Corcoran v. Buss

• Decision Date: 31 December 2008
• Docket Number: No. 07-2093.,No. 07-2182.,07-2093.,07-2182.
• Citation: 551 F.3d 703
• Parties: Joseph E. CORCORAN, Petitioner-Appellee, Cross-Appellant, v. Edwin G. BUSS, Superintendent, Respondent-Appellant, Cross-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

551 F.3d 703

Joseph E. CORCORAN, Petitioner-Appellee, Cross-Appellant, v. Edwin G. BUSS, Superintendent, Respondent-Appellant, Cross-Appellee.

No. 07-2093.

No. 07-2182.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued December 3, 2007.

Decided December 31, 2008.

Alan M. Freedman, Midwest Center for Justice, Evanston, IL, Laurence E. Komp (argued), Manchester, MO, for Petitioner-Appellee, Cross-Appellant.

James B. Martin (argued), Office of the Attorney General, Indianapolis, IN, for Respondent-Appellant, Cross-Appellee.

Before BAUER, WILLIAMS and SYKES, Circuit Judges.

BAUER, Circuit Judge.

On July 26, 1997, Joseph Corcoran shot and killed four men: his brother Jim Corcoran, his sister's fiancé Robert Scott Turner, Timothy Bricker, and Doug Stillwell. An Indiana state court jury convicted Corcoran of four counts of murder. The trial court agreed with the jury's determination and sentenced Corcoran to death. Corcoran exhausted his state court direct appeals and waived state post-conviction review. In 2005, Corcoran filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Indiana, claiming that his Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial was violated by an offer made by the State during pretrial negotiations, which in turn tainted his death sentence. The district court granted his petition. The State now appeals the district court's grant of habeas relief; Corcoran cross-appeals from the district court's decision that Corcoran was competent to waive his state post-conviction proceedings. For the following reasons, we affirm the district court's finding of competence, but we reverse the grant of habeas relief.

I. BACKGROUND

After Corcoran was indicted for four counts of murder under Ind.Code § 35-42-1-1, the State and Corcoran participated in extensive negotiations regarding the possibility of a plea agreement. The State made two offers: (1) a sentence of life without the possibility of parole in exchange for a plea of guilty, or (2) the dismissal of a request for the death penalty in exchange for Corcoran's agreement to proceed by bench trial instead of jury trial. Corcoran was advised by his counsel (during "several hundred" hours of meetings) that the offers were in his best interest for a number of reasons: (1) Corcoran had made a videotaped confession of the crimes; (2) his confession matched the physical evidence at the crime scene; (3) two of the three court-ordered psychiatrists that evaluated Corcoran concluded that he was competent to stand trial and to aid in his defense; and (4) defense counsel planned to present no defense at trial. Corcoran could not give a specific reason why he was unwilling to accept either offer, stating "I just feel like I should go to trial," and that he could not explain why.¹ Negotiations lasted for approximately nine months, after which the State withdrew its offers and filed four applications for the death penalty.

Before trial, defense counsel gave notice to the court that an insanity defense would be asserted; after court-appointed doctors examined Corcoran and concluded that he was competent, defense counsel withdrew its claims. A jury found Corcoran guilty and recommended the death penalty. On August 26, 1999, the district court sentenced Corcoran to death.²

On direct appeal, Corcoran filed a written waiver of his right to appeal his convictions and challenged only his death sentence. Among the six claims that alleged the Indiana Death Penalty statute violated his state and federal constitutional rights, Corcoran argued that the statute violated his Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial in that when he declined the State's offer to proceed by a bench trial and chose to be tried by a jury, the State's request for the death penalty sought "to force [Corcoran] to abdicate a basic right," when the State actually believed that life imprisonment was the appropriate penalty. Corcoran v. State, 739 N.E.2d 649, 654 (Ind.2000) (Corcoran I). The Indiana Supreme Court rejected all of Corcoran's arguments and upheld Indiana's Death Penalty statute as it applied to him. Id.

In addressing Corcoran's argument that his right to a jury trial was violated, the court emphasized that, under Bordenkircher v. Hayes, 434 U.S. 357, 98 S.Ct. 663, 54 L.Ed.2d 604 (1978), although constitutional limits do apply, the discretionary power of a prosecutor to offer plea bargains is wide. The court found that in the context of plea bargaining, there is no material distinction in these discretionary powers to agree to a lesser sentence in exchange for a guilty plea or for a bench trial. Corcoran I, at 654. However, the court vacated Corcoran's sentence and remanded to the trial court, finding a "significant possibility that the trial court may have relied upon nonstatutory aggravating factors in deciding whether to impose the death penalty" under Indiana law. Id. at 657 (citing Harrison v. State, 644 N.E.2d 1243 (Ind.1995)). On September 30, 2001, the trial court reweighed the statutory aggravators under Ind.Code § 35-50-2-9(b)³ and reinstated Corcoran's death sentence; the Indiana Supreme Court affirmed his sentence on September 5, 2002. See Corcoran v. State, 774 N.E.2d 495, 498-99 (Ind.2002) (Corcoran II).

Corcoran was required to file a petition for post-conviction relief in state court by September 9, 2003. In what would be the first in a series of flip-flops, he refused to sign his petition, believing that he should be put to death for his crimes. At the request of his counsel, a State Public Defender, the trial court scheduled a hearing in October, 2003, to determine whether Corcoran was competent to waive post-trial review of his conviction and sentence. Defense counsel sought the opinions of three mental health experts: clinical psychologist Dr. Robert G. Kaplan; forensic psychiatrist Dr. George Parker; and clinical neuro-psychologist Dr. Edmund Haskins. Each doctor separately interviewed Corcoran and reviewed his mental health records.

At the hearing, all three experts testified that Corcoran suffered from paranoid schizophrenia; the State and the post-conviction court acknowledged the same. According to the experts, symptoms of his disease included delusions that he had a speech disorder and a belief that prison guards were operating an ultrasound machine to torment him. On the basis of that diagnosis, the experts concluded that Corcoran was unable to make a rational decision concerning his legal proceedings. Each expert stated that Corcoran's decision to waive post-conviction review of his sentence, thereby hastening his execution, was premised on his desire to be relieved of the pain that he believed he was experiencing as a result of his delusions. The experts also stated that Corcoran had the capacity to understand his legal position, and Dr. Parker testified that Corcoran had a clear awareness of the status of his case and what was at stake if he waived further proceedings.

Additionally, Corcoran testified at the competency hearing, where the prosecutor and the trial judge questioned him. He stated that he understood it was his last chance at a review of the case, and that if it was unsuccessful, he would be executed. He told the judge that he never wanted a competency hearing, and that he wanted to waive his appeals because he was guilty of murder. He stated:

I think I should be executed for what I have done and not because I am supposedly tortured with ultrasound or whatever. I am guilty of murder. I should be executed. That is all there is to it. That is what I believe. I believe the death penalty is a just punishment for four counts of murder.

In December, 2003, the post-conviction court found that Corcoran was competent to waive further challenges to his sentence and be executed. The court noted that:

[the] evidence is clear that [Corcoran] suffers from a mental illness ... [however the issue before the court was] whether he is competent to waive post-conviction review ... [t]he dialogue the State and the Court had with [Corcoran] clearly indicate he is competent and understands what he is doing. While his choice of action may be unwise, and obviously against the advice of counsel, he is competent to make this ultimate decision in spite of his mental illness.

The Indiana Supreme Court affirmed the post-conviction court's competency determination. See Corcoran v. State, 820 N.E.2d 655, 662, aff'd on reh'g, 827 N.E.2d 542 (Ind.2005) (Corcoran III); In doing so, the court considered: (1) the testimony of the experts, each of whom concluded that his decision to forego post-conviction review was premised on his desire to be relieved of the delusional pain he was experiencing as a result of his mental illness; (2) the fact that Corcoran did not tell any expert that he wished to end his appeals in order to escape his delusions; (3) his prison records and expert medical testimony which revealed that his psychotic symptoms were being controlled through various psychiatric medications; (4) Corcoran's statements at the hearing that he wanted to waive his appeals; and (5) evidence that Corcoran was aware of his legal position and the consequences of his decision, such as his own testimony at the hearing as well as expert testimony that he was cognizant of his sentence and the appeals process. The court concluded that the evidence supported the trial court's determination that Corcoran had "both a rational understanding of and can appreciate his legal position ... [and] the evidence does not conclusively indicate that Corcoran's decision was not made in a rational manner." Id. at 662.

On February 10, 2005, Corcoran changed his mind and attempted to file a verified state post-conviction petition, which was dismissed as untimely by the trial court; the Indiana Supreme Court affirmed the trial court on April 18, 2006, stating that "[w]e have afforded Corcoran considerable review of his sentence ... and the...