Bradley loses appeal for new trial

Convicted pedophile Earl Bradley's appeal for a new trial was denied by a Delaware Superior Court judge.

Bradley, the former Lewes pediatrician convicted in June 2011 of sexually assaulting his child patients, had attempted to argue that he should receive a new trial because of ineffective counsel. Bradley is serving 14 life sentences and 164 years in prison for his crimes.

Delaware Superior Court Judge William Carpenter, who presided over Bradley’s trial, said in his opinion that Bradley was attempting to relitigate his argument that Delaware State Police overstepped their bounds in their search of Bradley’s Baybees Pediatrics offices in December 2009.

Bradley made five arguments to support his position:

• That the state deprived him of his choice of lawyers
• Ineffective assistance of counsel in challenging the parameters of the search warrant
• His appeal lawyers were also ineffective at challenging the warrant
• His appeal lawyers failed to move for reargument after the Supreme Court affirmed Bradley’s conviction
• Counsel failed to effectively challenge Det. James Spillan’s testimony of how he came across digital media files showing Bradley sexually assaulting children.

In order to have his motion granted, Bradley could not advance any claims that he did not previously raise in proceedings leading to his conviction and he could not make any claim that was already adjudicated in proceedings leading to conviction.

Regarding choice of counsel, Bradley argued that the state freezing his assets prevented him from his choice of attorney. When he was first arrested, Bradley hired Wilmington-based defense attorney Eugene Maurer.

Carpenter cites a letter from Maurer, who said he was initially hired by a member of Bradley’s family to evaluate the case and whether the family should fund a defense. Carpenter said Maurer was never retained as Bradley’s counsel and there’s no evidence Maurer was Bradley’s choice of counsel.

In addition, Carpenter said, Bradley never raised the issue that freezing his assets prevented him from hiring his choice of counsel at any point in the lead-up to his conviction. Carpenter said Bradley cannot now assert he didn’t have a choice of counsel when he never raised it before.

After Maurer left the case, Bradley was represented by Dean Johnson and Robert Goff of the Public Defender’s Office, followed by Goff and Nicole Walker for his appeals.

Bradley argues his attorneys failed to adequately challenge the search warrant that allowed police to find the digital media showing Bradley sexually assaulting children. Bradley has always claimed that the files were the results of an illegal search. He contended that the warrant only specified searching the main Baybees office and a white outbuilding. When police arrived on the scene, they found two other outbuildings on the property and also searched those.

In their affidavits to the court, Bradley’s attorneys said they determined that they would allow testimony outside the scope of the warrant in order to better challenge the way the search was performed.

“Since there was no other effective means to attack how the search was conducted, clearly allowing testimony regarding the search was not only an appropriate strategic decision but was the wise course of action,” Carpenter said.

Carpenter said the strategy employed by Bradley’s attorneys was professionally reasonable. Bradley’s appeals attorneys said in their affidavits that they considered reargument on whether the place to be searched was properly listed in the warrant. However, Bradley’s attorneys determined that the matter was not worth pursuing further. Carpenter said their decision was objectively reasonable and Bradley’s suggestion that their call was misguided or wrong is simply unsupportable.

Finally, Carpenter rejected Bradley’s attempt to challenge Spillan’s testimony at a 2010 suppression hearing was a desperate attempt to relitigate claims that were already ruled on by the Superior Court and Supreme Court.