Bennett v. Angelone

• Decision Date: 20 August 1996
• Docket Number: No. 95-4004,95-4004
• Citation: 92 F.3d 1336
• Parties: Ronald Bernard BENNETT, Petitioner--Appellant, v. Ronald J. ANGELONE, Director, Virginia Department of Corrections, Respondent--Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

Page 1336

92 F.3d 1336

Ronald Bernard BENNETT, Petitioner--Appellant, v. Ronald J. ANGELONE, Director, Virginia Department of

Corrections, Respondent--Appellee.

No. 95-4004.

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

Argued May 8, 1996.

Decided Aug. 20, 1996.

ARGUED: Donald Robert Lee, Jr., Virginia Capital Representation Resource Center, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellant. Robert H. Anderson, III, Office of the Attorney General, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: James S. Gilmore, III, Attorney General of Virginia, Richard B. Smith, Assistant Attorney General, Office of the Attorney General, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellee.

Before WIDENER and MOTZ, Circuit Judges, and PHILLIPS, Senior Circuit Judge.

Affirmed by published opinion. Senior Judge PHILLIPS wrote the opinion, in which Judge WIDENER and Judge MOTZ joined.

OPINION

PHILLIPS, Senior Circuit Judge:

Ronald Bennett was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death by a Virginia jury. After exhausting his direct state appeals and unsuccessfully petitioning the Supreme Court of the United States for certiorari, Bennett sought habeas corpus relief in state court. Both the state trial court and the Virginia Supreme Court rejected his claims. After the Supreme Court of the United States again denied certiorari, Bennett filed a federal habeas petition with the district court for the Eastern District of Virginia. The Commonwealth moved to dismiss Bennett's petition, and the district court granted the motion without an evidentiary hearing. Bennett now appeals, raising both substantive and ineffective assistance claims based on the following aspects of the trial and his counsels' various failures to object to them: (1) the Commonwealth's "victim impact" arguments at the guilt phase; (2) the Commonwealth's improper closing argument at sentencing; (3) the trial court's improper jury instructions and verdict forms. Bennett also challenges the constitutional adequacy of Virginia's "vileness" aggravating factor, on which his death sentence was based. Finding no error, we affirm.

I.

Anne Vaden was murdered in her apartment in November of 1985. Her attacker inflicted three types of wounds: blows to the head, strangulation, and multiple stab wounds. Nevertheless, the coroner concluded that she had actually survived the attack--which he estimated lasted at least thirty minutes--but ultimately died from loss of blood. JA at 627. Ms. Vaden was white, but hairs "of Negroid origin" were found at the crime scene; Bennett is African-American.

Police investigated the murder without success for about a year. In December of 1986, Virginia police received a call from California police notifying them of new evidence they had received from Bennett's putative wife. ¹ The Bennetts had separated during the year, and Mrs. Bennett had moved to California. After staying out late and drinking with her friend, Sharon O'Shaughnessy, Mrs. Bennett had told O'Shaughnessy that the ring she was wearing had been taken from a woman Mr. Bennett had murdered. Mrs. Bennett then gave the ring to O'Shaughnessy for safekeeping. O'Shaughnessy told her ex-husband, a former California parole officer, about the ring, and he convinced her to tell California police about it. After Virginia police were contacted, they flew to California, interviewed Mrs. Bennett, and soon thereafter arrested Mr. Bennett in Virginia. In post-arrest searches, police found an opal ring and a suitcase, both of which had belonged to Vaden.

Bennett was indicted for murder in the course of robbery with a deadly weapon--a capital offense, robbery, and burglary. Two defense attorneys were appointed to assist Bennett. Both had substantial criminal defense experience.

At trial, the Commonwealth's opening statement described in moderate detail Anne Vaden's good qualities. The Commonwealth then presented, inter alia, testimony from Mrs. Bennett and Bennett's cousin, Kenneth Harris. Both told how on the night of the murder, they had been at a party with Bennett, but that he had later left by himself. Both then explained that when Bennett returned to his apartment the next morning, he was "covered in blood" and, at some point, had acknowledged killing Anne Vaden. There also was evidence that Bennett worked at Vaden's apartment complex, that he had duplicated a master key that would let him into her apartment, and that he had once met Vaden while doing maintenance work in her apartment.

Bennett's lawyers put on no evidence. The jury convicted Bennett of the murder, robbery, and burglary charges.

The capital sentencing hearing took place the next day. At the hearing, the Commonwealth presented no further evidence, but the defense called Bennett's mother and brother, both of whom testified about Bennett's good personal characteristics--including his filial piety, service in the Army, and activities at church. They also noted that Bennett's father had died about a week before the murder and that his death had deeply affected Bennett.

In his closing argument and rebuttal, the prosecutor made several religiously loaded statements, apparently in an effort to square the death penalty with biblical passages. He also alluded to Lee Harvey Oswald, Jack Ruby, and a series of gruesome murders committed by Muslim sects in 1977. The jury deliberated for less than an hour and returned a death sentence based on the "vileness" of Vaden's murder.

Bennett appealed to the Virginia Supreme Court, alleging various evidentiary errors and instances of prosecutorial misconduct, none of which he contests on this appeal. See JA 5 to 52. The Virginia Supreme Court denied his appeal in a published opinion. See Bennett v. Commonwealth, 236 Va. 448, 374 S.E.2d 303 (1988). Bennett petitioned for certiorari, but the Supreme Court of the United States denied his petition. Bennett v. Virginia, 490 U.S. 1028, 109 S.Ct. 1765, 104 L.Ed.2d 200 (1989).

Bennett then filed a petition for habeas relief in state court. In his state habeas petition, Bennett alleged most of the claims he presents on this appeal, including: (1) his substantive challenges to the Commonwealth's victim impact statements, the Commonwealth's closing argument at sentencing, and the jury instructions and verdict forms; and (2) all his present ineffective assistance arguments. See JA 257-58, 227-28, 260-61. Because it concluded that Bennett had failed to raise them on direct appeal, the state trial court dismissed Bennett's substantive claims as procedurally defaulted. JA 263. It also dismissed Bennett's several ineffective assistance claims on their merits. JA 263-65. On habeas appeal to the Virginia Supreme Court, Bennett raised only his present ineffectiveness claims. JA 91-104. That court refused Bennett's petitions for appeal, JA 266, and Bennett again peti tioned the Supreme Court of the United States for certiorari, which it denied. Bennett v. Director of the Virginia Dep't of Corrections, 506 U.S. 855, 113 S.Ct. 164, 121 L.Ed.2d 112 (1992).

Bennett then filed with the district court a federal habeas petition, in which he, arguably, raised all his present claims. The district court found that most of his claims had been procedurally barred and dismissed the remainder on the merits. JA 309-55. The district court also denied Bennett's motion to reconsider its dismissal of two of his ineffective assistance claims. JA 337-38. Bennett then appealed to this court, alleging that the district court had erred in dismissing the substantive and ineffective assistance claims described below.

II.

Before addressing the substance of Bennett's claims, we must consider whether his petition should be dealt with under the recently enacted Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, Pub.L. No. 104-132, 110 Stat. 1214. Title I of the Act makes numerous changes to the law governing habeas corpus petitions; § 107 of the Act applies specifically to petitions filed in capital cases, while §§ 101 through 106 apply to all federal habeas petitions. Along with making procedural changes, the Act affects habeas petitions in death penalty cases by narrowing the issues cognizable on federal habeas and by requiring federal courts to give greater deference to state courts' prior resolution of issues presented in these petitions. See § 107(a) (except in limited circumstances, federal district court may only address claims raised and decided on the merits in state court); id. (cognizable claims reviewed under amended 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d), which requires denial of habeas claims previously decided in state court, unless based on an unreasonable determination of fact or unreasonable interpretation of "clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States."). But, because Bennett's petition was filed well before the Act took effect--the Act was signed into law on April 24, 1996--we face the initial question whether the capital-specific or general portions of the Act apply to this petition.

First, it is clear that we must analyze Bennett's petition under the portion of the Act applicable to capital petitions, § 107(a), because that section specifically states that it "shall apply to cases pending on or after the date of enactment of this Act." § 107(c). But this does not end the inquiry as to what effect the new provisions set up by § 107(a) will have on this petition. Although, as discussed above, § 107 does give greater finality to state courts' resolution of issues later raised in federal petitions, see new 28 U.S.C. § 2264, it does so only if the state has established procedures to ensure the appointment of qualified counsel to represent indigent petitioners in state post-conviction proceedings, see new 28 U.S.C. § 2261(a)-(c). In other words, the Act establishes a quid-pro-quo relationship: A state seeking greater federal deference to its habeas decisions in capital cases must, by appointing competent counsel to represent indigent petitioners, further...