Coe v. Bell

• Decision Date: 03 April 2000
• Docket Number: PETITIONER-APPELLANT,No. 00-5419,RESPONDENT-APPELLEE,00-5419
• Citation: 209 F.3d 815
• Parties: (6th Cir. 2000) ROBERT GLEN COE,, v. RICKY BELL, WARDEN Submitted:
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

Page 815

209 F.3d 815 (6th Cir. 2000)

ROBERT GLEN COE, PETITIONER-APPELLANT, v. RICKY BELL, WARDEN RESPONDENT-APPELLEE.

No. 00-5419

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

Submitted: April 3, 2000

Decided and Filed April 11, 2000

Rehearing and Rehearing En Banc Denied April 17, 2000

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee at Nashville. No. 00-00239--Aleta A. Trauger, District Judge. [Copyrighted Material Omitted] Henry B. Martin, Paul R. Bottei, Federal Public Defender's Office, Nashville, Tennessee, for Appellant.

Gordon W. Smith, Michael E. Moore, Glenn R. Pruden, Office OF The Attorney General, Criminal Justice Division, Nashville, Tennessee, Erik W, Daab, Asst. Atty. General, Nashville, TN, for Respondent-Appellee.

Before: Boggs, Norris, and Moore, Circuit Judges.

OPINION

Karen Nelson Moore, Circuit Judge.

Robert Glen Coe appeals the denial of habeas relief regarding the Tennessee state courts' determination that he is competent to be executed pursuant to Ford v. Wainwright, 477 U.S. 399 (1986). Because we conclude that the Tennessee state courts' proceedings assessing Coe's Ford claims satisfy the requirements of due process and do not involve an unreasonable application of Supreme Court precedent, we AFFIRM the district court's denial of Coe's application for a writ of habeas corpus.

I. FACTS AND PROCEDURE

In 1981, Robert Glen Coe received the death sentence after a Tennessee jury convicted him of first-degree murder. Once Coe had exhausted all of his state and federal appeals of his conviction and sentence, the Tennessee Attorney General filed a motion before the Tennessee Supreme Court requesting an execution date. On December 15, 1999, the Tennessee Supreme Court set Coe's execution date for March 23, 2000, and ordered a remand of the case to the Tennessee trial court that had presided over Coe's conviction for a determination of his competency to be executed under Ford. Coe v. State, 11 S.W.3d 118, 119-20 (Tenn. 1999). The trial court determined that Coe was entitled to a hearing on this issue because he had satisfied a threshold showing that there existed a genuine disputed issue regarding his competency to be executed. The hearing was held from January 24 to January 28, 2000. The trial court then issued a finding on February 2, 2000 that Coe is competent to be executed. The Tennessee Supreme Court affirmed this finding on March 6, 2000. Coe v. State, No. W1999-01313-SC-DPE-PD, 2000 WL 246425 (Tenn. Mar. 6, 2000), cert. denied, 120 S. Ct. 1460, L.Ed.2d (Mar. 22, 2000).

On March 16, 2000, Coe filed in federal district court an application for a writ of habeas corpus challenging the Tennessee courts' determination that he is competent for execution under Ford. In a thorough opinion examining Coe's several claims issued on March 29, 2000, the district court refused to grant Coe's application for habeas relief. Coe filed a notice of appeal and sought a certificate of appealability from the district court, which the district court granted. The Tennessee Supreme Court on March 30, 2000 set Coe's execution for April 5, 2000.

After we requested and received briefs from the parties on April 3, 2000, we granted a stay of execution to evaluate fully the merits and to prevent Coe's scheduled April 5, 2000 execution from mooting his appeal. We directed the district court to make its record available for our review and asked the parties to designate particular parts of the record pertinent to this appeal. Because of the ample briefing and record and because of the inherent need for expedited review and resolution of a Ford claim, further briefing and an appellate oral argument are not necessary. See 6th Cir. R. 22(c)(7).

II. ANALYSIS

A. Adequacy of State Procedures

1. Ford v. Wainwright

This circuit has never been presented with the opportunity to examine the adequacy of a state's procedures to determine whether a death-row prisoner is competent to be executed pursuant to Ford v. Wainwright, 477 U.S. 399 (1986). In Ford, the Supreme Court held that the Eighth Amendment prohibits a state from executing a prisoner who is insane. See 477 U.S. at 409-10. A majority of the Justices did not reach the issues of what constitutes insanity in this context or what state procedures would adequately address a prisoner's Ford claim. Therefore, this court must look to the position taken by Justice Powell, who concurred in the judgment on the most narrow grounds, for the Court's holding on these issues. See Marks v. United States, 430 U.S. 188, 193 (1977) ("When a fragmented Court decides a case and no single rationale explaining the result enjoys the assent of five Justices, 'the holding of the Court may be viewed as that position taken by those Members who concurred in the judgments on the narrowest grounds . . . .'" (quoting Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 169 n.15 (1976)).

First, Justice Powell concluded that prisoners will be considered insane for the purposes of competency to be executed when they "are unaware of the punishment they are about to suffer and why they are to suffer it." Ford, 477 U.S. at 422 (Powell, J., concurring). In Ford, a psychiatrist's findings showed that the death-row prisoner believed that he would not be executed but rather understood the death penalty to have been invalidated. This led Justice Powell to conclude that "[i]f this assessment is correct, petitioner cannot connect his execution to the crime for which he was convicted" as required under the competency standard. Id. at 422-23 (Powell, J., concurring). It appears that the Supreme Court has accepted this competency standard as the Ford holding. See Penry v. Lynaugh, 492 U.S. 302, 333 (1989) (noting that "under Ford v. Wainwright, someone who is 'unaware of the punishment they are about to suffer and why they are to suffer it' cannot be executed" (citation omitted)).

Second, Justice Powell determined that in evaluating a prisoner's competency-to-be-executed claim, the state must comply with the Due Process Clause and that, under these particular circumstances, the clause requires the state to provide the prisoner with a "fair hearing." Ford, 477 U.S. at 424 (Powell, J., concurring). In Ford, the Governor of Florida was responsible for deciding a prisoner's competency to be executed and for appointing a panel of three psychiatrists to evaluate the prisoner. The prisoner was not given the opportunity to present any material for the Governor to consider in making a competency determination. Justice Powell noted that the opportunity to be heard is a "fundamental requisite" of due process. Id. (Powell, J., concurring). The prisoner was not given this fundamental opportunity to be heard, and the decision on his competency was made solely on the basis of the findings from the state-appointed experts. Justice Powell stated that "[s]uch a procedure invites arbitrariness and error by preventing the affected parties from offering contrary medical evidence or even from explaining the inadequacies of the State's examinations" and "does not, therefore, comport with due process." Id. (Powell, J., concurring).

Justice Powell cautioned, however, that he "would not require the kind of full-scale 'sanity trial'" he thought implied in Justice Marshall's opinion. Id. at 425 (Powell, J., concurring).¹ Although a prisoner is entitled to due process on a Ford claim, "[d]ue process is a flexible concept" and its procedural protections may vary depending on the context of a particular situation. Id. (Powell, J., concurring). A competency-to-be-executed claim only raises the issue of when a prisoner will be competent for execution and does not challenge the validity of the prisoner's conviction or sentence. Although an important question, "it is not comparable to the antecedent question whether [the prisoner] should be executed at all." Id. (Powell, J., concurring). Therefore, Justice Powell asserted that the heightened procedural protections usually required in capital cases are not applicable in this context. See id. (Powell, J., concurring). In addition, because the prisoner necessarily was found competent to stand trial in order to be convicted, Justice Powell concluded that "[t]he State therefore may properly presume that petitioner remains sane at the time sentence is to be carried out, and may require a substantial threshold showing of insanity merely to trigger the hearing process." Id. at 426 (Powell, J., concurring) (footnote omitted). Finally, Justice Powell noted that the competency determination requires a "basically subjective judgment" based on "expert analysis in a discipline fraught with 'subtleties and nuances.'" Id. (Powell, J., concurring) (quoting Addington v. Texas, 441 U.S. 418, 430 (1979)). Therefore, "ordinary adversarial procedures - complete with live testimony, cross-examination, and oral argument by counsel - are not necessarily the best means of arriving at sound, consistent judgments as to a defendant's sanity." Id. (Powell, J., concurring).

Accordingly, Justice Powell concluded that a state need not carry out a formal trial to determine a prisoner's competency. At a minimum, he stated, "[t]he State should provide an impartial officer or board that can receive evidence and argument from the prisoner's counsel, including expert psychiatric evidence that may differ from the State's own psychiatric examination." Id. at 427 (Powell, J., concurring). However, "[b]eyond these basic requirements, the States should have substantial leeway to determine what process best balances the various interests at stake" as long as the states observe the requirements of "basic fairness" under the Due Process Clause. Id. (Powell, J., concurring).

2. Tennessee's Ford Procedures

Invoking its inherent supervisory authority and with the Ford decision as guidance, the Tennessee Supreme Court recently adopted and set forth the procedures that a death-row prisoner must follow to...