Lucio v. Lumpkin

• Citation: 987 F.3d 451
• Decision Date: 09 February 2021
• Docket Number: No. 16-70027,16-70027
• Parties: Melissa Elizabeth LUCIO, Petitioner—Appellant, v. Bobby LUMPKIN, Director, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Correctional Institutions Division, Respondent—Appellee.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (5th Circuit)

987 F.3d 451

Melissa Elizabeth LUCIO, Petitioner—Appellant,

v.Bobby LUMPKIN, Director, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Correctional Institutions Division, Respondent—Appellee.

No. 16-70027

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

FILED February 9, 2021

Allen Richard Ellis, Law Offices of A. Richard Ellis, Mill Valley, CA, Timothy Gumkowski, Tivon Schardl, Supervisory Attorney, Federal Public Defender, TXW, Capital Habeas Unit, Austin, TX, for Petitioner - Appellant.

Ari Cuenin, Matthew Hamilton Frederick, Deputy Solicitor General, Office of the Attorney General, Office of the Solicitor General, Austin, TX, Jennifer Wren Morris, Office of the Attorney General, Financial Litigation & Charitable Trusts Division, Austin, TX, for Respondent - Appellee.

Before Owen, Chief Judge, and Higginbotham, Jones, Smith, Stewart, Dennis, Elrod, Southwick, Haynes, Graves, Higginson, Costa, Willett, Ho, Duncan, Engelhardt, and Oldham, Circuit Judges.^*

Andrew S. Oldham, Circuit Judge, announced the judgment of the court and delivered an opinion joined by Owen, Chief Judge, and Jones, Smith, Ho, Duncan, and Engelhardt, Circuit Judges:

A Texas jury convicted Melissa Lucio of capital murder for beating to death her two-year-old daughter. The state courts affirmed her conviction and sentence on direct appeal and denied her petition for postconviction relief. Now she seeks federal habeas relief. Lucio argues that the state trial court denied her constitutional right to present a complete defense by excluding two expert witnesses from testifying at the guilt phase of her trial. The federal district court held that she cannot surmount the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 ("AEDPA"). Ten members of the en banc court agree with that judgment. We affirm.

I.

We begin with the tragic facts of this case. Then we turn to Lucio's proceedings in state and federal court. This case turns on the ever-evolving arguments that Lucio offered at trial, on direct appeal, in state habeas, and in federal habeas. So we recount the procedural history in detail.

A.

On the night of February 17, 2007, paramedics responded to a call at the home shared by Lucio and her husband Robert Alvarez. ROA.14936–37, 14981–82. The call concerned the couple's young daughter, Mariah. ROA.14936. When the EMTs arrived, they found Mariah on the living-room floor. ROA.14922–23, 14936. No one was near her. ROA.14922. Her body was covered with bruises in various stages of healing, her arm had been broken for several weeks, she had a bite mark on her back, and some of her hair had been pulled out. ROA.14813–16, 14937, 15051–54, 15066. She was not breathing. ROA.14923. She had no pulse. ROA.14923.

The EMTs tried to resuscitate Mariah and rushed her to the hospital. ROA.14924–28. In the emergency room, a doctor also tried to revive Mariah. ROA.14813. Those efforts were unsuccessful. ROA.14813. Mariah was pronounced dead. ROA.14813. She was two years old. ROA.14922.

On the night of Mariah's death, Lucio told the EMTs and the police that Mariah fell down the stairs. ROA.8104–05, 14924. Later that night, during a videotaped interview with investigators, Lucio explained that she had caused the bruises on Mariah's body by spanking Mariah "real hard" and by pinching her vagina. ROA.8224–25. Lucio said "nobody else would hit her." ROA.8189. As for the bitemark on Mariah, Lucio explained that two weeks before Mariah's death, while Lucio combed Mariah's hair, Lucio grew frustrated with her other "kids jumping around." ROA.8223. Although Mariah had done nothing wrong, Lucio "placed [her] mouth over [Mariah's] back and bit her." ROA.8222. During the interrogation, Lucio denied ever punching Mariah, ROA.8227, causing the scratches on Mariah's face, ROA.8228, hitting Mariah on the head, or killing Mariah. ROA.8200. But she also told investigators, "I'm responsible for it." ROA.5395.

Following the interrogation, Lucio made a phone call. A police officer who had been present with Lucio during the phone call testified that Lucio had told her sister, "Don't blame Robert. This was me. I did it. So don't blame Robert." ROA.14990–91.

The State of Texas charged Lucio with capital murder. At the trial, Lucio's sister took the stand and testified about the phone call. She denied that Lucio said, "This was me. I did it." ROA.15203. Rather, Lucio's sister said that they only discussed spanking, and that Lucio said, "I would spank the kids." ROA.15203. Lucio's sister also denied that Lucio spanked Mariah. In the sister's account, Lucio "never disciplined her children." ROA.15200.

The jury also heard testimony concerning Mariah's injuries. The forensic pathologist who performed Mariah's autopsy testified that her injuries were not the result of a fall: "[T]his is a child that's been beaten. This is a battered child." ROA.15070–71. In the pathologist's expert opinion, Mariah died from blunt-force trauma to the head

. ROA.15096. At trial, the emergency-room doctor who tried to revive Mariah testified that this was the "absolute worst" case of child abuse he'd seen in his thirty-year career. ROA.14821. To rebut this evidence, Lucio's medical expert opined that Mariah was physically abused. But he also stated that her death could've been caused by either a fall or being "[h]it by a strong force." ROA.15194.

The defense sought to call two additional expert witnesses, Dr. John Pinkerman and Ms. Norma Villanueva. The defense offered Pinkerman, a psychologist, to testify about Lucio's personal background and "psychological functioning." ROA.15301. The trial court excluded it on the ground that such evidence is relevant only at the sentencing phase of a capital trial. See TEX. CODE CRIM. PROC. art. 37.071(e)(1) (tasking the jury, only after finding the defendant guilty, with considering "the defendant's character and background," "the personal moral culpability of the defendant," and "mitigating" evidence). So to preserve the issue for appellate review, defense counsel took Pinkerman's testimony for an offer of proof.¹ Here is the entirety of what Pinkerman offered to prove in the state trial court:

On the basis of my review of information, consultation with additional experts, and the evaluation that I have done with the defendant Mrs. Lucio, I was going to testify about the characteristics and makeup of her psychological functioning. I was also going to address how her demeanor, both immediately after the incident and during the interrogation, may be understood by understanding and appreciating the psychological elements and previous history and background that she has lived through. I was also going to address the notion of how difficult it might have been for her to step into some of the treatment, even though it was minimally offered. And those are the highlights.

ROA.15301. Pinkerman did not proffer any opinions on the credibility of Lucio's statements during her interrogation. As Pinkerman acknowledged in a post-trial affidavit prepared for Lucio's state habeas proceeding, that issue was "never raised at the pretrial [sic] or trial."² ROA.8975.

The defense also offered the testimony of Ms. Villanueva, a licensed clinical social worker, on "why [Lucio] ... would have given police officer[s] information in [her] statement that was not correct." ROA.4691. The trial court conducted a Daubert hearing.³ See TEX. R. EVID. 702. During it, Villanueva said her expertise derived from "clinical training and clinical experience, ... a combination of knowing life span development theories, clinical theories[,] and human behavior social environment interaction theories," ROA.4695, as well as training in deciphering body language from "clinical sources in [her] master's degree, [and] continuing education courses," ROA.4697. On the basis of that experience, Villanueva offered to testify as follows:

I was going to testify about three separate issues. The first issue was about patterns of behavior with Mrs. Lucio which strongly influenced her behavior during that videotaped statement process with the investigators that night. ... I was also going to testify that the patterns of behavior as seen in the Child Protective Services records, the patterns in her family, how that influenced her decision making and how she felt with the different investigators, male and female, and also how she makes her life decisions. It influenced her behavior in that—how she felt with the different investigators male and female and how she made her decisions in answering the questions during that process. And lastly, looking at her CPS history, how—and also her social history, how she deals with different people in levels of authority, and also how that influenced her body language, and how body language is interpreted in different ways if you do not have her history of behaviours [sic] or patterns of behavior or her social history.

ROA.4706–07. Villanueva emphasized that she intended to offer an opinion about what Lucio was thinking during the interrogation and whether Lucio was telling the truth based on Lucio's body language. ROA.4695–96.

The state trial court found that a social worker was unqualified to testify about body language, unlike, say, "a psychologist ... that has done studies on that and has [an] academic background on that." ROA.4691. The court therefore concluded that Villanueva was not "an expert on whether or not [Lucio's interrogation] statement was true or not true." ROA.4700. The trial court found Villanueva was "imminently qualified on the issue of mitigation." ROA.4700. But it found she could not hold herself "as an expert as to why that statement is or is not true." ROA.4700.

Ultimately, the defense argued to the jury that, because Lucio admitted that she abused her child, the jury should credit as true her insistence to the police that she did not hit Mariah in the head. ROA.15340–43. The prosecution asked the jury to infer that Lucio dealt the head blow that killed Mariah, just as Lucio had abused the child in...