Coulter v. Herring
| Decision Date | 24 July 1995 |
| Docket Number | No. 91-7131,91-7131 |
| Citation | 60 F.3d 1499 |
| Parties | David L. COULTER, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Tommy HERRING, Commissioner, Alabama Department of Corrections; W.P. Johnson, Warden, Holman Unit, Respondents-Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit |
Ronald J. Tabak, New York City, for appellant.
John Gibbs, Kenneth S. Nunnelley, Andy S. Poole, Asst. Attys. Gen., Montgomery, AL, for appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama.
Before HATCHETT, ANDERSON and COX, Circuit Judges.
In this capital case appeal, we affirm the district court's denial of habeas corpus relief.
In October 1978, appellant, David L. Coulter, was convicted of capital murder in Colbert County, Alabama. 1 The trial judge sentenced Coulter to death. The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals reversed Coulter's conviction "on the authority of Beck v. State, 396 So.2d 645 (Ala.1981)." Coulter v. State, 396 So.2d 1098, 1098 (Ala.Crim.App.1981). Coulter's second trial commenced in October 1981, but ended in a mistrial. Bryce Graham and James Marks represented Coulter during his second trial. Judge Inge Johnson presided over the trial.
In January 1982, Coulter's third Alabama trial ended in his conviction for capital murder. Carl Stolsworth and James Marks represented Coulter during this trial, with Judge Johnson again presiding. 2 After the sentencing hearing, Judge Johnson imposed a death sentence. Stolsworth and William Underwood served as Coulter's appellate counsel. 3 Coulter's conviction and sentence were affirmed on appeal. Coulter v. State, 438 So.2d 336 (Ala.Crim.App.1982); Ex parte Coulter, 438 So.2d 352 (Ala.1983).
In 1984, Coulter filed a petition for writ of error coram nobis. In July 1985, after conducting an evidentiary hearing, the Circuit Court of Tuscaloosa County denied coram nobis relief. The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the decision, adopting the coram nobis court's opinion as its own. Coulter v. State, 494 So.2d 895, 898 (Ala.Crim.App.1986). The Alabama Supreme Court denied certiorari on September 26, 1986.
In December 1986, Coulter filed the present habeas corpus petition, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2254, in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, asserting fourteen claims for relief. Coulter amended the petition in October 1988 to add a fifteenth claim. In March 1989, the magistrate judge issued a report recommending that the district court deny relief on all of Coulter's claims. In June 1989, Coulter moved to amend the petition to add a claim challenging the use of his Georgia convictions at his Alabama sentencing proceeding. 4 In August 1989, the district court entered an In January 1991, after holding "this action in abeyance for over a year awaiting a resolution" of Coulter's claim that his Georgia convictions were unconstitutional, the district court entered a Memorandum of Decision and Final Judgment. In that Memorandum, the district court reaffirmed its ruling denying relief on all claims presented in the petition, and denied, on ripeness grounds, the June 1989 motion to amend. In February 1991, Coulter filed a timely notice of appeal. The district court granted a certificate of probable cause authorizing appeal in August 1991.
order adopting the report of the magistrate judge. The district court's order also conditionally granted Coulter's June 1989 motion to amend the petition, and withheld final judgment pending a hearing on that motion.
In September 1991, the Superior Court of Putnam County, Georgia entered an order vacating Coulter's Georgia convictions. 5 On October 16, 1991, Coulter filed a motion to amend his petition, or, in the alternative, to reopen the district court's judgment. Coulter also moved this court to hold his appeal in abeyance pending the district court's disposition of his October 16, 1991 motion. This court granted that motion.
On October 15, 1993, the district court awarded Coulter habeas corpus relief with respect to his sentence "on the ground that the [Alabama] jury improperly considered the subsequently invalidated Georgia murder conviction as an aggravating circumstance in the sentencing phase of petitioner's trial." The district court ordered that Alabama provide Coulter with a new sentencing hearing, but stayed the effect of that ruling pending this court's disposition of his appeal. 6
We now consider Coulter's challenges to his conviction.
Coulter presses three claims on appeal. First, he contends that his lawyers provided him with ineffective assistance of counsel in connection with plea bargain negotiations. Second, he argues that his third trial constituted double jeopardy because the trial judge in his second trial solicited, unbeknownst to him, the successful mistrial motion. Third, Coulter asserts that the admission of evidence concerning an uncharged and unrelated robbery in Mississippi violated his due process rights.
The state responds to Coulter's contentions as follows. First, Coulter's rejection of the state's plea offer of life without parole was not linked to any ineffectiveness on the part of his lawyers. Second, Coulter failed to raise his double jeopardy claim at his third trial or on direct appeal; thus, he has procedurally defaulted this claim. Third, Coulter failed to raise his evidentiary challenge on direct appeal; therefore, he has also procedurally defaulted this claim.
A. Ineffective Assistance of Counsel
Prior to his second and third trials, the state offered Coulter the opportunity to plead guilty and receive a sentence of life without parole. Prior to his third trial, Coulter's lawyer informed the state that Coulter would plead guilty in exchange for a life sentence with the possibility of parole. The state rejected Coulter's counteroffer.
Coulter argues that, in evaluating the state's offer, his lawyers did not provide him with accurate information regarding the possible sentences he might face if he stood trial. He asserts that because the homicide occurred during the course of a robbery, a jury Whether counsel has rendered adequate assistance is a mixed question of fact and law requiring application of legal principles to the historical facts of the case. The state court's conclusion on this mixed question is not entitled to a presumption of correctness under 28 U.S.C.A. Sec. 2254(d).... However, the state court's findings of historical fact on the issue are entitled to a presumption of correctness.
could only convict him of either: (1) capital murder, which offers two possible sentences, death and life without parole, or (2) felony murder, which carries a sentence of life with the possibility of parole. Coulter contends that his lawyers did not inform him that these were the only offenses for which he could be convicted. As a result, he maintained the erroneous belief that he also had the potential to be convicted of second-degree murder or manslaughter. Thus, he believed that his potential sentencing options included: (1) death; (2) life without parole; (3) life with the possibility of parole; (4) a second-degree murder sentence of perhaps twenty years; and (5) a manslaughter sentence of perhaps ten years. Coulter states that had his lawyers given him accurate information regarding his sentencing options, he would not have erroneously believed that he could have received the fourth and fifth sentencing options. Furthermore, Coulter contends that had his lawyers informed him that only the first three sentencing options existed, he likely would have accepted the state's offer and pleaded guilty.
Collins v. Francis, 728 F.2d 1322, 1346 (11th Cir.) (citations omitted), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 963, 105 S.Ct. 361, 83 L.Ed.2d 297 (1984). The coram nobis court made the following relevant findings of historical fact on this issue:
(c) Petitioner told Carl Stolsworth and James Marks, the first time he met with them, that he wanted to receive a sentence which would allow him, someday, to get out of prison. Before his third trial, Petitioner told Stolsworth that he wanted to "roll the dice" on getting a sentence less than life without parole.
(d) Petitioner testified at the coram nobis hearing that he did not know whether he would have accepted the life without parole plea offer if he had been told that the least sentence he would receive was life and that second degree murder and manslaughter were not available lesser included offenses in his case. He further displayed considerable confusion as to how he had been misled by his trial counsel concerning lesser included offenses....
(e) No one ever told Petitioner, in the presence of James Marks, to reject the life without parole plea offer. Both Bryce Graham and Carl Stolsworth told Petitioner that he should consider the plea offer. Petitioner, contrary to the allegation in his Petition, denied discussing the life without parole plea offer with Stolsworth. Marks' testimony, supported by Stolsworth's use of the offer at trial, is more credible and the court finds that Petitioner's testimony is not credible.
(f) James A. Patton would not have accepted a plea to a lesser punishment than life without parole.
(g) Petitioner was informed that second degree murder and manslaughter would not be lesser included offenses in his case before the life without parole offer was withdrawn. Before Petitioner's mistrial, Judge Johnson informed his then attorney Bryce Graham, in Petitioner's presence, that the lesser included offenses were first degree murder, and, possibly, robbery but not manslaughter.
Coulter, 494 So.2d at 902. The record supports these findings of fact, and thus we accord them the presumption of correctness under 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2254(d). See Fike v. James, 833 F.2d 1503, 1506 (11th Cir.1987).
In Hill v. Lockhart, 474 U.S. 52, 58, 106 S.Ct. 366, 370, 88 L.Ed.2d 203 (1985), the Supreme Court held "that the two-part Strickland v....
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