Truesdale v. Moore

• Decision Date: 29 April 1998
• Docket Number: No. 97-24,97-24
• Citation: 142 F.3d 749
• Parties: Louis Joe TRUESDALE, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Michael B. MOORE, Commissioner, South Carolina Department of Corrections; Charles M. Condon, Attorney General, State of South Carolina, Respondents-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

Page 749

142 F.3d 749

Louis Joe TRUESDALE, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Michael B. MOORE, Commissioner, South Carolina Department of

Corrections; Charles M. Condon, Attorney General,

State of South Carolina, Respondents-Appellees.

No. 97-24.

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

Argued March 2, 1998.

Decided April 29, 1998.

ARGUED: Mark Oliver Denehy, Adler, Pollock & Sheehan, Inc., Providence, RI; John Henry Blume, III, Columbia, SC, for Appellant. Donald John Zelenka, Asst. Deputy Atty. Gen., Columbia, SC, for Appellees. ON BRIEF: Joseph Avanzato, Adler, Pollock & Sheehan, Inc., Providence, RI; Keir M. Weyble, Columbia, SC, for Appellant. Charles M. Condon, Atty. Gen., John W. McIntosh, Deputy Atty. Gen., Columbia, SC, for Appellees.

Before WILKINSON, Chief Judge, and WILLIAMS and MICHAEL, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by published opinion. Chief Judge WILKINSON wrote the opinion, in which Judge WILLIAMS and Judge MICHAEL joined.

OPINION

WILKINSON, Chief Judge:

Louis Joe Truesdale was sentenced to death for the murder of Rebecca Eudy. After exhausting state challenges to the third death sentence imposed by the state courts, he petitioned the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. The district court denied the petition, and we now affirm the judgment.

I.

On Saturday, April 5, 1980, Rebecca Eudy's car was found, abandoned, with a pool of blood on the passenger's seat and floor. Sandra Marshall, the friend with whom Eudy had spent the evening of Friday, April 4, told police that she had seen a man in an army field jacket lurking around the parking lot where she and Eudy parted for the evening. She also told the police that Eudy drove erratically out of the parking lot--Eudy did not turn on her lights, and she went to the wrong exit. Marshall pulled over to wait for her friend. As Eudy passed, Eudy remained expressionless and did not wave or smile as she ordinarily did. The police learned from another witness, Roy Curry, that a man in an army jacket had been lurking around another parking lot earlier that evening before driving off in a car registered to Truesdale. The police picked Truesdale up on the afternoon of April 5, informed him of his rights, and took him to the police station for questioning.

Truesdale was again advised of his rights at the station. He said he understood them and proceeded to answer questions. He claimed that he had been fishing Friday afternoon and playing pool with friends until 1:00 Saturday morning. The police began investigating his story. Although not satisfied with his alibi, they told Truesdale he was free to leave around midnight on April 5. Truesdale chose to stay with the police and accompanied them to track down the people with whom he said he had played pool. Truesdale fell asleep in the car, and when he awoke he told the police he "hadn't killed any girl." According to the police, at this time they were not yet certain Eudy had been murdered, and no one had suggested to Truesdale that anyone had been killed. Their suspicions were further aroused when one of the people with whom Truesdale claimed to have played pool could not satisfactorily corroborate Truesdale's story.

Around 2:30 a.m. on Sunday, April 6, the police and Truesdale returned to the Sheriff's Department. Truesdale said he wanted to go home. The police told him he was free to leave. Nevertheless, Truesdale continued to speak with the police, eventually telling them to go to his mother's house, where they would find a bloody pair of jeans and an army field jacket. After the police retrieved the bloody clothes and Truesdale again waived his Miranda rights, Truesdale confessed that he had kidnapped Eudy and had sexual intercourse with her. He insisted that he had himself been kidnapped and forced to commit these acts at gunpoint by an unidentified third person, who shot and killed Eudy. He then took the police to the field where Eudy's body was located. At this point Truesdale was arrested for kidnapping, criminal sexual conduct in the first degree, and murder. On April 8, 1980, Truesdale signed a statement prepared for him by the police reiterating his confession to kidnapping and forcible sexual intercourse with Eudy and implicating the unidentified third person in Eudy's murder.

Truesdale was tried for kidnapping, criminal sexual conduct, and murder in December 1980. Truesdale initially pled not guilty, but after the jury was selected he changed his plea to guilty. The jury recommended a sentence of death on the murder charge. The sentence was vacated on direct appeal and a new trial ordered. State v. Truesdale, 278 S.C. 368, 296 S.E.2d 528 (1982). At this second trial, which took place in 1983, Truesdale again pled not guilty to all charges. The State supplemented its evidence from the 1980 trial with ballistics evidence linking the bullets that killed Eudy to a gun found outside Truesdale's mother's house. Truesdale's counsel presented no evidence in his defense. The jury found Truesdale guilty of murder, criminal sexual conduct in the first degree, and kidnapping. At the sentencing phase, the State introduced two photos of Eudy's lifeless body as evidence of aggravation. Truesdale unsuccessfully sought to introduce evidence that showed his ability to adapt to prison life. After deliberating for fifteen minutes, the jury recommended that Truesdale be sentenced to death. ¹

The South Carolina Supreme Court affirmed the convictions and sentence. State v. Truesdale, 285 S.C. 13, 328 S.E.2d 53 (1984). And Truesdale's petition for a writ of certiorari to the United States Supreme Court was unsuccessful. Truesdale v. South Carolina, 471 U.S. 1009, 105 S.Ct. 1878, 85 L.Ed.2d 170 (1985). After the South Carolina courts denied his application for postconviction relief (PCR), Truesdale v. Aiken, 289 S.C. 488, 347 S.E.2d 101 (1986), however, the United States Supreme Court granted Truesdale's petition for a writ of certiorari and vacated his death sentence on grounds that Skipper v. South Carolina, 476 U.S. 1, 106 S.Ct. 1669, 90 L.Ed.2d 1 (1986), entitled him to introduce evidence of his adaptability to prison life. Truesdale v. Aiken, 480 U.S. 527, 107 S.Ct. 1394, 94 L.Ed.2d 539 (1987).

Truesdale's resentencing took place in 1987. The State again presented evidence adduced during the guilt phase of the 1983 trial, supplemented with forensic evidence to establish that Eudy had been raped and that Truesdale could have been the rapist. The State again introduced a photograph of Eudy's body as evidence of aggravation. Truesdale countered with testimony from family and friends, teachers, employers, coworkers, and prison officials. After twelve hours of deliberation, the jury again recommended a death sentence. The South Carolina Supreme Court affirmed the death sentence. State v. Truesdale, 301 S.C. 546, 393 S.E.2d 168 (1990). And Truesdale's certiorari petition to the United States Supreme Court was denied. Truesdale v. South Carolina, 498 U.S. 1074, 111 S.Ct. 800, 112 L.Ed.2d 861 (1991).

On state postconviction review in 1993, Truesdale introduced several pieces of new evidence about the circumstances of the crimes of which he stood convicted. In addition, Truesdale raised numerous legal claims, many of which were dismissed as successive because not raised at the 1985 PCR proceeding or barred because not raised on direct appeal. The remaining claims, including the contention that his 1987 resentencing counsel was ineffective, were denied on the merits. His petition for a writ of certiorari to the South Carolina Supreme Court was denied. And the United States Supreme Court denied Truesdale's petition for a writ of certiorari. Truesdale v. Moore, --- U.S. ----, 117 S.Ct. 527, 136 L.Ed.2d 413 (1996).

Truesdale's federal habeas petition was filed on September 13, 1996. The district court referred the matter to a magistrate judge. After denying Truesdale's request for an evidentiary hearing, the magistrate judge granted the State's motion for summary judgment. The district court accepted the magistrate judge's report and recommendation in full and dismissed Truesdale's petition. Truesdale now appeals.

II.

Truesdale claims he received constitutionally ineffective assistance of counsel at his 1987 resentencing proceeding. He charges counsel with a variety of errors, which can be grouped into two general categories: (1) the failure to present evidence either in mitigation or that would rebut the State's case on the aggravating factors of kidnapping and sexual assault; and (2) the failure to raise the claim that African Americans were underrepresented in the jury pool in violation of the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments. Neither of these claims provides a basis for habeas relief. ²

A.

At his 1993 state PCR proceeding Truesdale identified the rebuttal and mitigating evidence he claims counsel should have raised in 1987. He presented the testimony of numerous witnesses, including family, friends, acquaintances, attorneys, and experts. These witnesses testified to, among other things, his claimed prior romantic relationship with Eudy, the alleged inconclusiveness of the forensic evidence that he raped Eudy or that he and she had any sexual relations at all, the fact that bloody fingerprints on Eudy's car did not match Truesdale's, and the claim that Truesdale suffered from organic brain dysfunction. Truesdale contends it was unreasonable for his resentencing counsel not to uncover and present this evidence to the jury to counter the State's case in aggravation. For example, Truesdale states that evidence of romantic involvement between Eudy and himself suggests that Eudy went with him willingly (instead of being kidnapped) and that any sexual relations between him and Eudy were consensual (instead of rape). And he claims that evidence of the mysterious bloody fingerprints would have corroborated his story that an armed third person...