Anderson v. Collins
| Decision Date | 01 April 1994 |
| Docket Number | No. 91-2701,91-2701 |
| Parties | Larry Norman ANDERSON, Petitioner-Appellant, v. James A. COLLINS, Director Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Institutional Division and Dan Morales, Attorney General of the State of Texas, Respondents-Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit |
Michael M. Essmyer, Essmyer & Assoc., Houston, TX (court-appointed), for petitioner-appellant.
William C. Zapalac, Robert S. Walt, Asst. Attys. Gen., Dan Morales, Atty. Gen., Austin, TX, for respondents-appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas.
Before KING, GARWOOD, and HIGGINBOTHAM, Circuit Judges.
Plaintiff-appellant Larry Norman Anderson (Anderson), convicted in a Texas court in 1983 of capital murder and sentenced to death, challenges the district court's denial of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus. We affirm the district court's denial of habeas corpus relief.
At about 2:20 a.m. on March 30, 1982, Trooper Gary Stone (Stone) was on patrol in west Harris County. Having previously received a report about a vehicle in the area driving without its lights on, Stone pulled Anderson over after he saw Anderson turn on his headlights while driving toward Stone's car. Anderson's hands and clothes were covered with blood, and in the bed of Anderson's pickup truck were an overturned garbage can containing a large amount of blood and a lock-blade knife covered with blood. Inside the cab of the truck were two money bags full of money and a ski mask. Anderson claimed that the money bags belonged to him.
Anderson was taken into custody, and at the police station later that morning was asked if he knew anything about the disappearance of Zelda Lynn Webster (Webster), a manager at a nightclub near where Anderson had been residing. Webster had been reported as missing from the club earlier in the evening. The bank bags that normally stayed behind the bar of the club were also gone.
Anderson initially declined to answer questions about Webster, but then voluntarily confessed to having killed her. He stated that he had been involved in a drug transaction with Webster, and that she had refused to pay him. On the previous evening, he indicated, he and Webster had engaged in sexual intercourse, after which she became hysterical and demanded that he return the money he had taken from her. He confessed to having stabbed her and discarded her body in a remote ditch near Addicks Dam. The police officers discovered Webster's body where Anderson told them it could be found. She had been stabbed fifteen times in the chest.
Police officers then met with Anderson's aunt, and she took them to the home of Anderson's cousin, who was away on vacation and had left Anderson a set of keys so that he could look after the house. In the house, on top of Anderson's jacket, the officers found Webster's purse. Inside the purse was a bank bag filled with money. This bag, and the other two found in Anderson's pickup, were shown to belong to the lounge where Webster worked.
Anderson pleaded not guilty to capital murder, and his testimony at the guilt/innocence phase of his trial elaborated on the confession given to the police. He testified that on the evening in question he had gone to the lounge to collect five thousand dollars that Webster owed him as part of a drug deal. They argued, but she agreed to get him the money, and they then drove to his cousin's house, where they engaged in sexual intercourse. Anderson then asked Webster if she was ready to get the money. She said that she was not, and accused Anderson of raping her. She told him that if he did not leave her alone, she would call the police and have him sent to prison. He responded that he had to have the money. She started to walk toward the telephone, and he stepped in front of her.
Anderson testified that although he was upset, he and Webster agreed to go back to the lounge. On the way, Anderson convinced her to stop at his uncle's office building, where he had been staying. They went to the room where Anderson had been sleeping, and he renewed his demands for payment. Webster again refused and started walking toward a telephone in the next room. Anderson grabbed her, a fight ensued, and he stabbed her with a knife he wore on his belt. In his trial testimony, Anderson denied any knowledge of the money bags.
Anderson was convicted of capital murder under Tex.Penal Code Ann. Sec. 19.03 on February 14, 1983. On the same day, he was sentenced to death by lethal injection after the jury answered affirmatively the three special issues submitted under former Tex.Code Crim.Proc.Ann. art. 37.071. 1 Anderson did not testify at the sentencing phase of his trial.
His direct appeal was handled by the same lawyer who handled the jury trial, attorney Joe Frank Cannon (Cannon). Also representing Anderson on appeal was attorney Kristine C. Woldy (Woldy). The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the conviction and sentence on October 9, 1985, and the United States Supreme Court denied certiorari on October 6, 1986. Anderson v. State, 701 S.W.2d 868 (Tex.Crim.App.1985), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 870, 107 S.Ct. 239, 93 L.Ed.2d 163 (1986).
Anderson, represented by attorney Richard Alley (Alley), filed applications for a writ of habeas corpus and motions for a stay of execution in both the trial court and Southern District of Texas. The trial court rescheduled the execution date, and the federal court dismissed for failure to exhaust state remedies. Anderson, represented by Alley, filed in the state trial court an amended application for writ of habeas corpus, alleging that he was denied effective assistance of counsel, particularly in Cannon's manner of conducting voir dire and in his failure to request a jury charge on voluntary manslaughter, and alleging that there was insufficient evidence to support the jury's affirmative answers to Special Issues 1 and 3. The trial court conducted evidentiary hearings on March 5 and 9, 1987, on questions about Cannon's effectiveness. Anderson, Cannon, and others testified at these hearings and Anderson was represented at them by Alley. On April 3, 1987, the Texas trial court entered an order adopting the proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law of the State of Texas (the State). The court denied habeas corpus relief and left in place a previously ordered execution date of April 28, 1987. The Court of Criminal Appeals denied the application for a writ of habeas corpus and a stay of execution on April 24, 1987. 2
On April 27, 1987, the federal district court granted a stay of execution, finding that Anderson's claim of ineffective assistance of counsel--especially Cannon's failure to request a charge on voluntary manslaughter--was not frivolous. On August 28, 1988, Anderson, now represented by new counsel, filed an amended petition, raising twenty-nine grounds for relief. The petition contained allegations not presented in the state proceedings, but the State has expressly waived the exhaustion requirement. See Felder v. Estelle, 693 F.2d 549 (5th Cir.1982).
The district court denied the writ of habeas corpus and dismissed the cause with a written order on April 23, 1991. Anderson's motions for new trial and for relief from the judgment were denied, and the district court declined to issue a certificate of probable cause for appeal. Pursuant to instructions from this Court, however, the parties have presented full briefs and orally argued the merits of Anderson's 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2254 petition.
Anderson raises four primary arguments in this appeal: (1) that the operation of the Texas capital sentencing statute in this case violated the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments as construed in Penry v. Lynaugh, 492 U.S. 302, 109 S.Ct. 2934, 106 L.Ed.2d 256 (1989), because the jury was not permitted to consider and act upon mitigating evidence concerning his background and character; (2) that he was denied effective assistance of counsel; (3) that the trial court erred in failing to instruct the jury on voluntary manslaughter and failing to place upon the State the burden of negating the existence of sudden passion; and (4) that the capital murder provision of the Texas Penal Code is unconstitutionally vague. We address these arguments in turn.
In Penry, the Supreme Court held that without appropriate instructions the Texas special issues did not permit the jury to fully consider and give effect to the mitigating evidence of Penry's mental retardation and childhood marked by abuse. Because this evidence had relevance to his moral culpability beyond the scope of the special issues, the jury was unable through its answers to express a "reasoned moral response" to the evidence. Penry, 492 U.S. at 321, 109 S.Ct. at 2948.
Anderson contends that various traumatic and harmful experiences in his past 3 constitute relevant, mitigating circumstances that the jury was not able to consider in this case. Also, he argues, the jury was told that he had been in jail in Arkansas, but not that his prison record was exemplary. Finally, the jury was not told of the assertedly corrupt and brutal conditions in the Arkansas prison, a factor of alleged immediate relevance to his defense because it supposedly helps to explain his uncontrollable rage when confronted with Webster's threats to send him back to prison.
Anderson admits that he did not attempt to introduce any of this evidence at trial or tender it to the trial court. He argues that the jury was "preempted" from considering this evidence because the jury was empaneled with the mistaken view, created by the prosecutor's questions during voir dire, that the terms "deliberate" and "intentional" were equivalent. The apparent thrust of Anderson's argument is that, because the jury mistakenly believed that any evidence showing intentional conduct required an affirmative...
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