Humphries v. Ozmint, 03-14.

Citation366 F.3d 266
Decision Date03 May 2004
Docket NumberNo. 03-14.,03-14.
PartiesShawn Paul HUMPHRIES, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Jon E. OZMINT, Director, South Carolina Department of Corrections; Henry Dargan Mcmaster, Attorney General, State of South Carolina, Respondents-Appellees.
CourtUnited States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (4th Circuit)

ARGUED: Teresa Lynn Norris, Center For Capital Litigation, Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellant. Donald John Zelenka, Assistant Deputy Attorney General, Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellees. ON BRIEF: Joseph Maggiacomo, Center For Capital Litigation, Columbia, South Carolina; Thomas R. Haggard, Ridgeway, South Carolina, for Appellant. Henry Dargan McMaster, Attorney General, John W. McIntosh, Chief Deputy Attorney General, Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellees.

Before WILKINSON and DUNCAN, Circuit Judges, and HAMILTON, Senior Circuit Judge.

Affirmed in part; vacated and remanded in part by published opinion. Judge WILKINSON wrote the opinion, in which Judge DUNCAN joined, and in Part IV of which Senior Judge HAMILTON joined. Senior Judge HAMILTON wrote an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part.

OPINION

WILKINSON, Circuit Judge:

Shawn Paul Humphries received a sentence of five years for criminal conspiracy, twenty years for attempted armed robbery, and death for the murder of Mendal "Dickie" Smith. After exhausting appropriate state remedies, Humphries filed an unsuccessful habeas petition in federal district court. He claimed that he received ineffective assistance of counsel under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments because of his counsel's failure to object to the State's closing arguments at sentencing, which compared the respective worth of the life of the victim to that of Humphries. Humphries also claimed that the State's failure to notify him of the use of victim impact evidence violated his right to a fair trial under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The district court dismissed the petition.

We affirm in part, and vacate and remand in part. The South Carolina Supreme Court reasonably interpreted federal law when it found no constitutional violations concerning the extent of notice about the introduction of victim impact evidence. On the facts of this case, however, we find that the failure of Humphries' counsel to object to the State's extensive and egregious use of comparative human worth arguments amounted to ineffective assistance of counsel. This omission by Humphries' counsel was, on these facts, so unduly prejudicial that it rendered the jury's recommendation of a capital sentence fundamentally unfair. We thus affirm Humphries' convictions, but we vacate the sentence of death and remand to the district court with instructions that the writ be issued solely for purposes of resentencing.

I.

On August 5, 1994, a jury convicted Shawn Paul Humphries of the murder of Mendal "Dickie" Smith in Fountain Inn, South Carolina. On the morning of January 1, 1994, Humphries, then age 22, and Eddie Blackwell, then age 19, had been drinking beer when they decided to rob a convenience store run by Smith. Humphries flashed a gun he had stolen the night before and demanded Smith's money. Smith appeared to reach under the convenience store counter to get a gun, and Humphries responded by firing a single, fatal shot at Smith. Humphries was successfully prosecuted in South Carolina state court, and a jury convicted him of attempted armed robbery, possession of a firearm during the commission of a violent crime, criminal conspiracy, and murder. On August 9, 1994, Humphries was sentenced to death for murder, twenty years for attempted armed robbery, and five years for criminal conspiracy.

The South Carolina Supreme Court affirmed Humphries' conviction and sentence on direct appeal, and the Supreme Court denied certiorari. See State v. Humphries, 325 S.C. 28, 479 S.E.2d 52 (1996), cert. denied, 520 U.S. 1268, 117 S.Ct. 2441, 138 L.Ed.2d 201 (1997). Humphries' application for post-conviction relief in South Carolina state court was dismissed by the Common Pleas Court on December 21, 1998, and his appeal was rejected by the South Carolina Supreme Court on August 26, 2002. See Humphries v. State, 351 S.C. 362, 570 S.E.2d 160 (S.C.2002). Humphries then filed for habeas relief in federal district court. The district court dismissed Humphries' habeas petition, but subsequently granted a certificate of appealability for the issues now before this court. See 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c) (2000).

II.

We review de novo a district court's decision on a petition for writ of habeas corpus based on a state court record. Spicer v. Roxbury Corr. Inst., 194 F.3d 547, 555 (4th Cir.1999); see also Bell v. Ozmint, 332 F.3d 229, 233 (4th Cir.2003). If a state court has resolved the merits of a claim for post-conviction relief, a federal court may not grant a writ of habeas corpus unless the state court's holding "was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States," 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1), or "resulted in a decision that was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding." 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(2).

In the present case, we focus on the question of whether the state court decision "was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law." 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1). A state court decision is contrary to clearly established federal law if the state court "applies a rule that contradicts the governing law set forth in [the Supreme Court's] cases." Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 405, 120 S.Ct. 1495, 146 L.Ed.2d 389 (2000). A state court decision involves an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law if it "correctly identifies the governing legal rule but applies it unreasonably to the facts of a particular prisoner's case." Id. at 407-08, 120 S.Ct. 1495.

The requirements Humphries must satisfy in demonstrating an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law under § 2254(d)(1), however, are onerous. As the Supreme Court has recently reiterated,

"a federal habeas court may not issue the writ simply because that court concludes in its independent judgment that the state-court decision applied [a Supreme Court case] incorrectly. Rather, it is the habeas applicant's burden to show that the state court applied [that case] to the facts of his case in an objectively unreasonable manner."

Price v. Vincent, 538 U.S. 634, 123 S.Ct. 1848, 1853, 155 L.Ed.2d 877 (2003) (quoting Woodford v. Visciotti, 537 U.S. 19, 24-25, 123 S.Ct. 357, 154 L.Ed.2d 279 (2002) (per curiam) (internal quotations omitted)). Notably, an "`unreasonable application of federal law is different from an incorrect application of federal law.'" (Woodford, 537 U.S. at 25, 123 S.Ct. 357 (quoting Williams, 529 U.S. at 410, 120 S.Ct. 1495)) (emphasis in original).

Humphries argues that he received ineffective assistance of counsel in violation of the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments when his counsel failed to object to the State's closing arguments at sentencing, in which the State compared the general worth of Humphries' life to that of the victim. He also claims that the State's failure to provide notice that it intended to introduce victim impact evidence in the sentencing proceedings violated his right to a fair trial under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

III.

We consider first Humphries' claim of ineffective assistance of counsel. For the reasons explored below, we conclude Humphries has satisfied the foregoing requirements in arguing his counsel rendered ineffective assistance in failing to object to the prosecution's argument for the imposition of the death penalty. The Supreme Court has concluded that a prosecutor may appropriately argue, and a jury may appropriately consider, "victim impact" evidence relating to the victim's personal characteristics at a capital sentence hearing. Payne v. Tennessee, 501 U.S. 808, 823, 111 S.Ct. 2597, 115 L.Ed.2d 720 (1991). Recognizing that precedent, the stringent requirements AEDPA places on the grant of federal habeas relief, and mindful of the serious consideration given to this matter by prior courts, we are nevertheless constrained to conclude that, because of the use to which the "victim impact" evidence was put in this case, Humphries is entitled to federal habeas relief under § 2254(d)(1).

A.

The Supreme Court has laid out a two-part test for evaluating claims of ineffective assistance of counsel. See Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984). First, the defendant "must show that counsel's performance was deficient." Id. at 687, 104 S.Ct. 2052. To establish this deficiency the defendant must produce evidence that the "counsel's representation fell below an objective standard of reasonableness." Id. at 688, 104 S.Ct. 2052.

Second, the defendant must show that the deficient performance resulted in actual prejudice to his case. A showing of prejudice requires the defendant to prove that "counsel's errors were so serious as to deprive the defendant of a fair trial." Id. at 687, 104 S.Ct. 2052. In the context of a capital sentencing proceeding, the question is whether "there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different." Id. at 694, 104 S.Ct. 2052. Prejudice is established in a capital case where the jury is considering both aggravating and mitigating evidence during sentencing if "there is a reasonable probability that at least one juror would have struck a different balance," but for the constitutional error. Wiggins v. Smith, 539 U.S. 510, 123 S.Ct. 2527, 2543, 156 L.Ed.2d 471 (2003).

The Strickland standard is a difficult one to satisfy, and for good reason. Counsel must often make instantaneous decisions...

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