Walton v. Angelone
| Decision Date | 27 February 2003 |
| Docket Number | No. 02-18.,02-18. |
| Citation | 321 F.3d 442 |
| Parties | Percy Levar WALTON, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Ronald J. ANGELONE, Respondent-Appellee. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit |
ARGUED: Michelle Jill Brace, Virginia Capital Representation Resource Center, Charlottesville, Virginia, for Appellant. Robert Quentin Harris, Assistant Attorney General, Office of the Attorney General, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Jennifer L. Givens, Virginia Capital Representation Resource Center, Charlottesville, Virginia, for Appellant. Jerry W. Kilgore, Attorney General, Office of the Attorney General, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellee.
Before WILKINS, Chief Judge, MOTZ, Circuit Judge, and HAMILTON, Senior Circuit Judge.
Dismissed by published opinion. Senior Judge HAMILTON wrote the opinion, in which Chief Judge WILKINS and Judge DIANA GRIBBON MOTZ joined.
On October 7, 1997, in the Circuit Court for the City of Danville, Virginia, Percy Levar Walton pled guilty to four counts of capital murder, Va.Code Ann. § 18.2-31, three counts of robbery, id. § 18.2-58, one count of burglary, id. § 18.2-90, and six counts of using a firearm in the commission of a felony, id. § 18.2-53.1. Following a sentencing hearing in which the state trial court sat as the trier of fact, the state trial court sentenced Walton to death on three of the capital murder counts.1 After exhausting his state remedies, Walton filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, 28 U.S.C. § 2254,2 which, after the case was transferred to the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia, the district court dismissed. Walton seeks a certificate of appealability granting permission to appeal the district court's order dismissing his petition for writ of habeas corpus. Because Walton has failed to make a substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right, 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(2), we deny his application for a certificate of appealability and dismiss the appeal.
As found by the Virginia Supreme Court on direct appeal, the facts of this case are as follows:
On November 16, 1996, Barbara K. Case, who was in Mississippi, made a telephone call to her parents, Elizabeth and Jessie Kendrick, who resided in Danville. Mrs. Case informed her parents during this telephone conversation that she planned to visit them during the approaching Thanksgiving holiday season. Mr. and Mrs. Kendrick agreed to meet their daughter at an airport in Greensboro, North Carolina, on November 25, 1996, three days before Thanksgiving, and return to Danville for the holidays. Mrs. Case made several attempts to reach her parents by telephone between November 16 and 25, 1996, but no one answered the telephone. Mrs. Case did not consider her parents' failure to answer the telephone unusual because her parents "traveled a lot."
When Mrs. Case arrived at the airport in Greensboro on November 25, 1996, her parents failed to meet her. She waited several hours, and then she became alarmed and disturbed. A woman at the airport gave Mrs. Case a ride to Danville.
When Mrs. Case arrived at her parents' home in Danville, their townhouse was dark, and their car was missing. Mrs. Case then went to her aunt's home, which is across the street from her parents' townhouse. Mrs. Case and her aunt went to the Kendricks' residence, but no one answered the door.
Mrs. Case spent the night of November 25, 1996, with her aunt, and she contacted the Danville Police Department the next morning. Several police officers arrived at Mr. and Mrs. Kendricks' townhouse and eventually entered the residence. The police officers found the body of Mr. Kendrick, lying face down on a living room floor. Mr. Kendrick's hands were "clasped, and above his head, clinched together." The police found the body of Mrs. Kendrick on the floor in the den. A portion of her body was covered with a sheet, and the upper portion of her body was wrapped in a "pinkish-orange material." Mrs. Kendrick's shirt had "been rolled up, and then taped" and was loosely tied around her neck with a slipknot. She had on undergarments below her waist, her pants had been cut from her body, and her body had been dragged across the floor.
Mr. Kendrick, who was 80 years old at the time of his murder, had been shot in the top of the head at close range. He suffered a very large explosive type of wound where the bullet entered his head. A "star-shaped appearance" and the presence of soot on his head indicated that a muzzle of a gun was pressed tightly against the top of Mr. Kendrick's head when the gun was discharged and that gases emitted from the muzzle caused the skin around the entry point to "tear and rip." Mr. Kendrick also suffered superficial non-lethal cuts on the front of his neck and the palmar side of his left wrist.
Mrs. Kendrick, who was 81 years old at the time of her death, also suffered a tight contact gunshot wound to the top of her head. Her shirt, which was fashioned into a slipknot and tied around her neck, did not cause or contribute to her death.
The Kendricks were last seen alive on November 19, 1996, when Mrs. Kendrick, accompanied by her husband, went to a hospital in Danville. The police officers found the Kendricks' car a short distance behind their townhouse.
* * *
On November 28, 1996, Thanksgiving Day, Roxanne Moore, who was in Greensboro, North Carolina, placed a telephone call to the Danville Police Department. Ms. Moore informed the police personnel that her brother, Archie Moore, who lived at the Cabin Lake Apartment Complex in Danville, was supposed to have met her at an airport in Greensboro on November 27, 1996, but he failed to appear. Ms. Moore informed the police personnel that neither she nor her parents in North Carolina were able to contact Archie Moore by telephone at his Danville apartment. Danville police officers entered Archie Moore's apartment around 8:00 a.m. on November 28. While searching the apartment, they found Archie Moore's body in a closet behind a suitcase. A plastic bag had been placed over Mr. Moore's head, and his feet were "propped up" against the closet wall. There was a strong odor of cologne in the closet and on the victim's body. The cause of Mr. Moore's death was a gunshot wound to his head, immediately above his left eye. A bullet was found on the floor in his apartment.
Shortly after Moore's body was discovered, two witnesses informed the Danville Police Department that they had recently observed Walton driving Moore's Ford Mustang automobile. Other witnesses had also observed Walton walking on a sidewalk from the area near Mr. and Mrs. Kendricks' townhouse toward Cabin Lake on several occasions between November 19 and November 26, 1996.
Subsequently, the police found Moore's Mustang, "parked right across the street from [Walton's] house." Walton lived in a condominium with his parents a short distance from Moore's apartment and the Kendricks' townhouse.
Lieutenant Kenneth D. Fitzgerald, a Danville police detective, went to Walton's home, spoke with Walton, and asked him if he knew Moore. Walton denied that he knew Moore, and he denied "ever [having] been in Archie Moore's car." Walton agreed to go to the police department for further questioning. Detective Fitzgerald left Walton's home and later, Walton, accompanied by his father, went to the police department.
The police obtained a search warrant for Walton's residence. During a search of Walton's bedroom, police personnel found a silver metal box inside one of Walton's boots. The box contained a diploma and an "ATM card," both bearing Archie Moore's name. The police also found a set of car keys; one key fit Moore's Mustang and two other keys fit locks on the doors of Moore's apartment. The police also found a ring, which contained a very distinctive letter "A," which was similar to a ring that Moore had been wearing before his death.
When the police officers searched Moore's car, they found a box containing two dozen .32-caliber bullets as well as keys that fit locks in the Kendricks' car and home. The police officers also found a plastic bag which contained a "plastic sleeve" from a wallet. Jessie Kendrick's driver's license and his "Knights of Columbus" card were inside the "plastic sleeve." Walton's fingerprints were identified on the "plastic sleeve." Walton's fingerprints were also found on numerous items at various locations in Moore's apartment and car.
When the police searched the Kendricks' car, they found a shotgun that had been stolen from the Kendricks' townhouse. Walton's fingerprint was found on the shotgun. A knife, found in a toolbox in the trunk of the Kendricks' car, contained blood which matched Mr. Kendrick's DNA.
The police officers recovered two .32-caliber bullet cartridges that had been partially submerged near the shoreline of Cabin Lake. The lake was drained, and the police officers recovered a .32-caliber pistol that Mr. Kendrick had purchased in 1970. Ballistic tests conducted on a bullet that had been removed from Mr. Kendrick's head revealed that the bullet "matched" the .32-caliber pistol recovered from the lake and was consistent with the bullets that had killed Moore and Mrs. Kendrick. The pistol contained four bullets and two spent cartridges. The lead contained in the bullets found in Moore's car, the bullets recovered from the heads of the victims, and the bullets in the revolver originated from the same manufacturing source.
While in jail awaiting trial for the capital murder charges and related offenses, Walton admitted to several inmates that "he had killed three people at Cabin Lake." Walton also described the graphic details of the murders at length to Lacy H. Johnson, with whom Walton shared a cell in the Danville City Jail.
...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Johnson v. Com.
..."that the trial court failed to hold a competency hearing after the defendant's mental competency was put in issue."2 Walton v. Angelone, 321 F.3d 442, 459 (4th Cir.2003); see also United States v. Herrera, 481 F.3d 1266, 1271 (10th Cir.2007). The defendant has the burden of showing a "`bon......
-
In re Commitment of Fisher
...671 N.W.2d 442, 447 (Iowa 2003). Competency claims can raise both substantive and procedural due process concerns. Walton v. Angelone, 321 F.3d 442, 459 (4th Cir.2003); Gilbert v. Mullin, 302 F.3d 1166, 1178 (10th Cir.2002). In Kansas v. Hendricks, the United States Supreme Court upheld the......
-
Smith v. Rock
...the lawyer's own assessment of the defendant, the evidence of the defendant's mental state, and the lawyer's legal actions. See Walton, 321 F.3d at 461 (counsel effective where he documented information concerning defendant's mental health and pursued medical evaluations that led to court-o......
-
Campbell v. Polk
...that assessment. Since Campbell has "no constitutional right to insist on the appointment of any particular expert," Walton v. Angelone, 321 F.3d 442, 464 (4th Cir.2003), he could not have replaced Dr. Rollins at trial simply because he disagreed with his opinion. Indeed, Campbell's counsel......