Fields v. Jorden
| Docket Number | 17-5065 |
| Decision Date | 03 November 2023 |
| Parties | Samuel Fields, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Scott Jordan, Warden, Respondent-Appellee. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit |
Argued En Banc: June 14, 2023
On Petition for Rehearing En Banc United States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky at Pikeville. No 7:15-cv-00038-Karen K. Caldwell, District Judge.
ARGUED EN BANC:
Daniel E. Kirsch, OFFICE OF THE FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER, Kansas City, Missouri, for Appellant.
Matthew F. Kuhn, OFFICE OF THE KENTUCKY ATTORNEY GENERAL, for Appellee.
ON SUPPLEMENTAL BRIEF:
Daniel E. Kirsch, OFFICE OF THE FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER, Kansas City, Missouri, for Appellant.
Matthew F. Kuhn, Jenna M. Lorence, OFFICE OF THE KENTUCKY ATTORNEY GENERAL, for Appellee.
ON AMICUS BRIEF:
J Matthew Rice, OFFICE OF THE TENNESSEE ATTORNEY GENERAL, Nashville, Tennessee, for Amicus Curiae.
Before: SUTTON, Chief Judge; BATCHELDER, MOORE, CLAY, GIBBONS, GRIFFIN, KETHLEDGE, STRANCH, BUSH, LARSEN, NALBANDIAN, READLER, MURPHY, DAVIS, and MATHIS, Circuit Judges. [*]
MOORE, J. (pp. 36-49), delivered a separate dissenting opinion, in which CLAY, STRANCH, DAVIS, and MATHIS, JJ., joined.
OPINION
A state jury convicted Samuel Fields of breaking into an elderly woman's home, slashing her throat, and stabbing a knife through her head. The police found Fields next to the woman's body, and he confessed to killing her. At trial, the prosecution argued that Fields got into the woman's home by unscrewing a porch window with a certain knife that was admitted into evidence; the defense countered that Fields could not have conducted this feat because he was intoxicated at the time of the crime. During deliberations, the jury used this knife to unscrew the screws on a jury-room cabinet. It found Fields guilty and sentenced him to death. Fields later alleged that the jury's "experiment" with the knife violated the Constitution. The Kentucky Supreme Court disagreed, and a federal district court denied Fields habeas relief.
Fields renews this jury-experiment claim, among others, on appeal. For well over a century, lower courts have debated when jury experiments of this type violate state or federal law. But one court has yet to enter this debate: the U.S. Supreme Court. That fact dooms Fields's claim in these proceedings. Under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA), we may not grant habeas relief unless a state court has unreasonably applied "clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court[.]" 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1). Because the Court has not identified any principles to distinguish proper from improper jury experiments, Fields cannot show that the experiment in his case violated "clearly established" law from the Supreme Court. His other claims also cannot overcome AEDPA's standards. We thus affirm the denial of habeas relief.
In the summer of 1993, Fields was 21 years old. He lived with his mother and brother at an apartment in Grayson, a small town in eastern Kentucky. That August, Fields began dating Minnie Burton. Burton lived a short distance from Fields in a duplex apartment.
Bess Horton, an 84-year-old widow, owned the duplex where Burton lived. Horton allowed Burton to act as her "driver" and run errands for her in lieu of paying rent. Yet Burton repeatedly took Horton's car without permission-one reason why the two women had a falling out. By mid-August Horton had started the process of evicting Burton and asked Elmer Pritchard, the neighbor in the duplex's other apartment, to change the locks.
On August 18, Fields and Burton spent the day driving around eastern Kentucky with friends, including Phyllis Berry. Most of the group, including Fields, drank beer throughout the day. But Berry, who joined the group late, did not participate in the drinking because she took over as the primary driver. With Berry behind the wheel in the evening, the group made two more beer stops.
After the first stop, Berry drove the group to her brother's home. While there, witnesses saw Fields take "horse tranquilizers," a slang term for the hallucinogen PCP.
Around 11:30 p.m. or so, Berry drove Fields and Burton back to Fields's apartment. Fields and Burton continued to drink beer with Fields's brother. Berry described Fields as "intoxicated" at this time; Fields's brother said that Fields "had a good buzz going" and seemed "rowdy" and "ready to fight[.]" Berry Tr., R.30-17, PageID 6584; J. Fields Tr., R.30-19, PageID 6831, 6839. Berry soon left, and Fields's brother went to bed shortly after.
While alone with Burton, Fields suddenly "freaked out," claiming to lack "control" of his conduct. Burton Tr., R.30-18, PageID 6685. He started throwing things. Fields, for example, threw a knife from his location in the kitchen close to where Burton stood in the living room. His erratic behavior scared Burton, so she decided to leave for her duplex apartment. Burton could not recall the specific time that she departed.
Fields's brother made out the sounds of an argument between Fields and Burton while trying to sleep in his upstairs bedroom. He thought Burton had left around midnight. After later hearing shattering glass, Fields's brother went downstairs to investigate. The apartment was in disarray. A table had been flipped over, a storm-glass window had been broken, and the walls had holes in them. Fields remained at the apartment. He held a large butcher knife and started "rubbing it up and down [his brother's] arm." J. Fields, R.30-19, PagelD 6823-24. Fields eventually walked off toward Burton's duplex. His brother gave contradictory answers about when Fields left. At points, he suggested that Fields left 10 to 20 minutes after Burton; at other points, he suggested that Fields did not leave until 1:30 a.m.
In the meantime, Burton had made it back to her apartment. Burton found herself locked out. Though she had the keys to her apartment, she could not get in because the storm door was locked. Rather than ask Pritchard in the other duplex apartment for help, she decided to pass the time smoking on the front porch. She later began to check her windows to see if any were unlocked. When doing so, she heard someone "hooting and hollering" and banging on street signs. Burton Tr., R.30-18, PageID 6691-92. Fields materialized out of the thick fog, handed her a knife, and claimed (falsely) to have killed his brother. He took Burton's keys and vowed to get inside her apartment. She dropped the knife and fled to a relative's home. Fields then punched out a window of Burton's apartment-cutting himself and leaving his blood on the window.
Around 1:55 a.m., Pritchard heard this window shatter. He feared that somebody was breaking into Burton's apartment. Looking outside, Pritchard saw Fields cussing and yelling "Minnie, why did you run for?" Pritchard Tr., R.30-19, PageID 6880. Pritchard called the police to report the break-in and watched Fields leave in the general direction of Bess Horton's home.
Officer Larry Green with the Grayson Police Department quickly reached the scene. Pritchard let Green into Burton's apartment, and they searched it together. The pair found nobody inside but spotted the bloody, broken window. Green called for backup and met Sergeant Ron Lindeman at 2:23 a.m. Pritchard told the officers that Burton was renting the apartment from Horton and that Fields had walked off in the direction of Horton's home.
The officers started to search the area. Retracing Fields's path, they eventually found themselves near Horton's home. One of the garage doors to her standalone garage was up. Nobody was in the garage, but the regular door out the back appeared to have been kicked open. The officers walked through this door to the back of Horton's home. Lights were on. Growing increasingly alarmed, Lindeman could not "recall [Horton's] lights ever being on that late at night." Lindeman Tr., R.30-14, PageID 6039. The officers looked through the enclosed back porch and saw an "L-shaped cut" on the screen to Horton's bedroom window. Id., PageID 6040.
Instructing Green to stay put, Lindeman headed to the front of the house. While looking into a lighted room in the back, Green spotted Fields rummaging through something. Now at the front of the house, Lindeman saw a large "aluminum window laying up against the pillar of the porch" with its screws scattered nearby. Id., PageID 6044. He entered Horton's home through the opening where this window had been.
Lindeman slowly moved to the back of the house. As he approached Horton's bedroom, he saw her brutalized body on the bed. "Her throat was slashed, and she was stabbed in the head with such force that the knife buried to the hilt in her right temple and the point of the blade protruded from her left temple." Fields v. Commonwealth, 12 S.W.3d 275, 277 (Ky. 2000). Lindeman called for Green and more backup.
Lindeman then entered Horton's bedroom where Fields was "going through" a drawer. Lindeman Tr., R.30-14 PageID 6046. He told Fields to put his hands up. Fields responded nonchalantly: Id. But Fields soon frantically confessed, exclaiming: Id., PageID 6048. Lindeman asked Fields how he could do such a thing. Fields stated: Id. Green reached the room in time to hear Fields's confession. He recalled Fields telling Lindeman: Green Tr.,...
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