Wilson v. D. Rees
| Citation | 624 F.3d 737 |
| Decision Date | 14 October 2010 |
| Docket Number | No. 09-6306.,09-6306. |
| Parties | Gregory Lee WILSON, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. John D. REES, Defendant, Thomas Simpson, in his official capacity as Warden, Kentucky State Penitentiary; Scott Haas, in his official capacity as Medical Director for the Kentucky Department of Corrections; Steve Beshear, in his official capacity as Governor of the Commonwealth of Kentucky; LaDonna H. Thompson, in her official capacity as Commissioner, Kentucky Department of Corrections, Defendants-Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED.
Before: BATCHELDER, Chief Judge; MARTIN, BOGGS, MOORE, COLE, CLAY, GILMAN, GIBBONS, ROGERS, SUTTON, COOK, McKEAGUE, GRIFFIN, KETHLEDGE, and WHITE, Circuit Judges.
This matter came before the court upon the petition for rehearing en banc of the September 3, 2010 judgment of the three-judge panel and the response of the appellees thereto. A poll having been taken of the active judges of the court on the question of whether to grant the petition for rehearing en banc, and less than a majority of the judges having favored doing so, the request for rehearing has been referred to the original panel. Upon consideration of the petition and response the panel denies the petition.
IT IS SO ORDERED.
I continue to disagree with the claim-accrual analysis for method-of-execution claims announced in Cooey v. Strickland ( Cooey II ), 479 F.3d 412 (6th Cir.2007), and therefore I dissent from the denial of rehearing en banc. See, e.g., Cooey v. Strickland, 489 F.3d 775, 776-78 (6th Cir.2007) (). In addition, I write to highlight this particularly ugly example of why “the death penalty in this country is arbitrary, biased, and so fundamentally flawed at its very core that it is beyond repair.” Moore v. Parker, 425 F.3d 250, 268 (6th Cir.2005) (Martin, J., dissenting).
The rape and murder of Debbie Pooley was a heartbreaking and reprehensible act. But at Gregory Wilson's murder trial, the state's ignominy began. Of all the people involved in this case, only two have behaved in a manner worthy of the ideals of our justice system: the courageous Franklin Circuit Court judge who stayed Wilson's execution; and Andrew Wolfson, the diligent Courier-Journal reporter who exposed the glaring deficiencies in Wilson's trial. I quote extensively from Mr. Wolfson's article because he appears to have worked more conscientiously than many of the participants in this case, and he highlights how virtually every branch of our justice system failed-from the judiciary, which allowed a sex scandal between a colleague of the trial judge and Wilson's co-defendant to jeopardize the fairness of Wilson's trial; to the defense counsel, who were woefully unqualified and left Wilson abandoned at trial.
The judiciary failed both Wilson and our legal system in this case because a judge's unseemly conduct created a risk of bias that undermined the fairness of Wilson's trial. Brenda Humphrey, Wilson's co-defendant and the woman who identified him as Pooley's killer, was having an illicit sexual affair with Judge James Gilliece, a colleague and good friend of the trial judge during Wilson's trial:
Years later, it would be revealed in court papers that Wilson's co-defendant, Brenda Humphrey, who testified against him, was taken each day of the trial to the chambers of Lape's colleague, Circuit Judge James Gilliece, where they had sex.
His trysts with the former prostitute began three years earlier and continued until his death in 1993. Gilliece wrote Humphrey 280 sexually explicit letters in which he called her his “doll baby” and assured her-erroneously, it turned out-that “you are sure to be free very soon.”
Andrew Wolfson, Kentucky Death-Row Inmate's Trial Littered with Problems, Courier-Journal, Sept. 8, 2010, at A1.
This shocking impropriety not only degraded our judicial system, but also created a real risk of unfairness at Wilson's trial:
[In] 2001 ... Humphrey filed a motion seeking a new trial, revealing her relationship with Gilliece. She argued that he forced himself on her and that kept her from getting effective representation.
Humphrey testified that after being charged with prostitution in 1985, she began seeing Gilliece about once a week in his chambers for sex, even after she was charged in Pooley's kidnapping and murder.
Records showed that Gilliece put $3,000 in her jail account, bought her a new dress for trial and wrote her florid love letters.
Kenton Circuit Judge Steven Jaeger eventually rejected Humphrey's motion, saying she was a “willing participant” and “mistress of her own fate.”
Jaeger, however, wouldn't let Wilson participate in the hearing he granted Humphrey, and [Wilson's attorney] Goyette says that denied Wilson the chance to prove that the relationship between Gilliece and Humphrey may have affected how Lape conducted the trial.
If Wilson had known of the relationship at the time of the trial, Goyette said, he could have used it to undermine Humphrey's credibility when she testified against him.
This scandal is an embarrassment to all segments of the judiciary, from the judge who violated the Code of Judicial Conduct by having a sexual relationship with a defendant to the court officers who broke their oath of office by ferrying this defendant to and from the judge's chambers for sex. When any trial is infiltrated by this sort of sordid corruption, it demeans our judicial system and undermines public confidence in its judgments. When a criminal defendant's life is at stake, it is horrifying.
Perhaps even more egregiously than the judiciary, Wilson's defense counsel failed him and the principles of our legal system. From the very beginning of the case, Wilson's defense was clearly a charade:
The judge posted his plea on the courtroom door:
After more than a year of begging for lawyers to defend Gregory Wilson's capital-murder case for the maximum state fee of $2,500, Chief Kenton Circuit Judge Raymond Lape Jr. finally found two takers in May 1988.
But one of them, John Foote of Florence, had never tried a felony, let alone a murder case. And the other was William Hagedorn of Newport, a “semi-retired” lawyer who volunteered to serve as lead counsel for free, though he had no office, no staff, no copy machine and no law books.
Hagedorn practiced out of his home, where he displayed a flashing “Budweiser” sign. His business card gave the phone number of “Kelly's Keg,” a local bar. And as Foote would later say in an affidavit, Hagedorn “manifested all the signs of a burned-out alcoholic.”
....
As Goyette later summarized it in court papers, Hagedorn “was a troubled lawyer with drinking problems, bar association disciplinary problems and legal problems of the criminal variety,” investigated on allegations of hiding stolen property under his office floor.
Unsurprisingly, these two wholly unqualified attorneys did a deplorable job representing Wilson:
According to briefs later filed on Wilson's behalf, Hagedorn visited his client once in jail before trial. He failed...
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