Adams v. Balkcom
| Decision Date | 08 October 1982 |
| Docket Number | No. 81-7728,81-7728 |
| Parties | Otis ADAMS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Charles BALKCOM, Warden, and Arthur K. Bolton, State Attorney General, Defendants-Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit |
Thomas M. West, Atlanta, Ga., for plaintiff-appellant.
William B. Hill, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., Charles E. Brown, Atlanta, Ga., for defendants-appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.
Before GOLDBERG, * HILL and HATCHETT, Circuit Judges.
This appeal requires review of the district court's denial of a petition for writ of habeas corpus, filed on behalf of a state prisoner pursuant to 28 U.S.C.A. § 2254, on the ground of denial of the constitutional right to effective assistance of counsel.
On November 22, 1974, Otis Adams, the appellant, arrived at the apartment where he lived with Rosie Mae Stewart. Finding Stewart in her bedroom, Adams accused her of being drunk and a heated argument started. After Stewart told him to get out, Adams began gathering his clothes. As the couple stood arguing in a hallway of the apartment, Stewart allegedly came towards Adams with her hands behind her back. Adams testified that she suddenly "charged (him) all at once and struck (him) up beside the head with (a) hammer." As a result of the blow, Adams claims he went into a "semi-conscious" condition and momentarily blacked out. Adams testified that as he took his hands out of his pockets to prevent falling and to get Stewart off of him, he accidently shot her with a small .22 caliber pistol he had in his pocket. Although defense counsel contended that the killing was in self-defense or an accident, Adams insisted on cross-examination that the killing was accidental.
According to the state's version of the incident, Adams intentionally murdered Rosie Mae Stewart. Through the testimony of the victim's daughter, Arie Mae Whitehead, the state attempted to establish that Adams deliberately drew his gun and shot the victim, without provocation. Arie Mae Whitehead lived in her mother's apartment and witnessed the argument and killing. At trial, Arie Mae Whitehead testified that her mother did not hit Adams with a hammer and did not have a hammer on the premises. She also testified that her mother was not struggling or fighting, but that the couple was "cussing and going on and (Adams) reached his hand in his pocket and pulled a pistol out and pressed it up against her ear and pulled the trigger and she fell." Rosie Mae Stewart died of a gunshot wound to her head.
Atlanta police found the victim sprawled on the floor with her legs entwined by a telephone cord which had been ripped from the wall. Pieces of a broken light bulb were strewn about her bedroom floor.
At the habeas corpus hearing before the district court, trial counsel agreed that the defense theory was that:
(Adams) did shoot the victim but that either through accident or mistake his hand came out of his pocket where he had a pistol, his hand was thrown up some how in a manner that he did not remember exactly-what exactly happened, threw the pistol up, some how it discharged and she was killed only after the victim had attacked him, in fact, hit him in the head with a hammer.
To establish its defense, defense counsel had to show that blood found in the hallway and on the steps from the victim's apartment was from Adams's head wound which the victim had inflicted with the hammer prior to the shooting. It was also necessary for Adams's attorney to discredit the testimony of the sole eyewitness to the crime-the victim's daughter.
Despite the daughter's testimony that no hammer was on the premises, and Adams was not hit by the victim, extensive evidence corroborated Adams's assertion that he was struck with a hammer before he shot the victim. Police found a hammer lying within inches of the victim's body. A police officer testified that he noticed drops of blood on the steps leading from the apartment. The magistrate to whom the petition for habeas corpus was referred found that this blood could not have come from the victim. Moreover, a neighbor who looked out the window after hearing the shot testified that she saw Adams descending the steps "rather slowly with his head down like he was either injured or sad." Another neighbor who saw blood on the stairway testified that she heard Adams state that he was going to the hospital. One of the officers who arrested appellant at the hospital stated that Adams had sustained a head wound. Finally, medical records in evidence showed that Adams had received treatment for a head injury.
After a jury found Adams guilty of the murder of Rosie Mae Stewart, the Superior After exhausting state remedies, in January, 1980, Adams filed this habeas corpus proceeding in the district court pursuant to 28 U.S.C.A. § 2254, contending that his conviction violated his sixth and fourteenth amendment right to effective assistance of counsel. The United States Magistrate found that the state habeas corpus hearing was neither full nor fair because the record did not disclose that Adams had the opportunity to cross-examine the state's witnesses. After an evidentiary hearing with court appointed counsel, the magistrate recommended denial of the petition. On July 27, 1981, the district court entered judgment against Adams. This appeal followed.
Court of Fulton County, Georgia, sentenced Adams to life imprisonment. After the trial court overruled his amended motion for a new trial, the Georgia Supreme Court affirmed Adams's conviction and sentence. Adams v. State, 236 Ga. 468, 224 S.E.2d 32 (1976). He then filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus in the Superior Court of Tattnall County. After an evidentiary hearing, the court denied relief.
Adams contends that he was deprived of his constitutional right to effective representation at his trial because his attorney:
(1) Failed to submit the blood found on the stairs and in the apartment for analysis to determine that it was his;
(2) failed to seek an independent lab analysis of the hammer to ascertain the presence of blood, hair, or fingerprints;
(3) failed to adequately establish the fact that Adams had sustained a head wound and the nature and extent of the injury;
(4) failed to effectively impeach Arie Mae Whitehead, the state's strongest witness;
(5) elicited extremely damaging testimony on cross-examination; and
(6) bolstered the credibility of the state's primary witness during closing argument.
The sixth amendment guarantees a criminal defendant the right to effective, not errorless, counsel. Young v. Zant, 677 F.2d 792, 798 (11th Cir. 1982); Mylar v. Alabama, 671 F.2d 1299, 1300 (11th Cir. 1982). Under the standard for reviewing claims of ineffective assistance of counsel, this court does not judge counsel's representation solely by the benefit of hindsight. Washington v. Watkins, 655 F.2d 1346, 1355 (5th Cir. 1981); Lovett v. Florida, 627 F.2d 706, 708 (5th Cir. 1980). Rather, we must determine whether counsel was reasonably likely to render, and rendered reasonably effective assistance. Herring v. Estelle, 491 F.2d 125, 127 (5th Cir. 1974) (quoting MacKenna v. Ellis, 280 F.2d 592, 599 (5th Cir. 1960)), adhered to in pertinent part on rehearing en banc, 289 F.2d 928 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 368 U.S. 877, 82 S.Ct. 121, 7 L.Ed.2d 78 (1961). The application of this standard requires an inquiry into the actual performance of defense counsel and a determination whether representation was reasonably effective based on the totality of the circumstances in the entire record. Washington v. Watkins, 655 F.2d at 1355; Baldwin v. Blackburn, 653 F.2d 942, 946 (5th Cir. 1981).
"Informed evaluation of potential defenses to criminal charges and meaningful discussion with one's client of the realities of his case are cornerstones of effective assistance of counsel." Gaines v. Hopper, 575 F.2d 1147, 1149-50 (5th Cir. 1978). Tactical decisions, however, do not render assistance ineffective merely because in retrospect it is apparent that counsel chose the wrong course. Baldwin v. Blackburn, 653 F.2d at 946; Beckham v. Wainwright, 639 F.2d 262, 265 (5th Cir. 1981). Certain defense strategies, however, may be "so ill chosen" as to render counsel's overall representation constitutionally defective. Washington v. Watkins, 655 F.2d at 1364.
The defendant bears the burden of proving that he did not have effective assistance of counsel. United States v. Phillips, 664 F.2d 971, 1040 (5th Cir. 1981). If counsel's assistance is deemed unconstitutionally Whether counsel has rendered effective assistance is a mixed question of law and fact which requires the appellate court to independently apply legal principles to the district court's findings of basic, historical facts of the case. Young v. Zant, 677 F.2d 792, 798. Thus, while we must defer to the district court's findings as to what counsel did or did not do, absent a clearly erroneous determination, we independently evaluate whether counsel's representation satisfied the standards of the sixth and fourteenth amendments.
inadequate, the habeas corpus petitioner must then demonstrate that he was "prejudiced" to "some" degree. 1 Beavers v. Balkcom, 636 F.2d 114, 116 (5th Cir. 1981). "Prejudice" does not embrace errors which are merely detrimental to appellant's case. 655 F.2d at 1360. Rather, where the defendant does not complain of errors of constitutional dimension, the requisite prejudice must be of such magnitude as to render the trial as a whole "fundamentally unfair." Nelson v. Estelle, 642 F.2d at 903, 907-08 (5th Cir. 1981); Hills v. Henderson, 529 F.2d 397, 401 & n. 8 (5th Cir.), cert. denied sub nom. Hills v. Maggio, 429 U.S. 850, 97 S.Ct. 139, 50 L.Ed.2d 124 (1976). 2
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