Beck v. Angelone

• Citation: 261 F.3d 377
• Decision Date: 08 May 2001
• Docket Number: No. 00-13,00-13
• Parties: (4th Cir. 2001) CHRISTOPHER JAMES BECK, Petitioner-Appellant, v. RONALD ANGELONE, Director of the Virginia Department of Corrections, Respondent-Appellee. Argued:
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

Page 377

261 F.3d 377 (4th Cir. 2001)

CHRISTOPHER JAMES BECK, Petitioner-Appellant, v. RONALD ANGELONE, Director of the Virginia Department of Corrections, Respondent-Appellee.

No. 00-13

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

Argued: May 8, 2001

Decided: July 23, 2001

Corrected August 17, 2001

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, at Norfolk. Jerome B. Friedman, District Judge.

(CA-99-855-2)

[Copyrighted Material Omitted]

[Copyrighted Material Omitted] COUNSEL ARGUED: Douglas Fredericks, Norfolk, Virginia, for Appellant. Robert Quentin Harris, Assistant Attorney General, OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Robert Edward Lee, Jr., VIRGINIA CAPITAL REPRESENTATION RESOURCE CENTER, Charlottesville, Virginia, for Appellant. Mark L. Earley, Attorney General of Virginia, OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellee.

Before WIDENER and MOTZ, Circuit Judges, and HAMILTON, Senior Circuit Judge.

Dismissed by published opinion. Senior Judge Hamilton wrote the opinion, in which Judge Widener and Judge Motz joined.

OPINION

HAMILTON, Senior Circuit Judge:

On May 15, 1996, in the Circuit Court for Arlington County, Virginia, Christopher James Beck (Beck) pled guilty to four counts of capital murder, Va. Code Ann. S 18.2-31, one count of rape, id. S 18.2-61, three counts of robbery, id. S 18.2-58, one count of burglary, id. S 18.2-90, and seven offenses involving the use of a firearm, id. S 18.2-53.1.¹ Following a sentencing hearing in which the state trial court sat as trier of fact, the state trial court sentenced Beck to death on the capital murder counts. After exhausting his state remedies, Beck filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, 28 U.S.C. S 2254,² which the districtcourt dismissed.³ Beck seeks a certificate of appealability granting permission to appeal the district court's order dismissing his petition for writ of habeas corpus. Because Beck has failed to make a substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right, 28 U.S.C. S 2253(c)(2), we deny his application for a certificate of appealability and dismiss the appeal.

I

As found by the Virginia Supreme Court on direct appeal, the facts of this case are as follows:

Beck told police that several days before the murders he formulated a plan to kill [William] Miller, Beck's former employer. On Monday, June 5, 1995, Beck traveled by bus from his home in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Washington, D.C., arriving there at 6 p.m. The following morning Beck went to Arlington to the house shared by [Florence Marie] Marks, Miller, and [David Stuart] Kaplan. He arrived at the house at 11 a.m., "walked around the perimeter," and then broke in through a basement window under the porch.

Wrapping a sledge hammer he found in the basement with a cloth to "muffle the sound," he used the sledge hammer to batter a hole in a door to the first floor of the house. Beck then went to Miller's apartment and chose a .22 caliber semi-automatic pistol from several loaded guns Miller kept in the house; he rejected another larger caliber weapon because its report would be too loud. After loading a spare magazine for the pistol, Beck went to the basement and waited for Miller to return home. As Beck waited he became "nervous," but finally concluded, "I guess I'll go through [with] it."

Later that afternoon, Beck heard the sound of someone entering the basement. Beck raised the pistol to"arm level," and, as the door opened, he closed his eyes and fired two shots. When Beck opened his eyes, he saw Marks on the basement floor. Beck said, "you stupid bitch, why did you have to come home?" In an attempt to make it appear that Marks had been raped and robbed, Beck cut off most of her clothes and stabbed her in the right buttock. He threw a condom he had found in the washer onto the floor and, in a further effort to make it appear that Marks had been sexually assaulted, he kicked her and penetrated her vagina with a hammer. Beck reasoned that sexual assault evidence would lead the police to believe that the crime had been committed by a stranger and not by a family member. Beck then went back upstairs to the first floor.

About one hour later, Miller returned home. Beck was on the stairs leading to the second floor and hid behind the bannister. Miller remained downstairs for a while and then started up the stairs. Beck shot Miller in the face as he mounted the stairs. Miller fell down the stairs as Beck continued to shoot him, firing a total of five rounds at him. Beck put Miller's body in Kaplan's apartment and threw a blanket over the body, "because I got sick and tired looking" at it.

Later that evening, but while it was still light outside, Kaplan returned home to find Miller's body lying in his room, Beck with a gun in his hand, and blood "all over." As Kaplan stared at the scene, Beck shot Kaplan in the back of the head. Beck fired "several times and [Kaplan] just wouldn't die." As Kaplan lay on the floor, he talked to Beck, saying, "hello, I'm awake, hello." Beck fired what he believed was a full magazine at Kaplan and then stabbed him in the head. Beck stated that he "just wanted[Kaplan] to stop having the pain." After he was stabbed, Kaplan appeared to have a "seizure" and then died.

Beck went back through the house taking several guns and two bicycles. He also took cash from each of the victims. He took the keys to Miller's car, changed his clothes, loaded the car with the guns and bicycles, and drove to Washington, D.C., to see a girl. As he left the house, Beck waved to the next door neighbor.

After a parking mishap in the District of Columbia in which Beck parked the car but neglected to engage the parking brake, and the car rolled into another vehicle, Beck drove home to Pennsylvania. Once there he hid the guns and "stashed" the bicycles with a friend. He "cleaned the car of all prints[,] wiped it all down," and abandoned it after covering the license plates.

Beck was initially interviewed by Arlington County Police officers at his mother's home in Philadelphia. Beck at first claimed to have been transporting bicycles from Tennessee at the time of the murders. When a friend failed to corroborate Beck's alibi, Beck admitted to police that he had killed Marks, Miller and Kaplan. After his arrest, Beck was returned to Arlington, where he gave a full statement concerning the murders to police. During his statement to the police, Beck was given a chance to say something for himself; he said:

That ah I know what is like to kill somebody, it[']s one of the worst feelings you can live with that I don't know that it is pretty painful that is one of those things that you can't go to sleep and I'm so sorry that I did, I'm so sorry that I had all that anger built up, I should had went to a counselor or something could have prevented it. I don't know, I'm sorry but I know this is going to be pretty hard for people to believe what happened.

In addition to giving that statement, Beck assisted the police in the recovery of the stolen car, guns, and bicycles.

* * *

Autopsies of the three victims revealed that each had suffered multiple gunshot wounds to the head which had resulted in rapid, if not immediate death. Dr. Frances Patricia Field, an assistant chief medical examiner, testified that Marks had sustained two gunshot wounds to the head. Dr. Field concluded that either of these gunshot wounds could have been lethal. In addition, the autopsy revealed that Marks had sustained multiple bruises on her body, a stab wound in the right buttock, and "hyperemia or redness in the left back part of the entrance to the vagina."

Miller's autopsy revealed bruises and abrasions of the lower extremities and several gunshot wounds to the face. Dr. Field concluded that the bullet which entered the left side of the head would have caused death "relatively quick[ly] if not instantaneously."

Kaplan's autopsy revealed the presence of seven gunshot wounds. Kaplan had sustained wounds to the left side of the head, the left and right sides of the face, the left side of the chin, the top and right side of the nose, and the left upper chest. In the medical examiner's opinion, only the bullets which entered the chest and the head below the ear would have been immediately or rapidly fatal. Dr. Field was unable to determine the order in which the wounds had been inflicted.

At the time the plea was taken, in addition to referring the trial court to Beck's statements, the Commonwealth made the proffer that a used condom found in the house was analyzed and that genetic material of both Marks and Beck was found. This evidence was in direct conflict with Beck's statement concerning the rape of Marks.

Beck v. Commonwealth, 484 S.E.2d 898, 901-02 (Va. 1997).

On August 21, 1995, an Arlington County grand jury charged Beck, in separate indictments, with the following offenses: (1) the capital murder of William Miller (Miller) in the commission of a robbery while armed with a deadly weapon, Va. Code Ann.S 18.2-31(4); (2) the capital murder of David Stuart Kaplan (Kaplan) in the commission of a robbery while armed with a deadly weapon, id.; (3) the capital murder of Florence Marie Marks (Marks), Miller, and Kaplan as part of a single act or transaction, id.S 18.2-31(7); (4) the robbery of Marks, id. S 18.2-58; (5) the robbery of Miller, id.; (6) the robbery of Kaplan, id.; (7) the burglary of the dwelling of Marks, Miller, and Kaplan, id. S 18.2-90; (8) use of a firearm during the commission of the robbery of Marks, id. S 18.2-53.1; (9) use of a firearm during the commission of the murder of Marks, id.; (10) use of a firearm during the commission of the robbery of Miller, id.; (11) use of a firearm during the commission of the murder of Miller, id.; (12) use of a firearm during the commission of the robbery...