Woods v. McBride

Page 813

430 F.3d 813

David Leon WOODS, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Daniel R. McBRIDE, Superintendent, Respondent-Appellee.

No. 04-1776.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued January 20, 2005.

Decided November 30, 2005.

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William Van Der Pol, Jr. (argued), Martinsville, IN, Teresa D. Harper, Bloomington, IN, for Petitioner-Appellant.

James B. Martin (argued), Office of the Attorney General, Indianapolis, IN, for Respondent-Appellee.

Before BAUER, KANNE, and EVANS, Circuit Judges.

KANNE, Circuit Judge.

In the early morning of April 7, 1984, David Woods and two cohorts, Greg Sloan and Pat Sweet, concocted a scheme to steal a television. A few hours later, Woods, Sloan, and Sweet went to the apartment of seventy-seven-year-old Juan Placencia, an acquaintance of Woods's mother. Woods was armed with a knife, although he assured Sloan and Sweet that he intended only to scare Placencia with it. But when Placencia opened his front door, Woods immediately jumped inside and stabbed Placencia repeatedly. Placencia fell back into a chair, pleading for his life. Placencia's pleas did him no good. After Woods took $130 from Placencia's wallet he continued to stab the elderly man—a total of twenty-one times to the face, neck, and torso. An autopsy later determined that Placencia died from at least three stab wounds to the heart and a wound to the skull that pierced through to his brain.

Woods and Sloan departed Placencia's apartment with the cash and television in hand. They hid the television in a trash bin and later sold it for $20. They also washed the clothes they were wearing during the robbery and disposed of the knife and other incriminating items in a nearby creek.

Shortly after the discovery of Placencia's body, Woods was arrested and charged with murder and robbery. An Indiana state court jury found Woods guilty of both, and the trial court sentenced Woods to death. Woods's convictions were affirmed on direct appeal in Woods v. State, 547 N.E.2d 772 (Ind.1989) (Woods I). A second opinion, issued on rehearing, affirmed Woods's convictions and sentence of death. See Woods v. State, 557 N.E.2d 1325 (Ind.1990), cert. denied, 501 U.S. 1259, 111 S.Ct. 2911, 115 L.Ed.2d 1074 (1991). Woods filed a petition for post-conviction relief ("PCR"), which the Indiana PCR court denied. The Indiana Supreme Court affirmed the PCR court's denial of relief in Woods v. State, 701 N.E.2d 1208 (Ind.1998) (Woods II), cert. denied, 528 U.S. 861, 120 S.Ct. 150, 145 L.Ed.2d 128 (1999). Woods then filed a petition pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254 for a writ of habeas corpus, which the district court denied. Woods v. Anderson, 302 F.Supp.2d 915 (S.D.Ind.2004).

In this appeal, Woods advances three issues: (1) whether Woods was denied due process because he was not competent at trial;¹ (2) whether Woods's trial counsel failed adequately to gather, marshal, and present mitigating evidence at the penalty phase, thus denying Woods effective assistance of counsel; and (3) whether Woods's due process rights were violated when he was granted post-conviction counsel but not the opportunity to air his concerns that he had an "actual conflict of interest" with his appointed PCR counsel.

For the reasons that follow, we affirm.

I. Discussion

We take Woods's questions in turn, but first we briefly recap the relevant legal standards that guide our review. Woods's habeas petition is governed by 28 U.S.C. § 2254, as amended by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 ("AEDPA"). The writ is not easy to come by—section 2254 authorizes issue of the writ only if the challenged decision of the state court "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).

"Contrary to" means that a federal court may grant the writ only if the state court arrives at a conclusion opposite that reached by the Supreme Court on a question of law, or if the state court decides a case differently than the Supreme Court on a set of materially indistinguishable facts. See Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 405-06, 120 S.Ct. 1495, 146 L.Ed.2d 389 (2000). The "unreasonable application" prong in particular is difficult to show—"unreasonable" in this context means "something like lying well outside the boundaries of permissible differences of opinion." Hardaway v. Young, 302 F.3d 757, 762 (7th Cir.2002); see also Jackson v. Frank, 348 F.3d 658, 662 (7th Cir.2003) ("We have held that under this criterion, habeas relief should not be granted if the state court decision can be said to be one of several equally plausible outcomes."). In the habeas context, an "unreasonable" application is more than simply an "incorrect" application, so "a federal habeas court may not issue the writ simply because that court concludes in its independent judgment that the relevant state-court decision applied clearly established federal law erroneously or incorrectly." Williams, 529 U.S. at 411, 120 S.Ct. 1495. Rather, in order to trigger grant of the writ, the state-court decision must be both incorrect and unreasonable. See Moore v. Casperson, 345 F.3d 474, 490 (7th Cir.2003) (citations omitted).

In addition, a state court's factual determinations are presumed to be correct, and a petitioner bears the burden of rebutting this presumption by clear and convincing evidence. See Conner v. McBride, 375 F.3d 643, 649 (7th Cir.2004). In reviewing the district court's denial of the petition, we review the court's findings of fact for clear error and the court's legal conclusions de novo. See Richardson v. Briley, 401 F.3d 794, 799 (7th Cir.2005) (citations omitted).

A. Competency

First, Woods's competency claim. Whether a defendant is competent depends on whether he "has sufficient present ability to consult with his lawyer with a reasonable degree of rational understanding—and whether he has a rational as well as factual understanding of the proceedings against him." Dusky v. United States, 362 U.S. 402, 402, 80 S.Ct. 788, 4 L.Ed.2d 824 (1960). It is well established that the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits the states from trying and convicting mentally incompetent defendants. See Pate v. Robinson, 383 U.S. 375, 384-85, 86 S.Ct. 836, 15 L.Ed.2d 815 (1966); see also Cooper v. Oklahoma, 517 U.S. 348, 354, 116 S.Ct. 1373, 134 L.Ed.2d 498 (1996) (noting that the Supreme Court has "repeatedly and consistently recognized that `the criminal trial of an incompetent defendant violates due process'" (quoting Medina v. California, 505 U.S. 437, 453, 112 S.Ct. 2572, 120 L.Ed.2d 353 (1992))); Eddmonds v. Peters, 93 F.3d 1307, 1314 (7th Cir.1996) ("The Constitution forbids trial of one who, for whatever reason, is unfit to assist in his own defense because our adversarial system of justice depends on vigorous defenses.").

A defendant is entitled to a hearing on his competency if a bona fide doubt arises about his ability to consult with his attorney or his understanding of the charges brought against him. Drope v. Missouri, 420 U.S. 162, 180, 95 S.Ct. 896, 43 L.Ed.2d 103 (1975); Pate, 383 U.S. at 385, 86 S.Ct. 836. Likewise, a trial judge must inquire sua sponte into a defendant's mental state if events in court call into question the defendant's competency. See Timberlake v. Davis, 409 F.3d 819, 822 (7th Cir.2005).

As set forth in his brief, Woods claims that "the exact question at issue[] is Woods['s] ability to assist his counsel during trial, specifically during jury selection, due to his inability to remain awake caused by an antipsychotic medication which drugged him into incoherent somnolence." (Pet. Br. at 14.) In short, Woods claims that he was unable to assist his counsel during voir dire on the second day of his trial, because he was unable to stay awake and therefore not competent to stand trial.

Before we address the substance of Woods's competency claim, we must first recount the events leading up to Woods's in-court somnolence. Prior to trial, Woods's trial counsel filed a suggestion of incompetence alleging that Woods was unable to remember particular events of the crime charged. In response, the trial court appointed Drs. Alan LaClave and William Shipley to examine Woods shortly before the scheduled start of trial. Following examinations, both doctors reported Woods competent, and the trial court determined that no competency hearing was required pursuant to Indiana Code § 35-36-3-1. Woods had the opportunity to present to the court his own independent evaluations from experts he had hired, but he declined to do so—apparently because of confidentiality concerns.

In the days leading up to trial, Woods exhibited anxiety and difficulty sleeping. A nurse or other medical official at the jail in which Woods was being detained prescribed Elavil, an anti-depressant, psychotropic drug that causes drowsiness as a side effect. During lunch break on the day of trial in question, Woods took Elavil. Sure enough, drowsiness set in, and Woods had great difficulty remaining awake during the afternoon session of voir dire, despite the best efforts of his counsel to keep him awake—including, apparently, pinching and kicking Woods. Eventually, at a break in the voir dire when the jury pool had left the courtroom, Woods's trial counsel moved for a continuance because of Woods's condition.

The trial court conducted a short hearing on this motion, in which Woods himself testified to his difficulty remaining awake due to lack of sleep and the prescribed Elavil. In addition, Woods's counsel argued that there was a risk that jurors would interpret Woods's drowsiness as a lack of interest or concern about the trial.

The trial court granted the motion for a continuance and, when the jury...