Maples v. Dunn
| Decision Date | 27 January 2022 |
| Docket Number | 5:03-CV-2399-KOB |
| Parties | CORY R. MAPLES, Petitioner, v. JEFFERSON S. DUNN, Commissioner of the Alabama Department of Corrections Respondent. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Alabama |
All death penalty habeas cases are hard. They often involve gruesome criminal conduct, grieving families and communities and petitioners facing the ultimate penalty for the crimes they committed many years before. And when the petitioners claim ineffective assistance of counsel, as they all seem to do, the court has to balance the “strong presumption that counsel's conduct falls within the wide range of reasonable professional assistance, ” Strickland v Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 689 (1984), against the petitioner's constitutional right to effective counsel without judging counsel's performance through the 20/20 lens of hindsight. See Waters v. Thomas, 46 F.3d 1506, 1514 (11th Cir. 1995).
After a week-long evidentiary hearing, such as the one held in this case, with testimony from numerous lay and expert witnesses who the petitioner contends his trial counsel should have presented as mitigation in the penalty phase of the trial, the “what might have been” evidence requires the court to first determine how much of it reasonable trial counsel should have uncovered during a reasonable investigation. Then, the court must weigh whether such evidence would have been sufficient to move enough jurors-in this case, only one more was needed-to vote for life in prison instead of the death penalty; but in doing so, the court should avoid looking through the 20/20 lens of hindsight. See Waters, 46 F.3d at 1514. This task is often a daunting one.
In this case, twenty-one-year old Cory R. Maples shot two of his friends, Stacy Terry and Barry Robinson, each in the head twice without any known provocation and in his family's front yard. He left Terry's body in the yard, then threw Robinson's body in a creek a short distance away, stole Terry's car, fled to Tennessee, and evaded arrest for nearly a month. When arrested, he gave a videotaped confession in which his speech was almost monotone, and he showed little emotion and no regret. But Maples said he could not remember why he killed his friends.
Because Maples's confession would be presented to the trial jury counsel knew Maples would likely be convicted. See Maples v. Comm'r, Ala. Dep't of Corr., 729 Fed.Appx. 817, 825 (11th Cir. 2018). His videotaped confession did not show Maples in a good light. Counsel knew that overcoming the effect that video confession would most likely have on the jury's view of Maples would require presenting a different Cory Maples to the jury during the penalty phase. Yet they did relatively little to investigate potential witnesses who could show the jury a different side of Maples or who could provide more explanation of traumatic effects of his mother's treatment of him as a toddler.
The gravity of Maples's crimes is not lost on this court-just as it was not lost on the jury that, by a vote of 10 to 2, recommended Maples be put to death for his crime, or on the trial judge who imposed the death penalty. But Maples, like all defendants, had a constitutional right to effective counsel in the penalty phase of his trial. For the reasons discussed below, the court finds that his trial counsel failed to reasonably investigate and present mitigating evidence on Maple's behalf. Had his counsel done so, a reasonable probability arises that at least one juror would have been swayed to vote for life without the possibility of parole instead of death. Based on the record, including the testimony and exhibits presented at the evidentiary hearing, the court finds that Maples's claim of ineffective assistance during the penalty phase is due to be granted.
The facts that follow are largely derived from the trial court's factual findings reflected in its sentencing order. See (Rule 32 C.R. Vol. 37, Tab 26 at 1-12).[1] Maples and Terry had spent the evening of Friday, July 7, 1995 drinking, playing pool, and riding around in Terry's new red Camaro. Robinson, who was new to the area but had known Terry and Maples for months, asked Terry for a ride home from the pool hall where the three men had been playing pool.
Sometime around or shortly after midnight that night, the trio arrived at the driveway of Maples's family home. Once there, Maples went into his home, picked up a .22 caliber rifle, and walked back outside to the car where Terry and Robinson were preparing to leave. Maples walked to the driver's side of the car and shot Terry twice in head, then shot Robinson twice in the head. Both men died instantaneously. Maples then pulled Terry's body out of the car, drove the car to a nearby bridge, and threw Robinson's body into the Mud Tavern Creek one mile from Maples's home.
Around 1:00 A.M. on Saturday, July 8, 1995, Maples's half-brother, Daniel Maples and his friend Matt Shell discovered Terry's body in the driveway near the Maples home. Later that night, Decatur police discovered Robinson's body in the creek.
On the night of August 1, 1995, almost a month later, the Nashville Police found and arrested Maples after receiving a tip from someone who spotted him with Terry's red Camaro. Shortly after being taken into custody, in the early hours of the following morning, Maples confessed to the murders on a video recording. He showed no remorse and could not think of a reason why he shot Terry and Robinson. He had not been fighting with either of them and denied harboring any animosity towards them. And he had no history of serious violent crime.
Following his indictment, the trial court appointed two attorneys, Mark Craig and Phil Mitchell, to represent Maples. His attorneys later retained Johnny Nesmith, a private investigator, and Dr. Allen Shealy, a clinical and forensic psychologist, to help them prepare for trial.
After a jury trial, Maples was convicted of capital murder. The jury recommended Maples be sentenced to death by a vote of 10 to 2, which the trial court accepted. The court found one statutory aggravating factor-murder during a robbery; one statutory mitigating factor-Maples's limited criminal history; and a few non-statutory mitigating factors-Maples had a “history of abuse from his mother, ” suffered from drug dependency, and “made efforts at controlling his drug dependency in drug rehabilitation.” See Maples v. State, 758 So.2d 1, 31-32, 81 (Ala.Crim.App.1999) (citing C.R. 560-565) ( detail the trial court's sentencing order). The trial judge concluded that Maples's mitigating factors were weak and unpersuasive and found that the single statutory aggravating factor justified imposing the death penalty. See Maples, 758 So.2d at 21-21.
On direct appeal, the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals and the Alabama Supreme Court affirmed the convictions and sentence. Ex parte Maples, 758 So.2d 81 (Ala. 1999); Maples v. State, 758 So.2d 1 (Ala.Crim.App.1999). The United States Supreme Court denied certiorari. Maples v. Alabama, 531 U.S. 830 (2000).
Maples then retained new, pro bono counsel and filed his initial petition for postconviction relief under Alabama Rule of Criminal Procedure 32 in state court, which he later amended. The trial court denied Maples's petition and sent notice by mail to Maples's attorneys of record. But unknown to both Maples and the trial court, Maples's pro bono counsel had changed law firms without notice to them. So, Maples was never informed of the trial court's decision and, through no fault of his own, did not timely appeal the trial court's Rule 32 order to the state appellate court.
Through new counsel, Maples sought federal habeas relief. The district court denied his request because of his procedural default in state court, and the Eleventh Circuit affirmed. Maples v. Allen, 586 F.3d 879 (11th Cir. 2009), rev'd sub nom. Maples v. Thomas, 565 U.S. 266 (2012). Maples then appealed to the United States Supreme Court. After finding that Rule 32 counsel had abandoned him, the Supreme Court reversed, holding that Maples's procedural default was excused by his prior counsel's silent abandonment. Maples v. Thomas, 565 U.S. 266, 289 (2012). The Court left open the question of whether Maples showed actual prejudice, and the Eleventh Circuit remanded the case back to the district court to address that issue. Maples v.Comm'r, Ala. Dep't of Corr., 460 Fed.Appx. 860 (11th Cir. 2012).
On remand, the district court denied Maples's request for an evidentiary hearing and concluded that Maples's penalty-phase mitigation claim was procedurally defaulted for lack of prejudice. Maples v. Dunn, No. 5:03-CV-2399-SLB, 2015 WL 5444096 (N.D. Ala. Sept. 14, 2015). Specifically, the district court found reasonable the state habeas court's conclusion that Maples, in his amended Rule 32 petition, did not allege facts that established Strickland prejudice and determined that the claim was procedurally defaulted. Maples, 2015 WL 5444096 at *50-78. Maples appealed. See Maples v. Comm'r, Ala. Dep't of Corr., 729 Fed.Appx. 817 (11th 2018).
1. The Eleventh Circuit Remanding Opinion
The Eleventh Circuit “granted Maples a Certificate of Appealability (COA) as to one claim: ‘Whether the district court erred in denying [Maples's] claim that his trial counsel rendered ineffective assistance of counsel in the investigation and presentation of mitigating evidence during the penalty phase of [Maples's] 1997 trial?'” Maples, 729 Fed.Appx. at 819. On appeal, the Circuit Court held that Maples had adequately alleged a claim of ineffective assistance of trial counsel during the penalty...
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