Kandies v. Polk, 03-9.

Citation385 F.3d 457
Decision Date24 September 2004
Docket NumberNo. 03-9.,03-9.
PartiesJeffrey Clayton KANDIES, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Marvin POLK, Warden, Central Prison, Raleigh, North Carolina, Respondent-Appellee.
CourtUnited States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (4th Circuit)

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina, N. Carlton Tilley, Jr., Chief Judge.

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ARGUED: Milton Gordon Widenhouse, Jr., Rudolf, Widenhouse & Fialko, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, for Appellant. Edwin William Welch, Special Deputy Attorney General, North Carolina Department of Justice, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Matthew Stiegler, Center for Death Penalty Litigation, Durham, North Carolina, for Appellant.

Before MICHAEL, TRAXLER, and GREGORY, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by published opinion. Judge GREGORY wrote a separate opinion and announced the judgment. Judge MICHAEL wrote an opinion concurring in the judgment. Judge TRAXLER wrote an opinion concurring in the judgment.

OPINION

GREGORY, Circuit Judge, writing separately in parts I, II, III, IV and announcing the judgment in part V:

Petitioner-appellant Jeffrey Clayton Kandies was sentenced to death after being found guilty by a North Carolina jury of the first-degree rape and first-degree murder of Natalie Lynn Osborne, the four-year-old daughter of his fiancee, Patricia Craven. Following exhaustion of his rights of review in the North Carolina courts, Kandies filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 in the United States District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina asserting fourteen grounds for relief. Pursuant to the Federal Magistrate Act, 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(B), the district court referred Kandies's habeas petition to a magistrate judge. The magistrate judge reviewed Kandies's claims and recommended that Kandies's habeas petition be denied. After Kandies objected to the magistrate judge's recommendation, the district court reviewed de novo, as required by the Federal Magistrate Act, id. § 636(b)(1), and adopted the magistrate judge's recommendation. In addition, the district court declined to issue Kandies a certificate of appealability for any of his claims. We subsequently issued Kandies a certificate of appealability for his claims that (1) his trial counsel rendered ineffective assistance during the penalty phase by failing to investigate whether he was sexually abused as a child and (2) the North Carolina Supreme Court erred by concluding that the State's use of peremptory challenges to strike prospective African American jurors was not violative of the Supreme Court's holding in Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986). For the reason's that follow, we affirm the district court's denial of Kandies's habeas petition.

I.

On Easter Monday, April 20, 1992, Kandies, who is a Caucasian American, went to the home of Patricia Craven, who was his fiancee at the time and the mother of his one-year-old son, Jeremy. At approximately 4:45 p.m., Kandies left Ms. Craven's home to go to the grocery store, which is around the same time that Ms. Craven last saw her daughter, Natalie, alive. At approximately 7 p.m., Kandies who had not returned to Ms. Craven's home, went to a small convenience store located about one-half mile from Ms. Craven's home. While inside the convenience store, Kandies complained to the clerk, Carolyn Wood, that he hurt his hand fighting with his brother. In response, Wood, who noticed that Kandies's hand was beginning to swell, suggested that Kandies have his hand examined by a medical technician that happened to be inside the store. Kandies, however, declined to have the medical technician examine his hand and immediately left the store. Thereafter, Kandies returned to Ms. Craven's home at approximately 7:30 p.m.

Upon arriving at Ms. Craven's home, Kandies was informed that Natalie could not be located. Consequently, Kandies contacted the Asheboro Police Department and reported Natalie missing. In response to Kandies's telephone call, the Asheboro Police Department conducted an extensive, but unsuccessful, search for Natalie on the evening of April 20th.1 Nonetheless, the Asheboro Police Department learned through its search and investigation that Ms. Craven and Natalie's father, Ed Osbourne, were involved in a custody dispute. Based on this information, the Asheboro Police Department began to suspect that Ms. Craven and Kandies may have falsely reported Natalie missing in an effort to prevent Ed Osbourne from gaining custody of Natalie. As a result, the Asheboro Police Department undertook efforts on April 21st, the day after Natalie was reported missing, to determine whether Ms. Craven and Kandies were hiding Natalie. As part of these efforts, the Asheboro Police Department requested Kandies's permission to search his apartment, which was located approximately ten miles from Ms. Craven's home in the town of Randleman, North Carolina. After Kandies consented to the search, the Asheboro Police Department searched Kandies's apartment and concluded that Natalie was not there.

In addition to searching Kandies's apartment, the Asheboro Police Department brought Ms. Craven and Kandies in for questioning on April 22nd. After being questioned and released by the Asheboro Police Department, Kandies returned to Ms. Craven's home, where she immediately began to question him about Natalie's disappearance. As a result, Kandies told Ms. Craven that he accidentally hit Natalie with his truck as he departed for the grocery during the early evening of April 20th. Kandies also told Ms. Craven that he panicked after hitting Natalie because he was drinking and thus decided to take Natalie to his apartment, where he would be able to clean her off and determine the extent of her injuries. Kandies further told Ms. Craven that Natalie was making gurgling noises on the way to his apartment and that her head did not look right. Lastly, Kandies told Ms. Craven that, after trying to clean Natalie up, he placed Natalie's body and her clothes in a garbage bag that he hid in a bedroom closet.

Immediately after speaking with Kandies, Ms. Craven contacted the Asheboro Police Department and described what she had been told by Kandies. The Asheboro Police Department thereafter took Kandies into custody, where, after being read his Miranda rights, he provided two separate statements detailing the events of April 20th. In addition, Kandies provided the Asheboro Police Department information about the location of Natalie's body and consented, in writing, to a second search of his apartment. Accordingly, the Asheboro Police Department searched Kandies's apartment and found Natalie's body in a plastic bag hidden in a bedroom closet under a pile of clothes and carpet pieces. The plastic bag found by the Asheboro Police Department also contained Natalie's bloody playsuit and underpants, which were both turned inside out.

After Natalie's body was recovered, Dr. Thomas Clark, a forensic pathologist, performed an autopsy, which revealed that there were blunt force traumas on Natalie's head, neck, skull, back and both sides of her body. In addition, Dr. Clark's autopsy revealed that some of the bruises on Natalie's body were small and rounded and distributed in a pattern that suggested they were caused by an adult hand. Moreover, Dr. Clark's autopsy revealed that there were injuries to Natalie's vaginal area. Specifically, Dr. Clark found that (1) both sides of Natalie's vagina, which was full of blood, were bruised, (2) blunt force trauma caused a tear in the back of Natalie's vagina, and (3) Natalie's vagina opening was gaping. In light of these injuries to Natalie's vaginal area, Dr. Clark opined that Natalie had been sexually assaulted at or about the time of her death.

Based on the findings of Dr. Clark's autopsy, the Asheboro Police Department brought Kandies in for further questioning on the evening of April 23rd. During this interrogation, the officers investigating Natalie's death mentioned that there was a possibility that she may have been sexually assaulted. In response, Kandies stated: "`I told [Ms. Craven] you were going to say I did something like that to Natalie.'" State v. Kandies, 342 N.C. 419, 467 S.E.2d 67, 74 (1996)(quoting Kandies's statements to police). Thereafter, Kandies provided the Asheboro Police Department with a written statement denying that he sexually assaulted Natalie. In his written statement, Kandies also asserted that he took Natalie to his house, took her clothes off and placed her inside the bathtub to determine the extent of her injuries. Kandies further asserted in his written statement that he was unable to handle the situation and as result may have strangled Natalie. In addition to Kandies's written statement, the Asheboro Police Department completed a suspect rape kit on Kandies, which included samples of head and pubic hair, saliva and blood. Moreover, a forensic serologist conducted a luminal and blood test on Kandies's apartment and truck, which revealed the presence of blood in several areas of the apartment and on the interior of the truck's passenger door.

On May 11, 1992, Kandies was indicted by a grand jury in the Randolph County Superior Court for the first-degree murder of Natalie. On July 13, 1992, Kandies was also indicted in the Randolph County Superior Court for the first-degree rape of Natalie. On April 4, 1994, jury selection commenced for Kandies's capital trial. During jury selection, the State exercised its peremptory challenges to strike nine prospective African American jurors. On each occasion, Kandies's trial counsel asserted that the State was striking these prospective jurors because of their race and was thus acting in contravention to the Supreme Court's holding in Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986)....

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