Jefferson v. GDCP Warden

• Decision Date: 17 October 2019
• Docket Number: No. 17-12160,17-12160
• Citation: 941 F.3d 452
• Parties: Lawrence Joseph JEFFERSON, Petitioner - Appellee, v. GDCP WARDEN, Respondent - Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

941 F.3d 452

Lawrence Joseph JEFFERSON, Petitioner - Appellee,

v.GDCP WARDEN, Respondent - Appellant.

No. 17-12160

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

October 17, 2019

John Richard Martin, Martin Brothers, PC, Atlanta, GA, Jeffrey Lyn Ertel, Suzanne Hashimi, Federal Defender Program, Inc., Atlanta, GA, Michael Kennedy McIntyre, Michael Kennedy McIntyre & Associates, Atlanta, GA, for Petitioner-Appellee.

Sabrina Graham, Beth Attaway Burton, Attorney General's Office, Atlanta, GA, for Respondent-Appellant.

Before ED CARNES, Chief Judge, and TJOFLAT and MARCUS, Circuit Judges.

MARCUS, Circuit Judge:

Lawrence Jefferson was convicted of felony murder in 1986 and sentenced to death by a Georgia jury. Since then, his challenge to his death sentence has included state collateral proceedings, one previous trip in this Court, an appeal to the Supreme Court, and two proceedings in federal district court. Following this considerable procedural history, we find ourselves in an uncommon situation, resolving a petition for habeas corpus filed before the enactment of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, Pub. L. No. 104-132, 110 Stat. 1214 (1996) (the "AEDPA"), and applying pre-AEDPA law to an issue expressly formulated for us by the Supreme Court. The crux of Jefferson’s claim is one in which we are well-versed -- that he received ineffective assistance of counsel during the sentencing phase of his trial because his lawyers failed to adequately investigate his mental health, and, in particular, whether he suffered from organic brain damage at the time of the killing. Jefferson argues that he was prejudiced by counsel’s error because it is reasonably probable that at least one of the jurors would not have sentenced him to death if the evidence of his severe mental impairment

had been presented. Georgia law requires a life sentence unless the jury unanimously agrees that the defendant should die.

Before we may address this claim, however, we are obligated to resolve whether the district court properly concluded under pre-AEDPA law that the state habeas court deprived Jefferson of a full and fair hearing when it denied his petition, thus stripping the state court’s factual determinations of a presumption of correctness -- the question the Supreme Court has directed us to answer. After thorough review, and extensive fact-finding by the district court, we conclude that the state habeas court’s fact-finding was not entitled to deference in the pre-AEDPA regime. The state habeas court adopted verbatim the State’s proposed order; it offered no guidance to the Assistant Attorney General drafting the proposed order, including how to resolve important credibility conflicts; apparently, it did not review the order, other than signing it, dating it, and changing the concluding sentence, notwithstanding the glaring errors it contained; and it did so ex parte without so much as affording Jefferson a chance to challenge any of it or propose an alternative order.

Having determined that the state habeas court’s findings are not entitled to a presumption of correctness, we come to the more common habeas inquiry -- whether, on the factual record compiled by the district court, Jefferson suffered ineffective assistance of counsel at the sentencing phase of his trial. We think the district court correctly determined that Jefferson’s trial lawyers’ conduct fell beneath an objective standard of reasonableness when they ignored the unambiguous written recommendation of their retained psychologist that a neuropsychological evaluation be conducted in order to rule out an organic etiology and explain Jefferson’s mental health and behavior at the time he committed the homicide. They also ignored a series of red flags that suggested that Jefferson’s aberrant behavior was the result of organic brain damage sustained at the age of two when his head was run over by an automobile.

Finally, in light of the substantial evidence Jefferson put forward showing that he suffers from organic brain damage that significantly affected his conduct and impulse control at the time of the killing, we conclude that the district court did not err in finding that Jefferson has been prejudiced by his lawyers’ deficient performance. Among other things, the jury heard nothing about the extent of the head injury

Jefferson sustained when he was struck in the head by an automobile as a two-year-old child; nothing about his five-day hospitalization or the headaches and blackout spells he thereafter suffered; and nothing about the resulting frontal lobe and neurological damage he sustained so early in his life, which likely caused diminished impulse control, irritability and short-temperedness, intermittent outbursts of rage, impaired judgment, and an inability to foresee the consequences of his actions. All of this is to say that the jury was presented with a profoundly misleading picture of Jefferson’s sentencing profile and moral culpability because the most important mitigating circumstances were withheld. Indeed, the most powerful explanation for an otherwise inexplicable crime -- that Jefferson suffered from organic brain damage that severely impaired his judgment and his ability to control his behavior -- was never presented to the jury. Thus, we affirm the judgment of the district court and grant Jefferson’s habeas petition. He is entitled to a new sentencing proceeding.

I.

A.

In March, 1986, Lawrence Jefferson was found guilty of felony murder that occurred during the commission of an armed robbery. Jefferson v. Hall, 570 F.3d 1283, 1290 (11th Cir. 2009), cert. granted, judgment vacated sub nom. Jefferson v. Upton, 560 U.S. 284, 130 S.Ct. 2217, 176 L.Ed.2d 1032 (2010), and vacated and remanded sub nom. Jefferson v. Warden, Ga. Diagnostic & Classification Prison, No. 07-12502, 2010 WL 3431652 (11th Cir. July 21, 2010). The basic facts surrounding the murder and Jefferson’s trial and state habeas proceedings, which have already been detailed many times, are not contested, and we summarize them only briefly today.

According to testimony elicited at Jefferson’s trial, the body of the murder victim, Edward Taulbee, was spotted lying in the woods near Lake Allatoona in North Georgia on May 2, 1985 by passing motorists. Id. at 1287. An autopsy revealed that Taulbee sustained two lacerations above his left eyebrow, one laceration above his forehead, one laceration above his right ear, five lacerations on the back

of his scalp, several fractured teeth, an abrasion across his face, an abrasion across his back, skull fractures, brain bruises, and brain hemorrhaging. Id. The medical examiner concluded that these head injuries had caused Taulbee’s death and that he had died sometime between 5 and 11 p.m. on May 1. Id.

The ensuing police investigation discovered that Taulbee worked at Zenith Construction Company, as did Jefferson. Id. at 1287-88. In a police interview, Jefferson said he had seen Taulbee leave their construction worksite around 5:30 p.m. on May 1 to go fishing. Id. at 1288. Jefferson also claimed he left shortly thereafter, went home, and spent the evening at his apartment. Id.

The police learned from other Zenith employees that Taulbee was known to carry large sums of money that he lent to coworkers when they needed cash. Id. When police subsequently interviewed Jefferson’s neighbors, they discovered that, contrary to Jefferson’s report, Jefferson had gone with Taulbee in Taulbee’s car after work on May 1 to fish at Lake Allatoona. Id. One neighbor added that Jefferson had returned from this outing alone and on foot, and, the next day, he gave her an ATM card to hide. Id. Another said that he went to Jefferson’s apartment on the evening of May 1, and Jefferson was acting "funny" and his chest looked red. Id. at 1289. Jefferson also mentioned that his "little fat buddy was dead," an obvious reference to Taulbee. Id. A third neighbor revealed that he had driven Jefferson, upon request, to Lake Allatoona on the night of May 1, and that once there Jefferson briefly went into the woods and returned with a fishing pole, which he threw back into the woods. He also gave a tackle box to the neighbor for safekeeping. Later that night, Jefferson tried to make a withdrawal at an ATM machine. Id. at 1289-90.

Thereafter, police found Taulbee’s car in a parking lot near Jefferson’s apartment, and learned that the ATM card and tackle box Jefferson had given to his neighbors had belonged to Taulbee and that someone had tried to use Taulbee’s ATM card in the early morning hours of May 2. Id. at 1289-90. Jefferson was arrested on May 7, 1985. When police asked him why he had killed Taulbee, oddly he replied that he didn’t need to be around other people, that he wanted to be executed, and that he wanted to be put to sleep. Id. at 1290.

Jefferson was indicted in August, 1985 in the Superior Court of Cobb County, Georgia, and convicted by a jury in March, 1986. At the penalty phase of Jefferson’s trial, the State introduced evidence of Jefferson’s past offenses, including a series of armed robberies he had committed in Louisville, Kentucky. Id. In mitigation, Jefferson offered the testimony of two Cobb County police officers, who testified that Jefferson had not caused problems while he was incarcerated. Id. Jefferson’s mother testified that Jefferson had a hard upbringing because he grew up without a father and had to help take care of his siblings, and that he was responsible, generous, gentle, kind, and playful as a child. Id. at 1291. She also mentioned that Jefferson’s head had been run over by a car when he was two years old, but she did not elaborate on this incident and was not questioned at all about what effect the injury had on his behavior. Id. Jefferson’s sister corroborated that Jefferson was generous and responsible, and had helped care for his siblings when he was younger. Id. Finally, the mother of Jefferson’s children testified that Jefferson was a...