Parisie appeals from his conviction of robbery, aggravated assault and kidnapping.
1. Appellant contends he was denied his right to effective assistance of counsel because his counsel interviewed him only briefly on one occasion prior to trial, did not present psychiatric testimony or raise insanity as a defense, and did not call witnesses on appellant’s behalf.
At a post-trial hearing on this issue appellant’s trial counsel testified that appellant never mentioned any mental problems or the possibility of raising insanity as a defense until four days prior to trial. Appellant gave no indication that he had any mental problems; on the contrary, appellant, a college graduate, appeared lucid, mentally competent and in full command of his faculties. On a form filled out when appellant was confined he stated that he had never received treatment for any mental disorder.
As to witnesses, all but two State witnesses were interviewed prior to trial by an investigator working for appellant’s trial counsel; the two witnesses not interviewed refused to talk to appellant’s counsel or his investigator. Additionally, several people were interviewed as possible defense witnesses and the backgrounds of State witnesses were checked to determine if there was anything in their background which could be used as impeaching evidence against them.
Counsel testified that he spent a minimum of 80 hours preparing for appellant’s trial and on the occasions when he attempted to interview appellant he was on “loan” to federal authorities for a period of six weeks in connection with another case. Appellant’s trial counsel also attempted to negotiate a plea of guilty on behalf of appellant which he rejected. We have examined the entire transcript and find that trial counsel did an outstanding job in representing appellant, *858 particularly considering the fact that there was no question of appellant’s identity as the perpetrator of the offenses allegedly committed by him. Counsel conducted extensive cross-examination, made appropriate objections, made a motion to suppress evidence obtained in an inventory search of the car used by appellant, made several motions for a mistrial and moved for a directed verdict of acquittal.
In
Strickland v. Washington,
2. Appellant contends the trial court erred by refusing to excuse three jurors for cause. On voir dire examination one juror stated he was the son of the police commissioner of Doraville, where the offenses occurred, and knew some of the police officers who would be State witnesses; nevertheless, the juror stated he did not believe these facts would prevent him from being absolutely impartial. A second juror stated that she would tend to believe the testimony of a police officer over that of other witnesses. A third juror stated that “in truthfulness” he was not impartial between the State and the defendant, and could not judge the case fairly. The same juror stated that he would be influenced by previous events in his life, and it would be very difficult for him to be fair. Appellant challenged each of these prospective jurors for cause and the trial court denied the challenges. Thereafter, appellant used peremptory challenges on the first and third juror referred to above; the State challenged the second juror peremptorily. Appellant exhausted all of his peremptory challenges before the last jurors were placed on the jury.
Jurors should come to a case free from even a suspicion of prejudgment of the issues to be tried — as to the parties, the subject matter, or the credibility of witnesses.
Edwards v. Griner,
3. In view of our ruling in Division 2, we need not address the remaining enumerations of error, which are unlikely to recur in the event appellant is retried.
Judgment reversed.