Martinez v. Davis
| Decision Date | 24 June 2016 |
| Docket Number | No. 15-70017,15-70017 |
| Parties | RAYMOND DELEON MARTINEZ, Petitioner - Appellant v. LORIE DAVIS, DIRECTOR, TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE, CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTIONS DIVISION, Respondent - Appellee |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit |
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas
Before JONES, DENNIS, and CLEMENT, Circuit Judges.
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Raymond Deleon Martinez stands before us twice convicted of the 1983 capital murder of Herman Chavis and three times sentenced to death for that crime. His case has seen three rounds of review on direct appeal, three rounds of state habeas review, and is now on its second round of federal habeas review. The district court in this round of federal habeas litigation denied his petition and did not issue a Certificate of Appealability ("COA"). He seeks a COA fromthis court. We grant a COA on ineffectiveness claims concerning autopsy reports and medical examiner testimony, deny a COA on Martinez's other claims, deny habeas relief, and affirm the district court's denial of funds to develop one of his claims.
The facts of Martinez's crime have been well documented in numerous state and federal courts. This court earlier summarized them as follows:
On July 13, 1983, Martinez, accompanied by two other men, entered the Long Branch Saloon owned and operated by Herman Chavis, the victim, and his wife, Pauline Chavis Smith. Smith recognized the three men from the previous Monday and Tuesday nights, when they came in, purchased beer, took only one sip, and left. On this date, the men ordered three Miller Lite beers and stood at the bar. Soon thereafter, one of the men locked the front door, produced a revolver, and told everyone to "hit the floor." Martinez also brandished a revolver and threatened a patron. He then grabbed the barmaid, shoved the revolver into her ribs, and demanded the money from the cash drawer. Martinez was seen reaching into the drawer, although it was later determined that he took no money. A verbal exchange between Chavis and the men ensued, after which Martinez pointed his gun at Chavis. Several shots were fired. Chavis later died of a gunshot wound to the back of the head and a gunshot wound through the back that lodged in his right arm.
Martinez v. Dretke, 404 F.3d 878, 880-81 (5th Cir. 2005), cert. denied 546 U.S. 980, 126 S. Ct. 550 (2005) (footnotes and citations omitted).
Martinez was initially convicted on March 15, 1984 and sentenced to death. See id. at 880 n.1. This conviction and sentence were subsequently reversed and remanded on direct appeal due to jury-selection errors. Martinez v. State, 763 S.W.2d 413 (Tex. Crim. App. 1988). A second trial resulted in another guilty conviction and death sentence, which were affirmed on direct appeal. Martinez v. State, 867 S.W.2d 30 (Tex. Crim. App. 1993) (en banc),reh'g denied, (October 20, 1993), cert. denied, 512 U.S. 1246, 114 S. Ct. 2765 (1994). Martinez's state application for a writ of habeas corpus based on ineffective assistance of counsel was rejected. See Martinez v. Dretke, 404 F.3d at 882-83; Ex parte Martinez, No. 42,342-01 (Tex. Crim. App. 1999).
He then filed a § 2254 petition for a writ of habeas corpus in federal district court in 2001.
On February 6, 2003, the district court held an evidentiary hearing on the following issues: (1) whether Martinez was mentally ill at the time of his offense; (2) whether his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to present an insanity defense; and (3) whether there was cause for any procedural default of these claims. At the hearing, Martinez submitted evidence that he has a family history of mental illness, was exposed to neurotoxins in utero and through adolescence when he picked cotton as a migrant farm worker, was physically abused by an older brother, was physically abused by prison guards while in care of the Texas Youth Commission, suffered untreated epileptic seizures, and was previously adjudged not guilty by reason of insanity for an unrelated crime in 1967.
Martinez v. Dretke, 404 F.3d at 883 (footnote omitted). The district court denied his petition and denied a COA.
On December 19, 2003, he asked this court for a COA, claiming ineffective assistance of counsel by his counsel's failure to:
(1) conduct an adequate investigation into his mental health background; (2) introduce evidence of neurological impairment and a prior adjudication of not guilty by reason of insanity as a mitigating factor and assert an insanity defense during the guilt/innocence phase of his trial; and (3) introduce evidence of his neurological impairment as a mitigating factor during the punishment phase of his trial.
Id. We denied a COA on the first issue and held that his counsel had conducted an adequate investigation of his background, including his alleged exposure to neurotoxins in utero and his use of anti-psychotic medications. Id. at 885-87.
We invited additional briefing on the latter two issues and granted a COA. Id. at 887. Nonetheless, we ultimately denied habeas as to all of his claims. We held that his trial counsel's failure to advance an insanity defense would constitute a fraud on the court given psychological evaluations that concluded Martinez did not suffer from any psychological disorders; testimony from his own expert witness that his in utero and adolescent exposure to pesticides would support only a post-hoc conjecture of a brain disorder; the lack of any of his counsels' personal experiences that would suggest their awareness of potential disorders; and the availability of a viable alternative defense supported by the record. Id. at 888-89. Further, we held that "counsel's decision not to introduce evidence of neurological impairment (i.e. organic brain damage) as mitigating evidence at the punishment phase constituted reasonable and protected professional judgment" because evidence of organic brain injury is a "double-edged sword." Id. at 889; see also Kitchens v. Johnson, 190 F.3d 698, 702-03 (5th Cir. 1999).
After we denied habeas relief, Martinez filed a subsequent state habeas application, raising a claim he had argued at his second trial and 1993 direct appeal, but not in his first state habeas application in 1997. Ex parte Martinez, 233 S.W.3d 319 (Tex. Crim. App. 2007). The state court held that because of intervening case law, this was not an abuse of the writ, and granted habeas relief. Id. at 322-23. Martinez received a new trial as to punishment only.
The third punishment trial was held in 2009, and Martinez was sentenced to death a third time. At this trial, the jury heard the facts of the Chavis murder as well as testimony regarding Martinez's criminal history, violence and dangerousness in prison, and gang affiliation. See Martinez v. State, 327 S.W.3d 727, 731-35 (Tex. Crim. App. 2010), cert. denied 563 U.S. 1037, 131 S. Ct. 2966 (2011) ().
The 2009 sentencing jury heard about Martinez's long and violent criminal history. That history began when he was fifteen and was sent to juvenile prison for statutory rape of a twelve-year-old girl. Within a few months of his release, he was adjudicated delinquent and sent back to juvenile detention. After his release at age eighteen, he was sentenced to a two-year prison term for burglary in 1964. He attempted to escape in 1965. He committed burglary in 1967, but was found not guilty by reason of insanity. His sanity restored, he was released in 1969, but he went on to commit four robberies (two armed), one theft of an automobile, and an escape from jail while in custody. He received a total sentence of 20 years for these crimes. He lived with his family after his parole in 1982. He terrorized them, bragged to them about crimes he committed while in prison, and recounted robberies and assaults he committed in the Fort Worth area.
The jury heard testimony about his crime spree that led to the deaths of five people in 1983. In addition to the July 13 robbery of the Long Branch Saloon and the murder of Herman Chavis for which he had been convicted, he committed armed robbery of two other saloons in Houston on July 11 and July 12. The July 11 armed robbery resulted in the death of Moses Mendez, but it was never clearly established who shot Mendez. Martinez then went to Fort Worth to stay with his sister, Julia Gonzales. On July 15, he shot her dead on the side of the road and shot her boyfriend, Guillermo Chavez, seven times in a car, then ransacked their home. Martinez returned to Houston, where he met a prostitute named Traci Pelkey. On July 21, he killed her by hitting her on the head with his gun and then shooting her three times. He was arrested on July 23, 1983 and has been in custody ever since.
The 2009 sentencing jury also heard testimony that Martinez has been a particularly dangerous and violent inmate. During his incarceration beginning in 1969, he was violent toward other inmates, often stabbing themwith homemade weapons or attacking them with little provocation. He was paroled in 1982 and rearrested in 1983. Since then, he has 34 documented disciplinary incidents between 1986 and 2005, which likely understates the total number because it does not include incidents that may have occurred while he was in county (as opposed to state) custody. Four of the incidents are classified as minor, and 30 are classified as major. Sixteen are assaults on correctional officers and two are assaults on inmates. In February 2002, he encouraged other inmates to kill a prison guard they had taken hostage and then interfered with the ability of other guards to free the hostage. In June 2002 he made a homemade spear and threw it at a prison guard. There are numerous documented incidences in which Martinez spat upon or threw other bodily fluids at correctional officers and threatened them with physical violence. He managed to unlock his cell door in 2008 and...
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