Bible v. Stephens

Decision Date30 October 2014
Docket NumberCIVIL ACTION NO. 4:13-CV-200
PartiesDANNY PAUL BIBLE, Petitioner, v. WILLIAM STEPHENS, Respondent.
CourtU.S. District Court — Southern District of Texas
MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

In 2003, a Texas jury convicted Danny Paul Bible of capital murder for killing a woman in 1979. After unsuccessfully availing himself of state court remedies, Bible filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus seeking relief from his capital conviction and death sentence. Respondent William Stephens has filed an answer. After considering the record, the pleadings, and the applicable law -- with particular emphasis on the operation of the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act ("AEDPA"), the Court finds that Bible has not shown an entitlement to habeas relief. The Court will deny Bible's petition and not certify any issue for appellate review.

BACKGROUND

On May 27, 1979, a man found the blood-covered body of 20-year-old Inez Deaton along the slope of a bayou in Houston, Texas. The victim was not wearing pants, and her underwear had been partially torn from her body. Her corpse bore signs of a violent attack. Someone had stabbed her eleven times with an ice pick. Bruises covered her head. Her partially clothed state, along with vaginal and anal trauma, indicated that someone had sexually assaulted her. The physical evidence suggested that her killer had dragged her corpse to the location and then positioned her body by spreading her legs apart.

A few days before, Mrs. Deaton had stopped by the house next door to where Bible lived to use the telephone. Mrs. Deaton was a young mother and friend of Bible's sister. The neighbor suggested that she use the telephone at Bible's home. Another neighbor saw Mrs. Deaton enter Bible's house. No one ever saw Mrs. Deaton alive again.

Around the time of Mrs. Deaton's funeral, Bible disappeared. Over the next two decades Bible lived a life of extreme violence. He fled to Montana and Wyoming where he entered into an abusive relationship with a woman. He committed aggravated kidnappings and theft in Montana. Returning to Texas, he committed rapes and murders. In 1984, he pleaded guilty to a separate murder. After his release on parole, Bible sexually assaulted his five young nieces.

On November 7, 1998, Bible burst into Tera Robinson's1 hotel room in Louisiana and violently sexually assaulted her. Subsequently, the police arrested him in Florida where he confessed to various prior crimes. On December 16, 1998, Bible gave the Louisiana police a statement admitting to the attack on Ms. Robinson, although he claimed not to remember the actual sexual assault. During that questioning, he informed the Louisiana police that he had murdered Mrs. Deaton. The police in Louisiana contacted authorities in Texas.

Bible then gave two additional tape-recorded statements on December 18. In the first, Bible confessed to having killed Mrs. Deaton. Bible remembered that he was watching television when Mrs. Deaton came to the door. He immediately grabbed her and forced her to have sex with him. She resisted and they struggled. Bible remembered strangling her and using a knife on her. He remembered putting her in the trunk of a car and dumping her body.However, Bible claimed that he could not remember the actual sexual assault or murder. Tr. Vol. 25, SX 3-A; State Habeas Record at 258-69. In a second statement on the same day, Bible confessed to raping a woman in 1983 and then killing her and her baby. Tr. Vol. 25, SX 4; State Habeas Record 273-93. Later, Bible confessed to numerous sexual offenses against his five young nieces between 1996 and 1998. Tr. Vol. 25, SX 5; State Habeas Record at 297-308.

In March 2001, the State of Texas charged Bible by indictment with capital murder for the aggravated rape and murder of Mrs. Deaton. Clerk's Record at 2.2 Before trial, Bible's attorneys moved to suppress his police statements. After holding a hearing, the trial court denied Bible's motion to suppress.

Testimony in the guilt/innocence phase of trial lasted only two days. Witnesses described the circumstances surrounding Mrs. Deaton's disappearance. Family members testified about suspicious acts by Bible after Mrs. Deaton went missing. The State's case, however, turned on what was called "the most compelling, most believable, best evidence you can ever have in a criminal case:" a confession. Tr. Vol. 16 at 13. Other than Bible's suspicious acts immediately after Mrs. Deaton's disappearance, only his confession connected him to her killing. The jury found Bible guilty of capital murder.

Jurors decided Bible's sentence by answering three questions: (1) did Bible act deliberately, (2) would he constitute a future threat to society, and (3) did mitigating circumstances warrant that he receive a life sentence? Clerk's Record at 199-201. Bible's attorneys faced a herculean task in defending against a death sentence. The prosecution's case portrayed Bible as an extremely violent man who showed little hope of rehabilitation. Throughhis confessions and testimony from his victims, the prosecution recounted Bible's decades of lawlessness. In an unremitting history of violence toward women and children, Bible had repeatedly committed sexual assaults and kidnappings. He admitted that he had raped his own stepdaughter while holding a knife to his wife's throat. He had raped an eleven-year-old girl in Montana. He beat girlfriends. He had committed robberies and theft. He sexually assaulted his young nieces while on parole from a lengthy prison sentence. His behavior did not improve as he aged. Most importantly, the prosecution showed that Bible had killed at least four times.

Against that background, trial counsel tried to show that Bible could control his behavior in a highly structured environment. The defense argued that Bible had only committed two minor infractions during seventeen years of prior incarceration. A minister testified that he had a spiritual encounter with Bible and that Bible had completed a religious education course.

The jury answered Texas' special issue questions in a manner requiring the imposition of a death sentence.

Through appointed counsel,3 Bible challenged his conviction and sentence on automatic direct appeal to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. Appointed counsel raised sixteen points of error. On May 4, 2005, the Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed in a published opinion. Bible v. State, 162 S.W.3d 234 (Tex. Crim. App. 2005). Bible's conviction became final when the time for filing a petition for writ of certiorari to the United States Supreme Court expired on August 2, 2005.

Under Texas law, state appellate and habeas review run concurrently. Through appointedhabeas counsel,4 Bible filed a state application for a writ of habeas corpus on March 8, 2005. Bible's state habeas application raised seven grounds for relief. Bible's prior attorneys submitted affidavits responding to his claims of ineffective representation. The state habeas court signed the State's proposed findings and conclusions without alteration. State Habeas Record at 394-427. Based on the lower court's order and its own independent review, the Court of Criminal Appeals denied habeas relief. Ex Parte Danny Paul Bible, WR-76,122-01, 2012 WL 243564 (Tex. Crim. App. Jan. 25, 2012) (unpublished).5

Bible filed a timely federal petition for a writ of habeas corpus. Bible's federal petition raises the following grounds for relief:

1. The Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment bars the execution of Bible's death sentence because: (a) he no longer poses a future threat to society and (b) society's standards of decency will no longer tolerate capital punishment.
2. Texas' capital punishment scheme violates due process because: (a) it does not accommodate a post-judgment reassessment of future dangerousness and (b) no standards guide the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles use of clemency.

3. Bible received constitutionally ineffective representation when trial counsel: (a) failed to object to a pattern of race-based peremptory strikes; (b) did not object to the prosecution's courtroom reenactment of a violent sexual assault; (c) did not present evidence that the police had secured from Bible false confessions to various extraneous offenses; (d) did not present adequate mitigating evidence in the penalty phase; and (e) ineptly conducted closing argument.

4. Appellate counsel provided ineffective representation by not raising a claim that the trial court improperly refused to give a lesser-included-offense instruction.

5. Insufficient evidence corroborated punishment-phase evidence of Bible's confession to sexually assaulting two young nieces.
6. The prosecutor violated Bible's constitutional rights by making improper remarks during punishment-phase closing arguments.

7. Texas does not provide meaningful appellate review of the evidence supporting the jury's finding of future dangerousness.

8. The State did not prove Bible's future dangerousness beyond a reasonable doubt.

Respondent has filed an answer arguing that substantive and procedural law disentitles Bible to federal habeas relief. (Dkt. No. 15). Bible has replied. (Dkt. No. 20). Bible has also filed an opposed motion for a federal evidentiary hearing on his claim that the Eighth Amendment bars his execution. (Dkt. No. 21). This case is ripe for adjudication.

LEGAL STANDARDS

The writ of habeas corpus provides an important, but limited, examination of an inmate's conviction and sentence. See Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. ___, 131 S. Ct. 770, 787 (2011) ("[S]tate courts are the principal forum for asserting constitutional challenges to state convictions."). While "the Framers considered the writ a vital instrument for the protection of individual liberty," Boumediene v. Bush, 553 U.S. 723, 743 (2008), "[s]tate courts are adequate forums for the vindication of federal rights." Burt v. Titlow, ___ U.S. ___, 134 S. Ct. 10, 15 (2013). Accordingly, "[...

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