Suggs v. Mcneil

• Decision Date: 24 June 2010
• Docket Number: No. 09-12718.,09-12718.
• Citation: 609 F.3d 1218
• Parties: Ernest D. SUGGS, Petitioner-Appellant,v.Walter A. McNEIL, Respondent-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

609 F.3d 1218

Ernest D. SUGGS, Petitioner-Appellant,v.Walter A. McNEIL, Respondent-Appellee.

No. 09-12718.

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

June 24, 2010.

Martin J. McClain (Court-Appointed), Wilton Manors, FL, for Petitioner-Appellant.

Stephen Richard White, Tallahassee, FL, for Respondent-Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida.

Before BIRCH, BLACK and PRYOR, Circuit Judges.

PRYOR, Circuit Judge:

This appeal from the denial of a petition for a writ of habeas corpus presents the question whether the attorneys who represented Ernest Suggs, a Florida prisoner sentenced to death, deprived Suggs of effective assistance by failing to investigate and present a defense of mental health mitigation for the penalty phase of his trial. In 1992, a jury found Suggs guilty of robbery, kidnapping, and murder. The state proved that Suggs in 1990 kidnapped Pauline Casey, who was working alone at the Teddy Bear Bar in Walton County, Florida; Suggs drove Casey several miles from the bar, and stabbed her multiple times in the neck and back, nearly decapitating her; and Suggs stole about $200. During the penalty phase, Suggs's attorneys presented evidence of his good character, but the jury recommended, by a seven-to-five vote, a sentence of death, which the trial court accepted. In a collateral attack of his conviction and sentence in state court, Suggs argued that his attorneys should have investigated and presented evidence of his “intellectual inefficiency.” The Florida Supreme Court ruled that the attorneys' failure to investigate and present a defense about Suggs's mental health did not undermine confidence in the result of the penalty phase. Because we conclude that the decision of the Florida Supreme Court that Suggs failed to prove prejudice under Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984), was neither contrary to nor an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law, we affirm.

I. BACKGROUND

We divide our discussion of the background in two parts. First, we describe Suggs's state trial and conviction. Second, we describe Suggs's effort to vacate his conviction and sentence in state court and his petition for habeas relief in federal court.

A. State Trial and Conviction

On the night of August 6, 1990, patrons found the Teddy Bear Bar in Walton County, Florida, abandoned. Suggs v. State ( Suggs I), 644 So.2d 64, 65 (Fla.1994). The door to the bar was open, cash was missing from the register, and Pauline Casey, who had been working alone that night, was missing. Id. Casey's car, purse, and keys were all at the bar. Id.

Casey's neighbor, Ray Hamilton, who had been at the bar that night, informed police that, when he left, he saw Casey playing pool with a patron. Id. The police located that patron, Ernest Suggs, and he consented to a search of his car and home. Id. In Suggs's bathroom sink, the police discovered nearly $170, including 50 one-dollar bills. Id. The police also took an imprint of a tire on Suggs's car and began searching local dirt roads for tire tracks. Id.

The police located tire tracks that matched the imprint from Suggs's tire on a dirt road about four or five miles from the bar. Id. Investigators followed the tracks until the tracks left the road and then began searching the roadside; they discovered Casey's body about 25 feet from the road. Id. Casey had been stabbed twice in the neck and once in the back. Id. According to the autopsy report, the “left posterior neck wound ... was wide and deep-incising all posterior neck muscles, separating vertebras 2 and 3, and cutting ... the cervical spinal cord at that level.” The report also stated that Casey died from blood loss as a result of her wounds. As the trial court later found at sentencing, “The victim was clearly subjected to agony over the prospect that her death was soon to occur.... None of the wounds caused instant death and Mrs. Casey would have felt the pain of the other stabs as she bled to death, surely terrified as her death approached.”

The investigation tied Suggs to Casey's murder. In the bay behind Suggs's house, the police located one of the three known keys to the bar from which Casey was abducted. Id. at 65-66. In that same bay, the police located a beer glass that was similar to the beer glasses used at the bar. Id. at 66. The police also discovered prints from Casey's palm and fingers in Suggs's car. Id. A serologist found a bloodstain on Suggs's shirt that matched Casey's blood. Id. Moreover, two cellmates testified that Suggs confessed to them that he had murdered Casey. Id. After a trial, at which Suggs was represented by Robert Kimmel and Donald Stewart, a jury convicted Suggs of robbery, kidnapping, and first-degree murder. Id.

During the penalty phase, the state sought the death penalty and elicited testimony from three witnesses to establish aggravation. One witness testified about Suggs's motive. Another testified about Suggs's planning of the crime. A third witness testified about Suggs's criminal history.

The state called Jim Taylor to testify that Suggs had murdered Casey because he did not want to leave a witness to his crimes. Taylor, who shared a cell with Suggs, testified that Suggs told him that he had once been convicted in Alabama of murder and attempted murder, but that he expected to escape conviction of Casey's murder. According to Taylor, Suggs “said the case in Alabama he was stupid but this case he was not because he didn't leave a damn witness, ‘I almost takened [sic] her damn head off.’ ”

Investigator Steve Sunday testified about evidence of premeditation. Sunday testified that police had discovered a book Deal the First Deadly Blow, on a bookshelf in Suggs's house that contained other books that belonged to Suggs. The court admitted the book, which contained illustrations and instructions about inflicting fatal blade wounds. During its opening statement during the penalty phase, the state explained to the jury that the “book describes how to deal the first deadly blow.... [Y]ou will see the similarities in those photographs to the injuries that ... were inflicted upon Pauline Denise Casey.” Kimmel cross examined Sunday and suggested that the book belonged to Suggs's father, who shared the house with Suggs and had retired from the military, because the book, according to its introduction, is “a guide for instructors to use to prepare themselves to conduct training of soldiers in the art of instinctive rifle bayonet fighting.”

The state called probation and parole officer Danny Myrick to testify that Suggs had been previously convicted of first-degree murder and assault with intent to murder and was paroled when he murdered Casey. Myrick testified that Suggs had been convicted in Alabama of murder in February 1979 and assault in June 1979. Suggs received a life sentence, but he was paroled in June 1989.

The state also attempted unsuccessfully to introduce a psychological evaluation of Suggs to prove that he could comprehend the criminality of his conduct. The report had been prepared by Dr. James Larson, a psychologist who examined Suggs before trial at the request of a public defender who had first represented Suggs. The public defender asked Dr. Larson to “conduct[ ] a psychological evaluation” of Suggs in September and October 1990 and in February 1991. In preparing his report, Dr. Larson administered psychological tests, interviewed Suggs, reviewed a prior statement from Suggs, and reviewed selected legal records. The state hoped that this evaluation would counter evidence that Suggs murdered Casey while suffering under extreme mental or emotional disturbance due to, as the trial court described it, “an extensive period of drinking” that preceded the murder.

Stewart objected to the introduction of the report. Stewart argued that the report “reflect[ed] a conflict between Mr. Suggs and his public defender.” Suggs apparently did not trust his public defender and, in turn, did not trust the psychologist whom the public defender had secured to evaluate him. Stewart also argued that the court should not admit the report because Dr. Larson was not available for cross examination. The court reviewed the report and stated on the record that “Dr. Larson did not conclude that he was unable to reach an opinion because of either the problems between Mr. Suggs and his attorney or because of the marginal involvement of Mr. Suggs” in the evaluation. Nevertheless, the court decided that, “in an abundance of precaution,” it would not admit the report.

Suggs presented a mitigation defense that focused on his good character. Suggs called Barbara Tucker, a friend of his family for nearly 32 years, who testified that Suggs had a well-respected, hardworking, and successful father, and a brother who suffered from “severe scoliosis” and a “degree of mental retardation.” Tucker testified that Suggs was a “very hard worker” and that, when he returned home from prison in 1989, he helped around his family's house. She also explained that after his release, Suggs had a “good relationship” with his parents. Rhonda Carlson, whose father employed Suggs as a laborer, testified that she had known Suggs for about 15 years and that Suggs was “a dependable worker” who reported for work “[e]very day it wasn't raining.” She testified that Suggs and his family got along “[r]eal good” and that he was close with his younger brother. Suggs's mother also testified about her family, including her “two sons, wh[om] [she] love[d] very much.” She explained that Suggs “was a very happy child. He was normal. We had very few problems. Just the normal things.” She also testified about Suggs's involvement with the Boy Scouts and church. She explained that Suggs had earned a general equivalency diploma and completed a 3,000-hour course at the Colorado School of Trades for which he earned a gunsmithing certificate. Suggs also introduced...