Dixon v. Shinn

Clarence Wayne Dixon, Petitioner, v. David Shinn, et al., Respondents.

No. CV-14-00258-PHX-DJH

United States District Court, D. Arizona

May 10, 2022

ORDER

DEATH PENALTY CASE

Honorable Diane J. Humetewa United States District Judge

Execution Scheduled For: May 11, 2022, at 10:00 a.m.

Petitioner Clarence Wayne Dixon, a state prisoner under sentence of death, is scheduled to be executed by the State of Arizona at 10:00 a.m. on May 11, 2022. Warrant of Execution, State v. Dixon, No. CR-08-0025-AP (Ariz. Apr. 5, 2022). Dixon has filed a petition raising one habeas claim, alleging he is incompetent to be executed under Ford v. Wainwright 477 U.S. 399 (1986), (Doc. 86), together with a Notice of Filing the State Court Record (Doc. 89). Dixon has also filed a motion seeking a stay of execution to permit briefing and argument on the Ford claim. (Doc. 87.) Leslie James the victim's sister, and statutory crime victim in this case, filed an Objection to Inmate Dixon's Motion for Stay of Execution. (Doc. 95.) Respondents oppose the petition and motion, arguing that Dixon's claim is without merit. (Doc. 94.) For the reasons set forth herein, the petition and the motion for a stay are denied.

I. BACKGROUND

In 2008, Dixon was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death for the 1978 murder of Deana Bowdoin. The following facts surrounding the crime are taken from the opinion of the Arizona Supreme Court upholding the conviction and sentence. State v. Dixon, 226 Ariz. 545, 548-49, 250 P.3d 1174, 1177-78 (2011).

On January 6, 1978, Deana, a 21-year-old Arizona State University senior, had dinner with her parents and then went to a nearby bar to meet a female friend. The two arrived at the bar at 9:00 p.m. and stayed until approximately 12:30 a.m., when Deana told her friend she was going home. She drove away alone.

Deana and her boyfriend lived together in Tempe. He returned to their apartment at about 2:00 a.m. after spending the evening with his brother and found Deana dead on the bed. She had been strangled with a belt and stabbed several times.

Investigators found semen in Deana's vagina and on her underwear, but could not match the resulting DNA profile to any suspect until 2001, when a police detective checked the profile against a national database and found that it matched that of Clarence Dixon, an Arizona prison inmate. As discussed in more detail below, Dixon's DNA was on file due to a 1985 rape conviction.

Dixon chose to represent himself at trial, with the assistance of advisory counsel. The trial concluded when the jury convicted Dixon of both premeditated and felony murder. At sentencing, the jury found two aggravating factors: that Dixon had previously been convicted of a crime punishable by life imprisonment, A.R.S. § 13-751(F)(1), and that the murder was especially cruel and heinous, § 13-751(F)(6). The jury then determined that Dixon should be sentenced to death.

The Arizona Supreme Court affirmed Dixon's conviction and sentence on appeal. Dixon, 226 Ariz. 545, 250 P.3d 1174.

In his state post-conviction relief (“PCR”) proceeding, Dixon, now represented by counsel, raised three claims, including an allegation that his pre-trial counsel provided constitutionally ineffective assistance by failing to challenge Dixon's competency to waive counsel. The PCR court rejected the claims and the Arizona Supreme Court denied review on February 11, 2014.

Dixon filed his federal habeas petition on December 19, 2014, and the district court denied relief on March 16, 2016. See Dixon v. Ryan, No. CV-14-258-PHX-DJH, 2016 WL 1045355 (D. Ariz. Mar. 16, 2016). In doing so the court rejected a number of claims related to Dixon's competence to stand trial. Id. at 5-13. The Court also rejected a Ford competency claim as premature. Id. at 44. The Ninth Circuit affirmed, Dixon v. Ryan, 932 F.3d 789 (9th Cir. 2019), and denied Dixon's petitions for panel and en banc rehearing, with no judge requesting a vote on whether to rehear the matter en banc. See Ninth Circuit No. 16-99006, Dkt. # 63. The United States Supreme Court denied Dixon's petition for writ of certiorari. See Dixon v. Shinn, 140 S.Ct. 2810 (2020) (Mem.).

II. APPLICABLE LAW

A. Successive Petition

Dixon's claim is governed by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (“AEDPA”). AEDPA generally bars second or successive habeas petitions. Section 2244(b)(1) states that “[a] claim presented in a second or successive habeas corpus application under section 2254 that was presented in a prior application shall be dismissed.” 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(1). A subsequent petition raising the claim that the petitioner is incompetent to be executed under Ford provides one exception to the AEDPA limitations on successive petitions. In Panetti v. Quarterman, 551 U.S. 930, 945 (2007), the Supreme Court held that a ripe Ford claim brought for the first time in a petition filed after the federal courts have already rejected the prisoner's initial habeas application is not “successive, ” and thus § 2244(b) does not apply.

B. AEDPA

Under the AEDPA, this Court may not grant a writ of habeas corpus to a state prisoner on a claim adjudicated on the merits in state court proceedings unless the state court's adjudication of the claim “resulted in a decision that was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States, ” § 2254(d)(1), or “was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding, ” § 2254(d)(2).

Under the “unreasonable application” prong of § 2254(d)(1), relief is available where a state court “identifies the correct governing legal rule from [the Supreme] Court's cases but unreasonably applies it to the facts of the particular . . . case” or “unreasonably extends a legal principle from [Supreme Court] precedent to a new context where it should not apply or unreasonably refuses to extend that principle to a new context where it should apply.” Williams v. Taylor (Terry), 529 U.S. 362, 407 (2000).

“Clearly established federal law” refers to the holdings, as opposed to dicta, of the Supreme Court's decisions at the time of the relevant state court decision. Id. at 412. “[C]ircuit precedent does not constitute ‘clearly established Federal law'” and “cannot form the basis for habeas relief under AEDPA.” Parker v. Matthews, 567 U.S. 37, 48-49 (2012); see Carey v. Musladin, 549 U.S. 70, 76-77 (2006). A reviewing court may, however, “look to circuit precedent to ascertain whether it has already held that the particular point in issue is clearly established by Supreme Court precedent.” Marshall v. Rodgers, 569 U.S. 58, 63 (2013).

The Supreme Court has emphasized that under § 2254(d)(1) “an unreasonable application of federal law is different from an incorrect application of federal law.” Williams (Terry), 529 U.S. at 410, (O'Connor, J., concurring); see Bell v. Cone, 535 U.S. 685, 694 (2002). To obtain habeas relief, therefore, “a state prisoner must show that the state court's ruling on the claim being presented in federal court was so lacking in justification that there was an error well understood and comprehended in existing law beyond any possibility for fairminded disagreement.” Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 103 (2011); see Shinn v. Kayer, 141 S.Ct. 517, 526 (2020) (per curiam); Yarborough v. Alvarado, 541 U.S. 652, 664 (2004)). The burden is on the petitioner to show “there was no reasonable basis for the state court to deny relief.” Richter, 562 U.S. at 98.

With respect to § 2254(d)(2), a state court decision “based on a factual determination will not be overturned on factual grounds unless objectively unreasonable in light of the evidence presented in the state-court proceeding.” Miller-El v. Cockrell, 537 U.S. 322, 340 (2003).

A “state-court factual determination is not unreasonable merely because the federal habeas court would have reached a different conclusion in the first instance.” Wood v. Allen, 558 U.S. 290, 301 (2010). Even if “[Reasonable minds reviewing the record might disagree” about the finding in question, “on habeas review that does not suffice to supersede the trial court's . . . determination.” Rice v. Collins, 546 U.S. 333, 341-342 (2006); see Hurles v. Ryan, 752 F.3d 768, 778 (2014) (explaining that on habeas review a court “cannot find that the state court made an unreasonable determination of the facts in this case simply because [the court] would reverse in similar circumstances if th[e] case came before [it] on direct appeal”). The prisoner bears the burden of rebutting the state court's factual findings “by clear and convincing evidence.” § 2254(e)(1).

Significantly, “review under § 2254(d)(1) is limited to the record that was before the state court that adjudicated the claim on the merits.” Cullen v. Pinholster, 563 U.S. 170, 180 (2011); see Murray v. Schriro, 745 F.3d 984, 998 (9th Cir. 2014) (“Along with the significant deference AEDPA requires us to afford state courts' decisions, AEDPA also restricts the scope of the evidence that we can rely on in the normal course of discharging our responsibilities under § 2254(d)(1).”). The Ninth Circuit has observed that “ Pinholster and the statutory text make clear that this evidentiary limitation is applicable to § 2254(d)(2) claims as well.” Gulbrandson v. Ryan, 738 F.3d 976, 993 n. 6 (2013) (citing § 2254(d)(2) and Pinholster, 563 U.S. at 185 n. 7).

When, as here, a state supreme court summarily denies discretionary review, we “‘look through' that unexplained decision to the last state court to have provided a ‘reasoned' decision.” Castellanos v. Small, 766 F.3d 1137, 1145 (9th Cir. 2014).

C. For...