Woods v. State

863 N.E.2d 301

David Leon WOODS, Petitioner, v. STATE of Indiana, Respondent.

No. 06S00-0612-SD-544.

Supreme Court of Indiana.

March 26, 2007.

PUBLISHED ORDER CONCERNING SUCCESSIVE PETITION FOR POST-CONVICTION RELIEF IN CAPITAL CASE

RANDALL T. SHEPARD, Chief Justice.

Introduction

Having exhausted the judicial review to which he is entitled as a matter of right, David Leon Woods remains sentenced to death for the intentional killing of an elderly DeKalb County man during a robbery. Before us now is Woods's request to litigate a second, or "successive" post-conviction proceeding involving two claims: (1) that he is exempt from the death penalty because he is mentally retarded, and (2) that his first state post-conviction proceeding was unfair because he had a dispute with his attorneys about strategy. Because we conclude Woods has not met the threshold showing required on either claim, we deny authorization for any further successive post-conviction proceedings. A date for execution of the sentence will be set by separate order.

Background

On April 7, 1984, in Garrett, Indiana, Woods, along with Greg Sloan and Pat Sweet, devised a plan to steal Juan Placencia's television. Placencia, age 77, was an acquaintance of Woods and his mother. Woods, Sloan and Sweet went to Placencia's home. Woods was armed with a knife, but assured Sloan and Sweet that he intended only to scare Placencia with it. While Sweet stayed in the yard, Woods and Sloan approached the apartment and rang the doorbell. When Placencia opened the door, Woods immediately jumped in and stabbed him several times with the knife. Placencia fell back into a chair, directed the intruders to his money, and began asking for help. Woods took $130 from Placencia's wallet, then stabbed Placencia again repeatedly—twenty-one times to the face, neck, and torso. An autopsy showed Placencia died from three stabs wounds to the heart and one through the skull to the brain. Woods and Sloan left Placencia's apartment with the cash Woods had taken and a television they later sold for $20. They also washed their clothes and threw the knife and other incriminating items in a creek.

Woods was charged with murder and robbery. See Ind.Code § 35-42-1-1(1) (murder); § 35-42-5-1 (robbery). The State sought the death penalty, alleging one aggravating circumstance that rendered Woods eligible for a death sentence: Woods had committed "an intentional murder in the commission of a robbery." Ind. Code § 35-50-2-9(b)(1). Venue was transferred from DeKalb County to Boone County, and the case was tried in the Boone Superior Court.

The jury found Woods guilty as charged and in the penalty phase that followed, the jury unanimously recommended the death sentence. See I.C. § 35-50-2-9(e) (providing that a jury may recommend the death penalty only if it finds the state has proved an aggravating circumstance beyond a reasonable doubt and that any mitigating circumstances are outweighed by the aggravating circumstances). The Boone Superior Court followed the jury's recommendation and sentenced Woods to death.

Courts have affirmed the convictions and death sentence at each stage of subsequent review. We affirmed the death sentence on direct appeal in Woods v. State, 547 N.E.2d 772 (Ind.1989) (addressing arguments relating to Woods's mental competence to stand trial, sufficiency of the evidence, the prosecutor's conduct, fairness of the trial, and appropriateness of the death sentence), reh'g granted, 557 N.E.2d 1325 (Ind.1990) (addressing, but rejecting, an argument concerning admission of victim impact evidence), cert. denied, 501 U.S. 1259, 111 S.Ct. 2911, 115 L.Ed.2d 1074 (1991). Woods sought collateral relief in a state trial court, but that court denied his post-conviction petition and we affirmed in Woods v. State, 701 N.E.2d 1208 (Ind.1998) (addressing arguments relating to the effective assistance of counsel), reh'g denied (1999), cert. denied, 528 U.S. 861, 120 S.Ct. 150, 145 L.Ed.2d 128 (1999). Woods then sought relief in federal courts. The United States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana denied Woods's petition for a writ of habeas corpus in Woods v. Anderson, 302 F.Supp.2d 915 (S.D.Ind.2004). The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed in Woods v. McBride, 430 F.3d 813 (2005), reh'g and reh'g en banc denied (2006), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 127 S.Ct. 391, 166 L.Ed.2d 279 (2006).

Woods has thus received the review of the convictions and death sentence to which he is entitled as a matter of right. We have jurisdiction in this post-conviction proceeding because he is sentenced to death. See Ind. Appellate Rule 4(A)(1)(a).

Indiana's Successive Post-Conviction Procedures

Before us now is Woods's request to litigate additional post-conviction claims. As indicated, Woods has already availed himself of our rule that provides a person convicted of a crime in an Indiana state court one collateral review of a conviction and sentence in a post-conviction proceeding. See Ind. Post-Conviction Rule 1. Because he has completed the review to which he is entitled as a matter of right, he needs our permission to litigate another or "successive" post-conviction claim. We permit such a proceeding to go forward only "if the petitioner establishes a reasonable possibility that the petitioner is entitled to post-conviction relief." P-C.R. 1 § 12(b). In deciding whether Woods has made the required showing, we consider the applicable law, the successive post-conviction papers,¹ materials from his prior appeals and post-conviction proceedings, including the record, briefs and court decisions, and any other material we deem relevant. See id. If we authorize the proceeding to go forward, Woods would be entitled to counsel at public expense and the case would return to the trial court for further proceedings in accordance with Post-Conviction Rule 1. See id. § 12(c).

The Claims

1. Woods has not shown a reasonable possibility that he is mentally retarded. Woods claims (a) he is exempt from execution under the state and federal constitutions² because he is mentally retarded as discussed in Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304, 122 S.Ct. 2242, 153 L.Ed.2d 335 (2002), and interpreted by this Court in Pruitt v. State, 834 N.E.2d 90, 103-110 (Ind.2005); or (b) he at least should be allowed to hire experts and litigate whether he is mentally retarded.

In Atkins, the United States Supreme Court declared that mentally retarded persons are regarded as less culpable because of their diminished mental capacities, identified a "national consensus" against executing mentally retarded persons, and held that execution of mentally retarded persons is an "excessive sanction" that violates the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The descriptions of mental retardation cited in Atkins have two components; the person must have: (1) significantly subaverage intellectual functioning, and (2) limitations in adaptive skills, both manifesting before the person reaches age eighteen. 536 U.S. at 308 n. 3, 122 S.Ct. at 2249 (citing descriptions of mental retardation from the American Association of Mental Retardation and the American Psychiatric Association). Under these descriptions, a person is considered to meet the subaverage intellectual functioning component if the person's full-scale IQ test score is two standard deviations below the mean; i.e., an IQ between 70 and 75 or lower. 536 U.S. at 309 n. 5, 122 S.Ct. at 2245; accord Williams v. State, 793 N.E.2d 1019, 1028 (Ind.2003).

Indiana enacted legislation prohibiting execution of mentally retarded persons before Atkins was decided.³ Our statute provides that a "mentally retarded individual" is an individual who, before age 22, "manifests (1) significantly subaverage intellectual functioning; and (2) substantial impairment of adaptive behavior . . . documented in a court ordered evaluative report." Ind.Code § 35-36-9-2. Although not identical to either description cited in Atkins, Indiana's statute similarly requires proof that the person meets both the intellectual and behavior components. We have said that IQ tests are not conclusive on the question of whether an individual meets the subaverage intellectual functioning component, and that courts may consider IQ scores together with other evidence of the person's mental capacity. Pruitt, 834 N.E.2d at 106. Nonetheless, IQ scores may be such that they show the person does not meet the intellectual component of mental retardation. See, e.g., Williams, 793 N.E.2d at 1028.

Woods has been the subject of a substantial amount of examination and testing; the record already contains extensive documentation about his mental status. Woods was evaluated several times by educational and mental health professionals before he committed the murder. (See, e.g., PC Record, Def's Exh. E, a separate volume of the record summarizing much of this information.) He has retained at least three mental health experts to examine him at trial (Neil Shamberg, Ph.D) and in his first state post-conviction proceeding (Jeffrey Smalldon, Ph.D, and Linda Wetzel, Ph.D). At least three other psychological reports in the record address Woods's intellectual functioning. Most recently, Woods submitted a letter from Dr. Denis Keyes, Ph.D. ([Successive] Post-Conv. Pet., unlabeled attachment, letter dated December 26, 2006.) Despite considerable resources already having been spent to investigate Woods's mental status, Woods is not identified as mentally retarded in any of these sources or by his own experts.

Having reviewed the documentation cited by the parties, we conclude the record does not establish a reasonable possibility that Woods's intellectual functioning puts him in the class of persons who are considered mentally retarded. Woods was born in 1964. In April 1977, at age 12, Woods's IQ was scored as 84 based on results of the California Test of Mental Maturity (CTMM). (PC Record p. 1272,...