In Re Walker

Fourteen years ago this court rejected Hudie Joyce Walker’s contention the failure of her trial counsel to introduce expert testimony on intimate partner battering and its effects constituted ineffective assistance of counsel, explaining that her lawyer had made a “rational and informed decision on trial strategy” because the evidence would have undermined Walker’s claim she accidentally shot and killed her abusive husband Thomas Walker while struggling with him for a gun and, in any event, would not have supported a self-defense or imperfect self-defense theory because Walker insisted the homicide was an accident. (People v. Walker (Nov. 10, 1992, B058840) [nonpub. opn.] (Walker I).) Accordingly, we held Walker, who was serving a state prison term of 19 years to life for second degree murder, had not demonstrated her trial counsel’s performance was constitutionally deficient or, assuming Walker had in fact been subjected to intimate partner battering, there was a reasonable probability introduction of expert testimony on that subject would have resulted in a more favorable outcome at trial.

Three years after our decision in Walker I, in People v. Barton (1995) 12…