Dellinger v. State
| Decision Date | 18 August 2015 |
| Docket Number | No. E2013-02094-CCA-R3-ECN,E2013-02094-CCA-R3-ECN |
| Court | Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals |
| Parties | JAMES DELLINGER v. STATE OF TENNESSEE |
Appeal from the Circuit Court for Blount County
The Petitioner, James Dellinger, appeals from the trial court's denial of his petition for a writ of error coram nobis, his petition for a writ of audita querela, his motion for a declaratory judgment, his claims pursuant to Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics, 403 U.S. 388 (1971), and his claims under the due process, law of the land, and open courts provisions of the United States and Tennessee Constitutions. The Petitioner seeks relief from his conviction for first degree murder and his resulting death sentence, claiming that he is ineligible for the death penalty because he is intellectually disabled and that his conviction violates principles of double jeopardy. We affirm the judgment of the trial court.
ROBERT H. MONTGOMERY, JR., J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which JOHN EVERETT WILLIAMS and ROBERT L. HOLLOWAY, JR., JJ., joined.
Amy Dawn Harwell and Michael J. Passino, Assistant Federal Public Defenders, Nashville, Tennessee, for the appellant, James Dellinger.
Herbert H. Slatery III, Attorney General and Reporter; James E. Gaylord, Senior Counsel; Mike Flynn, District Attorney General; and Kenlyn Foster, Assistant District Attorney General, for the Appellee, State of Tennessee.
OPINIONIn February 1992, the Petitioner and his codefendant, Gary Wayne Sutton, killed Tommy Mayford Griffin in Blount County by shooting him with a shotgun. See State v. Dellinger, 79 S.W.3d 458, 462-65 (Tenn. 2002). Shortly thereafter, the Petitioner and Sutton killed Connie Branam, Mr. Griffin's sister, who had been searching for hermissing brother. Id. at 464-65. Ms. Branam's body was discovered in her burned vehicle in a wooded area in Sevier County. Id.
The Petitioner and Sutton were charged in Blount County with first degree premeditated murder of Mr. Griffin. They were charged in Sevier County with first degree premeditated murder of Ms. Branam and the burning of personal property. The Sevier County case proceeded to trial first, and the Petitioner and Sutton were convicted of the charges. They each received a life sentence for the first degree murder conviction and a consecutive two-year sentence for the burning of personal property conviction. Their convictions and sentences were affirmed on appeal. See State v. Gary Wayne Sutton and James Anderson Dellinger, No. 03C01-9403-CR-0090, 1995 WL 406953, at *1 (Tenn. Crim. App. July 11, 1995), perm. app. denied (Tenn. Jan. 22, 1996).
Following their convictions in Sevier County, the Petitioner and Sutton were tried and convicted in Blount County for first degree murder of Mr. Griffin. The State sought the death penalty for both the Petitioner and Sutton based upon one aggravating circumstance: the Petitioner and Sutton were each previously convicted of one or more violent felonies. See T.C.A. § 39-13-204(i)(2) (1991). The State relied upon the prior first degree murder conviction relative to Ms. Branam in establishing this aggravating circumstance.1 See Dellinger, 79 S.W.3d at 465.
During the penalty phase, the Petitioner presented the following evidence in mitigation:
Dellinger presented proof that he was raised in a large family with eight children. His parents were loving but were harsh disciplinarians, and his family was very poor. Dellinger left school when he was ten years old and never learned to read or write. He became a carpenter, and testimony showed that he was a good employee until 1990 when he sustained a back injury that forced him to quit working. Dellinger has four children and two stepchildren from his two marriages. Two of his children had died tragically—an eighteen-year-old daughter died in a car accident, and a fifteen-month-old son died when a stove fell on him. Dellinger presented evidence that he is a non-violent, religious, helpful, and kind-hearted man. He had been a well-behaved prisoner and had prevented another prisoner from committing suicide. Clinical psychologist Dr. Peter Young testified that Dellinger has an IQ between 72 and 83 and has borderline personality disorder. He related that due to a lack of family nurturing Dellinger is distrustful of others. Young testified that although Dellinger is not violenthe is capable of "flaring up" when drunk and angry. Young opined that Dellinger would do well in a structured prison environment.
Id. At the conclusion of the penalty phase, the jury sentenced the Petitioner and Sutton to death. The Tennessee Supreme Court upheld their convictions and sentences on appeal. See id. at 462.
On March 3, 2003, the Petitioner filed a pro se petition for post-conviction relief challenging his conviction for first degree murder of Mr. Griffin and his death sentence. Following the appointment of counsel, the Petitioner filed an amended petition on August 11, 2003. The Petitioner raised numerous claims in his amended petition, including that he was ineligible for the death penalty due to his intellectual disability and that his trial attorneys were ineffective in failing to develop evidence of his intellectual disability. On October 27 and 28, 2004, the Petitioner filed amendments to his amended petition. An evidentiary hearing was held on October 26-29, 2004, and on January 28, 2005.
During the hearing, the Petitioner presented the testimony of Dr. Peggy Joyce Cantrell, an expert in clinical psychology and the psychology of rural Appalachia. In evaluating the Petitioner, Dr. Cantrell reviewed Dr. Young's report and raw data from 1995, the psychological evaluation by Middle Tennessee Mental Health Institute in 1993, and Dr. Diana McCoy's report from a 1992 evaluation. Dr. Cantrell interviewed the Petitioner, his wife, and one of his sisters. Dr. Cantrell reviewed the transcript of the penalty phase of the trial and eleven interview summaries of the Petitioner's family members and friends conducted in 2003.
Dr. Cantrell testified regarding the Petitioner's family history of extreme poverty, his lack of education, his history of alcohol abuse that began at a young age, his employment history, his marriage and relationship with his wife, and the deaths of two of his children. Dr. Cantrell stated that the Petitioner had deficits in the cognitive, emotional, and interpersonal areas. Dr. Cantrell noted that the Petitioner previously had taken two or three IQ tests. She described the Petitioner's scores on the tests as "very consistent in the borderline to lower end of the low average range of intelligence, with his verbal skills being less well developed." Dr. Cantrell noted the Petitioner had significant verbal reasoning deficits. She said that the Petitioner was essentially illiterate and that his scores on academic testing fell within the first or second grade level. Dr. Cantrell also said that the Petitioner lacked full personality development and that he would find forming and sustaining close relationships difficult. Dr. Cantrell testified that while the Petitioner had cognitive limitations, the limitations were not "to the degree where he's [intellectually disabled], by any means."
On June 2, 2005, the post-conviction court entered an order denying the Petitioner relief. Relative to the Petitioner's claims relating to intellectual disability, the court noted Dr. Cantrell's testimony that the Petitioner was not intellectually disabled. On appeal, the Petitioner did not pursue any claims of intellectual disability. The Tennessee Supreme Court affirmed the post-conviction court's denial of post-conviction relief. See Dellinger v. State, 279 S.W.3d 282, 285-86 (Tenn. 2009).
On April 10, 2012, the Petitioner filed a motion to reopen the post-conviction proceedings. In the original and amended motions, the Petitioner claimed that he was "actually innocent of the death penalty" because of new scientific evidence establishing his intellectual disability based upon a new rule of constitutional law provided in Coleman v. State, 341 S.W.3d 221 (Tenn. 2011). The Petitioner also alleged that he was "actually innocent of the death penalty" because his death sentence violated principles of double jeopardy because a Sevier County jury declined to impose the death penalty for the murder of Ms. Branam and the State successfully sought the death penalty in Blount County using the Sevier County conviction as an aggravating circumstance.
In support of his intellectual disabilty claim, the Petitioner attached to his motion the February 17, 2012 affidavit of Dr. Dale G. Watson, a clinical psychologist from California who specialized in neuropsychology and neuropsychological assessments. The Petitioner also attached Dr. Watson's report of his December 13, 2010 evaluation. According to Dr. Watson's 2010 report, he evaluated the Petitioner on September 15, 16, and 17, 2010. Dr. Watson interviewed the Petitioner, administered multiple tests, and reviewed prior evaluations. Dr. Watson described the Petitioner's family, education, medical, substance abuse, and employment histories.
Dr. Watson concluded that the Petitioner had significant dysfunction within the left hemispshere of his brain. Dr. Watson found that the brain dysfunction impacted the Petitioner's overall intellectual capacity, capacity to focus, memory, executive functions, and ability to problem solve and perform academic tasks. According to Dr. Watson, "[t]he severity of his impairments is of at least a moderate intensity, which is sufficient to cause significant problems in his day-to-day life." In reviewing Dr. Young's pre-trial evaluation of the Petitioner, Dr. Watson noted that Dr. Young also found brain dysfunction within the left hemisphere of the Petitioner's brain.
...
To continue reading
Request your trial