Guidroz v. Lynaugh

• Decision Date: 19 August 1988
• Docket Number: No. 87-5503,87-5503
• Citation: 852 F.2d 832
• Parties: Lucien Jules GUIDROZ, Petitioner-Appellant, v. James A. LYNAUGH, Director, Texas Department of Corrections, and Jim Mattox, Attorney General of Texas, Respondents-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 832

852 F.2d 832

Lucien Jules GUIDROZ, Petitioner-Appellant, v. James A. LYNAUGH, Director, Texas Department of Corrections and Jim Mattox, Attorney General of Texas Respondents-Appellees.

No. 87-5503.

United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit.

Aug. 19, 1988.

Kathleen LaValle, Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, Dallas, Tex., for petitioner-appellant.

C. Rex Hall, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., Jim Mattox, Atty. Gen., Austin, Tex., for respondents-appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas.

Before THORNBERRY, WILLIAMS, and SMITH, Circuit Judges.

THORNBERRY, Circuit Judge:

In this habeas corpus case, the petitioner argues that improper jury argument denied him due process in his state criminal trial. The district court dismissed the petition. We reverse.

I.

The undisputed facts are that Lucien Jules Guidroz killed his wife on July 4, 1976 by stabbing her twenty-three times with a knife. His wife's two sons, who had been in a bedroom with the door closed during the attack, left the house through a window and then called the police. The police found Guidroz underneath two feet of garbage in a trash bin outside the apartment building in which he lived. Guidroz had slashed his wrists and was bleeding seriously. The police arrested him and he was charged with murder.

On September 2, 1976, a Texas state court declared Guidroz incompetent to stand trial. At a second hearing on November 3, 1977, he again was declared incompetent. After that hearing, Guidroz's attorney and a prosecutor signed a stipulation. The stipulation said that all evidence known to the state was to the effect that Guidroz was insane, as defined by Texas law, at the time of the offense. The stipulation also said that the report of Dr. James Grigson, which was not then available, confirmed that Guidroz was legally insane at the time of the offense.

On July 27, 1978, Guidroz was delcared competent to stand trial. Trial began on August 29, 1978. Guidroz pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. The defense called two experts, both of whom testified that Guidroz was insane at the time of the offense. The prosecution called no experts, but produced four lay witnesses who knew Guidroz and had seen him around the time of the offense. These witnesses testified that Guidroz appeared normal. In addition, despite the stipulation, the prosecutor was permitted over an objection to argue that the doctors' reports, including the report of Dr. Grigson, related only to Guidroz's competency to stand trial, not to insanity at the time of the offense.

The jury convicted Guidroz and assessed punishment at ninety-nine years in prison. The Texas Court of Appeals upheld the conviction over a dissent. Guidroz v. State, 679 S.W.2d 586 (Tex.App.--San Antonio 1984, pet. ref'd). The Court of Criminal Appeals, with one judge dissenting, refused discretionary review. The Court of Criminal Appeals also denied two state habeas petitions.

On October 1, 1984, Guidroz filed this pro se petition for a writ of habeas corpus. The sole ground for relief stated in the petition was the claim that Guidroz was insane at the time the offense was committed. But, Guidroz attached to his federal pro se petition a copy of an earlier state petition that set forth several other grounds for relief, including sufficiency of the evidence, violation by the prosecutor of the stipulation, and other prosecutorial misconduct. The district court referred the case to a magistrate, who filed findings recommending the denial of Guidroz's claims, including claims raised only in the attached state petition. The district court adopted the magistrate's report, thus denying Guidroz's petition.

II.

We first must decide whether we may address Guidroz's contention that the prosecutor's closing argument improperly contradicted the stipulation and consequently denied him due process. The state asserts that Guidroz raised this contention for the first time on this appeal, and therefore that it is not properly before us.

In the original petition filed in federal district court, Guidroz employed a standard form provided to prisoners in state custody. The form recited some of the most common grounds for habeas petitions and contained space for prisoners to assert four grounds of error along with "supporting facts" for each. For ground one, Guidroz typed the words, "INSANE AT TIME OF OFFENSE." For supporting facts, Guidroz typed, "EXIBITS [sic] 1,2,3,4." Attached to Guidroz's petition as the exhibits were several documents concerning the proceedings in state court, including his state habeas petition and, significantly, his brief on appeal to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. The brief to the Court of Criminal Appeals had been prepared by an attorney and contained arguments on several grounds of error; in particular, it contained an extensive discussion of claimed improper argumentation by the prosecutor in violation of the stipulation.

At first, the district court apparently refused to consider the grounds for relief raised only in the attachments to Guidroz's petition. For example, in the court's order of November 26, 1985 denying the state's motion to dismiss for failure to exhaust state claims, the district court advised that "the only claims which are now before the court in support of [Guidroz's] habeas petition are his allegations of insanity at the time of the offense and the existence of new evidence." (Guidroz had raised the allegation of new evidence in a later pleading.) Later, however, the district court apparently changed its mind. On November 21, 1986, the magistrate issued Findings and Recommendations that disposed of two grounds for relief that were raised only in Guidroz's state habeas petition, incorporated by reference in his federal petition. The magistrate justified considering these grounds of relief by citing the practice of federal courts to construe pro se habeas petitions "with the greatest liberality." See Mays v. Balkcom, 631 F.2d 48, 51 (5th Cir.1980); McCloud v. Wainwright, 508 F.2d 853 (5th Cir.1975). The district court in a December 18, 1985 order adopted the magistrate's report "in all respects."

We agree with the district court that pro se habeas corpus petitions must be construed liberally. Mays, 631 F.2d at 51; McCloud, 508 F.2d at 854 n. 2. As a result, we think that Guidroz's petition, accompanied by the brief to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, sufficed to raise before the district court the issue of improper prosecutorial argument. A habeas petition "need only set forth facts giving rise to the cause of action." Bounds v. Smith, 430 U.S. 817, 97 S.Ct. 1491, 1497, 52 L.Ed.2d 72 (1977); see Golden v. Newsome, 755 F.2d 1478, 1480 n. 4 (11th Cir.1985) (holding that, while a habeas petition itself failed to raise explicitly a ground of error, "appellant's accompanying brief made the implicit issue an explicit one. It is well-settled that mere errors of pleading and other matters of form will not bar consideration of the pro se claims of federal habeas petitioners...."); Franklin v. Rose, 765 F.2d 82, 85 (6th Cir.1985) (per curiam) (holding that the requirement of liberal construction means "active interpretation in some cases to construe a pro se petition 'to encompass any allegation stating federal relief' " (quoting White v. Wyrick, 530 F.2d 818, 819 (8th Cir.1976)). Guidroz's petition, considered in its entirety, extensively discussed the facts underlying the claim of improper prosecutorial argument.

III.

Guidroz argues that he was denied due process because the prosecutor made improper arguments that contradicted the stipulation. When, as here, a prisoner alleges a "generic" due process violation due to improper prosecutorial comments, a reviewing court must determine whether the remarks, "in the context of the entire trial, were sufficiently prejudicial to violate [defendant's] due process rights." Donnelly v. DeChristoforo, 416 U.S. 637, 94 S.Ct. 1868, 1869, 40 L.Ed.2d 431 (1974). It is not enough that the remarks were "undesirable or even universally condemned"; a defendant may obtain relief only if "the prosecutors' comments 'so infected the trial with unfairness as to make the resulting conviction a denial of due process.' " Darden v. Wainwright, 477 U.S. 168, 106 S.Ct. 2464, 2472, 91 L.Ed.2d 144 (1986) (quoting Donnelly, 94 S.Ct. at 1871). In this circuit, "[t]he test applied to determine whether a trial error makes a trial fundamentally unfair is whether there is a reasonable probability that the verdict might have been different had the trial been properly conducted." Rogers v. Lynaugh, 848 F.2d 606 (5th Cir.1988) (quoting Kirkpatrick v. Blackburn, 777 F.2d 272, 278-79 (5th Cir.1985) (per curiam)); see also Edwards v. Scroggy, 849 F.2d 204, 211 (5th Cir. l988). Because we must evaluate any possible fundamental unfairness in the context of the entire proceedings, we must consider in detail the circumstances of the stipulation and the prosecutor's comments.

Charles Butts, Guidroz's defense counsel, and Bill Blagg, the prosecutor, signed the stipulation on November 3, 1977, immediately following a hearing at which Guidroz had been declared incompetent to stand trial.

STIPULATION AS TO INSANITY AT TIME OF OFFENSE

It is stipulated by and between the State and defense counsel (defendant being unable to participate personally in this stipulation by reason of his present incompetence) that all of the evidence known to the State and all doctors report that at the time of the offense herein, to-wit: on or about July 4, 1976, the defendant, LUCIEN JULES GUIDROZ, indicted as LUCIEN GUIDROZ, was legally insane as that term is defined in Section 8.01 of the Texas Penal Code, in that immediately prior to such date and specifically on such date of July 4, 1976, and at the time of the offense set forth in the indictment herein, said defendant, as a result of mental disease and defect, was incapable of conforming...