Aldrich v. State

In Aldrich v. State, 296 S.W.3d 225 (Tex. App.--Fort Worth 2009, pet. ref'd), the court concluded that the record reflected "numerous inaccurate statements" by defense counsel. Id. at 254. For instance, counsel mistakenly recited that the defendant's blood-alcohol concentration was 0.17, rather than 0.07, and he stated in a hypothetical that the retest of the defendant's blood sample revealed a blood-alcohol concentration of 0.40, rather than .04. Id. Counsel also referred to the defendant, the prosecutor, and witnesses by incorrect names, and he misidentified the officer who had administered field sobriety tests to the defendant. Id. The court noted that "these examples were not exhaustive but merely a sampling of the inaccurate factual statements made by defense counsel on the record." Id. And the court held that defense counsel's misstatements of fact during trial fell below an objective standard of reasonableness, "could not be part of any trial strategy," and satisfied the first prong of Strickland. Id.