Coleman v. State

• Decision Date: 11 April 2011
• Docket Number: No. W2007–02767–SC–R11–PD.,W2007–02767–SC–R11–PD.
• Citation: 341 S.W.3d 221
• Parties: Michael Angelo COLEMANv.STATE of Tennessee.
• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

341 S.W.3d 221

Michael Angelo COLEMAN

v.STATE of Tennessee.

No. W2007–02767–SC–R11–PD.

Supreme Court of Tennessee, at Jackson.

Nov. 3, 2010 Session.April 11, 2011.

Michael J. Passino and Kelley Henry, Nashville, Tennessee; William D. Massey, Memphis, Tennessee, for the appellant, Michael Angelo Coleman.Robert E. Cooper, Jr., Attorney General and Reporter; Gordon W. Smith, Associate Solicitor General; James E. Gaylord, Assistant Attorney General; William Gibbons, District Attorney General; and John Campbell and Scott Bearup, Assistant District Attorneys General, for the appellee, State of Tennessee.James W. Ellis, Albuquerque, New Mexico; Jodie Ann Bell, Nashville, Tennessee, for the Amicus Curiae, American Association of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities and the Arc of the United States and the Arc of Tennessee.Wade V. Davies, Knoxville, Tennessee, for the Amicus Curiae, Tennessee Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

OPINION

WILLIAM C. KOCH, JR., J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which CORNELIA A. CLARK, C.J., JANICE M. HOLDER, GARY R. WADE, and SHARON G. LEE, JJ., joined.WILLIAM C. KOCH, JR., J.

This appeal involves the role of expert testimony in proceedings to determine whether a prisoner who has been sentenced to death is intellectually disabled and thus barred from being executed under Tenn.Code Ann. § 39–13–203 (2010). An inmate facing execution filed a motion in the Criminal Court for Shelby County to re-open his post-conviction proceedings on the ground that he was intellectually disabled at the time he committed the crime for which he was convicted and on the ground that his trial counsel had been ineffective in investigating and presenting mitigating evidence. At the hearing, the prisoner presented expert testimony that his functional intelligence quotient (“I.Q.”) was actually lower than the raw test scores on his I.Q. tests and that he was mentally disabled for the purpose of Tenn.Code Ann. § 39–13–203(a). The State presented no contrary evidence. The trial court dismissed the prisoner's motion to re-open his post-conviction petition after concluding that he had failed to prove that he was intellectually disabled and that he was procedurally barred from raising his ineffective assistance of counsel claim. The Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the judgment of the trial court. Coleman v. State, No. W2007–02767–CCA–R3–PD, 2010 WL 118696 (Tenn.Crim.App. Jan. 13, 2010). We granted the prisoner's Tenn. R.App. P. 11 application for permission to appeal. We find that Tenn.Code Ann. § 39–13–203(a)(1) does not require that raw scores on I.Q. tests be accepted at their face value and that the courts may consider competent expert testimony showing that a test score does not accurately reflect a person's functional I.Q. or that the raw I.Q. test score is artificially inflated or deflated. We have also determined that both the post-conviction trial court and the Court of Criminal Appeals properly determined that the prisoner's claim involving the ineffective assistance of his trial counsel in connection with the investigation and presentation of mitigation evidence is procedurally barred.

I.

Leon Watson left his home on the morning of May 2, 1979 to go to a nearby grocery store. While on this errand, he was accosted by Michael Angelo Coleman and Michael Anthony Bell who robbed and killed him. Mr. Coleman fired the fatal shot. Mr. Coleman also rifled through Mr. Watson's wallet and stole a pistol and citizens' band radio from Mr. Watson's car.

A short time later, officers arrested Messrs. Coleman and Bell on another charge. Early on the morning of May 3, 1979, after being advised of his Miranda rights, Mr. Coleman told the officers that he had found the body of an African–American man in a field near Third Street in Memphis. He directed the officers to the scene where they found Mr. Watson's body. Mr. Watson's empty wallet was nearby, and other items from Mr. Watson's automobile were strewn around the body.

After being again advised of his Miranda rights, Mr. Coleman confessed that he had shot and robbed Mr. Watson. Mr. Bell likewise identified Mr. Coleman as the person who shot Mr. Watson both in his statement to the authorities and at trial.

The trial of both Mr. Coleman and Mr. Bell began on April 15, 1980. On April 19, 1980, the jury found both men guilty of first degree murder in the perpetration of a robbery. In addition to finding that the murder had been committed during the course of a robbery, the jury found, as an aggravating circumstance, that Mr. Coleman had previous felony convictions involving the use of violence.¹ The jury sentenced Mr. Coleman to death and Mr. Bell to life imprisonment.

In accordance with the appeals procedure then being used, Mr. Coleman appealed his conviction and sentence directly to this Court.² He sought relief from his conviction and sentence on the following grounds: (1) the denial of his motion to sever his trial from that of Mr. Bell, (2) the trial court's failure to remove a juror for cause, (3) the admission of Mr. Coleman and Mr. Bell's confessions, (4) the sufficiency of the evidence, and (5) the unconstitutionality of the Tennessee Death Penalty Act.³ This Court found no merit in these arguments and affirmed Mr. Coleman's conviction and sentence. See State v. Coleman, 619 S.W.2d 112, 114–16 (Tenn.1981).

Mr. Coleman filed his first petition for post-conviction relief on March 10, 1982. The post-conviction trial court conducted an evidentiary hearing on February 18, 1983. The court denied Mr. Coleman's petition on April 12, 1983. Mr. Coleman raised sixteen issues in his appeal to the Court of Criminal Appeals. One of these issues involved the effectiveness of his trial counsel. In that regard, Mr. Coleman cited ten instances where his trial counsel had been ineffective. Notably absent from Mr. Coleman's ineffective assistance of counsel claims were claims that his trial counsel had failed to investigate and present a mitigation case or that his trial counsel had failed to raise on direct appeal the trial court's denial of his motion for investigative resources.

On June 28, 1984, the Court of Criminal Appeals filed an opinion rejecting all of Mr. Coleman's arguments and affirming the dismissal of his petition for post-conviction relief. See State v. Coleman, Shelby County No. 31, 1984 Tenn.Crim.App. LEXIS 2883, at *4–36 (June 28, 1984), perm. app. denied (Tenn. Oct. 29, 1984). Both this Court and the United States Supreme Court declined to review the Court of Criminal Appeals' decision.

In May 1993, more than eight years after the Court of Criminal Appeals had affirmed the dismissal of his first post-conviction opinion, Mr. Coleman filed his second petition for post-conviction relief. The impetus of this petition was State v. Middlebrooks, 840 S.W.2d 317 (Tenn.1992).⁴ In addition to his State v. Middlebrooks argument, Mr. Coleman raised three issues that he had not raised in his first petition for post-conviction relief—the trial court's denial of his pre-trial motion for investigative assistance, the exclusion of certain mitigation evidence during the sentencing phase of his trial, and the ineffective assistance of his trial counsel for failing to investigate and present mitigating evidence.

The State conceded that Mr. Coleman's sentence was contrary to State v. Middlebrooks but insisted that the error was harmless. The State also argued that Mr. Coleman's other claims were procedurally barred. The post-conviction trial court entered an order on March 7, 1996 dismissing Mr. Coleman's second post-conviction petition. The court concluded that the Middlebrooks error was harmless and that Mr. Coleman's other claims were procedurally barred. Mr. Coleman appealed to the Court of Criminal Appeals, raising the same errors he had raised in his second post-conviction petition. On December 4, 1998, the Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the post-conviction trial court's decision that the Middlebrooks error was harmless and that Mr. Coleman's other issues were procedurally barred. Coleman v. State, 3 S.W.3d 19, 25 (Tenn.Crim.App.1998). Both this Court and the United States Supreme Court declined to review the Court of Criminal Appeals' decision.

On December 3, 2002, Mr. Coleman filed his third petition seeking post-conviction relief, this time in the form of a motion to re-open his prior post-conviction petition. The impetus of this petition was Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304, 321, 122 S.Ct. 2242, 153 L.Ed.2d 335 (2002) and Van Tran v. State, 66 S.W.3d 790, 812 (Tenn.2001), in which the United States Supreme Court and this Court held that the death penalty could not be constitutionally applied to persons who were “mentally retarded.” ⁵ Mr. Coleman asserted in his petition that he was mentally retarded as defined in Tenn.Code Ann. § 39–13–203(a) (1997). He also renewed his claim that his trial counsel had been ineffective because he failed to investigate and present mitigation evidence. On January 21, 2005, Mr. Coleman filed an amended motion to re-open his prior post-conviction opinion, arguing that Howell v. State, 151 S.W.3d 450 (Tenn.2004) provided a new constitutional due process basis for hearing his ineffective assistance of counsel claim.

The post-conviction trial court conducted a hearing on January 18 and 19, 2007. Mr. Coleman presented testimony from Dr. Alfred Baumeister and Dr. George W. Woods, Jr. These expert witnesses provided detailed explanations of their conclusions that Mr. Coleman is intellectually disabled under the parameters in Tenn.Code Ann. § 39–13–203(a). The State presented no witnesses and only briefly cross-examined Mr. Coleman's experts.

On November 9, 2007, the post-conviction trial court filed an order denying Mr. Coleman's latest petition. The court concluded that Mr. Coleman had failed to prove by a preponderance of the evidence he met the requirements in Tenn.Code Ann. § 39–13–203(a) to be...