House v. Bell

• Decision Date: 06 October 2004
• Docket Number: No. 00-6136.,00-6136.
• Parties: Paul Gregory HOUSE, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Ricky BELL, Warden, Respondent-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

386 F.3d 668

Paul Gregory HOUSE, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Ricky BELL, Warden, Respondent-Appellee.

No. 00-6136.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Argued: March 10, 2004.

Decided and Filed: October 6, 2004.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee at Knoxville, James H. Jarvis, J ARGUED: Stephen M. Kissinger, Federal Defender Services, Knoxville, TN, for Appellant. Jennifer L. Smith, Office of the Attorney General, Nashville, TN, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Stephen M. Kissinger, Federal Defender Services, Knoxville, TN, for Appellant. Jennifer L. Smith, Office of the Attorney General, Nashville, TN, for Appellee.

Before: BOGGS, Chief Circuit Judge; MERRITT, MARTIN, NORRIS, SILER, BATCHELDER, DAUGHTREY, MOORE, COLE, CLAY, GILMAN, GIBBONS, ROGERS, SUTTON, and COOK, Circuit Judges.

NORRIS, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which BOGGS, C. J., SILER, BATCHELDER, GIBBONS, ROGERS, SUTTON, and COOK, JJ., joined. MERRITT, J. (pp. 686-709), delivered a separate dissenting opinion, in which MARTIN, DAUGHTREY, MOORE, COLE, and CLAY, JJ., joined. GILMAN, J. (pp. 709-10), also delivered a separate dissenting opinion.

OPINION

ALAN E. NORRIS, Circuit Judge.

Petitioner Paul House appeals from the district court's denial of a writ of habeas corpus, 28 U.S.C. § 2254. A Tennessee jury found House guilty of the murder of a neighbor, Carolyn Muncey, and sentenced him to death.

This court granted a certificate of appealability as to all issues. However, House has limited his brief to a discussion of only two claims: 1) Whether the manner in which the Tennessee courts applied the state law doctrine of waiver during House's post-conviction proceedings constitutes an adequate and independent state procedural bar to his ineffective assistance of counsel claims; and 2) assuming that the Tennessee courts properly deemed House's claims to be waived, whether that waiver should be excused on the grounds that House has established his actual innocence under Schlup v. Delo, 513 U.S. 298, 115 S.Ct. 851, 130 L.Ed.2d 808 (1995). After the Tennessee Supreme Court declined a request by an en banc panel of this court to answer certified questions relating to issues of state law, House v. Bell, 311 F.3d 767 (6th Cir.2002), this court is again faced with the same claims.

Having considered the arguments of the parties regarding the two claims that are before us, we affirm the district court's denial of the writ for the reasons set forth below.

I.

This court reviews a district court's legal conclusions in a habeas proceeding de novo and its factual findings for clear error. See Lucas v. O'Dea, 179 F.3d 412, 416 (6th Cir.1999). House initiated this habeas action on September 30, 1996; the petition was amended on September 16, 1997. Consequently, this court's review of the state court's decision is governed by the standards set forth in the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, Pub. L. No. 104-132, 110 Stat. 1214 (1996) ("AEDPA"). See Lindh v. Murphy, 521 U.S. 320, 336, 117 S.Ct. 2059, 138 L.Ed.2d 481 (1997); Harpster v. Ohio, 128 F.3d 322, 326 (6th Cir.1997).

Because factual determinations by state courts are entitled to a presumption of correctness, 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(1), we will describe the factual circumstances surrounding the murder for which House was convicted by quoting from the Tennessee Supreme Court's opinion denying him relief in his direct appeal:

The victim of the homicide was Mrs. Carolyn Muncey, who lived with her husband and two young children on Ridgecrest Road in rural Union County, Tennessee. Mrs. Muncey was in her late twenties, and her children were about eight and ten years old at the time of her death on July 13, 1985.

In March 1985 appellant Paul Gregory House was released from a prison in Utah and moved to the rural community in which the Muncey family lived. There he resided with his mother and step-father for several weeks, but in June he moved into a trailer occupied by his girl friend, Donna Turner, which was located about two miles from the Muncey home. Appellant did not own an automobile; but he was permitted to drive his mother's car from time to time, and he also drove Ms. Turner's car on some occasions.

Other than doing occasional farm work for his stepfather, appellant does not appear to have been regularly employed. He did not testify at trial at either the guilt phase or the sentencing hearing. He was shown to have had one prior conviction for aggravated sexual assault, a charge to which he pled guilty on March 16, 1981 in Salt Lake County, Utah. Apparently he was placed on parole in that state, and supervision of his parole was transferred to Tennessee when he returned to this state. He was approximately twenty-three years old at the time of the homicide in this case.

Mrs. Muncey disappeared from her home in the late evening of Saturday, July 13, 1985. Her badly beaten body was found on the following afternoon at about 3 p.m., lying partially concealed in a brush pile about 100 yards from her home. Apparently the husband of the victim was not at home during the early part of the evening of July 13. Mrs. Muncey and her children visited a neighbor and left at about 9:30 p.m. to return to their home. Later the older child, Laura, awoke. She testified that she heard a voice which sounded like her grandfather making inquiry about her father. She also heard someone tell her mother that her father had been in a wreck near the creek. She heard her mother sobbing or crying as she left the house. When her mother did not return, the two children went to look for her at neighboring homes. Not finding her, they returned home and waited until their father arrived. Discovering that his wife was missing, he took the children back to the home of the neighbor where they had visited earlier in the evening and then called for members of his family to look for his wife.

When the body of Mrs. Muncey was discovered the next afternoon, she was dressed in her nightgown, housecoat and underclothing. Her body was badly bruised, and there were abrasions and blood giving every evidence that she had been in a fierce struggle. Apparently a severe blow to her left forehead had caused her death. It appeared, however, that she had also been partially strangled. A pathologist testified that the blow to her left forehead caused a concussion and hemorrhage to the right side of the brain from which she died, probably one or two hours after being struck. He testified that she probably would have been unconscious after having been struck. He estimated the time of her death at between 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. on Saturday, July 13, but emphasized that this was at best a rough estimate.

Appellant never confessed to any part in the homicide, and the testimony linking him to it was circumstantial. There was evidence showing that he knew Mr. and Mrs. Muncey and had been with them socially on a few occasions. Through defense proof there was testimony that Mrs. Muncey and her husband had been having marital difficulties and that she had been contemplating leaving him. There was no evidence to indicate that the appellant was aware of that situation, however, or that there had been any previous romantic or sexual relationship between him and the victim.

On the afternoon of Sunday, July 14, 1985, two witnesses saw the appellant emerge from a creek bank at the side of Ridgecrest Road at the site where Mrs. Muncey's body was later found concealed in the underbrush. He was wiping his hands with a dark cloth and was walking toward a white Plymouth automobile, parked on the opposite side of the road, belonging to his girl friend Donna Turner. The two witnesses spoke briefly to appellant, all of them discussing the fact that Mrs. Muncey had disappeared. Later the two witnesses became suspicious of what they had observed and returned to the point where they had seen appellant emerge from the embankment. Looking down the bank, they found the partially concealed body of Mrs. Muncey. They promptly notified the sheriff.

Appellant later admitted that he had been in the area but denied that he had seen the body of Mrs. Muncey or had any knowledge of its presence. The dark rag which he had been using when first seen was never produced. It was the theory of the State, however, that this was a dark "tank top" or jersey which appellant was shown to have been wearing on the previous evening, July 13.

Appellant gave two statements to investigating officers in which he denied being involved in the homicide. In both of these statements he stated that he had been at Ms. Turner's trailer the entire evening of July 13 and that he had not left until the next afternoon when he went to look for Hubert Muncey after learning of the disappearance of the latter's wife.

On Sunday afternoon various witnesses observed that appellant had numerous scratches and bruises on his arms, hands and body, there being an especially significant bruise on the knuckle of his right ring finger. Appellant explained that these injuries had been sustained innocently earlier during the week, but when Ms. Turner was called as a witness, she said that she had not observed them prior to the evening of July 13. Appellant also told investigators that he was wearing the same clothes on Sunday, July 14 as he had been wearing the previous evening. It was later discovered, however, that a pair of blue jeans which he had been wearing on the night of the murder was concealed in the bottom of the clothes hamper at Ms. Turner's trailer. These trousers were bloodstained, and scientific evidence revealed that the stains were human blood having characteristics consistent with the blood of Mrs. Muncey and inconsistent with appellant's own blood. Scientific tests also showed that fibers from these trousers were consistent with fibers found on the clothing of the victim. There were also found on her nightgown and underclothing some spots...