Doan v. Brigano

• Decision Date: 27 October 2000
• Docket Number: No. 98-4243,98-4243
• Citation: 237 F.3d 722
• Parties: (6th Cir. 2001) James Doan, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Anthony J. Brigano, Respondent-Appellee. Argued:
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

Page 722

237 F.3d 722 (6th Cir. 2001)

James Doan, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Anthony J. Brigano, Respondent-Appellee.

No. 98-4243

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

Argued: October 27, 2000

Decided and Filed: January 19, 2001

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio at Cincinnati. No. 97-00825, Susan J. Dlott, District Judge. [Copyrighted Material Omitted] Teresa L. Cunningham, Florence, Kentucky, for Appellant.

Katherine E. Pridemore, ASSISTANT OHIO ATTORNEY GENERAL, CORRECTIONS LITIGATION SECTION, Cincinnati, Ohio, for Appellee.

Before: SUHRHEINRICH and MOORE , Circuit Judges; EDMUNDS , District Judge^*.

MOORE, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which EDMUNDS, D. J., joined. SUHRHEINRICH, J. (pp. 739-41), delivered a separate opinion concurring in the result.

OPINION

KAREN NELSON MOORE, Circuit Judge.

Petitioner-Appellant James Doan, an Ohio prisoner convicted of murder and child endangerment, appeals the district court's denial of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §2254. Doan raised several claims in his habeas petition, alleging both juror and prosecutorial misconduct as well as errors by the trial court in jury instructions, sentencing, and failing to grant continuances to the defense so as to retain an expert witness. The district court held that Doan had procedurally defaulted all of his claims except for certain allegations of juror misconduct, and further held that it was barred from reviewing the remaining misconduct claim because the state court's judgment disposing of the claim rested on Ohio Evid. R. 606(B), an adequate and independent state ground. As part of its order denying Doan's habeas petition, the district court granted a certificate of appealability with respect to one issue: "whether the State courts' application of Ohio R. Evid. 606(B) in this case deprived petitioner of a fair trial[.]" Joint Appendix ("J.A.") at 134 (D.Ct. Order Den. Habeas). This court will limit its review to that question. For the reasons set forth below, we hold that, while the application of Ohio Evid. R. 606(B) violated Doan's Sixth Amendment right to confront the evidence and the witnesses presented against him, as well as his right to a jury that considers only the evidence presented at trial, an exhaustive review of the trial record conclusively shows that Doan was not prejudiced by this constitutional error. Thus, we AFFIRM the district court's denial of Doan's habeas petition, but on grounds different from those on which the district court relied.

I. BACKGROUND

James Doan first met his girlfriend, Catherine Beisel, early in 1993. Approximately two months later, Doan moved in with Beisel and her two children. Over the course of the five months in which Doan resided with Beisel, he regularly babysat for her children in the evenings while she was at work. Beisel worked as a bartender and generally did not arrive home until after 3:00 a.m.

Beisel's youngest child, fifteen-month-old Star Hollingsworth, had been severely injured several times during the months in which Doan lived with Beisel and her children. In August 1993, on an evening that Doan was watching the children, Star suffered a "good size" bruise to the side of her jaw when she allegedly fell off a chair. (Trial Transcript at 383)¹ Also in August, Star's grandmother, Shirley Beisel, noticed severe burns on the bottom of Star's feet. The grandmother urged her daughter to seek medical attention for Star's burns, yet her daughter refused, stating she was "frightened." (Tr. at 388).

On the evening of September 29, 1993, Doan, along with the children, drove Beisel to work at approximately 8:00 p.m. As he often did, Doan looked after the children by himself that evening. Beisel arrived home on the morning of September 30 at 3:00 a.m. and Doan, who had been sleeping until she arrived, informed her that Star had been ill that evening, was vomiting, and had burned herself in the bathtub. Beisel went to check on Star, only to find the child dead in her crib. Beisel then called for emergency assistance.

Paramedics arrived on the scene shortly thereafter. Fire department personnel on the scene noted a large, second-degree burn on Star's face and immediately suspected child abuse. The Cincinnati Police were notified, arrived on the scene, and brought Doan to the Homicide Department for questioning. Doan was read his Miranda rights verbatim from a standard Cincinnati Police form, and he signed the form stating that he understood his rights. Before being interviewed by homicide investigators, Doan was again read his rights from the same form, and again he signed the form indicating that he understood his rights.

During the officers' questioning, Doan first stated that he drove the children straight home after dropping Beisel off at work, and that he then placed Star in her bed while he cared for Sophia, Beisel's seven-year-old child. Doan stated that Star had been ill that evening and was looking very pale, and when he went to attend to the child, he noticed that she had vomited in her bed. Doan stated that he took her from her bed and laid her on the sofa, where again she vomited. Doan then undressed the child, took her to the bathroom, and placed her in the bathtub so that he could clean her up. Doan stated that the bathroom, as well as the surrounding rooms, were so dark that he did not notice any bruises or other injuries on Star's body when he placed her in the tub. Doan turned on the water in the tub and stated that he left the darkened bathroom with the water running for approximately one to two minutes so as to clean up the sofa, only to hear Star scream and then hear two "booms" as she fell in the tub. (Tr. at 663).

Doan stated that he then rushed into the bathroom and discovered Star lying on her back in the tub with water from the tub's faucet striking her in the face. Doan stated that he noticed that the cold water had been turned off in the tub and that she had burned herself from the water, so he took her out of the tub and applied an ointment to the burn². Doan then dressed her in the same clothes and eventually put her to bed around 1:00 a.m. Doan claims Star was still alive when he put her to bed.

After his initial statement, the police officers interviewing Doan responded skeptically to his explanation of how Star had been burned in the tub. Doan then changed his story, admitting that he may have done something that could have hurt her. Doan stated that, after arriving home from dropping off Beisel at work, he placed Star in a grassy area next to the car while he retrieved some of his things, and that he probably picked her up too fast off of the ground. Doan told the officers that when he picked her up, her body "folded up," and that when he threw her over his shoulder, this "caused her body and head to snap." (Tr. at 539).

Doan admitted to shaking the baby both before and after she was burned in the tub because her crying was getting on his nerves, and to striking her in the abdomen with a "karate chop" type blow. J.A. at 167-71. Following these admissions, Doan allowed the police officers to make an audio tape of his statement, so he again went through his account of what happened that night. At this point in time, Doan refused to take responsibility for the burn Star allegedly received in the bathtub.

Later this same morning, Doan was again questioned, this time by Police Specialist David Feldhaus, who had been dispatched to the hospital to examine Star's injuries. Feldhaus told Doan that he had observed Star's burn and that it was not consistent with being splashed by running water. Doan then admitted that he just wanted Star to stop crying, so he poured hot water on the baby's face using a cup. Officer Feldhaus then called in the other officers who had interviewed Doan earlier, and Doan again agreed to tape a statement, repeating for them what he had told Officer Feldhaus.

Along with the second-degree burn on her face, Star's autopsy revealed multiple contusions and hemorrhaging to the head, neck, tongue, thorax, abdomen, arms, legs, vagina, and rectum. Examiners also discovered several skull and vertebral fractures, and a laceration of the duodenum. Dr. John Gerber, the pathologist who conducted Star's post-mortem examination, determined the cause of death to be "multiple bodily trauma." (Tr. at 499).

Doan was thereafter tried for the murder of Star Hollingsworth³. The taped confessions were admitted into evidence against Doan, yet Doan contended at trial that his confessions were coerced by the police. Doan testified at trial both that the police told him his confession would help him in court, and that the things he confessed to were not true. The jury ultimately found him guilty of one count of murder under Ohio Rev. Code §2903.02 and one count of child endangerment under Ohio Rev. Code §2919.22.

Following Doan's conviction, his attorney interviewed the jurors. One juror, to whom we will refer as "Juror A," told defense counsel that, following Doan's testimony that he did not see any of Star's bruises on the evening of her death because the bathroom and the adjoining rooms were so dark, Juror A conducted an experiment in her own home during the trial to see if he was telling the truth. Juror A put lipstick on her arm to simulate a bruise, and attempted to view the "bruise" in a room lit similarly to the rooms that Star was in that evening. The experiment confirmed her belief that one could see bruises in such lighting, and she then told a defense team investigator that she had "informed other members of the jury of her experiment during deliberations." J.A. at 40 (Dee Aff.). Juror A also stated that, during deliberations, she looked up the definitions of "purposeful" and "intent" in a dictionary "in order to clarify [her] understanding of those words." J.A. at 62-63. Juror A memorialized these statements in a sworn...