Jones v. White
| Decision Date | 15 June 1993 |
| Docket Number | 90-7295,Nos. 90-7129,90-7394 and 92-6175,s. 90-7129 |
| Parties | Anthony JONES, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Warden J.D. WHITE; Attorney General of the State of Alabama, Respondents-Appellees, Circuit Court of Macon County, Defendant. William H. MARDIS, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Charlie JONES, Warden; Don Siegelman, Attorney General for the State of Alabama, Respondents-Appellees. Larry Wayne GARRETT, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Charlie JONES, Warden and Attorney General of the State of Alabama, Respondents-Appellees. Terry Wayne McLESTER, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Morris THIGPEN, Commissioner of the State of Alabama, Department of Corrections; James H. Evans, Attorney General for the State of Alabama; W.E. Johnson, Warden, Holman Station, Respondents-Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit |
William S. Haynes, Rushton, Stakely, Johnston & Garrett, P.A., Montgomery, AL, for petitioner-appellant in No. 90-7129.
Andy Poole, Asst. Atty. Gen., Montgomery, AL, for respondents-appellees in No. 90-7129.
Thomas M. Goggans, Montgomery, AL, for petitioner-appellant in No. 90-7295.
J. Thomas Leverette, Asst. Atty. Gen., Montgomery, AL, for respondents-appellees in No. 90-7295.
George Beck, Dennis R. Pierson and W. Terry Travis, Montgomery, AL, for petitioner-appellant in No. 90-7394.
P. David Bjurberg, Asst. Atty. Gen., Montgomery, AL, for respondents-appellees in No. 90-7394.
W. Terry Travis, George L. Beck, Montgomery, AL, William J. Baxley, Baxley, Dillard & Dauphin, Birmingham, AL, for petitioner-appellant in No. 92-6175.
James H. Evans, Atty. Gen., Andy S. Poole, Beth Slate Poe, Asst. Attys. Gen., Montgomery, AL, for respondents-appellees in No. 92-6175.
Appeals from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama.
Before BIRCH, Circuit Judge, JOHNSON, Senior Circuit Judge, and THOMAS *, Senior District Judge.
In this consolidated appeal from denials of habeas corpus relief, we examine constitutional challenges to the Alabama Habitual Felony Offender Act (HFOA), which subjects a convicted felony defendant to life imprisonment without parole after the fourth Class A felony conviction. In these four cases, criminal defendants were sentenced under the HFOA. As habeas corpus petitioners, they allege that similarly eligible defendants were not so sentenced. The respective district courts concluded that the sentences did not result from an equal protection violation and denied habeas corpus relief. Following a thorough review of the records, we AFFIRM, although we base our reasoning for affirming the fourth case on grounds other than those relied upon by the district court.
Petitioner Anthony Jones was tried and convicted of first-degree robbery in the Circuit Court of Macon County, Alabama on December 8, 1981. The prosecution appropriately advised Jones that it intended to proceed against him at sentencing as an habitual offender with evidence of four prior felony convictions. On January 20, 1982, Jones was sentenced as an habitual offender to a term of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. His conviction was affirmed by the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals on August 24, 1982. Jones v. State, 418 So.2d 955 (Ala.Crim.App.1982).
Jones then filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus in federal court for the Middle District of Alabama. Among his grounds for relief was a claim that his habitual offender sentence was discriminatory. His petition was denied. Jones appealed to this court, which affirmed the district court's denial of relief on all grounds except his recidivist sentence claim. We reversed the district court concerning Jones's HFOA sentence claim by finding the assertion of an equal protection violation. Jones v. White, 811 F.2d 610 (11th Cir.1987) (per curiam). This court remanded the case to district court for an evidentiary hearing on Jones's allegedly discriminatory sentence under the HFOA.
On remand, counsel was appointed for Jones and extensive discovery was authorized. On January 30, 1989, a magistrate judge conducted an evidentiary hearing on Jones's claim that he was sentenced discriminatorily under the HFOA. Based on the evidence presented by Jones, the magistrate judge found that at least twelve persons sentenced in Macon County since the enactment of the HFOA had not received the correct or enhanced sentence. The magistrate judge noted that Macon County conducted only two terms of criminal court a year. Generally, cases subject to plea bargain agreements received early disposition in the court term. The prosecuting authorities in Macon County delegated the responsibility for obtaining information on defendants' prior convictions to investigators. Because the investigators usually did not begin obtaining information on prior convictions until the approach of the criminal term, defendants who pled guilty in the early stages of the court term occasionally were advantaged. Information on prior convictions, often from other counties or states, was not available at the time the pleas were taken.
The magistrate judge observed that defendants who went to trial generally were subjected to the application of the HFOA. He specifically found that "[t]here is absolutely no evidence, however, to suggest that persons are selected to be treated as habitual offenders because of their race or sex or religion or because they have chosen to exercise a particular constitutional right." R2-99-10. With respect to Jones, the magistrate judge concluded that "[t]here is no evidence to suggest ... that the decision to treat the petitioner as an habitual offender was motivated by a desire to punish the petitioner for exercising his right to trial by jury." R2-99-15 n. 39. Therefore, the magistrate judge determined that, while the HFOA was not applied uniformly in Macon County, no evidence was presented to show that this result was based on any discriminatory reason violating a constitutional right. The magistrate judge accordingly recommended that Jones's habeas corpus petition be denied.
The district court adopted the magistrate judge's recommendation and denied Jones's petition for a writ of habeas corpus. Jones appealed to this court the sole issue of whether he had been denied Fourteenth Amendment equal protection because of his claim of being selectively prosecuted under the HFOA. This court subsequently stayed Jones's appeal pending the disposition of McLester v. Thigpen (McLester II), No. 87-T-00174-S (M.D.Ala. Feb. 24, 1992), the fourth case in this consolidated appeal.
Petitioner William H. Mardis and James Meeks were charged with the armed robbery of a drugstore in Montgomery, Alabama on July 22, 1981. Narcotics and money were stolen. At trial, a store employee positively identified Mardis as one of the robbers, and the prosecution presented an oral inculpatory statement by Mardis.
Prosecution witness Rhonda Thornton testified that she was with Mardis and Meeks when they reconnoitered the drugstore before the robbery, and that Mardis described his participation in the robbery to her and showed her drugs that he had taken from the store. Mardis's counsel impeached Thornton's credibility by showing that she was under indictment for selling cocaine, a drug charge unrelated to the robbery; that she was codefendant Meeks's girlfriend; and that she was a heavy drug user at the time of the robbery. At trial, Thornton was a suspect in several robberies and had a pending drug charge lodged against her. The prosecution agreed to accord Thornton youthful offender status in exchange for her testimony against Mardis. Although prior to and at the beginning of trial Mardis's counsel requested that the prosecution produce any potentially impeaching evidence, the prosecution did not inform Mardis of this agreement.
Mardis was convicted of first-degree robbery in the Circuit Court of Montgomery County and sentenced under the HFOA to life without parole. His conviction was affirmed by the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals. Mardis v. State, 423 So.2d 331 (Ala.Crim.App.1982). He filed two post-conviction petitions in the Alabama state courts. Each petition was denied, and the denials were affirmed by the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals.
Mardis then petitioned in federal court for the Middle District of Alabama for a writ of habeas corpus. He presented the same two issues that he pursues in this court: the prosecution failed to disclose impeachment evidence concerning its agreement with Thornton and the HFOA was applied to him discriminatorily at sentencing in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. A magistrate judge held an evidentiary hearing on March 6, 1990.
The magistrate judge determined that the prosecution's failure to disclose the favorable treatment of Thornton was harmless error in view of the eyewitness identification and Mardis's confession directly implicating him in the robbery. Regarding Mardis's claim of discriminatory application of the HFOA, the parties stipulated to the factual records in the Jones case and in McLester's first habeas petition, both from the Middle District of Alabama. The factual and statistical presentations made in the evidentiary hearings in those cases were supplemented to the Mardis record. Mardis premised his claim that individuals who plead guilty are less likely to receive sentences under HFOA than those who elect to go to trial solely on statistical evidence. The magistrate judge concluded that Mardis had not met his burden of proof to show that the HFOA intentionally was applied in a discriminatory manner. He recommended that Mardis's habeas corpus petition be denied. The district court adopted the magistrate judge's recommendation and denied Mardis's petition for writ of habeas corpus.
We briefly address Mardis's claim that the prosecution failed to disclose Thornton's favorable treatment. Under the harmless...
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