Clark v. Attorney Gen.

Decision Date27 April 2016
Docket NumberNo. 14–15022.,14–15022.
PartiesRonald W. CLARK, Jr., Petitioner–Appellant, v. ATTORNEY GENERAL, State of FLORIDA, Secretary, Florida Department of Corrections, Respondents–Appellees.
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

821 F.3d 1270

Ronald W. CLARK, Jr., Petitioner–Appellant
v.
ATTORNEY GENERAL, State of FLORIDA, Secretary, Florida Department of Corrections, Respondents–Appellees.

No. 14–15022.

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

April 27, 2016.


821 F.3d 1273

Martin J. McClain, Linda McDermott, McClain & McDermott, PA, Wilton Manors, FL, for Petitioner–Appellant.

Tineshia Morris, Carolyn M. Snurkowski, Attorney General's Office, Tallahassee, FL, for Respondents–Appellees.

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

Before MARCUS, WILLIAM PRYOR and MARTIN, Circuit Judges.

MARCUS, Circuit Judge:

In this capital case, Ronald Wayne Clark, a state prisoner in Florida convicted of murder in the 1990 shooting and robbery of Ronald Willis, seeks a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254. The state trial court imposed a sentence of death. The judgment was later upheld by the Florida Supreme Court on direct appeal and again on collateral review. In this habeas petition, Clark contends that his attorney was ineffective during the penalty phase of his trial, that the sentencing court failed to consider mitigating evidence, and that the State violated his due process rights by suppressing material impeachment evidence in violation of Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963). The district court issued a lengthy order denying all relief. Having carefully reviewed the record and after taking oral argument, we affirm.

I.

A.

The essential facts adduced at Clark's trial revealed the following. On January 13, 1990, two teenagers walking along a dirt road in rural Duval County, Florida discovered checks with Ronald Willis's name on them, a crow bar, false teeth, and a bloody shirt. Suspecting some sort of wrongdoing, one of the teenagers told his mother what they had found and she called the police. Officers arrived at the scene and determined that it appeared to be the site of a violent crime.

Alerted by Willis's mother that the police had found these items, Willis's ex-wife, Debra Willis, and her sister-in-law, Sandra Hardee, began driving around looking for

821 F.3d 1274

Ronald Willis when they saw a truck that belonged to Willis parked in front of the Oasis Motel. They approached the truck and began yelling, demanding to know where Willis was. A man at the hotel pointed out Ronald Clark and John David Hatch as the people who had driven the truck. Debra took the keys from the truck and locked it as Hardee went to the motel's office to call the police. While making the call, she heard Debra call for help. Upon exiting the office she saw Clark attack Debra, apparently trying to take the keys from her. After Debra kicked him in the groin, Clark tried to run away. Hardee attempted to grab him, but fell over. She noticed, however, that Clark was wearing Ronald Willis's boots. Clark and Hatch ran off before the police arrived. Later, Hardee and Debra identified Hatch and Clark from photo spreads provided by Detective Jerry Jesonek, who was investigating the matter.

Hatch was arrested on January 20, 1990. In exchange for a twenty-five-year prison sentence, he testified against Clark at trial. According to Hatch's account, on January 12, he and Clark had decided to walk or hitchhike to Jacksonville to shoot pool. They brought with them a gun that Hatch had stolen from a house he was remodeling. He testified that both he and Clark had been drinking and were under the influence, but that they both knew what was going on around them. Willis stopped to give them a ride and, during the ride, Clark whispered to Hatch that he planned to steal the truck when they stopped. Hatch asked Willis to stop the truck so they could buy beer; both Hatch and Clark got out of the truck. Hatch testified that as he walked toward the back of the truck, Clark fired the stolen gun seven or eight times into the truck, shooting and killing Willis. Clark then turned toward Hatch, pointed the weapon at him, and shouted that they had to go. They got back into the truck and Clark drove away. Hatch was seated on the passenger side, and Willis was slumped over in the middle, having been shot.

Hatch and Clark drove to a secluded spot where Clark took Willis's boots and the money from his pockets, and together they rolled Willis's body into a ditch. Hatch and Clark then went to a restaurant and on to Hatch's ex-wife's apartment, where they engaged in some sort of confrontation. Clark and Hatch later retrieved the body, found cinder blocks in Clark's parents' house, tied the cinder blocks to the body, and threw Willis off the Nassau County Sound Bridge into the water below. Hatch said they went to an acquaintance's home the next day to buy drugs, before ending up at the Oasis Motel where the confrontation with Debra and Hardee occurred. Hatch and Clark then fled the state, eventually winding up in South Carolina.

On cross examination, Clark's attorney confronted Hatch three times with inconsistent statements he had made on previous occasions. Most significantly, counsel confronted Hatch with remarks he had made to Detective Jesonek that he had been urinating—and not simply walking away from the truck—when he heard Clark shoot Willis. That statement was made on January 21, 1990, and was memorialized in a document that now forms part of the basis of Clark's Brady claim.

Detective Jesonek testified at some length about the homicide investigation. Among other things, he took a statement from Hatch after his arrest on January 20, which largely corresponded to Hatch's trial testimony, although the statement differed in describing where Hatch was when he heard the shots; it did not mention Clark telling Hatch that Clark planned to steal the truck when they stopped; and it made no mention of Clark having pointed the gun at him after the shooting. Jesonek

821 F.3d 1275

also testified about his efforts to convince Clark to return to Florida from South Carolina. He said that during one conversation with Clark, Clark admitted to having been involved in the shooting. After Clark was arrested by South Carolina police and returned to Florida, Jesonek took Clark's statement. The statement was substantially the same as Hatch's in detailing the events as they transpired that night except that Clark said Hatch was actually the one who shot Willis. In addition to this role reversal, Clark described where the bullets had struck the victim's body and how the victim physically moved upon being shot.

Finally, the prosecution offered testimony from Officers Dolan Thomason and William Brown, who were both involved in transporting Clark during a separate trial in Nassau County, Florida. Both officers unambiguously testified that Clark admitted he killed Ronald Willis.

Clark testified in his own defense. He averred that his statement to Detective Jesonek naming Hatch as the shooter was the truth. In fact, he added, his back was turned during the actual shooting, but he saw Willis's wounds when they dumped Willis's body off the Nassau County Sound Bridge. He flatly denied having told Officers Thomason and Brown that he had shot Willis. In closing argument, Clark's counsel argued that Hatch was the mastermind and triggerman behind the crime. After deliberating for just under two and a half hours, the jury returned a verdict finding Clark guilty of murder in the first degree, under a theory of felony murder, and guilty of robbery with a firearm.

B.

During the penalty phase of the trial, the prosecution called Lieutenant Charles Calhoun of the Nassau County Sheriff's Office. Calhoun testified about the details surrounding Clark's previous Nassau County, Florida conviction for the October 29, 1989 murder of Charles Carter. According to Calhoun, Clark, Carter, Hatch, and another friend were driving around and Clark tried to get the group lost. They eventually stopped in a wooded area on County Road 108 and exited the car. Clark then shot Carter in the chest with a .12 gauge shotgun, and then shot Carter in the head, removed his boots, and rummaged through his pants, recovering about $11. Clark was convicted and sentenced to death in Nassau County for that crime.1 After the judgment and sentence from the Nassau County conviction were entered into evidence, the prosecution rested.

Clark's counsel, Henry Davis, then asked for a sidebar. He told the trial court that Clark did not wish to present any mitigating evidence to the jury and did

821 F.3d 1276

not wish to testify himself. The trial judge excused the jury and conducted the following lengthy colloquy in open court:

The Court: Mr. Davis, we were having a discussion at the bench when you asked to approach the bench and I just thought it better to go ahead and ask the jurors to leave. Let's go ahead and start over.

Davis: All right. Your Honor, I just wanted to advise the court that Mr. Clark has decided not to exercise his right to testify here or to present other evidence in mitigation. The court may recall that Mr. Clark was seen by two psychiatrists, Dr. Miller and Dr.
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