Daniel v. Comm'r, Alab. Dep't of Corr.

• Decision Date: 16 May 2016
• Docket Number: No. 14–12558.,14–12558.
• Parties: Renard Marcel DANIEL, Petitioner–Appellant, v. COMMISSIONER, ALABAMA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, Respondent–Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

822 F.3d 1248

Renard Marcel DANIEL, Petitioner–Appellant

v.COMMISSIONER, ALABAMA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, Respondent–Appellee.

No. 14–12558.

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

May 16, 2016.

Christopher Lee Hawkins, Joseph B. Mays, Jr., Bradley Arant Boult Cummings, LLP, Birmingham, AL, Stephen M. Blank, Sidley Austin, LLP, Peter Jonathan Toren, Weisbrod Matteis & Copley PLLC, Washington, DC, Mark C. Brown, Eamon Paul Joyce, Michael Steven Sackheim, Sidley Austin, LLP, New York, NY, Aseem Gupta, Kelly Krellner, Sidley Austin, LLP, San Francisco, CA, for Petitioner–Appellant.

Lauren Ashley Simpson, Alabama Attorney General's Office, Montgomery, AL, for Respondent–Appellee.

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

Before WILSON, MARTIN, and JILL PRYOR, Circuit Judges.

MARTIN

, Circuit Judge:

Petitioner Renard Marcel Daniel, an Alabama prisoner on death row, appeals the District Court's denial of his 28 U.S.C. § 2254

petition for writ of habeas corpus. The District Court granted Mr. Daniel a certificate of appealability (COA) as to the following issue: “Whether trial counsel was ineffective during Daniel's trial at both the penalty and guilt phase.” Mr. Daniel narrowed the focus of his briefing in this Court to trial counsel's failure to investigate and present mitigation evidence at the penalty phase of his capital trial.¹

Mr. Daniel's childhood was nightmarish by any standard. When he was only three years old, his mother killed his biological father with a shotgun while Mr. Daniel was in the home. Beginning before his tenth birthday, and for several years, Mr. Daniel was repeatedly sexually assaulted by his stepfather and was forced to engage in sex acts with his siblings while his stepfather watched. School records show that Mr. Daniel was placed in special education classes. His test scores are consistent with borderline intellectual disability, and his adaptive functioning is consistent with a person with intellectual disability. A postconviction neuropsychological evaluation confirmed Mr. Daniel suffered from lifelong borderline intellectual functioning, significant impairments in adaptive function both prior to and after age eighteen, childhood dissociative disorder

with psychotic features (related to daily sexual, physical, and emotional abuse), and depression since childhood. Mr. Daniel specifically pleaded all of these facts, and more, in his second amended state habeas petition filed pursuant to Alabama Rule of Criminal Procedure 32. All of this mitigation evidence about Mr. Daniel's “background and character is relevant because of the belief, long held by this society, that defendants who commit criminal acts that are attributable to a disadvantaged background ... may be less culpable than defendants who have no such excuse.” Penry v. Lynaugh, 492 U.S. 302, 319, 109 S.Ct. 2934, 2947, 106 L.Ed.2d 256 (1989) (quotation marks omitted).

But Mr. Daniel's sentencing jury and judge heard none of this mitigation evidence. According to Mr. Daniel, this is because his trial counsel did not conduct a constitutionally adequate investigation into his background. Mr. Daniel also asserts that trial counsel's deficient performance prejudiced the outcome of his penalty phase. While trial counsel presented some mitigation evidence during the penalty phase through Mr. Daniel's mother, the description, details, and depth of abuse in Mr. Daniel's background that he brought to the attention of the state courts in his habeas proceedings far exceeded anything the sentencing jury and judge were told. Nonetheless, the Alabama state courts denied Mr. Daniel's claim without discovery or an evidentiary hearing, finding that he failed to specifically and sufficiently plead his ineffective assistance of counsel claim under Alabama Rules of Criminal Procedure 32.6(b) and 32.7(d). The District Court denied habeas relief. After thorough review of the record and oral argument, we affirm the District Court's denial of Mr. Daniel's guilt phase ineffective assistance of counsel claim, but reverse the District Court's ruling as to Mr. Daniel's penalty phase ineffective assistance of counsel claim and remand for an evidentiary hearing.

I. BACKGROUND

A. OFFENSE AND CHARGES

On September 26, 2001, John Brodie and Loretta McCulloch were shot to death in their apartment in Birmingham, Alabama. See Daniel v. State, 906 So.2d 991, 994–95 (Ala.Crim.App.2004)

(Daniel I ). According to the trial testimony of George Jackson—a friend of Mr. Daniel's who lived in the same apartment complex as Mr. Daniel, Mr. Brodie, and Ms. McCulloch—Mr. Daniel shot Mr. Brodie and Ms. McCulloch following a card game after Mr. Brodie used racial slurs and Ms. McCulloch taunted Mr. Daniel by refusing to return his cigarettes. About twelve hours after the shooting, Mr. Jackson reported the crime to the police, exculpating himself and implicating Mr. Daniel. Mr. Daniel was arrested later that day for the murders based on the information provided by Mr. Jackson. He was indicted on March 8, 2002, for capital murder under Alabama Criminal Code § 13A–5–40(a)(10).

B. TRIAL

Because Mr. Daniel was not able to afford an attorney, Jefferson County Circuit Judge Tommy Nail appointed Katheree Hughes to represent Mr. Daniel on October 15, 2001. Judge Nail later appointed Danita Haskins on July 19, 2002, to assist Mr. Hughes.² Mr. Daniel's trial began on March 10, 2003. The state presented the testimony of Mr. Jackson implicating Mr. Daniel, as well as the testimony of other witnesses and forensic and physical evidence that corroborated Mr. Jackson's testimony. Mr. Daniel testified that it was Mr. Jackson who shot Mr. Brodie and Ms. McCulloch. On March 14 at 2:10 p.m., the jury found Mr. Daniel guilty of capital murder.

C. PENALTY PHASE

Five minutes later, the trial court tried to start the sentencing hearing before the jury, but trial counsel requested an adjournment until the following morning “in order to get enough time to go through all the information [trial counsel] need[ed] to go through” to start the sentencing hearing. The trial court gave the defense thirty minutes.

The state presented no additional witnesses during the penalty phase before the jury, instead relying on evidence presented during the guilt phase and documentary exhibits to prove two of the three aggravating circumstances it asserted: (1) Mr. Daniel was on probation when the offense occurred, Ala.Code § 13A–5–49(1)

; and (2) he previously was convicted of a felony involving the use or threat of violence, id. § 13A–5–49(2). In closing arguments, the state elaborated on the second circumstance, telling the jury that Mr. Daniel's earlier conviction for second degree burglary involved “entering or remaining in someone's home for the purpose of committing rape.” Because he now stood convicted of murdering both Mr. Brodie and Ms. McCulloch, the state also told the jury that Mr. Daniel had a third aggravating circumstance, that is killing two people during one course of conduct. See

id. § 13A–5–49(9).

The only witness defense counsel presented was Carolyn Daniel, Mr. Daniel's mother. In her brief testimony, which occupies only ten double-spaced pages of transcript, Mrs. Daniel touched on some of the low points in her son's life. She told the jury that Mr. Daniel had Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

(ADHD) and dyslexia ; that he dropped out of school in the tenth grade; and that Mr. Daniel's biological father died when Mr. Daniel was three. Mrs. Daniel also testified that Mr. Daniel's stepfather, Earnest Western, “abused [him] and I didn't know about it for a long time.” She described only one specific instance of abuse. When Mr. Daniel was about twelve years old Mrs. Daniel said she left him “[o]ne night” with his stepfather and, when she got home, Mr. Daniel told her “that he had gotten a beating by his stepdad” and that he had blood in his urine. When she took Mr. Daniel to the hospital, “[i]t was discovered that one of his kidneys had been damaged from the beating.” As a result, protective services removed Mr. Daniel and his two sisters from the home for about ten months, and Mr. Daniel was placed in a group home. When the family reunited, Mrs. Daniel says Mr. Daniel was “withdrawn” and “always seem[ed] like he was hurting on the inside.” Mr. Daniel started drinking beer at about age sixteen, and “on one occasion” Mrs. Daniel found marijuana in his room. Finally, Mrs. Daniel pleaded to the jury for her son's life.

Two hours and twenty minutes after the penalty phase began, the jury returned a 10 to 2 verdict for death. Then on May 9, 2003, the trial court conducted a sentencing hearing without the jury, which is the procedure called for by Alabama law. See Ala.Code § 13A–5–47

. The state presented no additional evidence of aggravating circumstances, but it did present the testimony of Spencer Sims, Ms. McCulloch's father, who spoke of forgiveness and asked for a life sentence. The defense called Carolyn Daniel, as it had during the penalty phase, and called Mr. Daniel's sister, Tammi Daniel, as well. Both asked the trial court to spare Mr. Daniel's life. After hearing this testimony, the trial court accepted the jury's recommendation and sentenced Mr. Daniel to death. Immediately after imposing the sentence, the trial court granted trial counsel's request to be relieved of any further responsibility in Mr. Daniel's case.

D. DIRECT APPEAL

The trial court then appointed James Kendrick and Steven Wallace to represent Mr. Daniel on appeal.

The Court of Criminal Appeals remanded the case due to an improper sentencing order. Daniel I, 906 So.2d at 1001–02

. Specifically, the court found that the trial court's written sentencing order did not comply with state law, which requires the trial court to make “specific written findings concerning the existence or nonexistence” of aggravating and mitigating circumstances. Id. (quoting Ala.Code § 13A–5–47(d) ). On remand, the...