattarozzi argues that his trial counsel rendered ineffective
assistance because he failed to object to exhibits 3, 4, 5, and 6 going out with the jury
in violation of the continuing witness rule.
To establish that his trial counsel was constitutionally ineffective,
Appellant must prove both deficient performance by counsel and
resulting prejudice. To show that his lawyer’s performance was
deficient, Appellant must demonstrate that the lawyer performed his
duties in an objectively unreasonable way, considering all the
circumstances and in the light of prevailing professional norms. This is
no easy showing, as the law recognizes a ‘strong presumption’ that
counsel performed reasonably, and Appellant bears the burden of
overcoming this presumption. To carry this burden, he must show that
no reasonable lawyer would have done what his lawyer did, or would
have failed to do what his lawyer did not. In particular, decisions
regarding trial tactics and strategy may form the basis for an
ineffectiveness claim only if they were so patently unreasonable that no
competent attorney would have followed such a course.
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Even when a defendant has proved that his counsel’s performance was
deficient in this constitutional sense, he also must prove prejudice by
showing a reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s unprofessional
errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different. It is not
enough to show that the errors had some conceivable effect on the
outcome of the proceeding. Rather, Appellant must demonstrate a
‘reasonable probability’ of a different result, which, the United States
Supreme Court has explained, is a probability sufficient to undermine
confidence in the outcome.
The reviewing court need not address both components of the inquiry if
the defendant makes an insufficient showing on one. In all, the burden
of proving a denial of effective assistance of counsel is a heavy one, and
Appellant has failed to carry that burden.
Brown v. State, 302 Ga. 454, 457 (2) (807 SE2d 369) (2017) (citations and
punctuation omitted). See also Jones v. State, 318 Ga. App. 342, 346 (3) (733 SE2d
400) (2012) (defendant must show by clear and convincing evidence that the
performance of his lawyer was not within the range of reasonable professional
lawyering).
Whether a trial attorney renders constitutionally ineffective assistance is a
mixed question of law and fact. “The proper standard of review requires that we
accept the [trial] court’s factual findings unless clearly erroneous, but we
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independently apply the legal principles to the facts.” Head v. Carr, 273 Ga. 613, 616
(4) (544 SE2d 409) (2001). After reviewing Pattarozzi’s claims in accordance with
these standards, we conclude that he has not met his burden of demonstrating that his
trial counsel was deficient.
In Georgia, the continuing witness objection is based on the
notion that written testimony is heard by the jury when read from the
witness stand just as oral testimony is heard when given from the
witness stand. But, it is unfair and places undue emphasis on written
testimony for the writing to go out with the jury to be read again during
deliberations, while oral testimony is received but once. The types of
documents that have been held subject to the rule include affidavits,
depositions, written confessions, statements, and dying declarations.
Rainwater v. State, 300 Ga. 800, 803 (2) (797 SE2d 889) (2017) (citation omitted).
The continuing witness rule prohibits writings from going out with the
jury when the evidentiary value of such writings depends on the
credibility of the maker. Documents that are prohibited by the
continuing witness rule from going out with the jury include answers to
written interrogatories, written dying declarations, and signed statements
of guilt. These documents, which generally contain their makers’
assertions of purported truths, are ascribed evidentiary value only to the
extent that their makers are credible.
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Bryant v. State, 270 Ga. 266, 270-271 (3) (507 SE2d 451) (1998) (footnotes and
punctuation omitted).
On the other hand, it is well established that “the continuing witness rule is
inapplicable where the document at issue is original documentary evidence or where
the document is non-testimonial in nature because it was not a reduction of or
substitute for a person’s oral statements or testimony.” Adams v. State, 344 Ga. App.
159, 166 (3) (809 SE2d 87) (2017) (citation and punctuation omitted). See also
Johnson v. State, 234 Ga. App. 58, 60 (2) (b) (506 SE2d 212) (1998); Hodson v.
Mawson, 227 Ga. App. 490, 491 (2) (489 SE2d 855) (1997) (“The proscription on the
jury’s possession of ‘written testimony’ does not extend to documents which are
themselves relevant and admissible as original documentary evidence in a case.”)
(citations and punctuation omitted).
At the motion for new trial hearing, trial counsel testified that he was familiar
with the continuing witness rule, and that he believed the exhibits at issue, except
possibly the arrest warrant, did not violate the continuing witness rule. We agree with
trial counsel that exhibits 3, 4, and 6 were not testimonial in nature, and the
continuing witness rule was not violated by the jury’s possession of these documents
during their deliberations. See, e.g., Davis v. State, 285 Ga. 343, 348 (8) (676 SE2d
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215) (2009) (continuing witness rule not violated by allowing certain letters that were
not written testimony, photographs, and a death certificate to go out with the jury);
Forrester v. State, 315 Ga. App. 1, 6-7 (3) (726 SE2d 476) (2012) (continuing
witness rule not violated by allowing acknowledgment signed by defendant that she
received a demand for possession to go out with the jury because such document was
original documentary evidence, not written testimony); Relaford v. State, 306 Ga.
App. 549, 557 (3) (f) (702 SE2d 776) (2010) (continuing witness rule not violated by
allowing certified copy of defendant’s prior conviction admitted for impeachment
purposes to go out with the jury); Adams v. State, 284 Ga. App. 534, 536-37 (2) (644
SE3d 426) (2007) (continuing witness rule not violated by allowing test results to go
out with the jury); Johnson, 234 Ga. App. at 60 (2) (b) (continuing witness rule not
violated by allowing uniform traffic citation to go out with the jury); Hodson, 227 Ga.
App. at 491 (2) (continuing witness rule not violated by allowing plaintiff’s medical
records to go out with the jury). As our appellate courts have found on numerous
occasions, “failure to make a meritless motion or objection does not provide a basis
upon which to find ineffective assistance of counsel.” Hampton v. State, 295 Ga. 665,
670 (2) (763 SE2d 467) (2014). “Because the trial court properly would have
overruled a continuing witness objection, trial counsel was not deficient for failing
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to raise such an objection, and thus was not ineffective.” Robinson v. State, 308 Ga.
543, 554 (3) (a) (842 SE2d 54) (2020).
Furthermore, pretermitting whether exhibit 5, the arrest warrant, was
testimonial in nature and therefore subject to the continuing witness rule, Pattarozzi’s
trial counsel testified that his decision not to object to the arrest warrant going to the
jury “was strategic because my whole argument to the jury . . . was that there was this
total lack of evidence, that they heard a rumor that he was in Colorado, checked his
house one time and issued a warrant the next morning.” Trial counsel testified, “They
had no evidence. So I was fine with [the arrest warrant] going to the jury. I wanted
the jury to see that that was all they had and that was what law enforcement did in this
case.” In fact, at trial, trial counsel cross-examined the deputy about Pattarozzi’s
arrest warrant:
Q: In the warrant you took out you said that he changed residence,
correct?
A: Yes.
Q: Okay. I’ve got the warrant right here. It’s State’s 5. In the warrant
you stated that it was your belief that the subject was located in
Colorado and he failed to register his address; is that correct?
A: That’s correct.
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Q: Just making sure. All right. So you go knock on his door December
17th, nobody answers the door and December 18th you take out a
warrant saying that he moved?
A: Yes.
Pattarozzi argues that allowing the arrest warrant to go out with the jury was
not a reasonable strategy because it was inconsistent with trial counsel’s strategy
before and during trial, which included filing a motion in limine to exclude hearsay
statements made by “certain persons in Colorado” and objecting to the same
statements at trial. However, even assuming trial counsel’s decision to allow the
arrest warrant to go out with the jury constituted a change in strategy, a decision to
change strategy during trial is not necessarily unreasonable. See Jenkins v. State, 354
Ga. App. 674, 682 (5) (c) (839 SE2d 698) (2020) (counsel’s decision to change
strategy was reasonable).
At the motion for new trial hearing, Pattarozzi’s trial counsel was not asked
about any inconsistency between his decision to challenge hearsay statements made
by “certain persons in Colorado” and his decision not to object to the arrest warrant
going out with the jury. “[A]bsent a strong showing that counsel’s actions were not
reasonable, we will presume that these strategies were not deficient.” Lee v. State, 316
Ga. App. 227, 230 (1) (a) (728 SE2d 847) (2012) (citation and punctuation omitted).
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Pattarozzi has not made a strong showing that his trial counsel’s strategic decision to
allow the arrest warrant to go out with the jury was unreasonable. Consequently,
Pattarozzi has not demonstrated that his trial counsel’s performance was deficient.
Pattarozzi was required to show both prejudice and deficient performance, and his
claim of error fails as he has not met his burden of showing deficient performance.
See Brown, 302 Ga. at 457 (2).
Judgment affirmed. Miller, P. J., and Mercier, J., concur.
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