Link v. Luebbers

• Decision Date: 08 December 2006
• Docket Number: No. 04-3868.,04-3868.
• Citation: 469 F.3d 1197
• Parties: Martin LINK, Appellant, v. Al LUEBBERS, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

469 F.3d 1197

Martin LINK, Appellant, v. Al LUEBBERS, Appellee.

No. 04-3868.

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

Submitted: January 9, 2006.

Filed: December 8, 2006.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Martin Link, Mineral Point, MO, pro se.

Christopher Edward McGraugh, Leritz & Plunkert, Jennifer Herndon, St. Louis, MO, for Appellant.

Stephen David Hawke, Frank A. Jung, Asst. Atty. General, Attorney General's Office, Jefferson City, MO, for Appellee.

Before WOLLMAN, JOHN R. GIBSON, and ARNOLD, Circuit Judges.

WOLLMAN, Circuit Judge.

Martin Link was found guilty by a jury of kidnapping, raping, and murdering eleven-year-old Elissa Self-Braun and was sentenced to death. He appeals from the district court's¹ judgment denying his petition for a writ of habeas corpus. We affirm.

I.

Elissa Self-Braun disappeared in St. Louis on the morning of January 11, 1991. On January 15, her body was found in a drift pile near the St. Francis River in Wayne County, Missouri, approximately 130 miles from St. Louis. On January 26, 1991, Link was arrested following a high speed chase, which ended when Link crashed the stolen 1986 Ford Tempo he was driving into a utility pole.

Both of the examiners who performed autopsies on Elissa's body determined that Elissa had been sexually assaulted and strangled, but they were unable to determine conclusively whether Elissa died before her body was placed in the river. One of the examiners testified that the evidence indicated that Elissa had been strangled slowly, remaining conscious for up to five to ten minutes and dying within approximately thirty minutes.

Evidence connecting Link to Elissa's kidnapping, rape, and murder included a jar of petroleum jelly found in the stolen car that Link was driving. The jar bore Link's fingerprints. Genetic testing of blood found within the jar indicated that it was consistent with Elissa's DNA. Sperm found within Elissa's body was determined to match Link's DNA. An expert testified that the probability of both of these genetic samples matching by random chance was less than one in three hundred thousand. Fibers found on the front passenger seat of the car appeared to match the sweater Elissa was wearing when she was kidnapped. Link had grown up in the area where Elissa was kidnapped and had lived near the area where her body was found. Link had checked out of a motel near St. Louis on the morning Elissa disappeared. He checked into a hotel between Wayne County and St. Louis the next day. A witness at that hotel described the car Link was driving as sounding like it had a damaged muffler. Link brought this car into a mechanic's shop that afternoon and insisted that it be repaired quickly. Under the car, the mechanic found several clumps of orange clay similar to the clay found in the St. Francis riverbed near where Elissa's body was found.

In addition, the mechanic noticed that the car's muffler, which had a clearance of approximately twelve inches from the ground, had been punctured by a collision with some object. Officers testified at trial that a twelve-inch-tall rock in the parking area near the St. Francis River appeared to have been recently moved out of place. In response to this evidence, Link called an accident reconstructionist, who testified that the damage to the car could not have been caused by the rock at the crime scene. In rebuttal, the state recalled Detective Michael Flaherty, who had testified in the state's case-in-chief. Detective Flaherty had examined the defense expert's report and had then performed his own reconstruction of the event with a car matching the model that Link was driving at the time of his arrest. Link objected to the admission of this evidence because of the state's failure to disclose the fact of this reconstruction, which was performed by Detective Flaherty prior to his earlier testimony. Link's objection was overruled, and Flaherty was permitted to testify.

Link was represented by a series of different attorneys during the preparation of his defense and his jury trial. Public defenders Kevin Curran and Cathy DiTraglia initially handled Link's case and performed substantial preliminary investigative work. In 1994, the Missouri Public Defender's system appointed Joseph Green and Scott Rosenblum, two private criminal defense attorneys, to take over Link's defense. Rosenblum was replaced by Ramona Martin. Martin handled the penalty phase of Link's defense while Green focused primarily on the guilt phase. Because of financial and caseload concerns, Martin withdrew from Link's defense approximately one month before the trial began and Vanessa Antoniou took her place. Although Antoniou, who had assisted one of the partners in her firm prepare some twenty murder cases during the three years she had been in the practice, had never previously tried a murder case, Green, who had tried approximately twelve capital cases, decided that it would be better if she presented the defense in the penalty phase. Green thought that, as a woman, Antoniou would have more credibility with the jury in light of the fact that Link's offenses had been committed against women. Moreover, Green was concerned that the jury would find him less credible because of his role in the guilt phase. Green supervised Antoniou during the penalty phase and gave her advice and direction.

As part of their investigation of possible defense strategies, Link's attorneys asked Dr. Patricia Fleming to administer a psychological evaluation. Dr. Fleming advised the attorneys that she was unable to establish a rapport with Link and that he did not cooperate with her. She recommended that Link be examined by a black male, who might be better able to establish a rapport with him. Although Green was familiar with Dr. Donald Cross, a local psychological examiner who fit Dr. Fleming's recommendation, he and his co-counsel did not ask Dr. Cross to examine Link prior to the trial.

During the penalty phase, the state presented victim impact testimony from Elissa's father, mother, stepfather, stepmother, and sister. In addition, the state presented extensive evidence of Link's criminal history. The jury heard evidence that in 1982 Link had held a knife to the throat of a thirteen-year-old girl, had attempted to rape her, and then had forced her to perform oral sex on him. In 1983, Link kidnapped and raped a fifteen-year-old girl, leaving her under a bridge. For these crimes, Link was imprisoned until 1989. Later that year, he was arrested for soliciting a police officer for prostitution. On December 12, 1990, Link stole the Ford Tempo that he was driving at the time of his January 26, 1991, arrest. On January 23, 1991, Link stole a purse from a seventy-one-year-old woman and attempted to cash one of the checks found therein. Later that same day, he raped a woman at knife-point and kidnapped her. Two days later, he broke into a woman's home and robbed and raped her, holding a pillow over the woman's face and fleeing when he heard a noise. Later that day, Link attempted to grab an eight-year-old girl, but she fled. On January 26, 1991, the day of his arrest, Link entered an ice cream shop and demanded money from a sixteen-year-old employee, threatening her with a knife and fleeing when she sounded an alarm.

The evidence presented by the defense in the penalty phase consisted of records from various institutions at which Link had been an inmate showing good conduct there and the testimony of an investigator with the state public defender's office recounting her inability to gather much useful information about Link.

During closing arguments, the prosecutor spoke at length about the crime spree that surrounded Elissa's murder, about Link's history of victimizing women and young girls, and about the brutality of this particular crime. In her closing, Antoniou pleaded for mercy, emphasizing the lack of available information about Link. She argued that it was immoral to kill someone whom the jury did not understand and that the jurors would be reduced to Link's level if they voted to kill him out of revenge or hate. Following the jury's recommendation of a sentence of death for Elissa's murder, the trial court sentenced Link to fifteen years on the kidnapping charge, to life on the rape charge, and to death on the murder charge.

After obtaining new counsel, Link filed a motion in state court for post-conviction relief. One of the grounds asserted was an allegation that his trial counsel had been ineffective in investigating Link's childhood and had failed to discover important mitigating evidence that might have persuaded the jury not to impose the death penalty. At the request of post-conviction counsel, Dr. Cross examined Link and issued a sixty-nine-page report that discussed several alleged instances of Link's being physically, sexually, and emotionally abused during his childhood. In addition, the report discussed Link's abuse of alcohol, marijuana, and inhalants dating back to preadolescence. Dr. Cross diagnosed Link as suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Link was also examined by Dr. William Logan, Dr. Robert Smith, and psychologist Marie Clark. Their assessments were consonant with Dr. Cross' conclusions.

At the hearing on the post-conviction petition, Green testified that he had no strategic reason not to have Link examined by another examiner, as Dr. Fleming had recommended. Both Green and Antoniou testified that it was Ramona Martin, whom neither side called as a witness at the hearing, who was assigned to handle the mitigation phase.

Following the court's denial of the post-conviction relief petition, Link's direct appeal was consolidated with his post-conviction appeal. The Missouri Supreme Court affirmed his conviction, sentence, and the denial of post-conviction relief. State v. Link, 25 S.W.3d 136 (Mo.2000).

Link filed for federal habeas corpus relief, asserting twelve violations of his federal constitutional rights. Follo...