Matthews v. Workman

• Decision Date: 17 August 2009
• Docket Number: No. 07-6209.,07-6209.
• Citation: 577 F.3d 1175
• Parties: Jeffrey MATTHEWS, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Randall G. WORKMAN, Warden, Oklahoma State Penitentiary, Respondent-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit

577 F.3d 1175

Jeffrey MATTHEWS, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Randall G. WORKMAN, Warden, Oklahoma State Penitentiary, Respondent-Appellee.

No. 07-6209.

United States Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit.

August 17, 2009.

Timothy R. Payne, Assistant Federal Public Defender, Oklahoma City, OK, (James A. Drummond, Assistant Federal Public Defender, and Robert S. Jackson, Legal Research and Writing Specialist, with him on the briefs), for Petitioner-Appellant.

Seth S. Branham, Assistant Attorney General, State of Oklahoma, Oklahoma City, OK, (W.A. Drew Edmondson, Attorney General of Oklahoma, with him on the brief), for Respondent-Appellee.

Before BRISCOE, GORSUCH and HOLMES, Circuit Judges.

ORDER

This matter is before the court on appellant's Petition For Rehearing and Request for En Banc Consideration. That portion of the petition seeking panel rehearing is denied by the original panel members. We have determined, however, that sua sponte amendment of our original opinion is in order. Therefore, attached is an amended decision. The Clerk is directed to reissue the decision as amended nunc pro tunc to July 7, 2009.

The request for en banc consideration was circulated to all the judges of the court who are in regular active service. No judge called for a poll. Consequently, the suggestion for en banc review is likewise denied.

Appellant's Motion for Leave to Reply to Appellee's Response to Petition for Rehearing and Request for En Banc Consideration is also denied.

GORSUCH, Circuit Judge.

In 1999, an Oklahoma state jury convicted Jeffrey Matthews of murdering his great-uncle and sentenced him to death. Since then, Mr. Matthews has challenged his conviction and sentence on direct appeal, in collateral proceedings in state court, and in a habeas petition in federal district court. All of these challenges have proven unsuccessful. Now before us, Mr. Matthews appeals the district court's denial of a writ of habeas corpus. He argues that reversal is warranted because of, among other things, juror misconduct, the lack of sufficient evidence to sustain his conviction, prosecutorial misconduct, and the ineffective assistance he received from his counsel. After careful review, we affirm.

I

On January 27, 1994, at around six o'clock in the morning, Minnie Short was awakened by a noise in her home in McClain County, Oklahoma. As she walked from her bedroom into the living room to investigate, an intruder wielding a knife attacked. The intruder cut Mrs. Short's throat, but still she remained conscious. When Mrs. Short's husband, Earl, followed her into the living room a few moments later, another intruder shot him in the head. Mr. Short died within minutes. The attackers then ordered Mrs. Short to lie still. They asked her where she hid her money. The two men kept Mrs. Short prisoner in her home while they searched it for nearly two hours, eventually leaving in the Shorts' truck with $500 cash and a .32 caliber Smith and Wesson taken from the house.

After the intruders left, Mrs. Short walked down a nearby road to seek help. A passing ambulance came to her aid, and police were notified of the attack. In response to police questioning, Mrs. Short recalled that the man who stabbed her wore a dark jacket and that the man who shot Mr. Short wore tan, loose-fitting clothes. Mrs. Short also told police that the man who stabbed her made a telephone call from the kitchen just prior to leaving. Police traced this phone call and determined it was made at 8:16 a.m. to a Bill Guinn in Oklahoma City.

Police promptly contacted Mr. Guinn, who told them he received a call at that time from his nephew and employee, Tracy Dyer. Mr. Dyer had called to say that he would be late to work that morning because of car problems. Police then located Mr. Dyer and took him to the sheriff's office for questioning. There Mr. Dyer admitted that he and Jeffrey Matthews, a great-nephew of Earl and Minnie Short, went to the house to look for money they thought was hidden there. Mr. Dyer blamed Mr. Matthews for the attacks on the Shorts.

Police arrested Mr. Dyer and secured an arrest warrant for Mr. Matthews. They also executed a search of Mr. Matthews's home, where they seized a pair of brown coveralls, three $100 bills found in the freezer, and a prescription pill bottle for Xanax issued to Minnie Short. Officers also searched the backyard, but found nothing. Five months later, however, in June of 1994, one of Mr. Matthews's neighbors found a .32 caliber Smith and Wesson revolver buried in a field directly behind Mr. Matthews's house. The gun was later identified as the gun taken from the Shorts' home by their attackers. The police then returned to the same field with metal detectors and found another buried gun, a .45 caliber Ruger pistol, that tests proved was used to kill Earl Short.

In due course, Mr. Matthews was charged with first degree murder and various other crimes. At trial, Mr. Dyer testified against Mr. Matthews, implicating him as Mr. Dyer's accomplice in the crime. At the close of evidence, the jury found Mr. Matthews guilty and sentenced him to death. On appeal, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals ("OCCA") reversed the conviction and ordered a new trial. It held that the trial court erroneously admitted statements by Mr. Matthews that were the product of an illegal arrest. See Matthews v. State, 953 P.2d 336 (Okla.Crim.App. 1998).

Mr. Matthews was then re-tried. At the second trial, the State again called Mr. Dyer to the stand. But this time he told a different story. Instead of implicating Mr. Matthews in the shooting, as he had in the first trial, this time Mr. Dyer testified that Mr. Matthews was not even involved in the break-in. When confronted by the government with his conflicting testimony from the first trial, Mr. Dyer said he had lied because prison guards and prosecutors threatened to harm him if he did not cooperate. Despite Mr. Dyer's about-face, the jury found Mr. Matthews guilty of all charges against him. With respect to the first degree murder charge, the jury also found the existence of two aggravating circumstances: (1) Mr. Matthews's action caused a great risk of death to more than one person, and (2) he committed the offense while under custodial supervision. Based on those aggravating circumstances, the jury sentenced Mr. Matthews to death.

Mr. Matthews once again appealed his conviction, but this time the OCCA affirmed. See Matthews v. State, 45 P.3d 907 (Okla.Crim.App.2002). After an unsuccessful petition for certiorari to the United States Supreme Court, Mr. Matthews filed an application for post-conviction relief in the Oklahoma state courts. The OCCA denied relief. Mr. Matthews then filed his § 2254 petition for a writ of habeas corpus in federal district court. That petition too was denied, and Mr. Matthews now appeals to this court.

Our review of this case is for the most part governed by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 ("AEDPA"). AEDPA provides that, when a state court has "adjudicated a claim on the merits," we may grant relief only if the state court's decision "was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States" or "resulted in a decision that was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding." 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d). "An adjudication on the merits occurs when the state court resolves the case on substantive grounds, rather than procedural grounds." Boyle v. McKune, 544 F.3d 1132, 1137 (10th Cir.2008) (quoting Valdez v. Cockrell, 274 F.3d 941, 946-47 (5th Cir.2001)). In what follows, we group Mr. Matthews's various arguments into five general categories for purposes of our analysis—arguments about jury misconduct (Part II), sufficiency of the evidence (Part III), prosecutorial misconduct (Part IV), ineffective assistance of counsel (Part V), and certain other remaining matters (Part VI).

II

We begin with two distinct but related allegations of jury misconduct. First, Mr. Matthews argues that he is entitled to relief because Juror #2 was exposed to outside influences that made her more likely to vote for a sentence of death. Second, he claims that he is entitled to relief because Juror #8 made up her mind in favor of the death penalty before the trial's penalty stage. Both claims arise out of the same turn of events.

After jurors found Mr. Matthews guilty in the early morning hours of Saturday, April 10, 1999, the court released them for the weekend with the usual admonition not to discuss the case with anyone. The penalty phase of the trial was set to begin the following Monday. Despite the court's instruction, later on Saturday, April 10, Juror #2 called a discharged alternate juror, James DeHaven. Before being dismissed from jury service, Mr. DeHaven had given Juror #2 a slip of paper with his phone number on it and asked her to call him to tell him the verdict. During their approximately 15 minute phone conversation, Juror #2 told Mr. DeHaven that the jury had found Mr. Matthews guilty and indicated how long the jury deliberated. Mr. DeHaven replied that he thought the jury had done the right thing. Mr. DeHaven added that he had read newspaper articles that supported the jury's verdict, and assured Juror #2 that she would understand what he meant once she was free to read the articles. Mr. DeHaven did not share any of the specific information in the articles with Juror #2. Matthews, 45 P.3d at 912.

After the jury reconvened and sentenced Mr. Matthews to death, Mr. Matthews made a motion for a new trial in light of Juror #2's contact with Mr. DeHaven. The trial court held an evidentiary hearing to determine whether the conversation prejudiced the defendant. Two other jurors (Juror #7 and Juror #8) reported that Juror #2 had told them she had spoken with Mr. DeHaven, but neither remembered Juror #2...