Hoffman v. Arave

• Decision Date: 05 July 2006
• Docket Number: No. 02-99004.,02-99004.
• Citation: 455 F.3d 926
• Parties: Maxwell HOFFMAN, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Arvon J. ARAVE, Warden, Idaho Maximum Security Institution, Department of Correction, State of Idaho, Respondent-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

Page 926

455 F.3d 926

Maxwell HOFFMAN, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Arvon J. ARAVE, Warden, Idaho Maximum Security Institution, Department of Correction, State of Idaho, Respondent-Appellee.

No. 02-99004.

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.

Argued and Submitted November 22, 2005.

Filed July 5, 2006.

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Joan M. Fisher, (argued and brief) Federal Defenders of Eastern Washington and Idaho, Moscow, ID, and Ellison Matthews (brief), Boise, ID, for the petitioner-appellant.

L. LaMont Anderson, Deputy Attorney General, Boise, ID, for the respondent-appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Idaho; B. Lynn Winmill, District Judge, Presiding. D.C. No. CV-94-00200-S-BLW.

Before PREGERSON, W. FLETCHER, and GOULD, Circuit Judges.

PREGERSON, Circuit Judge.

The petitioner, Maxwell Hoffman, appeals the denial of his 28 U.S.C. § 2254 habeas petition based on ineffective assistance of counsel during pre-trial plea bargaining and during the guilt phase of his trial for the murder of Denise Williams. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 1291 and 2253. We affirm in part and reverse in part.

I. Factual Background

The facts of the murder of Denise Williams have been recounted in numerous prior decisions in state and federal courts,¹ and are recited only briefly here. Hoffman was employed by Richard Holmes, a drug dealer. Williams, a police informant, initiated a controlled buy with Holmes, and as a consequence, Holmes was arrested for distributing controlled substances. After Holmes was released on bail, Sam Longstreet and Jeff Slawson, two of Williams's friends, went to meet with Holmes to assure him that they had nothing to do with his arrest. Holmes brokered a deal for these two friends to deliver Williams to Holmes at a camp in Idaho. Longstreet and Slawson dropped Williams off and left her with Ron Wages, one of Holmes's associates. Thereafter, Hoffman and Holmes went to the camp and met up with Wages and Williams. Holmes kicked Williams in the head, and told Williams that she was "a dead bitch." Holmes told Hoffman and Wages, "You know what to do," and left.

Hoffman, Wages, and Williams drove around for several hours. Hoffman and Wages forced Williams to write letters exonerating Holmes of the controlled substances charges. At some point, Hoffman stopped the car and took Williams into a cave. He cut her throat while Wages waited in the car. As Hoffman was coming back to the car, Williams began to crawl up an embankment near the cave. Wages ran over to Williams, and stabbed her with the knife Hoffman was carrying. Wages then began to bury her with rocks, and Hoffman joined in. The evidence showed that Williams might have eventually died either from the original cut by Hoffman or from the wound inflicted by Wages, but that the actual cause of death was a blow from a rock.

Hoffman and Wages then drove to Wages's sisters' house, where the two cleaned the car, and burned their clothes and Williams's clothes. Later, at Holmes's house, Hoffman cut up the knife with a cutting torch.

A. Idaho State Proceedings

On August 22, 1988, Hoffman was charged with first-degree murder. The court appointed William Wellman as counsel. Wellman had never tried a murder case, and had no formal training on defending capital cases. At the time he was selected to represent Hoffman, Wellman had done contract work with the Owyhee County public defender's office for several years, and criminal defense work constituted about half of his practice.

Five weeks before trial, the State offered Hoffman a plea bargain: If Hoffman would plead guilty to first-degree murder, the State would not pursue the death penalty. The State also made clear that it intended to seek the death penalty if Hoffman rejected the plea agreement. Wellman advised Hoffman that he should reject the plea agreement. Wellman believed that the Idaho death penalty scheme was unconstitutional based on Adamson v. Ricketts, 865 F.2d 1011, 1023-28 (9th Cir. 1988) (en banc), abrogated by Walton v. Arizona, 497 U.S. 639, 110 S.Ct. 3047, 111 L.Ed.2d 511 (1990), where this court found Arizona's death penalty scheme unconstitutional. Wellman saw no material difference between Arizona's death penalty scheme and the death penalty scheme in Idaho. He thus recommended that Hoffman reject the plea agreement because he believed it was only a matter of time until Idaho's death penalty scheme would be declared unconstitutional as well. Hoffman took Wellman's advice and rejected the plea agreement.

In February 1989, only three weeks before trial, the court appointed co-counsel Charles Coulter. Coulter had tried two vehicular manslaughter cases, but that was the extent of his homicide experience. He had no experience with capital cases.

The guilt phase of Hoffman's trial commenced on March 7, 1989. The jury heard eight days of testimony. Defense counsel presented no evidence of Hoffman's mental capacity on the night of Williams's murder. Instead, Wellman and Coulter's central strategy was to paint Wages as the more culpable of the two.² After five hours of deliberation, the jury returned a conviction for first-degree murder and found a sentencing enhancement, making Hoffman "death eligible."

The sentencing phase of the trial began on June 9, 1989. After weighing the aggravating and mitigating circumstances, the court imposed the death penalty.³ On July 25, 1989, Hoffman filed a post-conviction petition in state court. The state court denied the petition. On January 29, 1993, the Idaho Supreme Court affirmed Hoffman's sentence. See Hoffman, 851 P.2d at 945.

B. Federal Habeas Proceedings

Hoffman filed an initial habeas petition in the United States District Court for the District of Idaho on December 1, 1994. On June 13, 1997, the district court dismissed several claims on the grounds of procedural default. On December 28, 1998, the district court dismissed the remainder of the claims on their merits. On January 3, 2001, we concluded that Hoffman's ineffective assistance of counsel claims were not procedurally barred. See Hoffman, 236 F.3d at 535-36. We also held that Hoffman's pre-sentencing interview conducted by the state probation officer was a "critical stage" of the proceeding, during which the Sixth Amendment right to counsel attached. See id. at 540-41. We remanded for further evidentiary hearings on Hoffman's ineffective assistance of counsel claims, and for a finding whether the deprivation of counsel during the pre-sentencing interview was harmless. See id. at 542-43. We affirmed dismissal of the remainder of Hoffman's claims. See id.

On remand, the district court held a five-day evidentiary hearing. The court heard substantial expert testimony about Hoffman's mental capacity, and testimony from Hoffman's trial counsel. After hearing oral argument by both parties, the district court granted Hoffman's habeas petition in part and denied it in part. The district court rejected three of Hoffman's ineffective assistance of counsel claims, specifically that counsel: (a) failed to challenge Hoffman's competency to stand trial; (b) advised Hoffman to reject a plea agreement that would have foreclosed the State from seeking the death penalty; and (c) failed to investigate or present evidence of Hoffman's diminished capacity at trial.

But the district court did accept one of Hoffman's ineffective assistance of counsel claims: that Hoffman had received ineffective assistance of counsel during sentencing. The district court found that Wellman and Coulter had not sufficiently investigated and presented mitigation evidence at sentencing that might have kept the trial judge from imposing a death sentence. The district court also found that the state trial judge's decision to deprive Hoffman of counsel during the pre-sentence interview was not harmless because it "dictated" trial counsels' sentencing strategy. The district court granted the habeas petition on these two claims and ordered the State to re-sentence Hoffman within 120 days of its order.

On April 4, 2002, after the district court issued its decision, the court issued a separate order stating that it had "fulfilled the mandate of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals" and therefore denied several motions Hoffman had filed after the evidentiary hearing, including a motion to amend his habeas petition and to expand the record. Hoffman requested, and was granted, a Certificate of Appealability ("COA") on his claim that he received ineffective assistance before and during trial. The district court denied a COA with respect to its denial of Hoffman's post-hearing motions to amend the habeas petition and to expand the record.

Both parties appealed. Before us, Hoffman argued, again, that he received ineffective assistance of counsel before and during trial, and requested that we grant a COA with regard to the denial of his post-hearing motions. The State cross-appealed the district court's grant of the habeas petition for ineffective assistance of counsel at the sentencing phase. The State subsequently withdrew its cross-appeal, leaving in place the district court's order granting the habeas petition as to the sentencing phase.

Thus, the only questions remaining for this court are: (a) whether Hoffman was denied effective assistance of counsel during the plea-bargaining stage or during the guilt phase of trial; and (b) whether a COA should be granted with regard to Hoffman's post-hearing motions.

II. Ineffective Assistance of Counsel Claims

Hoffman initiated federal review of his state conviction and sentence on May 2, 1994, before the effective date of the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 ("AEDPA"). Thus, the more stringent review requirements of AEDPA do not apply. See Caswell v. Calderon, 363 F.3d 832, 836 n. 3 (9th Cir.2004). Under pre-AEDPA standards, an ineffective assistance of counsel claim is a mixed question of law and fact that we ...