Black v. State
| Docket Number | M2022-00423-CCA-R3-PD |
| Decision Date | 06 June 2023 |
| Parties | BYRON BLACK v. STATE OF TENNESSEE |
| Court | Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals |
Session November 8, 2022
Appeal from the Criminal Court for Davidson County No. 88-S-1479 Walter C. Kurtz, Judge
At the heart of this appeal is a narrow procedural question: whether the 2021 amendment to Tennessee Code Annotated section 39-13-203 permits the Defendant, Byron Black, to move for a hearing on whether he has an intellectual disability and is therefore ineligible for the death penalty. The trial court dismissed the motion after determining that the Defendant was procedurally barred from bringing the issue. On appeal, we hold that because the issue of the Defendant's intellectual disability has been previously adjudicated, he may not file a motion pursuant to Tennessee Code Annotated section 39-13-203(g)(1). We also hold that the General Assembly's decision not to entitle the Defendant to a second hearing does not subject him to cruel and unusual punishment, nor does it deny him due process of law or the equal protection of the law. Accordingly, we respectfully affirm the judgment of the trial court.
Tenn R. App. P. 3 Appeal as of Right; Judgment of the Criminal Court Affirmed
Kelley J. Henry, Chief, Capital Habeas Unit, Federal Public Defender; Amy D. Harwell, Assistant Chief, Capital Habeas Unit, Federal Public Defender; and Richard Lewis Tennent and Marshall Jensen, Assistant Federal Public Defenders Nashville, Tennessee, for the appellant, Byron Black.
Jonathan Skrmetti, Attorney General and Reporter; Katharine K. Decker, Senior Assistant Attorney General; Glenn R. Funk, District Attorney General; and Roger Moore, Assistant District Attorney General, for the appellee, State of Tennessee.
Tom Greenholtz, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which Camille R. McMullen and Robert H. Montgomery, Jr., JJ., joined.
On March 28, 1988, the Defendant shot and killed his girlfriend twenty-nine-year-old Angela Clay, and her two daughters, nine-year-old Latoya Clay and six-year-old Lakeisha Clay. State v. Black, 815 SW.2d 166, 170 (Tenn. 1991). After being convicted of three counts of first degree premeditated murder, the Defendant received consecutive life sentences for the murders of his girlfriend and her oldest daughter and a sentence of death for the murder of Lakeisha Clay. Id. Our supreme court affirmed the convictions and sentences on direct appeal. Id
After that, the Defendant sought post-conviction relief, alleging that he received the ineffective assistance of counsel and that the capital sentence was unconstitutional. Byron Lewis Black v. State, No. 01C01-9709-CR-00422, 1999 WL 195299, at *1 (Tenn. Crim. App. Apr. 8, 1999). His post-conviction petition was denied, and this Court affirmed the denial on appeal. Id. After our supreme court denied permission to appeal, the Defendant filed a petition for a writ of certiorari, which the United States Supreme Court denied on February 28, 2000. Black v. Tennessee, 528 U.S. 1192 (2000).
On November 13, 2002, the Defendant filed a motion to reopen his post-conviction petition, "alleging that he was [intellectually disabled] and thus ineligible for the sentence of death." Byron Lewis Black v. State, No. M2004-01345-CCA-R3-PD, 2005 WL 2662577, at *2 (Tenn. Crim. App. Oct. 19, 2005). [1] At that time, our General Assembly had defined the term "intellectual disability" (then described as "mental retardation") as follows:
Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-13-203(a) (1997).
In support of his petition to reopen, the Defendant cited Van Tran v. State, 66 S.W.3d 790 (Tenn. 2001), in which our supreme court "held as a matter of first impression that the execution of [an intellectually disabled] person violates the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article I, Section 16 of the Tennessee Constitution." Black, 2005 WL 2662577, at *2. The Defendant also relied upon Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2002), which held that the Eighth Amendment prohibits the execution of intellectually disabled offenders. Id. at 321
After the hearing, the post-conviction court concluded that the Defendant was not intellectually disabled and was thus eligible for the death penalty. Id. at *11. The post-conviction court specifically found that Id. (footnote omitted).
The Defendant appealed this ruling. On appeal, this Court affirmed the post-conviction court's denial of relief. This Court held that, although the Defendant failed to meet the "bright-line cutoff of having an I.Q. below 70, he also failed to establish that he had deficits in adaptive behavior or that his intellectual disability manifested before age eighteen. Id. at *15-17. Our supreme court denied the Defendant's application for permission to appeal, and the United States Supreme Court denied his petition for a writ of certiorari on October 2, 2006. Black v. Tennessee, 549 U.S. 852 (2006).
While the state post-conviction proceedings were ongoing, the Defendant also pursued federal habeas relief pursuant to 28 U.S.C § 2254. The Defendant raised thirty-four claims, including that he could not be executed because he had an intellectual disability. The district court granted the State's motion for summary judgment, Black v. Bell, 181 F.Supp.2d 832, 837 (M.D. Tenn. 2001), and the Defendant appealed that judgment to the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. See Black v. Bell, 664 F.3d 81, 85 (6th Cir. 2011) ().
The Sixth Circuit granted the Defendant's motion to hold the case in abeyance until the Defendant exhausted his intellectual disability claims in the state courts. Id. After the conclusion of the state post-conviction proceedings denying relief, the Sixth Circuit remanded the case so that the district court could reconsider, among other things, the Defendant's intellectual disability claim under Atkins. Id. at 86.
On remand, the district court again denied the Defendant's Atkins claim, but the Sixth Circuit vacated the denial and remanded for further proceedings. Id. at 86, 106. In part, the Sixth Circuit noted that the district court should consider the Defendant's "level of intelligence and adaptive deficits by the time he was age 18," particularly in light of the Tennessee Supreme Court's opinion in Coleman v. State, 341 S.W.3d 221 (Tenn. 2011). See Black, 664 F.3d. at 100-01.
On this second remand, the district court concluded that the Defendant "failed to carry his burden of demonstrating intellectual disability by a preponderance of the evidence." Byron Lewis Black v. Ronald Colson, Warden, No. 3:00-0764, 2013 WL 230664, at *1 (M.D. Tenn. Jan. 22, 2013) (footnote omitted), aff'd sub nom. Black v. Carpenter, 866 F.3d 734 (6th Cir. 2017). The court concluded that the Defendant "has not shown significantly subaverage general intellectual functioning as evidenced by a functional IQ of 70 or below manifested by age 18." Id. at *14. Additionally, the court said that "[a] full, independent review of the record persuades this Court that the Defendant has not shown weaknesses or deficits in his adaptive behavior prior to age 18 within the meaning of the statute." Id. at *18.
On his third appeal to the Sixth Circuit, the Defendant argued, among other things, that the district court "erred in its merits determination that [the Defendant] had not met his burden of establishing entitlement to Atkins relief." Black, 866 F.3d at 740. The Sixth Circuit disagreed, stating that it could not "find fault with the district court's conclusion[.]" Id. at 748. In part, the appellate court concluded that the Defendant "cannot show that he has significantly subaverage general intellectual functioning that manifested before [the Defendant] turned eighteen." Id. at 750.
The Defendant appealed the Sixth Circuit's decision, and the United States Supreme Court denied his petition for a writ of certiorari on June 4, 2018. Black v. Mays, 138 S.Ct. 2603 (2018).
In 2021, our General Assembly amended Tennessee Code Annotated section 39-13-203(a) to partially revise the definition of "intellectual disability" in the context of capital sentencing The legislature retained the requirements that deficits in adaptive behavior must exist and that the intellectual disability must have manifested during the developmental period, or by eighteen years.[2] But, it revised the bright-line requirement that a person have "a functional intelligence quotient (I.Q.) of 70 or below." With the revised definition of "intellectual disability," the statute now provides as follows:
See 2021 Tenn. Pub. Acts, ch. 399, § 1 (eff May 11, 2021) (codified at Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-13-203(a)).
In addition, the General Assembly established a new procedure...
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