Maldonado v. Thaler
| Decision Date | 24 September 2009 |
| Docket Number | Civil Action No. H-07-2984. |
| Citation | 662 F.Supp.2d 684 |
| Parties | Virgilio MALDONADO, Petitioner, v. Rick THALER,<SMALL><SUP>1</SUP></SMALL> Director, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Correctional Institutions Division, Respondent. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Southern District of Texas |
Layne Edwin Kruse, Fulbright and Jaworski, Houston, TX, for Petitioner.
Gena Blount Bunn, Texas Attorney General, Thomas M. Jones, Assistant Atty. Gen., Austin, TX, for Respondent.
Virgilio Maldonado ("Maldonado"), a Texas inmate incarcerated under a sentence of death, petitions for habeas corpus relief. (Doc. # 1). A jury convicted Maldonado for committing the capital murder of Cruz C. Saucedo during a robbery. After a separate punishment hearing, the same jury answered Texas' special issue questions in a manner requiring the imposition of a death sentence. After availing himself of Texas' appellate and post-conviction remedies, Maldonado now seeks federal habeas relief from his conviction and sentence pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254.
This action comes before the Court on Respondent Rick Thaler's Motion for Summary Judgment. (Doc. # 17). The parties have extensively briefed the issues raised by Maldonado's habeas petition. The Court has thoroughly reviewed the record in this case, including the state court pretrial, trial, appellate, and habeas proceedings. Based on this review of the record and the application of governing legal authorities, with special consideration given to the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 ("AEDPA"), the Court grants Respondent's summary judgment motion.
On direct appeal, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals summarized the trial evidence relating to the victim's murder:
On Friday, November 11, 1995, after an evening playing volleyball, Augustin Saucedo dropped his father, Cruz Saucedo, off at his apartment. Augustin tried to contact his father that weekend, but received no response when he paged him (his father did not have a phone, only a pager). On the following Tuesday, when Augustin still had not heard from his father, he contacted his sisters, Paula and Hericelda, who lived in the same apartment complex as their father. Paula provided Augustin with a key to their father's apartment and accompanied him to the apartment. Augustin then discovered the decomposing body of his father lying on the kitchen floor. Cruz Saucedo's hands had been bound with the electric cord of a Black & Decker iron and he had been shot twice in the head with a .45-caliber semi-automatic weapon. The police discovered four bricks of marijuana hidden in the apartment and recovered a pillow with two bullet holes soaked with "body fluids." Augustin noticed his father was not wearing a necklace he normally wore. Also, investigators found several cans of air freshener in the apartment, which Augustin had not noticed before his father's death. Investigators deduced the air freshener indicated someone stayed in the apartment for a period of time after the victim's death and sought to mask the stench of decay.
Maldonado v. State, 998 S.W.2d 239, 242-43 (Tex.Crim.App.1999) (footnotes omitted).
The police had no leads in Mr. Saucedo's murder for some time. Several months later, the police arrested Maldonado for an unrelated bank robbery. While Maldonado was in custody, the police received information that he had been involved in the Saucedo murder. The police informed Maldonado of his constitutional rights and interrogated him. Maldonado confessed to the killing. The Court of Criminal Appeals described the circumstances surrounding Maldonado's interrogation and his subsequent confession:
On April 24th ... the police "received information" implicating [Maldonado] in this homicide. Officer Jaime Escalante went to the Harris County Jail to interview [Maldonado] who was incarcerated on unrelated charges. Escalante read [Maldonado] his Miranda rights in Spanish. [Maldonado] was talkative, but refused to discuss the instant offense. He asked Escalante to come back the next day and he would think about giving him a statement. Escalante returned the following day and, after he read [Maldonado] his constitutional rights again, [Maldonado] gave a tape recorded statement admitting his participation in this offense and others.
In the recorded statement, [Maldonado] admitted entering the victim's apartment with another man named Felix or Benito, while a third man, Adan, waited in the car. [Maldonado] was carrying a .45-caliber pistol. They went to the apartment because Felix wanted to borrow a "cuerno" (AK-47). [Maldonado] also asked the victim to loan them a pistol. When the victim refused to give them a "cuerno" or a pistol, Felix bound the victim with the cord of the iron in the kitchen. [Maldonado] and Felix then demanded to know where the pistol was and also demanded to know the location of some marijuana they believed the victim had in his possession. The victim told them the marijuana was under the bed and the pistol was in the vacuum cleaner. Felix retrieved these items, then told [Maldonado] to kill the victim. [Maldonado] remembered shooting the victim three times in the head, using a pillow to muffle the sound. [Maldonado] noted that Felix was giving the orders and Felix took the marijuana out to the car.
Maldonado, 998 S.W.2d at 242-43.2
The State of Texas charged Maldonado with capital murder committed during the course of a robbery. Cruz Cervantes and John Derringer (collectively "trial counsel") represented Maldonado at trial. A jury convicted Maldonado of capital murder. A separate punishment hearing resulted in a death sentence.
Maldonado filed an automatic direct appeal with the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. Maldonado's trial counsel, Cruz Cervantes, represented him on appeal. On direct appeal, Maldonado raised several points of error.3 The Court of Criminal Appeals found that Maldonado preserved error with regard to each appellate claim, considered their merits, and affirmed his conviction and sentence. See Maldonado, 998 S.W.2d at 242-43. Maldonado did not file a petition for a writ of certiorari in the United States Supreme Court.
Maldonado filed his first application for a writ of habeas corpus during the pendency of his direct appeal.4 Of particular importance to the instant proceedings, the state habeas court procedurally barred Maldonado's claims based on the Sixth Amendment right to counsel and international law. The state habeas court, however alternatively denied relief on all claims. Ex parte Maldonado, No. 51,612-01 (Tex. Crim. App 2002).
Maldonado then initiated federal habeas proceedings. Maldonado v. Cockrell, No. H-03-CV-811 (S.D.Tex.). Through appointed counsel, Maldonado filed a federal habeas petition that contained several claims which he had not presented to the state courts. As this Court will discuss at length later, the Court dismissed Maldonado's initial federal petition without prejudice to allow for the exhaustion of state remedies.
Maldonado in turn filed a second state habeas application in the Court of Criminal Appeals. Ex parte Maldonado, No. 51,612-02 (Tex.Crim.App.). Maldonado's second habeas application raised three main claims: (1) mental retardation precludes his execution under Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304, 122 S.Ct. 2242, 153 L.Ed.2d 335 (2002); (2) the police violated his Fifth Amendment rights by interviewing him while he had counsel appointed on a separate criminal charge; and (3) trial counsel provided ineffective assistance at both the guilt/innocence and penalty phases, particularly by not investigating his mental retardation and not presenting additional mitigating evidence. The Court of Criminal Appeals found that Maldonado only met the state law requirements for filing a successive application with respect to his Atkins claim. The Court of Criminal Appeals dismissed Maldonado's other claims under its abuse-of-the-writ doctrine because he should have raised them earlier. The Court of Criminal Appeals remanded Maldonado's Atkins claim to the trial court. The lower court allowed briefing, heard oral argument, and held an evidentiary hearing. The lower court issued comprehensive proposed findings and conclusions recommending that the Court of Criminal Appeals deny habeas relief. The Court of Criminal Appeals adopted the lower court findings and denied Maldonado's Atkins claim.
During the pendency of Maldonado's second habeas action, he filed a third habeas application in state court that again alleged that his conviction and sentence violated international law. Ex parte Maldonado, No. 51,612-03 (Tex.Crim.App.). The Court of Criminal Appeals dismissed Maldonado's third application as an abuse of the writ.
Maldonado returned to federal court. The Court summarizes the grounds for relief he raises in his amended federal habeas petition as follows:
1. Mental retardation precludes Maldonado's execution.
2. Maldonado's conviction and sentence are infirm because the State did not give adequate notice of his right to consular assistance under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations.
3. The State violated the Fifth Amendment by interrogating Maldonado after he invoked his right to counsel.
4. Repeated interrogations by police officers outside the presence of counsel violated Maldonado's Sixth Amendment rights.
5. Trial counsel provided ineffective representation by failing to present additional mitigating evidence, discover his mental retardation, and act on his consular rights.
6. The State withheld evidence, including that of complaints made against the officer who interrogated Maldonado.
7. The Court of Criminal Appeals violated Maldonado's federal constitutional rights by relying on unreliable and unscientific testimony when denying his Atkins claim....
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