Loyd v. Whitley
| Decision Date | 29 October 1992 |
| Docket Number | No. 90-3764,90-3764 |
| Citation | 977 F.2d 149 |
| Parties | Alvin Scott LOYD, Petitioner-Appellant, v. John P. WHITLEY, Warden, Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, Louisiana, Respondent-Appellee. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit |
Cecil M. Burglass, Jr., Douglas W. Freese, Stephen F. Cameron, New Orleans, La., John W. Getsinger, James J. Bertrand, Leonard, Street & Deinard, Minneapolis, Minn., for petitioner-appellant.
George Ann Hayne Graugnard, Asst. Dist. Atty., John M. Crum, Jr., Edgard, La., for respondent-appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana.
Before POLITZ, Chief Judge, HIGGINBOTHAM and DUHE, Circuit Judges.
Having been convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to death by a jury, Alvin Scott Loyd petitions for federal habeas corpus relief claiming ineffective assistance of counsel in the penalty phase of his capital murder trial. The district court denied his petition. Finding ineffective assistance of counsel in the penalty phase, we reverse, render, and remand.
Loyd was charged with the capital murder of three-year-old Brandi Giovanetti. 1 Local law enforcement officials apprehended Loyd when he returned to his residence. Loyd was held in custody at the Feliciana Forensic Facility following a Sanity Commission determination that he was not competent to stand trial. After four months Loyd was deemed competent to stand trial.
A jury found Loyd guilty and imposed the death penalty. The Louisiana Supreme Court affirmed the conviction but vacated the death sentence, remanding for a new sentencing trial because a faulty instruction to a hesitant jury violated the integrity of the unanimous jury verdict. At the second sentencing trial the jury again imposed the death penalty. The sentence was affirmed on appeal. 2
The state trial court denied Loyd's first petition for post-conviction relief but the Supreme Court of Louisiana granted a stay of execution and remanded the case to the state trial court for an evidentiary hearing on four issues, including the ineffective assistance of counsel claim. 3 After a hearing, the state court concluded that the performance of counsel at the second sentencing trial was deficient; however, the state court denied habeas relief on the ground that counsel's deficient performance did not prejudice Loyd. The Louisiana Supreme Court denied Loyd's application for review, assigning no reasons.
After exhausting state court remedies, Loyd sought federal habeas relief. The district court granted a stay of execution but ultimately denied Loyd's requested relief. In regard to the ineffective assistance claim, the district court concluded that, contrary to the finding by the state court, counsel's performance was not deficient. We vacated the district court finding on the ground that proper deference had not been given to the state court's findings of fact as required by 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d). 4 We directed the district court to conduct an evidentiary hearing if it concluded that the record was not fully developed.
The district court did not conduct a hearing but reviewed the state habeas court findings, adopted some, rejected others, and reached conclusions of its own. The court again held that the performance of counsel was not deficient and additionally found that any hypothetical deficiency did not prejudice Loyd.
After conducting an evidentiary hearing, the state habeas court concluded that the professional performance of Loyd's defense counsel in the 1985 sentencing trial fell below reasonable professional standards. Loyd's defense team was composed of three attorneys. Court-appointed counsel Gordon Hackman and Randy Lewis had represented Loyd in the 1983 proceedings and had asked permission to withdraw as counsel three weeks before the second sentencing trial. This request was denied but William Allison was added to, and headed, the defense team. At that time Allison's law practice was, as described by him, "ninety percent civil, various mix and ten percent criminal." Allison had practiced law for 14 years and had participated in approximately six criminal jury trials, including one capital case. Hackman, who had been lead counsel at the guilt/innocence phase, had a practice composed primarily of civil litigation, although his firm had accepted a number of criminal cases in the mid 1970s. Lewis was his law partner. At the state habeas hearing, all three attorneys expressed dissatisfaction with their representation of Loyd in the 1985 sentencing trial.
At trial the defense called three doctors, all of whom had been retained by the state to determine Loyd's competence to stand trial. Also in evidence at the penalty phase were sanitarium admission papers reciting an initial diagnosis of "Antisocial Personality Disorder," a Psychological report, a Neuropsychiatric Examination report, a Neurological Examination report, and the report of a social worker. Most of the psychological testimony was presented by Dr. Cox, Loyd's treating physician at the Feliciana Forensic Facility, where Loyd was held during the four months that he was diagnosed as incompetent. Allison spoke with Dr. Cox for the first time on the day of the trial, for 45 minutes during the lunch hour. Also testifying were Dr. St. Martin, the Feliciana coroner and a member of the Sanity Commission that found Loyd initially incompetent, and Dr. Ritter, the other Sanity Commission member.
Although Dr. St. Martin described "an in-depth exam" with Loyd, Dr. Ritter emphasized that he "did not do a detailed personality inventory on Mr. Loyd." Dr. Ritter also described the role of the Sanity Commission as limited:
When you evaluate someone in a prison setting and someone who is depressed sometimes that's very difficult to get any details. Besides you're there for two specific purposes. Not to get a personality inventory, to make a detailed study of personality, but to determine if there are any mental diseases or defect which could impair his ability to proceed to trial or could impair his ability to tell the difference between right and wrong.
No independent psychiatrist or psychologist testified on Loyd's behalf in the sentencing phase despite the fact found by the state court that Loyd's sanity was a critical issue. Allison had initially requested $1,000 to hire an independent, neutral psychiatrist to testify in Loyd's defense; $600 was approved. Thereafter, according to the state court, "Allison made several half-hearted attempts to procure [independent, psychiatric] services, but eventually abandoned those efforts." Hackman had $1,250 which had been given to him by Loyd's mother to be used for Loyd's defense. Hackman did not inform Allison of the availability of these funds. Hackman did not pursue further psychiatric testimony because he believed that such an attempt would have been futile.
The state court made the factual finding that Hackman's decision was based upon a failure to understand the difference between the McNaughten test for sanity and the Louisiana mitigating factors of "mental or emotional disturbance," or "mental disease or defect." 5 The state court also found that the aggregate funds available were sufficient for an independent psychiatric analysis of Loyd. The court concluded that "for counsel not to have sought such an evaluation, where funds were available to do so, was an error which fell below the professional standards of conduct required to constitute proper representation."
Loyd's new habeas counsel sought the services of doctors whose testimony in the state habeas evidentiary hearing presented a more detailed explanation of Loyd's mental impairments. Dr. Kenneth Perkins, a clinical psychologist, reviewed the raw data from the Feliciana tests and determined that to a large extent the data had been misinterpreted in such a way that Loyd did not receive additional necessary testing. 6 Dr. Stephen Honor, also a clinical psychologist, repeated the psychological tests; the raw data from the new psychological tests mirrored the Feliciana raw data. Dr. Honor, like Dr. Perkins, found that the Feliciana staff's interpretation of the data understated the extent of Loyd's mental impairments. Similarly, Dr. Barry Scanlon examined Loyd, reviewed his records from Feliciana, and disagreed with the Feliciana conclusions. Dr. Sanchez, the forensic psychiatrist requested by counsel for the state, examined Loyd after both the state and the defense accepted him as qualified. Because of the opinion formulated after this review, Dr. Sanchez was called to testify by Loyd's counsel.
The evidence presented at Loyd's sentencing trial--evidence based on the Feliciana conclusions--markedly differs from the new evidence.
At the penalty phase, Drs. St. Martin and Ritter testified that at the time of the crime, Loyd knew the difference between right and wrong. Dr. Cox concurred that Loyd was "sane" at the time of the crime. In the state habeas hearing, Dr. St. Martin testified that he based his diagnosis of Loyd's sanity on "how he was feeling, [he was not] hallucinating, his general psychological condition at the time, and the things that he was able to do at the site of the crime and after the crime." Dr. St. Martin stated that he did not believe it was possible for individuals to "not show ... any psychosis any other time but just have a short burst of psychosis."
The experts presented by Loyd's habeas counsel all expressed doubts regarding Loyd's sanity at the time of the crime. Dr. Honor reported that:
While Mr. Loyd did apparently form an intent to kill the child, the evidence of his mental and emotional state, based upon his self report and the examination results, strongly suggests that he would have been unable to appreciate the...
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