Medina v. Chappell
| Citation | 781 F.3d 1076 |
| Decision Date | 26 March 2015 |
| Docket Number | Nos. 09–99015,09–99016.,s. 09–99015 |
| Parties | Teofilo MEDINA, Jr., Petitioner–Appellant, v. Kevin CHAPPELL, Warden, Respondent–Appellee. Teofilo Medina, Jr., Petitioner–Appellant, v. R.K. Wong, Respondent–Appellee. |
| Court | United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (9th Circuit) |
Robert B. Amidon (argued), Tarzana, CA, and Wayne C. Tobin (argued), Newbury Park, CA; David L. Bernstein, Studio City, CA, for Petitioner–Appellant.
Holly D. Wilkens (argued), Supervising Deputy Attorney General; Gary W. Schons, Senior Assistant Attorney General; and Adrianne S. Denault, Deputy Attorney
General, Office of the California Attorney General, San Diego, CA; Kamala D. Harris, Attorney General of California; Dane R. Gillette, Chief Assistant Attorney General; Office of the California Attorney General, San Francisco, CA, for Respondent–Appellee.
Jon M. Sands, Federal Public Defender; Therese Day, Assistant Federal Public Defender, Phoenix, AZ; Sean K. Kennedy, Federal Public Defender; Mark R. Drozdowski and C. Pamela Gómez, Deputy Federal Public Defenders, Los Angeles, CA, for Amici Curiae the California Appellate Project, the Federal Public Defenders of the District of Arizona, Central District of California, Eastern District of California, District of Nevada, and the Federal Defender Services of Idaho.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California, Ronald S.W. Lew, Senior District Judge, Presiding. D.C. Nos. 2:94–CV–01892–RSWL, 2:97–CV–07062–RSWL.
Before: SIDNEY R. THOMAS, Chief Judge, and KIM McLANE WARDLAW, and MARSHA S. BERZON, Circuit Judges.
Teofilo Medina, Jr., a California death row inmate, appeals the district court's denial of his petitions for a writ of habeas corpus. Medina killed four people in a month-long crime spree in 1984. For these murders, the California courts imposed two death sentences: one in Orange County, the subject of the habeas petition in No. 09–99015, and one in Riverside County, the subject of the petition in No. 09–99016. The Orange County proceedings became final first. Medina filed his federal habeas petition in the Orange County case before the effective date of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (“AEDPA”). Medina's Riverside County petition was filed after the effective date and is therefore subject to AEDPA review.1
The petitions allege ineffective assistance of counsel at various phases of each trial, with a focus on claims of deficient performance at the penalty phases. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1291 and 2253. Because counsel in the Orange County trial did not render deficient performance, and because the California Supreme Court could have reasonably concluded that any deficient performance in the Riverside County trial failed to prejudice Medina, we affirm the district court's orders denying Medina's habeas petitions. In addition, we conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion by denying a stay to determine Medina's competency while the Orange County petition was pending.
The factual circumstances of Medina's crimes are undisputed. Shortly after his August 1984 release from prison in Arizona, Medina returned to California. From October 13 through November 7, 1984, Medina engaged in a crime spree in Orange County, which included stealing a gun and holding up a drive-in dairy and two gas stations. At the location of each robbery, he shot and killed an employee of the business from which he stole.
People v. Medina (“Medina I”), 51 Cal.3d 870, 274 Cal.Rptr. 849, 799 P.2d 1282, 1287 (1990). During this same period, he committed a fourth robbery-homicide, this time at a gas station in Riverside County. People v. Medina (“Medina II”), 11 Cal.4th 694, 47 Cal.Rptr.2d 165, 906 P.2d 2, 16 (1995).
Medina was apprehended on November 7, 1984 after he attempted another robbery. During the course of that robbery, he shot at, but missed, two civilian witnesses. The witnesses gave police Medina's license plate number, and officers apprehended Medina at his sister's home. The evidence linking Medina to the crimes included the gun used in each of the crimes and his fingerprint on a bottle at the scene of one crime. Medina's sister found the gun in Medina's shaving kit. Bullets recovered from the murder victims matched the gun.
Medina's history of abuse as a child is relevant to his habeas claims. Declarations from family members describe Medina's troubled and troubling past. These declarations, obtained by habeas counsel, provide the details of the physical abuse Medina suffered growing up, details that were not obtained by trial counsel in either case. Medina was whipped by nuns while attending Catholic school, hit with a belt by his father to the point where the belt left marks, and hit by his mother with a tree switch, a belt, or her hand. In addition to his own physical abuse, Medina's father was an alcoholic who sometimes hit Medina's mother, and on one occasion chased her around the house with a knife.
Medina also suffered from numerous accidental injuries as a child. When Medina was born, the physician had to use forceps to facilitate the delivery, which left Medina with two black eyes and bruises on his head
. Excessive anesthetization of Medina's mother may have exacerbated this trauma. At age 5 or 6, Medina fell and hit his head on a concrete floor, leaving a scar on his forehead. When he was 6 or 7 years old, he let his cousins use his head for target practice with BB rifles. One summer when the family was in Utah, Medina “fell into a river or a canal and almost drowned.” As a boy, Medina spent hours assembling model airplanes in his room. When family members complained about glue fumes, Medina stuffed towels under his door to confine the fumes to his room. Finally, at age 14, Medina was hit by a car while riding a bicycle. His leg was badly broken, and several family members noticed that he became more violent afterwards. None of this information was uncovered by his trial attorneys.
Habeas counsel also discovered that Medina has a documented history of mental illness. During Medina's previous periods of incarceration in California and Arizona, Medina was diagnosed at least eleven times as suffering from paranoid schizophrenia
or related conditions. From a young age, Medina talked to himself and would clench and unclench his fists when upset. He also pulled out all of his eyelashes when he was 11 or 12 years old. As an adult, Medina frequently made delusional references to being under surveillance, spied upon, and persecuted by neighbors and fellow inmates. Of the nineteen members of Medina's extended family, as many as four suffered from schizophrenia, and others may have had different mental illnesses.
Prior to his jury trial in Orange County, Medina moved for a competency hearing, at which lay witnesses, various psychiatrists, psychologists, and other experts testified about his violent behavior, attempted suicide, possible schizophrenia
, and inability to cooperate with counsel. Medina I, 274 Cal.Rptr. 849, 799 P.2d at 1288. The testimony of the five psychological and psychiatric experts was contradictory: some doctors concluded that Medina was competent to stand trial and others opined that he was not. Id. The mental health professionals also provided markedly different diagnoses—some found him schizophrenic, while others doubted that diagnosis or concluded that Medina was malingering. Following the competency hearing, the jury concluded that Medina was competent to stand trial. Id.
At trial, Medina asserted an insanity defense. During the sanity phase, various mental health professionals again testified, to much the same effect. Id. Medina and a number of lay witnesses also testified about Medina's background, “including his prior offenses and convictions, prison terms, drug use, violent and aberrant behavior, attempted suicide, confinement in a state mental hospital, and attempted escape therefrom.” Id. The jury found Medina legally sane at the time of the charged offenses. Id.
After the jury returned a guilty verdict, the penalty phase commenced. Defense counsel called four mental health experts who had previously testified. Their testimony was consistent with testimony adduced at the sanity and competency phases. Id. at 881. Medina's father testified that Medina sniffed glue as a child, that Medina's brother, John, committed suicide, that Medina had been hit by a car while delivering newspapers, and that Medina's behavior had been strange when he was driving back to California after his release from prison in Arizona.
On December 3, 1986, after deliberating for seven and a half hours, the jury concluded that the appropriate penalty was death. On February 26, 1987, Medina was sentenced to death.
The California Supreme Court affirmed Medina's convictions and death sentence on direct appeal. Medina I, 274 Cal.Rptr. 849, 799 P.2d at 1310. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari to determine the constitutionality of California Penal Code § 1369(f), which placed the burden on the defendant to show by a preponderance of the evidence his competence to stand trial. See Medina v. California, 505 U.S. 437, 112 S.Ct. 2572, 120 L.Ed.2d 353 (1992). The Court upheld the statute and affirmed the California Supreme Court's decision. Id. at 452–53, 112 S.Ct. 2572.
Medina filed his habeas petition in federal court on October 2, 1995, and, after returning to state court to exhaust several claims, he filed an amended petition on November 19, 1997. The district court granted an evidentiary hearing on several claims, and received evidence including declarations, deposition transcripts, and exhibits.
On June 5, 2003, Medina filed a state court petition arguing that he was mentally retarded and as such, under Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304, 122 S.Ct. 2242, 153 L.Ed.2d...
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Stanley v. Ayers
...there is no reasonable hope for competence, a stay is inappropriate' " was applicable to post-AEDPA petitions in Medina v. Chappell, 781 F.3d 1076, 1089-91 (9th Cir.), vacated and remanded, 782 F.3d 1115 (9th Cir. 2015), which was vacated as moot upon the petitioner's death shortly after it......