Boykins v. Wainwright, 82-3086

• Citation: 737 F.2d 1539
• Decision Date: 03 August 1984
• Docket Number: No. 82-3086,82-3086
• Parties: 16 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 72 Oscar Brown BOYKINS, Jr., Petitioner-Appellant, v. Louie L. WAINWRIGHT, Respondent-Appellee.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (11th Circuit)

Page 1539

737 F.2d 1539

16 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 72

Oscar Brown BOYKINS, Jr., Petitioner-Appellant, v. Louie L. WAINWRIGHT, Respondent-Appellee.

No. 82-3086.

United States Court of Appeals Eleventh Circuit.

Aug. 3, 1984.

Archibald J. Thomas, III, Asst. Federal Public Defender, Jacksonville, Fla., for petitioner-appellant.

Lawrence A. Kaden, Asst. Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, Fla., for respondent-appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida.

Before KRAVITCH and JOHNSON, Circuit Judges, and LYNNE ^*, District Judge.

JOHNSON, Circuit Judge:

The petitioner, Oscar Brown Boykins, was convicted of robbery in violation of Fla. Code Ann. Sec. 812.13 and sentenced to life imprisonment. Boykins appeals from the denial of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus. We find the petitioner's claim that he was denied effective assistance of counsel at his trial is without merit. Nevertheless, we reverse the district court's denial of the writ because the trial court's limitation of the scope of a key defense witness's testimony denied the petitioner the right to present witnesses in his own defense in violation of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

On the morning of August 8, 1973, Boykins walked into an antique shop in Jacksonville, Florida. After feigning interest in some merchandise, he pulled a gun on the proprietor, robbed her of ten dollars, and beat her. Police who happened to be near the scene immediately arrested Boykins. He was charged with robbery and aggravated assault.

Boykins's case was assigned to Stephen Donahoe of the Public Defender's Office. Mr. Donahoe obtained authorization to have a court-appointed psychiatrist, Dr. Ernest Miller, examine Boykins. Dr. Miller concluded that Boykins was competent to stand trial but that he had been insane at the time of the offense. The State then obtained permission to have Boykins examined by two psychiatrists of its own. In late November 1973, Mr. Donahoe transferred from his position in the Public Defender's Office, and Assistant Public Defender Ronald Cosgrove assumed the defense of Boykins's case. Cosgrove first visited Boykins on December 2, two weeks before the scheduled opening of the trial. On December 13, four days before trial, the prosecution filed the reports of its doctors with the court. Both of the state's psychiatrists concluded that Boykins was competent to stand trial and sane at the time of the offense. Cosgrove sought neither to depose these potential witnesses nor to obtain a continuance.

At the trial, Cosgrove raised only the defense of insanity. His first witness, Dr. Jesus Rodriguez, had treated Boykins for mental illnesses for three years at the Florida State Hospital at Chattahoochee. Dr. Rodriguez had last examined Boykins less than eight months before the robbery. Cosgrove sought to elicit from Dr. Rodriguez testimony relating to Boykins's history of mental illness, a diagnosis of his condition (paranoid schizophrenia), and information relating to the chance that Boykins's symptoms might have reoccurred after his release from Chattahoochee. The trial court sustained an objection to introduction of this testimony on the ground that it was not relevant to Boykins's mental condition at the time of the offense. The court stated that, because the officials at Chattahoochee had judged Boykins "competent" in January 1973, any evidence of mental illness prior to that time could not be relevant to evaluation of Boykins's subsequent mental condition. The court limited Dr. Rodriguez to answering a hypothetical question whether, given the defendant's conduct on August 8, 1973, the doctor felt Boykins was sane at that time. Cosgrove's only other witness was Dr. Miller. The prosecution then called its two psychiatrists as well as one lay witness who was present at Boykins's arrest, all of whom testified that he was sane at the time of the robbery. The jury convicted Boykins of robbery, and the court sentenced him to life imprisonment.

Boykins filed a timely notice of appeal, and on January 9, 1975, the state appellate court affirmed his conviction. Boykin [sic] v. State, 305 So.2d 831 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App.1975). On August 14, 1978, Boykins filed a motion for post-conviction relief, which was summarily denied on October 29, 1978. That denial was affirmed on appeal. Boykin v. State, 375 So.2d 52 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App.1979).

His state remedies having brought no relief, Boykins filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida on November 21, 1979. The United States Magistrate held an evidentiary hearing and filed a report recommending that the court deny the petition. On August 16, 1982, the district court adopted the magistrate's report and recommendations and denied the writ. Boykins appeals.

I. INEFFECTIVE ASSISTANCE OF COUNSEL

Boykins first claims that the assistance that Cosgrove rendered during his trial was ineffective. He points out that Cosgrove was assigned the case just two weeks before trial and had time to interview Boykins only once prior to the trial date. Nevertheless, Cosgrove never requested an extension of time, not even after receiving the damaging reports of the government's experts just four days before the trial. Furthermore, Cosgrove's work load was very heavy, amounting to 250 to 300 felony defendants per year. Despite this huge caseload, Cosgrove was inexperienced to the extent that he had apparently never participated in a trial in which the defense was insanity.

Boykins alleges that Cosgrove committed a number of specific errors that severely prejudiced his defense. The first is Cosgrove's failure to interview the state's psychiatrists, the critical witnesses against Boykins, before the trial. Because Boykins's defense depended in large part on Cosgrove's handling of these witnesses, Boykins claims that neglecting even to interview them rendered Cosgrove's conduct of the defense ineffective. Nor did Cosgrove interview any relatives or friends of Boykins to collect lay evidence of his mental state around the time of the robbery. Boykins testified that Mr. Donahoe, his original counsel, had planned to pursue such testimony. Finally, Boykins argues that Cosgrove should have demanded a pre-trial competency hearing and have raised the fact that Boykins was being sedated at trial as treatment for mental illness.

The Sixth Amendment guarantees to criminal defendants the assistance of counsel. Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335, 83 S.Ct. 792, 9 L.Ed.2d 799 (1963).

That a person who happens to be a lawyer is present at trial alongside the accused, however, is not enough to satisfy the constitutional command. The Sixth Amendment recognizes the right to the assistance of counsel because it envisions counsel's playing a role that is critical to the ability of the adversarial system to produce just results. An accused is entitled to be assisted by an attorney, whether retained or appointed, who plays the role necessary to ensure that the trial is fair.

For that reason, the [Supreme] Court has recognized that "the right to counsel is the right to the effective assistance of counsel."

Strickland v. Washington, --- U.S. ----, ----, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 2063, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984). The Supreme Court has recently explicated the principles that should guide courts facing claims of ineffective assistance of counsel. "The benchmark for judging any claim of ineffectiveness must be whether counsel's conduct so undermined the proper function of the adversarial process that the trial cannot be relied on as having produced a just result." Id. at 2064. A convicted defendant who seeks to challenge his conviction on the grounds that his counsel failed to render constitutionally sufficient assistance must make two showings.

First, the defendant must show that counsel's performance was deficient. This requires showing that counsel made errors so serious that counsel was not functioning as the "counsel" guaranteed the defendant by the Sixth Amendment. Second, the defendant must show that the deficient performance prejudiced the defense. This requires showing that counsel's errors were so serious as to deprive the defendant of a fair trial, a trial whose result is reliable. Unless a defendant makes both showings, it cannot be said that the conviction or death sentence resulted from a breakdown in the adversary process that renders the result unreliable.

Id. at 2064.

Because we find that Boykins has failed to make the required showing of prejudice, we will proceed directly to that issue. See id. at 2069-2070. In Strickland, the Supreme Court reaffirmed the principle that "any deficiencies in counsel's performance must be prejudicial in order to constitute ineffective assistance under the Constitution." Id. at 2067. Prior to Strickland, the standard for what constituted sufficient prejudice varied among the Courts of Appeals. This Court required defendants to demonstrate that counsel's ineffectiveness worked to the accused's "actual and substantial disadvantage," a standard equivalent to the showing necessary to prove "prejudice" under Wainwright v. Sikes, 433 U.S. 72, 97 S.Ct. 2497, 53 L.Ed.2d 594 (1977). See Washington v. Strickland, 693 F.2d 1243 (5th Cir. Unit B 1983) (en banc), reversed, --- U.S. ----, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984). On the other hand, the District of Columbia Circuit imposed on the accused "the initial burden of demonstrating a likelihood that counsel's inadequacy affected the outcome of the trial." United States v. Decoster, 624 F.2d 196, 208 (D.C.Cir.1979) (en banc). The Supreme Court in Strickland announced a formulation that appears to impose upon the accused a burden of showing prejudice that is somewhat heavier than the burden previously imposed by this Court but less onerous than the Decoster standard. The Court held that "[i]t is not enough for the defendant to show that errors had some conceivable...