Opinion
Court of Appeals No. A-12396 No. 6768
02-06-2019
STEVE CLAUDY LAPITRE, Appellant, v. STATE OF ALASKA, Appellee.
Appearances: Doug Miller, Law Office of Douglas S. Miller, Anchorage, for the Appellant. Timothy W. Terrell, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Criminal Appeals, Anchorage, and Jahna Lindemuth, Attorney General, Juneau, for the Appellee.
NOTICE Memorandum decisions of this Court do not create legal precedent. See Alaska Appellate Rule 214(d) and Paragraph 7 of the Guidelines for Publication of Court of Appeals Decisions (Court of Appeals Order No. 3). Accordingly, this memorandum decision may not be cited as binding authority for any proposition of law. Trial Court No. 3AN-12-8826 CI
MEMORANDUM OPINION
Appeal from the Superior Court, Third Judicial District, Anchorage, Philip R. Volland, Judge. Appearances: Doug Miller, Law Office of Douglas S. Miller, Anchorage, for the Appellant. Timothy W. Terrell, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Criminal Appeals, Anchorage, and Jahna Lindemuth, Attorney General, Juneau, for the Appellee. Before: Mannheimer, Chief Judge, Allard, Judge, and Coats, Senior Judge. Judge ALLARD.
Sitting by assignment made pursuant to Article IV, Section 11 of the Alaska Constitution and Administrative Rule 23(a).
Steve Claudy Lapitre was convicted of second-degree murder for shooting and killing Kylan Brown outside an Anchorage club on August 11, 2005. We affirmed his conviction in a 2010 memorandum opinion and judgment.
Lapitre v. State, 2010 WL 3606030 (Alaska App. Sept. 15, 2010) (unpublished).
As we explained in that opinion, on the night of the shooting Lapitre was dancing at a club with his girlfriend. Brown was separately dancing with his girlfriend, Angela Button. A witness testified that Lapitre was standing outside when Brown and Button came out of the club. According to the witness, Lapitre made a derogatory remark to Brown. Button and Brown retrieved their car, and Button drove near the club. Brown got out and stood next to the car. Lapitre ran around the back of the car and hit Brown two to four times. The witness then heard a gunshot and Brown fell back into the car and later died. Based on these events, Lapitre was convicted of second-degree murder.
Lapitre offered a somewhat different version of events at trial. According to Lapitre's trial testimony, Button almost hit him with her vehicle as he was walking away from the club. Brown then jumped out of the car with no shirt on and made a derogatory remark to Lapitre, and Lapitre walked over to see if Brown had mistaken him for someone else. Lapitre testified that Brown then started hitting him, and that while they were fighting, Lapitre's handgun fell out of his holster. Both men went for the gun, and it discharged accidentally during the struggle, killing Brown. Based on Lapitre's version of events, Lapitre's trial counsel, Rex Butler, argued that the shooting was accidental.
Following his conviction and unsuccessful appeal, Lapitre filed this petition for post-conviction relief. Lapitre argued that Butler was incompetent because he relied solely on the accidental discharge theory of defense. Lapitre argued that, given the facts of the case, any competent attorney would have argued a joint theory of self-defense and accidental discharge—i.e., that Lapitre acted in self-defense when Brown attacked him, and that the gun accidentally discharged in the ensuing struggle. After an evidentiary hearing, the superior court dismissed Lapitre's petition for post-conviction relief, concluding that he had failed to demonstrate that his attorney's choice of trial strategy was incompetent.
See Gottschalk v. State, 881 P.2d 1139 (Alaska App. 1994) (recognizing a similar hybrid claim of self-defense and accident).
Lapitre now appeals. To succeed on a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, a defendant must show (1) that the attorney's performance fell below the standard of the minimal competence expected of an attorney experienced in criminal law; and (2) that, but for the attorney's incompetent performance, there is a reasonable possibility that the outcome of the proceedings would have been different.
Risher v. State, 523 P.2d 421, 425 (Alaska 1974).
The actions of a trial attorney are presumed to be competent. In order to rebut this presumption, an applicant for post-conviction relief must not only show that a proposed alternative course of action was superior to the course chosen by the trial attorney, but also that "no competent attorney would have done things as badly as his trial counsel did."
Newby v. State, 967 P.2d 1008, 1016 (Alaska App. 1998).
Tucker v. State, 892 P.2d 832, 835 (Alaska App. 1995).
We agree with the superior court that Lapitre did not meet his burden of establishing that his counsel's choice of trial strategy was incompetent. As the superior court concluded below, Butler "made a reasoned, well thought out decision based on the evidence and his years of experience." Butler explained that "he was not pursuing a self- defense case in order to avoid introduction by the State of a recent, similar incident of gun violence by Lapitre. The superior court also noted that Butler was concerned that Lapitre's own version of events contained admissions that "may have negated self-defense, i.e., that Lapitre might be considered the initial aggressor and had ample opportunity to retreat."
We acknowledge that another defense attorney might have chosen to go forward with the combination self-defense/accidental discharge theory articulated by Lapitre in his post-conviction relief pleadings. But having independently reviewed the record, we agree with the superior court's conclusion that "[u]nder these circumstances it cannot be said that all reasonably competent attorneys would have rejected [Butler's] trial strategy in favor of that now asserted by Lapitre in hindsight."
See Gottschalk, 881 P.2d at 1143-44.
We therefore AFFIRM the judgment of the superior court.