Frazier v. Mitchell, No. 1:98CV2098.
| Decision Date | 05 January 2001 |
| Docket Number | No. 1:98CV2098. |
| Citation | 188 F.Supp.2d 798 |
| Parties | Richard FRAZIER, Petitioner v. Betty MITCHELL, Warden, Respondent |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Ohio |
David Paul Bradley, Steuer, Escovar & Berk, Cleveland, OH, Russell Adrine, Cleveland, OH, Richard M. Kerger, Kerger & Kerger, Toledo, OH, for petitioner.
Michael L. Collyer, Office of Attorney General, Cleveland, OH, Karhlton F. Moore, Office of Attorney General, Columbus, OH, for respondents.
This is a capital habeas corpus case arising from the petitioner's conviction of two counts of aggravated murder and one count aggravated burglary. The petitioner has exhausted his state court remedies.
For the reasons that follow, the petition will be denied.
The following summary of the evidence from the petitioner's trial is taken from the opinion of the Ohio Supreme Court affirming the petitioner's conviction on direct appeal. State v. Frazier, 73 Ohio St.3d 323, 323-26, 652 N.E.2d 1000 (1995).
The victim, Tiffany Skiba, lived with her grandparents, Robert and Rita Skiba, in Cleveland, Ohio. On November 8, 1990, Mr. Skiba discovered Tiffany's body in her upstairs bedroom. Death had been caused by multiple stab wounds. Four days later the petitioner, Richard Frazier, was arrested and charged with the murder.
Petitioner had been married to the victim's mother from 1980 until 1989. In October, 1988, the Medina County, Ohio, grand jury returned a four count indictment against the petitioner. The indictment charged two counts of rape, one count of sexual battery, and one count of gross sexual imposition. The indictment named Tiffany as the victim of each offense. She allegedly had been impregnated by the petitioner.
The Medina County Court of Common Pleas ordered the petitioner to submit a blood sample for DNA testing to determine the paternity of Tiffany's child. He appealed that order to the state court of appeals and Ohio Supreme Court, which upheld the trial court's order. The United States Supreme Court denied petitioner's writ of certiorari in October, 1990. Thereafter, the Medina Court of Common Pleas ordered petitioner's blood sample to be taken on November 13, 1990. Trial on the pending indictment was set for December 5, 1990, and then continued to January 14, 1991.
While the petitioner was on bond, Tiffany and her mother, Susan Bednarski, expressed fears that petitioner might harm Tiffany. Bednarski had seen the petitioner driving slowly past their house on numerous occasions. One of Tiffany's friends also saw the petitioner driving slowly by their house. When the friend told Tiffany what she had seen, Tiffany said, Petitioner also was seen following Tiffany's school bus.
From September 1989 to May 1990 Tiffany received counseling. Her counselor testified that Tiffany was suicidal in October 1989. At a conference with her mother's attorney in October 1989, Tiffany was "petrified" during a discussion concerning the appellant. At a later visitation hearing attended by the petitioner, Tiffany appeared to be upset, "pale, shaky," and "very frightened."
After Tiffany moved in with her grandparents, she told her uncle that she was afraid of petitioner and of what he might do to her. She also told him that she slept with a knife under her pillow.
On several occasions the petitioner approached Tiffany's stepfather, David Bednarski. During one of these encounters, the petitioner indicated that he wanted to resolve some legal matters. After Bednarski stated, "That's up to the state and the attorneys," the petitioner replied, Petitioner's friends later threatened David Bednarski.
One week before Tiffany's murder, the petitioner sent her a Halloween card asking her to call him. Two days before the murder, the petitioner rented a car from the Cleveland airport.
On the day of the murder, Tiffany's grandfather, as was his custom, drove his wife to work around 5:00 a.m. He returned home about fifteen minutes later. On his return, Mr. Skiba noticed the family dog barking loudly and looking toward the back of the house. This behavior was unusual.
At approximately 10:00 a.m., he called to Tiffany to get up to get ready for work. Receiving no response, he went upstairs and found Tiffany's body in her bed.
Next to the body, police found a steak knife belonging to a set owned by her grandparents. The knife's blade was separated from its handle. Blood was on the bed and in the surrounding area. Police found smears of blood matching Tiffany's blood type on the right side of the stairway leading down from her second floor bedroom and on the door frame leading to the living room. Officers found human blood on the steak knife, bedroom ceiling, door frame to the rear door, and stairwell landing leading upstairs. The quantity was insufficient to determine blood type.
Entry to the house occurred through a basement window. The screen had been torn from the window and the pane of glass was broken. The window was partially open. The ground near the window was disturbed, and the door, normally closed, leading from the basement into the house was ajar.
Two footprints heading away from the murder scene were found in the neighbor's garlic bed on the other side of the fence separating the Skiba residence from their neighbor's home. From plaster casts of the prints officers determined that a size nine or ten boot sold exclusively by K-Mart had made the footprints.
On the morning of the murder the petitioner went to a medical clinic to have a one-inch cut on his right wrist treated. He appeared nervous and was pacing around the room. He said that he cut his arm at approximately 7:00 a.m. while working on his truck. The wound was consistent with a stab wound.
Later that day the petitioner contacted a friend to ask him to move his car. The friend declined, having heard a news report that the petitioner was a suspect in the murder of his former stepdaughter. Petitioner then contacted another friend, Jeffrey Weisheit, about moving his car. While the friend was driving the car, police stopped him and instructed the man to get out of the car. Before the officer had the opportunity to finish his commands, Weisheit exited the car with his hands in the air and began shouting, "Don't shoot."
The night of the murder, the petitioner drove his rental car to Ned Shamon's home in Sheffield Lake, Ohio. Shamon and the petitioner returned in Shamon's wife's car to petitioner's apartment to collect various papers and articles of clothing. The petitioner spent the ensuing weekend with the Shamons.
On November 12, 1990, Shamon followed the petitioner to a gas station, where he returned the rental car. A clerk, recognizing the petitioner from news reports, called the police. The clerk provided a description of the truck that had followed the petitioner and its license plate number. Police found a human blood stain on the rental car's front passenger seat. The amount was insufficient to be typed.
After receiving the information from the clerk, the police went to Shamon's home and arrested the petitioner. Among petitioner's effects, police found a wristwatch with a human blood stain on the band, a pry bar stained with human blood, and a letter from the United States Supreme Court about the denial of his petition for certiorari.
In addition, the police found a receipt from K-Mart for a size nine boot with the same pattern on its sole as the boot which had left the print in the Skibas' neighbor's garlic garden. A knife with human blood traces and a towel smeared with petitioner's blood were found in his apartment. The blood on the knife was not suitable for typing.
Anthony Skiba, Tiffany's uncle, testified that he had shown the petitioner how to break into Skiba's residence through a basement window. The petitioner also was familiar with the basement and its storage area because he had stored personal items there while he and Tiffany's mother had been married.
On November 12, 1990, police officers read the Miranda warnings to the petitioner in the Medina County Jail. They asked petitioner a series of questions about Tiffany's murder. The officers noticed that petitioner had several bruises and abrasions on his hands and arms and a sutured cut on the outside of his right wrist.
On November 13, 1990, Cleveland police officers took the petitioner for the blood test ordered by the Medina County court. The test showed a 99.8% probability that petitioner fathered Tiffany's child.
On November 14, 1990, during a further interview with law enforcement officers, petitioner made indirectly inculpatory statements that were later introduced against him at his murder trial. At one point, he offered to tell the officers everything that happened, but wanted to do so only after he talked with an attorney. The officers then terminated the conversation.
Count One of the indictment charged aggravated murder, defined as a purposeful killing while committing, or attempting to commit, or while fleeing immediately after committing or attempting to commit aggravated burglary. That Count contained three death specifications: 1) the murder was committed while committing or attempting to commit or fleeing immediately after committing or attempting to commit aggravated burglary and the offender was the principal offender or committed the murder with prior calculation and design; 2) the victim was a witness and was purposely killed to prevent her testimony; and, 3) the murder was committed for the purpose of escaping trial and/or punishment for another offense committed by him, to wit, rape.
Count Two...
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