Ford v. Warden, Nevada Women's Correctional Center

Decision Date27 July 1995
Docket NumberNo. 24961,24961
PartiesPriscilla FORD, Appellant, v. WARDEN, NEVADA WOMEN'S CORRECTIONAL CENTER, Respondent.
CourtNevada Supreme Court
OPINION

PER CURIAM:

Petitioner Priscilla Ford was convicted of six counts of murder and twenty-three counts of attempted murder after driving an automobile onto a sidewalk in downtown Reno on Thanksgiving Day in 1980. See Ford v. State, 102 Nev. 126, 717 P.2d 27 (1986). She was sentenced to death. This is another in a series of appeals by Ford to this court for relief. 1 On appeal, Ford asserts the following claims: (1) that the district court erred in failing to hold a hearing or failing to issue a finding of fact as to Ford's competency prior to dismissing her petition; (2) that the district court erred in not obtaining the entire record in order to determine whether her claims had merit (the voluminous trial record is presently with the federal district court); (3) that the district court erred in refusing to appoint an attorney for Ford; (4) that the district court erred in not reaching the merits of the case, but rather dismissing the case based on procedural default rules; and (5) that the district court erred in determining that the case of Dawson v. Delaware, 503 U.S. 159, 112 S.Ct. 1093, 117 L.Ed.2d 309 (1992), was inapplicable to the case at hand. Ford also requests this court to reduce her sentence from death to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

On November 12, 1991, Ford filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the First Judicial District Court. Her basic grounds for relief may be summarized as follows: (1) that she was deprived of a fair trial; (2) that her state and federal constitutional rights were abridged by the ineffective assistance of trial and appellate counsel; and (3) that both the state and the court system engaged in unconstitutional conduct.

Ford contends that she was denied effective assistance of counsel by reason of counsel's failure to: (1) seek severance of the counts; (2) voir dire prospective jurors concerning their attitudes about the insanity defense; (3) suppress the seizure and use of Ford's personal writings and books; (4) suppress the introduction of prior bad acts; (5) seek court rulings regarding the prosecution's examination of Ford's expert witnesses; (6) challenge Ford's competence to stand trial; (7) request a jury instruction on mitigation; (8) seek a judicial determination of Ford's competence to proceed pro se and testify in her own defense; (9) effectively handle Ford's direct examination; and (10) object to a jury instruction relating to aggravating circumstances.

Ford also claimed that she was denied effective assistance of counsel on direct appeal because appellate counsel failed to brief the following issues that were properly preserved for review: (1) [erroneous, rejected] jury instructions at the guilt and penalty phases; (2) the biased read-back of testimony; (3) the allegedly biased juror; (4) the administration of psychotropic drugs; (5) statements that were involuntary and coerced; (6) the denial of Ford's right of confrontation; (7) the introduction of irrelevant and prejudicial acts; (8) prosecutorial misconduct; (9) the bifurcation of sanity determination from other trial issues; (10) the injection of racial prejudice by the prosecution; and (11) prejudicial and inflammatory comments and statements of personal belief by the prosecutor.

Ford maintained that she was prevented from previously presenting these claims due to the unconstitutional conduct of the State of Nevada, its judges, justices, and agencies, which, in a "rush to justice," deprived Ford of her rights to a fair trial, due process, equal protection, and freedom from cruel and unusual punishment. Ford's petition supplied two reasons why she had good cause for not having addressed the foregoing issues in her initial petition for a writ of habeas corpus. First, she claimed that the district court did not allow sufficient time for petitioner's counsel and an expert attorney to read and adequately examine the entire record. Her petition asserted that she was subjected to an unreasonable rush to justice. Ergo, several glaring errors were not recognized and raised. Second, Ford insists that she was incapable of assisting in the isolation and development of the legal issues.

On December 19, 1991, the district court ordered the State to file a response to Ford's petition. In response, the State filed a motion to dismiss. The State maintained that Ford's claims of ineffective trial counsel had been litigated and rejected previously by this court in Ford, 105 Nev. 850, 784 P.2d 951 (1989). Conceding that certain claims presented by the petition were slightly distinct from previous claims, the State referred to the following comments by this court concerning the issue of ineffective counsel: (1) "[t]here is nothing in the record to show that [trial counsel] failed to give Ford reasonable assistance," Ford, 105 Nev. at 853, 784 P.2d at 953; and (2) in ruling that Ford's contention that her "appellate counsel failed to raise all meritorious issues is without merit," we noted that "Ford's counsel stated that she did not disregard any crucial issue in Ford's appeal ... [and] that appellate counsel is most effective when she does not raise every conceivable issue on appeal." Finally, we also noted that we reviewed the record and "conclude[d] that Ford's counsel adequately raised the relevant issues on appeal." Id. (citations omitted).

In addition, the State identified issues raised by Ford which this court had already addressed, including failure to raise the issue of a biased sitting juror, extra peremptory challenges, and administration of psychotropic drugs. Ford, 102 Nev. at 131-34, 717 P.2d at 29-32. The State also insisted that Ford's claims against Nevada's judges, justices, and agencies merely repeated the claims of ineffective trial and appellate counsel. Consequently, the State concluded that the issues raised in Ford's petition were either not new or were waived, thus requiring dismissal. See NRS 34.810.

In Ford's response to the State's motion to dismiss, she explained the necessity for exhausting her state remedies in preparation for seeking relief in federal court. She noted that her initial petition for habeas corpus inadequately addressed issues of ineffective assistance of counsel, as the subject was only generally addressed (inexperience and time constraints of trial counsel), except for references to counsel's failure to have her car inspected and to interview State witnesses. See Ford, 105 Nev. at 852-53, 784 P.2d at 952-53. Ford argued that this court's general language, asserting that trial and appellate counsel had been effective, could not be used to bar all issues that could potentially be raised.

Ford insisted that this court could not, on its own, review the entire record and ascertain whether her attorneys were effective. She also complained that we failed to discuss the issues presented in her petition, specifically, whether she was sufficiently competent to disregard her attorney's advice and testify at trial, 2 and whether she was subjected to unreasonable time restrictions.

Ford rejected the State's waiver argument on grounds that because of her incompetence, she was incapable of "knowingly and understandingly" waiving her right to post-conviction relief. See Rogers v. Warden, 86 Nev. 359, 361, 468 P.2d 993, 994 (1970). As an alternative basis for relief, Ford reinvoked her arguments demonstrating good cause for not having raised the issues in her prior petition.

In addition to her answer, Ford filed a motion requesting authorization, at state expense, to copy the entire record and renumber the volumes. She contended that the expense was justified because the record, as it stood, was too complex and time consuming to review. On appeal, Ford submits that her request was, in effect, an effort to provide the court with a reasonably reviewable record.

In response, the State asserted that Ford's answer to its motion to dismiss merely repeated issues already raised and addressed. The State also claimed that Ford failed to demonstrate cause and prejudice. The State contended that Ford's ineffective counsel and rush to justice arguments had previously been rejected on direct appeal and in post-conviction relief proceedings.

On April 20, 1992, Ford filed a statement of supplemental authority, asserting that the case of Dawson v. Delaware, 503 U.S. 159, 112 S.Ct. 1093, 117 L.Ed.2d 309 (1992), supported her claim that her trial counsel unreasonably failed to seek pretrial suppression of Ford's writings and autobiographical material, the admission of which assertedly violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution and related Nevada constitutional provisions. On June 11, 1992, Ford's counsel, Annette R. Quintana, having decided to close her practice, sought judicial appointment of counsel for Ford.

On September 3, 1993, the district court entered an order dismissing Ford's petition and denying Ford's motion to copy the record and to appoint new counsel. The district court reasoned that Ford's claims of ineffective assistance of trial and appellate counsel and the unconstitutional conduct of the State of Nevada had been previously raised and rejected in her direct appeal to this court. The district court also noted that the issues of competency and the administration of psychotropic medication had also been decided in Ford, 97 Nev. 578, 635 P.2d 578 (1981), and in Ford, 102 Nev. 126, 717 P.2d 27 (1986). Consequently, the district court ruled that issues not...

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