Bradley v. Nagle

• Decision Date: 16 May 2000
• Docket Number: No. 99-6178,99-6178
• Citation: 212 F.3d 559
• Parties: (11th Cir. 2000) Danny Joe BRADLEY, Petitioner-Appellant, v. John E. NAGLE, Warden, et al., Respondents-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

Page 559

212 F.3d 559 (11th Cir. 2000)

Danny Joe BRADLEY, Petitioner-Appellant, v. John E. NAGLE, Warden, et al., Respondents-Appellees.

No. 99-6178.

United States Court of Appeals Eleventh Circuit.

May 16, 2000.

[Copyrighted Material Omitted] Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama. (No. 93-B-0958-S), Sharon Lovelace, Judge.

Before EDMONDSON, BIRCH and BARKETT, Circuit Judges.

BARKETT, Circuit Judge:

Danny Joe Bradley appeals the denial of his petition for habeas corpus, filed pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254. On appeal, Bradley asserts the same claims for relief asserted before the district court:

1. His conviction was obtained by use of evidence gained pursuant to an unlawful arrest and an unconstitutional search and seizure, in violation of the Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments.

2. The State violated his due process rights by failing to disclose material exculpatory evidence which was in its possession and which was sought in discovery by Bradley's counsel prior to trial.

3. His conviction should be reversed because the evidence was insufficient to support the finding that he committed a murder "during the commission" of a rape or sodomy in the first degree (i.e., a sexual offense involving "forcible compulsion") and thus the conviction violates the Fourteenth Amendment.

4. His sentence violates the Eighth Amendment because the evidence did not support the application of the statutory aggravating circumstance that the capital offense was committed while he was engaged in the commission of a rape.

5. His sentence violates the Eighth Amendment because the evidence did not support the application of the statutory aggravating circumstance that the offense of which he was convicted was "especially heinous, atrocious or cruel compared to other capital offenses."

BACKGROUND

On January 24, 1983, twelve-year-old Rhonda Hardin and her younger brother, Gary "Bubba" Hardin, were left in the care of their stepfather, Danny Joe Bradley. The children's mother, Judy Bradley, had been hospitalized for more than one week. The children normally slept in one bedroom of the residence and Danny Joe Bradley and Mrs. Bradley in another. On the night of January 24, 1983, Jimmy Isaac, Johnny Bishop, and Dianne Mobley went to the Bradley home where they saw Rhonda and Bubba together with Danny Joe Bradley. When Bishop, Mobley, and Isaac left the Bradley home at approximately 8:00 p.m., Rhonda was watching television with Bubba and Bradley. Rhonda was lying on the couch, having taken some medicine earlier in the evening. She asked Bubba to wake her if she fell asleep so that she could move to the bedroom. When Bubba decided to go to bed, Bradley told him not to wake Rhonda but to leave her on the couch. Bradley also told Bubba to go to sleep in the room normally occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Bradley instead of his own bedroom.

At approximately 11:30 p.m., Bradley arrived at the home of his brother-in-law, Robert Roland. Roland testified that Bradley arrived driving his automobile and that he was "upset" and "acted funny." Roland testified that Bradley "talked loud and acted like he was nervous and all, which [Roland] had never seen him do before." Bradley's father-in-law, Ed Bennett, testified that Bradley came to his house at approximately midnight and told him that Rhonda was gone. Bradley's next-door neighbor, Phillip Manus, testified that at approximately 12:50 a.m., Bradley appeared at his home. Manus testified that Bradley told him that he and Rhonda had argued over some pills Rhonda wanted to take. He claimed that he had fallen asleep and when he awoke, Rhonda was missing. Bradley then said "[l]et me run over to Rhonda's grandma's house and I'll be back in a few minutes." Bradley returned ten or fifteen minutes later. Manus suggested that they walk to the hospital to tell Judy Bradley that Rhonda was missing. Manus testified that Bradley wanted to go to the hospital rather than report Rhonda's disappearance to the police. Manus and Bradley waited at the hospital for one and one-half hours before they were able to enter Mrs. Bradley's room. Throughout that period of time, Manus tried to persuade Bradley to go to the police station to report that Rhonda was missing. When the men eventually saw Mrs. Bradley, she told Danny Joe Bradley to report Rhonda's disappearance to the police.

Manus and Bradley went to the police station where Bradley told Officer Ricky Doyle that Rhonda was missing. Bradley also told Officer Doyle that he and Rhonda had argued earlier in the evening and that she had left the house sometime around 11:00 or 11:30 p.m. Bradley claimed that he had fallen asleep and that when he awoke, Rhonda was gone. He stated that he left the house at 11:30 p.m. to go to his neighbor's house to look for Rhonda. Bradley specifically indicated that he had not left the house until he began looking for Rhonda and that he went to the Manus home when he learned that Rhonda was missing. After talking with Officer Doyle, Bradley and Manus returned to Manus's apartment.

At approximately 7:30 a.m. on January 25, 1983, Rhonda's body was found in a wooded area less than six-tenths of a mile from Bradley's apartment. Rhonda's body was dressed in a pair of maroon-colored corduroy pants, a short-sleeved red knit shirt, green, white, brown, and purple striped leg warmers, a bra, and a blue windbreaker. Rhonda's tennis shoes were tied in single knots. Several members of her family testified that she always tied her shoes in double knots.

Within ninety minutes after Rhonda's body was discovered, two plainclothes officers from the Piedmont Police Department arrived at Bradley's residence. The officers had neither an arrest warrant nor probable cause. Although the government contends that Bradley was not placed under arrest at that time, Bradley claims that he was told he was under arrest for suspicion of murder, handcuffed, placed in a police vehicle, and taken to the Police Station, where an interrogation began at around 9:30 a.m. Bradley was in the custody of the Piedmont Police from that time until approximately 4:00 a.m. on the following morning. During this period of almost nineteen hours, the officers read Bradley his Miranda rights and questioned him. Bradley told the police that he had discovered Rhonda missing at approximately 11:20 or 11:25 p.m. and had gone to Phillip Manus's house in search of her. He also told officers that he had not left the apartment until he began his search for Rhonda.

In addition to giving a statement, Bradley executed a consent-to-search form authorizing the police to search his residence and his automobile, submitted to fingernail scraping, and was transported to and from Birmingham, Alabama. While in Birmingham, he submitted to a polygraph test and blood and saliva tests, and gave his clothing to the authorities. Although Bradley cooperated with the police in their investigation during this time period, he claims that he did so because the police clearly indicated to him that he would remain in police custody unless he cooperated. After obtaining the consent-to-search form, the police searched his residence and his automobile, seizing several items of physical evidence. Among the seized items of evidence were a pillowcase, a damp blue towel from a bathroom closet, the living room light switch plate cover, a red, white, and blue sheet from the children's bedroom, a white "heavy" sheet from the washing machine, and fiber samples from the trunk of Bradley's automobile. Prior to the trial, the court denied Bradley's two motions to suppress this evidence.

At trial, the State presented testimony that, contrary to Bradley's statements to police on both January 24 and January 25, 1983, Police Officer Bruce Murphy had seen Bradley in his car at 9:30 p.m. in the area where Rhonda's body was discovered. Officer Murphy, who had known Bradley for more than twenty years, positively identified him. The State's forensic evidence demonstrated that Bradley's fingernail scrapings matched the red, white, and blue sheet taken from the children's bedroom, the fibers from the leg warmers found on Rhonda's body, and the cotton from the pants Rhonda was wearing on January 24, 1983. The State also proved that fibers found in the trunk of Danny Joe Bradley's car matched the fibers from Rhonda's clothing. A pathologist testified that Rhonda's body had "evidence of trauma-that is, bruises and abrasions on her neck." She had seven wounds on her neck; the largest was an abrasion over her Adam's apple. The pathologist testified that he had taken swab and substance smears from Rhonda's mouth, rectum, and vagina. He also removed the gastric contents from Rhonda's stomach and turned them over to the toxicologist.

An expert in forensic serology testified that Danny Joe Bradley and Rhonda Hardin were of type O blood. Bradley is a non-secretor of the H-antigen. Rhonda was a secretor. The serology expert testified that the H-antigen was not present in the semen taken from the rectal swab of Rhonda. The rectum does not produce secretions or H-antigens. On the inside of Rhonda's pants, a stain containing a mixture of fecal-semen was found with spermatozoa present. The pillowcase found in the bathroom revealed high levels of seminal plasma and spermatozoa consistent with the type O blood group. There were small blood stains on the pillowcase mixed with saliva. These stains were also consistent with an O blood group.

The red, white, and blue sheet on the bed in the children's bedroom contained a four by two and one-half inch stain which included spermatozoa. The white blanket which had been placed in the washing machine also had two large stains consistent with fecal-semen. In both stains, spermatozoa was present and no H-antigens were detected. A combination of semen and sperm with the H-antigen was found on the blue towel located in the bathroom. Although the written report...