BOLGER, Judge.Page 2
Eugene Fields was convicted of second degree murder. In 1999, this court affirmed his conviction and also affirmed the order denying his first application for post-conviction relief.
AS 11.41.110.
Fields v. State, Alaska App. Memorandum Opinion and Judgment No. 4139 (Oct. 20, 1999), 1999 WL 34002410.
Fields filed a second application for post-conviction relief in 2003. This second application alleged that his appointed counsel for his trial and first post-conviction relief application had rendered ineffective assistance by failing to discover and argue an important search issue: That a box of .357 caliber bullets (a critical piece of evidence) was seized during an illegal search of the trunk of a 1975 Cadillac sedan under Fields's control.
Fields based his application on court records. The warrant for the Cadillac was issued after a hearing which concluded at 4:38 p.m. on July 10, 1990. However, the warrant return stated that the warrant was served by Detective John Drews at 12:30 p.m. on July 10, 1990 — four hours before the warrant was issued. So Fields alleged that these records established that Detective Drews searched the Cadillac before any warrant had been issued.
Superior Court Judge Randy M. Olsen dismissed Fields's second application for post-conviction relief. But this court later reversed Judge Olsen's order, holding that Fields's petition and supporting documents raised material issues of fact requiring an evidentiary hearing.
Fields v. State, Alaska App. Memorandum Opinion and Judgment No. 5046 at 9-10 (Feb. 22, 2006), 2006 WL 438694 at *5.
On remand, Judge Olsen scheduled an evidentiary hearing where the State called Detective Drews, the officer who conducted the search. Drews testified that he first obtained the warrant, subsequently searched the Cadillac, and then he made the return to the court. H e offered the following explanation about the discrepancy between the time he received the warrant and the time he filled out the warrant return:
Well, I guess there's a couple of ways to explain it. Most likely what has happened is that I put the wrong date on the search warrant return and in my report I used the wrong date when I made that return. So if the court records show that the search warrant was issued on July 10 at 4:38 or whatever it was in the afternoon, and my report indicates that I obtained the warrant on July 10, I was in error in my report saying that I did the return on July 10. It probably most likely, I would assume, would have been July 11. But that would have been an error that I misdated the — the return — and in my report.
Drews reiterated that he did not search the Cadillac until after he obtained the warrant. Fields did not call any witnesses at the hearing.
Judge Olsen found that Drews's testimony was believable, strong, compelling, and uncontradicted. He therefore concluded that there was no illegal search before Drew obtained the search warrant. Thus, the failure of Fields's trial attorney to notice the discrepancy in the warrant documents had no influence on the outcome of the trial. Based on these findings and conclusions, Judge Olsen denied the second application for post-conviction relief.
Fields now appeals Judge Olsen's order.
On appeal, we must accept the trial court's findings of fact unless they are clearly erroneous. Here, Judge Olsen's findings have substantial support in the record. Drews testified that he did not search the Cadillac before he obtained the warrant. He explained that he mistakenly wrote the wrong date on the warrant return. Furthermore, there was no evidence contradicting Drews's explanation. Accordingly, Judge Olsen's findings were based on the only testimony in the record.
See Tucker v. State, 892 P.2d 832, 834 (Alaska App. 1995).
Judge Olsen's conclusion — that Fields's attorney's error had no influence on the trial — followed directly from these findings of fact. In order to succeed on his second application, Fields was required to show a reasonable possibility that a competent trial attorney would have filed a motion to suppress that would have changed the outcome of the trial proceedings. In this case, there was no possibility that attorney incompetence affected the trial proceedings, because Judge Olsen concluded that there was no illegal search.
See Grinols v. State, 10 P.3d 600, 620 (Alaska App. 2000).
We therefore AFFIRM the superior court's order denying Fields's application for post-conviction relief.