Hayes v. Woodford
| Decision Date | 26 August 2002 |
| Docket Number | No. 99-99030.,99-99030. |
| Citation | 301 F.3d 1054 |
| Parties | Blufford HAYES, Jr., Petitioner-Appellant, v. Jeanne WOODFORD, Respondent-Appellee. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit |
David A. Senior, McBreen & Senior, Los Angeles, California, argued the cause for the petitioner-appellant; Kathleen T. Saenz, McBreen & Senior, Los Angeles, CA, was on the briefs.
Mathew Chan, Deputy Attorney General, Sacramento, California, argued the cause for the respondent-appellee; Bill Lockyer, Attorney General, Robert Anderson, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Jo Graves, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Arnold O. Overoye, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Ward A. Campbell, Supervising Deputy Attorney General, and Carlos A. Martinez, Supervising Deputy Attorney General, were on the brief.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California; David F. Levi, District Judge, Presiding. D.C. No. CV-92-00603-GGH P.
Before: O'SCANNLAIN, RYMER, and THOMAS, Circuit Judges.
Opinion by Judge O'SCANNLAIN; Partial Concurrence and Partial Dissent by Judge THOMAS.
In this death penalty habeas case, we must decide whether counsel rendered ineffective assistance by failing to present potentially mitigating evidence at the trial's penalty phase. We also consider numerous other claims, including whether the prosecution's failure to reveal evidence that could have been used to impeach a witness had a material effect on the jury's verdict.
On the afternoon of January 1, 1980, Blufford Hayes Jr.'s sister, Barbara Lord returned to her room at the Rice Motel in Stockton, California and found the resident hotel manager, Vinod "Pete" Patel, lying dead on the floor in front of the bathroom, his hands and feet bound by coat hanger wire.
When Lord had left Room 15 that morning, Hayes, who was staying with her, was the only person in it; he was wearing a dark blue three-piece suit and a light blue, long-sleeved shirt. Later, at 9:30 a.m., Bearla Mae Wyatt, another motel resident, went to the motel office to request fresh towels. In the office, she saw Hayes complaining to Patel about a problem with the bathroom sink in Room 15.1 Patel did not understand Hayes's explanation and invited Hayes to demonstrate what he meant in Patel's own living quarters, which adjoined the office. Because Patel was occupied, Wyatt left; when she returned 10-15 minutes later, Hayes and Patel were coming out of Patel's bathroom area. Patel told Hayes that he would come to Room 15 to check the sink.
Soon thereafter, Michele Gebert, who lived at the Rice Motel with Andrew "A.J." James, was awakened by knocking at her door. Upon opening it, she found Hayes, wearing a dark blue suit coat and matching pants, but no shirt or vest. There were wet spots on the suit coat, and his hands were "messed up." He seemed to be nervous and told Gebert that he wanted James to give him a ride. His speech was coherent, and he did not appear to be under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Gebert awakened James, who went into the bathroom to get ready. While Hayes waited, he told Gebert about having just "ripped the office off," but he was not worried about Patel reporting the theft because Patel "would not say anything to anybody." He kept yelling at James to "hurry up." Hayes then left with James.
About thirty minutes after having left the motel office and seeing Patel, Wyatt looked out the window of her room and saw Hayes carrying a box across the motel parking lot to a car. James was standing against the car as defendant walked toward it. When James got into his car with Hayes, he saw two boxes of cigarette cartons in the backseat. Hayes said he had to go to his mother's house and urged James to "hurry up." James observed dark stains on Hayes's suit jacket and that the back of his right hand was swollen, "like he had been in a scuffle." When James asked what happened, Hayes replied that he had "offed" Patel because Patel had awakened him and "swung on [Hayes]" so he "just did the do with him." He said that he had torn up the motel office looking for money and had found 22 or 23 $1 bills; James later saw about that many $1 bills in Hayes's possession when he gave James $3 for gas. Hayes asked James if he knew where to get rid of the cigarettes, but James said he did not. James kept one carton for himself, however.
James drove Hayes to his mother's house, helped unload the cigarettes, and then drove straight back to the motel, where he noticed that the door of the motel office was open. He left in the car with Gebert, and they drove around discussing what to do before they decided to call the police.
When officers arrived at about 1:00 p.m., they found in Room 15: a light blue, long-sleeved shirt and a dark blue vest, both stained with blood; a leather shoulder pouch containing an empty sheath for a fixed-blade knife;2 and two items, a wine bottle and a paper bag, that bore Hayes's fingerprints. The walls and floor of the bathroom were spattered with blood. The motel office and adjoining manager's living quarters had been ransacked — drawers were pulled out, mattresses had been removed from beds, a lamp was on its side, and various items were strewn about. The cash drawer was empty, and the normal stock of cigarettes was gone. A hunting knife found in the living quarters fit the sheath found in the shoulder pouch in Room 15.
Hayes's and Patel's blood type are identical; the blood on the dark blue vest, light blue shirt, and hunting knife were consistent with this blood type. Patel received at least 22 cutting and stabbing wounds, including three that penetrated his heart and three his lungs. The wounds were caused by a fairly heavy instrument with one sharp and one square edge, which was consistent with the hunting knife found in the manager's living quarters. The coat hanger bindings on Patel's hands and feet did not leave marks on his body, possibly indicating that Patel had not greatly resisted the binding and may have been unconscious at the time. The wounds incapacitated Patel and probably rendered him unconscious in one to two minutes, with death likely ensuing in five to fifteen minutes.
When Sergeant Bob Davis Wingo arrested Hayes three weeks later in Oregon, Hayes told him that he had left his sister's room around 3:00 a.m. the morning of the murder and had not returned. At trial, Hayes took the stand in his own defense and told a different story. He testified as to his history of drug abuse,3 and he stated that he had been awake for the entire three days before the murder. He had injected himself with heroin at 9:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m. of December 31 and 3:00 a.m. January 1, the morning of the murder. He had also injected Ritalin around midnight and was drinking brandy, but he testified that he was not going through withdrawal (because he had built up a tolerance) and was feeling "normal" at the time of the murder.
According to Hayes, after he had reported the leaky sink to Patel, he went to the store to purchase more wine, returned to Room 15, and fell asleep. He was awakened when someone slapped his face; Hayes struck back and opened his eyes to find Patel standing over him with a knife. He reached for Patel, who swung the knife and cut Hayes across his hand. Hayes grabbed Patel and they wrestled; Hayes twisted Patel's arm until he dropped the knife. Hayes picked up the knife, and then Patel reached for a butcher knife that was on a dresser. Fearful, Hayes ran over and starting hitting and stabbing him. Patel hit him on the left side of his body and in his eye,4 prompting Hayes to back up and allowing Patel to retreat into the bathroom. Then, Hayes heard a loud noise from the bathroom; Patel emerged and fell to the floor. Hayes picked up the butcher knife and put it and a bottle of wine in a dresser drawer and uprighted a knocked over chair. Since Patel was still alive, Hayes bound his hands and feet with coat hangers. Hayes removed his shirt and then went to Gebert's and James's room. Hayes testified that after he told James about his struggle with Patel, it was James who went to the manager's office and stole the cigarettes and money. He said that he and James each carried two boxes of cigarettes to the car and then left for his mother's house.
The evidence, however, did not support Hayes's version of events — particularly the condition of Room 15. Almost all of the blood was found in the bathroom, which is inconsistent with Hayes's testimony that the stabbing occurred in the living area of the room. Also, there were no signs of struggle in the living area, but there were such signs in the bathroom, e.g., shower door out of its frame, toppled trash container. As explanation, Hayes testified that he had tidied up the living area before binding Patel's hands and feet. Furthermore, Hayes is 6'1", 185 pounds, Patel was 5'6", with a medium build, which made it less likely that he would purposefully risk physical confrontation with Hayes. Indeed, Patel had previously called the police regarding Hayes's trespass rather then confront him. See supra n. 1. Nor was there any reason for Patel to attack Hayes in such a manner. Finally, Wyatt testified that she saw James carrying only a sweater or jacket to the car — not boxes of cigarettes, as Hayes claimed.
On rebuttal, the prosecution called James Cross, who, on January 5, 1980, had an encounter with Hayes at the Flamingo Motel in Stockton, California similar to Patel's encounter with Hayes. At 2:30 a.m., Cross heard a thumping noise coming from the room above, so he yelled for them to quiet down. The noise continued, so he went upstairs. Hayes met him in the upstairs hallway and said, "You're going to apologize to my lady." Hayes pushed Cross into his room, where Cross saw a...
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