Caudill v. Commonwealth, No. 2006-SC-000457-MR (Ky. 4/23/2009)
| Decision Date | 23 April 2009 |
| Docket Number | No. 2006-SC-000457-MR.,2006-SC-000457-MR. |
| Parties | Virginia S. CAUDILL, Appellant v. COMMONWEALTH of Kentucky, Appellee |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court — District of Kentucky |
David Hare Harshaw, III, Dennis James Burke, Department of Public Advocacy, 207 Parker Drive, Suite 1, LaGrange, KY 40031, Counsel for Appellant.
Jack Conway, Attorney General, David A. Smith, Michael A. Nickles, Jr., Office of Attorney General, Criminal Appellate Division, 1024 Capital Center Drive, Frankfort, KY 40601, Counsel for Appellee.
Not to be published
Virginia S. Caudill appeals from the Fayette Circuit Court's denial of her RCr 11.42 motion for post-conviction relief. In that motion, Caudill raised numerous claims, the majority of which involved allegations of ineffective assistance of counsel and prosecutorial misconduct. The Fayette Circuit Court rejected each without an evidentiary hearing, except for a single claim of juror misconduct. Caudill now appeals twelve of the remaining issues that were denied without a hearing.
Caudill was convicted in 2000 for the murder Lonetta White. She was tried jointly with Jonathan Wayne Goforth, whose post-conviction appeal has been considered with Caudill's. White was bludgeoned to death in her home. Her body was found in the trunk of her burning car in a field several miles away. Numerous items of valuable personable property had been taken from her home.
Both Caudill and Goforth admitted they were present in White's home when the murder occurred, but each accused the other of the actual crime. Caudill claimed that she went to ask White, the mother of her estranged boyfriend, for money, and that Goforth unexpectedly forced his way into the house and attacked White. Goforth claims that he accompanied Caudill to White's house and when White refused to give Caudill money, she began attacking the woman. Both admitted to assisting in the removal of White's body from the home and the burning of her body and vehicle. Eventually, the pair fled to Florida and New Orleans before being arrested in Mississippi.
Goforth and Caudill were jointly tried and each was convicted of murder, burglary in the first degree, robbery in the first degree, arson in the second degree, and tampering with physical evidence. Each received the death penalty for the murder conviction and the maximum allowable sentence for the remaining crimes. Their convictions were affirmed on direct appeal, where further factual details may be found. Caudill v. Commonwealth, 120 S.W.3d 635 (Ky. 2003). The following year, Caudill filed the present motion for postconviction relief.
To prevail on a motion for post-conviction relief pursuant to RCr 11.42, the movant must establish that he was denied a substantial right. Halvorsen v. Commonwealth, 258 S.W.3d 1, 3 (Ky. 2007). The motion must set forth all facts necessary to establish the existence of a constitutional violation. Skaggs v. Commonwealth, 803 S.W.2d 573, 576 (Ky. 1990). Where factual issues are not resolvable through a review of the trial record, an evidentiary hearing should be held. Id.
When the basis of the RCr 11.42 motion is a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, the movant must overcome the strong presumption that counsel rendered reasonably effective professional assistance. First, the movant must show that counsel's performance was deficient, meaning that counsel was not functioning as the "counsel" guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment. Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 687 (1984). Second, the movant must demonstrate that counsel's deficiency prejudiced the defendant. Id. This requires a showing that, but for counsel's unprofessional errors, the outcome of the trial would have been different. Id. at 694. "So the threshold issue is not whether [Caudill's] attorney was inadequate; rather, it is whether he was so manifestly ineffective that defeat was snatched from the hands of probable victory." United States v. Morrow, 977 F.2d 222, 229 (6th Cir. 1992). We have also stated this standard as a determination of whether, absent counsel's errors, the jury would have had reasonable doubt with respect to guilt. Brown v. Commonwealth, 253 S.W.3d 490, 499 (Ky. 2008).
Caudill claims that her defense counsel was ineffective for not securing an expert witness to rebut the testimony of Linda Winkle, a Kentucky State Police crime lab forensic examiner. Winkle examined the shoes Caudill was wearing on the night of White's murder. Caudill was also wearing these shoes the following day when she and Goforth briefly fled to Marion County. On that trip, Goforth swerved his truck to avoid a deer, causing the truck to tumble over an embankment. Caudill sustained minor cuts and bruises in the accident.
Winkle testified at trial that White's blood was found on Caudill's shoes. She further explained that blood appeared in three forms: impact spatter, contact stains, and smears. Winkle testified that the medium impact blood spatter found on the shoes was produced when force was applied to the blood, which would be consistent with a beating or similar action. Further, the shoes were within three feet of where the blood originated when the force was applied. Winkle, however, qualified her testimony by explaining this was only one explanation, and that other potential ways existed that would cause the blood to spatter or break up. The Commonwealth argued that the blood spatter was formed when Caudill was within three feet of White during the assault.
In her RCr 11.42 motion, Caudill presented an affidavit from a DPA investigator, Douglas Blair, to support the contention that her counsel should have hired an expert to rebut Winkle's testimony. Blair related statements made to him by Edward Taylor, a blood spatter expert also employed by the KSP crime lab. According to the affidavit, Taylor stated that there was no way of telling if the spatter on Caudill's shoes was caused by impact spatter, as Winkle had testified, or by satellite spatter. Caudill argues that satellite spatter could have occurred during the subsequent car wreck, when her own blood might have impacted White's blood on her shoes. We note that this explanation for satellite spatter is Caudill's; Taylor did not indicate specifically that the car accident could have caused satellite spatter. Taylor's statements also do not address the fact that White's blood would presumably have dried on Caudill's shoes by the time of the car accident, which occurred several hours after White's murder.
The trial court determined that Blair's affidavit, if taken as true, failed to establish any deficiency of defense counsel. We agree. Taylor's statements do not directly contradict Winkle's testimony, contrary to Caudill's characterization. Though Winkle did not specifically testify that the impact spatter might have occurred in the subsequent car wreck, her testimony did not absolutely rule out the possibility. In fact, she stated that any time a medium impact force is applied to the blood, it would break up. This testimony effectively embodies Taylor's statement about satellite spatter. Further, Winkle's testimony did not preclude the argument that the blood spatter occurred while Caudill helped Goforth remove White's body from the home. Indeed, defense counsel specifically argued this point in closing argument to explain why White's blood was on Caudill's shoes. Defense counsel ably buttressed this argument by pointing out that there was decidedly little blood on Caudill's jeans, in contrast to her shoes, which was consistent with her claim that she only helped to move the body.
It is unnecessary, in every case, for defense counsel to hire rebuttal expert witnesses to avoid being deemed ineffective. Thompson v. Commonwealth, 177 S.W.3d 782, 786 (Ky. 2005). Caudill has not presented evidence that an additional expert's testimony would differ materially from Winkle's. Taylor's statements do not dispute the fact that White's blood was on Caudill's shoes, nor rule out the possibility that the impact spatter occurred while Caudill was assaulting White. The only testimony that Taylor might have provided is the theory that the blood stains were satellite, not impact, spatter, thus providing an explanation other than Caudill's proximity to the assault. However, this possibility was not expressly rejected by Winkle's testimony and was presented to the jury through defense counsel's cross-examination of Winkle, as well as during closing argument. For this reason, we are unconvinced that additional expert testimony would have changed the outcome of Caudill's trial. See Mills v. Commonwealth, 170 S.W.3d 310, 329 (Ky. 2005) (). Caudill's arguments in this regard are refuted by the trial record and fail to meet the burden of showing that there is a reasonable probability that testimony from an additional expert would have changed the outcome of the proceeding. Therefore, the trial court did not err in rejecting this claim without an evidentiary hearing.
Jeffrey Spence was an inmate who notified the Commonwealth shortly before trial that he had spoken with Goforth in prison, and that Goforth had made incriminating statements regarding White's murder. According to Spence, Goforth said that he had assaulted White in an attempt to quiet her during a burglary and robbery attempt. Goforth also indicated his intention to place the blame on Caudill.
However, Spence also openly solicited a release from custody on his own charges, which included a charge of assaulting his girlfriend. He told investigators...
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