Baird v. State, 54S00-9304-PD-434

• Decision Date: 02 December 1997
• Docket Number: No. 54S00-9304-PD-434,54S00-9304-PD-434
• Citation: 688 N.E.2d 911
• Parties: Arthur Paul BAIRD, II, Appellant-Petitioner, v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee-Respondent.
• Court: Indiana Supreme Court

Page 911

688 N.E.2d 911

Arthur Paul BAIRD, II, Appellant-Petitioner, v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee-Respondent.

No. 54S00-9304-PD-434.

Supreme Court of Indiana.

Dec. 2, 1997.

Rehearing Denied March 2, 1998.

Jessie A. Cook, Terre Haute, for Appellant-Petitioner.

Pamela Carter, Attorney General, Arthur Thaddeus Perry, Assistant Attorney General, Indianapolis, for Appellee-Respondent.

BOEHM, Justice.

Arthur Paul Baird, II appeals from a denial of his petition for postconviction relief. In 1987, Baird was convicted of the 1985 murders of his wife and parents and of feticide. Baird's petition for postconviction relief unsuccessfully raised nine issues. In this appeal Baird alleges that the postconviction court erred as to four of those issues. He contends that: 1) the sentence of death was excessive, disproportionate, or inappropriate; 2) the Indiana Insanity Defense Statute violates the federal and Indiana constitutions; 3) his trial counsel committed fundamental error by failing to strike for cause, or interrogate, jurors that had been exposed to information concerning plea negotiations, and in failing to move for a mistrial because of an impartial jury; and 4) the trial court's decision to excuse a prospective juror pursuant to the Indiana Householder Statute was fundamental error. We affirm the judgment of the postconviction court.

Factual and Procedural Background

The facts of this case are reported in Baird v. State, 604 N.E.2d 1170, 1175-76 (Ind.1992). In brief, on the evening of September 7, 1985, Baird strangled his wife as she lay in bed in the trailer on the farm where they lived. The next morning, as he usually did, Baird fed the chickens and brought in the newspaper for his parents who lived nearby on the farm. Shortly after his mother gave him a haircut, he stabbed and killed her. As Baird was leaving the house, he encountered his father and stabbed and killed him. Baird packed his car, drove away, and was apprehended about five hours later as he sat in the bleachers watching a softball game. He left behind notes and letters whose content was mixed with remorse and regret for his actions and concern for the loose ends of his daily routine, such as taking care of the recycling, leftover food items, and bills. In a detailed statement to police, Baird confessed that he had totally lost control and gone "berserk." At trial, evidence was introduced that Baird believed the federal government was about to pay him one million dollars in return for his advice, never given, on how to solve the national debt. Expecting this money, Baird, with his wife, had made plans to purchase a large farm. The murders occurred the day before the scheduled closing. Baird contended that he did not act voluntarily and that he was insane at the time of the killings.

The jury found him guilty of three counts of murder and one count of feticide. Following the jury's recommendation the trial court imposed the death sentence as to the murders of Baird's parents, and also imposed a sixty year sentence on the remaining murder charge, and an eight year sentence for the feticide. In 1992, we affirmed the convictions and the sentence on direct appeal. Baird, 604 N.E.2d at 1170. Baird then petitioned for postconviction relief. After a hearing, the postconviction court denied Baird's petition. Pursuant to Indiana Postconviction Rule 1(7), this appeal followed. The standard of review in postconviction proceedings is governed by Indiana Trial Rule 52(A). Spranger v. State, 650 N.E.2d 1117, 1119 (Ind.1995), reh'g denied. To succeed on an appeal from a negative judgment in postconviction proceedings, "the appellate tribunal must be convinced that the evidence as a whole was such that it leads unerringly and unmistakably to a decision opposite that reached by the trial court." Id. (citing Williams v. State, 508 N.E.2d 1264, 1265 (Ind.1987)). We defer substantially to findings of fact but not to conclusions of law. State v. Moore, 678 N.E.2d 1258, 1261 (Ind.1997).

I. Death Sentence

Baird contends in this appeal that the postconviction court erred in not concluding that the death sentence was excessive, disproportionate, or inappropriate under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. He also requests that we remand for new sentencing in light of newly discovered evidence that bears on this conclusion. The source of the new evidence was testimony at the postconviction hearing by Dr. Howard E. Wooden, a clinical psychologist. Dr. Wooden testified that at the time of the murders Baird suffered from a "delusional disorder" accompanied by a "psychotic reaction." According to Wooden's diagnosis, Baird acted and functioned in accordance with fanciful beliefs or delusions. The wisdom of Baird's illusory belief system was threatened by a different tangible reality--the failure of the federal government to supply funds to purchase the new farm. He refused to confront this reality and snapped, murdering his family--the accompanying psychotic reaction. Dr. Wooden said that at the time of the trial, such delusional disorders were not available for firm independent diagnosis but were considered mainly in conjunction with substance abuse. Baird does not assert that this evidence required a finding of not guilty by reason of insanity. Rather, his contention is that if this diagnosis had been available to present to the jury in the sentencing phase or to this Court on direct appeal, it would have established Baird's inability to control his behavior and thus changed the balancing of mitigating and aggravating factors to weigh against a death sentence.

After hearing Dr. Wooden's testimony, the postconviction court found that there was "no evidence" that the death sentence was excessive, disproportionate, or inappropriate. The postconviction court also concluded that because Baird raised this claim on direct appeal, it was barred by res judicata. The court correctly concluded that we previously decided the issue adversely to Baird on direct appeal. Baird, 604 N.E.2d at 1181-83. However, the postconviction court did not allude to Baird's new evidence claim. Presumably, this is because in his postconviction petition, Baird did not characterize his objection to the death sentence as a new evidence claim. Nor did he refer to Indiana Postconviction Rule 1(1)(a)(4). ¹ Rather he asserted that the death sentence should be reconsidered and offered Dr. Wooden's testimony as the reason. On appeal, Baird makes the same claim that the death penalty should be reconsidered but specifically asserts that Dr. Wooden's testimony was new evidence providing the factual basis for his argument, though again without mentioning Rule 1(1)(a)(4). An appellant may not state one ground for his position at trial and assert another ground on appeal. Jester v. State, 551 N.E.2d 840 (Ind.1990). Even if viewed as newly discovered evidence, however, Baird's claim fails on the merits.

In order to obtain relief because of newly discovered evidence, the defendant must show that (1) the evidence has been discovered since the trial; (2) it is material and relevant; (3) it is not cumulative; (4) it is not merely impeaching; (5) it is not privileged or incompetent; (6) due diligence was used to discover it in time for trial; (7) the evidence is worthy of credit; (8) it can be produced on a retrial of the case; and (9) it will probably produce a different result. James v. State, 613 N.E.2d 15, 25 (Ind.1993) (citing Nunn v. State, 601 N.E.2d 334, 336-37 (Ind.1992)). ² Dr. Wooden's testimony does not meet this standard because it is cumulative and because it does not establish a probability that had his diagnosis been available and made at trial, there would have been a different result.

After Baird filed notice of the defense of mental disease or defect, three psychiatrists were appointed to examine Baird as court's witnesses. In trial testimony or by deposition admitted into evidence, the psychiatrists variously described him as "obsessive compulsive," as acting "on an impulse" in the murder of his wife, and even as psychotic and legally insane. In addition, an expert for the defense, who testified by video deposition during sentencing, concluded that although Baird knew what he was doing at the time of the murders, he could not control his conduct. None of the above diagnoses is termed a "delusional disorder" but in substance, as Baird notes in his brief, each of the experts who examined Baird described him as volitionally impaired, and one psychiatrist even shared Wooden's later view that Baird was "obsessive compulsive." Baird argues that his behavior was inexplicable without knowledge of the disassociative phenomena resulting from the psychotic break with his fictional world. He describes the earlier experts' attempts to evaluate his behavior as relevant mainly just to show Baird's above average frustration and stress, weak self-image, and primitive thinking.

Baird's description understates each expert's claim. Indeed, one of these experts declared at trial that Baird was insane and psychotic. Further, Dr. Wooden's testimony is not based on any new facts previously unknown to the experts or the jury. As already noted, Baird's expectation that the federal government was going to pay him one million dollars and his plan to buy a farm with that money were discovered shortly after the murders and introduced into evidence at trial. Thus, even if the jury, and this Court on direct appeal, did not know that "delusional disorders" as such existed, each was equipped with the facts of Baird's bizarre conduct and with the psychiatrists' conclusions that Baird was volitionally impaired. Dr. Wooden's testimony simply does not mandate a new interpretation of the facts. He offers another, perhaps more medically advanced opinion, but an opinion that significantly overlaps with those already proffered. We do not exclude the possibility that a scientific breakthrough may generate...