Goff v. Bagley
Decision Date | 06 April 2010 |
Docket Number | No. 06-4669.,06-4669. |
Citation | 601 F.3d 445 |
Parties | James R. GOFF, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Margaret BAGLEY, Warden, Respondent-Appellee. |
Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit |
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ARGUED: David J. Graeff, Westerville, Ohio, for Appellant. Laurence R. Snyder, Office of the Ohio Attorney General, Cleveland, Ohio, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: David J. Graeff, Westerville, Ohio, W. Joseph Edwards, Law Office of W. Joseph Edwards, Columbus, Ohio, for Appellant. Laurence R. Snyder, Office of the Ohio Attorney General, Cleveland, Ohio, for Appellee.
Before: MERRITT, MOORE, and GILMAN, Circuit Judges.
MOORE, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which GILMAN, J., joined. MERRITT, J. (pp. 482-84), delivered a separate opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part.
Petitioner-Appellant James R. Goff ("Goff") appeals the district court's denial of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus filed pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254. Goff was convicted in Ohio state court in 1995 of two counts of aggravated murder (each with one capital specification),1 three counts of aggravated burglary, two counts of aggravated robbery, and one count of grand theft. He was sentenced to death.
The district court certified seventeen claims for appeal, but we are primarily concerned with only two. First, Goff asserts that the jury instructions given during the penalty phase of his trial regarding unanimity and mitigating factors were flawed. Second, Goff asserts that his appellate counsel was ineffective for failing to raise a claim during Goff's direct appeal to the Ohio Court of Appeals that Goff was denied his right, under Ohio law, to allocute before sentencing.
For the reasons discussed below, we conclude that Goff is entitled to relief on the basis of the second issue, but that recent Supreme Court precedent precludes his first issue. We conclude that Goff's remaining assignments of error are meritless. We therefore REVERSE the decision of the district court and GRANT Goff a conditional writ of habeas corpus based on Goff's ninth and twelfth assignments of error.
On January 24, 1995, a Clinton County, Ohio, grand jury indicted Goff on two counts of aggravated murder (each with a capital specification), three counts of aggravated burglary, two counts of aggravated robbery, and two counts of grand theft with specifications. Following a trial, Goff was convicted of all counts except for one count of grand theft and the grand-theft specifications. At the conclusion of the penalty-phase hearing, the jury recommended that Goff be sentenced to death. The trial judge then conducted his own weighing of the mitigating and aggravating factors and sentenced Goff to death. Goff appealed to the Twelfth District Court of Appeals for Clinton County, Ohio, which affirmed his convictions and sentence. State v. Goff, No. CA95-09-026, 1997 WL 194898, at *31 (Ohio Ct.App. Apr. 21, 1997). Goff then appealed to the Ohio Supreme Court, which affirmed Goff's death sentence and made the following findings of fact:
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