Mata v. Johnson

• Decision Date: 31 October 1996
• Docket Number: No. 96-20218,96-20218
• Citation: 99 F.3d 1261
• Parties: Ramon MATA, Jr., Petitioner-Appellant, v. Gary L. JOHNSON, Director, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Institutional Division, Respondent-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 1261

99 F.3d 1261

Ramon MATA, Jr., Petitioner-Appellant, v.Gary L. JOHNSON, Director, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Institutional Division, Respondent-Appellee.

No. 96-20218.

United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit.

Oct. 31, 1996.

Gregory William Wiercioch, Mandy Welch, Texas Defenders Office, Houston, TX, for petitioner-appellant.

Margaret Portman Griffey, Office of the Attorney General for the State of Texas, Austin, TX, for respondent-appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas.

Before WIENER, PARKER and DENNIS, Circuit Judges.

WIENER, Circuit Judge:

Petitioner-AppellantRamon Mata, Jr., a Texas death row inmate, appeals the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of Respondent-AppelleeGary Johnson, Director of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice(the Director), denying and dismissing with prejudice Mata's petition for a writ of habeas corpus.For the reasons set forth below, we affirm the judgment of the district court.

IFACTS AND PROCEEDINGS

In February 1986, Mata was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death for the murder of Minnie Rene Houston, a black female prison guard in the Ellis Unit of the Texas Department of Corrections in Walker County, Texas.At the time of the killing, Mata was already serving a prison sentence at the Ellis Unit for a previous murder.Mata and six other trustee inmates worked under Officer Houston's supervision at the corrections officers' dining hall.Evidence in the trial record suggests that Mata and Houston may have been romantically involved.

On the night of the killing, Officer Houston issued filet knives to the inmates so that they could clean fish.About 9:30 that evening, Mata used his knife to stab Houston to death.He then ran from the kitchen, took Houston's car, drove across a field to the main picket tower, got out of the car, and told an officer that he had killed Houston.The knife, with Mata's fingerprints on it, was found on the floor of Houston's car between the seat and the door on the driver's side.Blood of Houston's type was found on Mata's clothes, Houston's clothes, and the knife.

Mata, who is Hispanic, was charged with capital murder under Texas Penal Code § 19.03(a)(5).Under that provision, it is a capital offense for a person, while incarcerated in a penal institution, to murder another who is employed in the operation of the penal institution.

The case commanded widespread attention in Walker County, where over twenty percent of the adult residents were affiliated with the prison.The trial judge conducted a poll and determined that nearly everyone in the county was familiar with the case, and that more than half had already formed an opinion about Mata.On the basis of that information and pursuant to his own motion, the trial judge changed the venue of the case to neighboring Madison County.Although approximately seventeen percent of the adult residents of Madison County also were affiliated with the prison, Mata did not request another change of venue.

Seventy-six persons answered the summons for jury duty in Mata's trial, and eight members of the venire were black.During jury selection, however, the prosecution and Mata's defense counsel agreed to exclude all eight black venirepersons from the jury.The trial court permitted this to happen without requesting a non-discriminatory explanation or even requiring the parties to expend a single peremptory challenge.

Courtroom security was enhanced for Mata's trial.Heavily armed, specialized security forces were stationed throughout the courtroom, and video cameras and metal detectors were installed in the entryway.In addition, between thirty and forty fully uniformed prison guards were in regular attendance as spectators throughout the proceedings.

In the separate punishment phase of the trial that followed Mata's conviction, the jury answered "yes" to the three questions posed to them pursuant to Texas Code of Criminal Procedure art. 37.071(b), and the trial court sentenced Mata to death.The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the conviction and sentence ¹ and subsequently denied Mata's motion for rehearing.Mata did not petition the Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari.Thus, Mata's conviction became final on November 4, 1992.

Mata filed a state habeas corpus petition in 1993, which he supplemented in 1994.On January 6, 1995, the trial court adopted the appointed Master's Final Report which concluded that Mata's claims did not entitle him to relief, and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied habeas relief on January 27.²The U.S. Supreme Court denied writs on October 10, 1995.³

Mata filed his federal habeas petition on September 18, 1995.The next day, the trial court scheduled Mata's execution for March 14, 1996.On March 5, the district court denied Mata's habeas petition and Application for Certificate of Probable Cause.⁴Mata promptly filed a Notice of Appeal to this court.Noting that the district court had waited to deny Mata's petition until less than 10 days before his scheduled execution, we stayed Mata's execution and carried his Application for Certificate of Probable Cause (CPC) with this appeal.

Mata asserts three claims in his habeas petition: (1) that the agreement between his own defense counsel and the prosecution to exclude all blacks from the jury violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, (2) that this agreement deprived him of his Sixth Amendment right to a jury chosen from a fair cross-section of the community, and (3) that his Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment rights to a fair trial were denied through a combination of harmful circumstances surrounding the trial, including the presence of armed guards throughout the courtroom, the addition of special video cameras and metal detectors for the duration of the trial, prejudicial pretrial publicity, and the constant and overbearing presence of uniformed correctional officers in the spectator portion of the courtroom.

We construe Mata's request for a CPC as a request for the newly required Certificate of Appealability(COA), grant Mata's request for a COA, and proceed to the merits of his appeal.

IIANALYSIS

A. ANTITERRORISM AND EFFECTIVE DEATH PENALTY ACT OF 1996

Our jurisdiction to employ the writ of habeas corpus to review the constitutionality of Mata's state court conviction and sentence is derived from 28 U.S.C. §§ 2241-2255.The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 ("AEDPA"), signed into law on April 24, 1996, revised that statutory scheme in two ways relevant to Mata's case: (1) The Amended Standard Procedures (AEDPA §§ 101-106, codified at 28 U.S.C. §§ 2241-2255) are applicable to all federal habeas petitions; and (2) the Expedited Procedures (AEDPA § 107, codified at 28 U.S.C. §§ 2261-2266) are applicable only to capital cases.As an initial matter, we must determine whether either or both of these new AEDPA provisions govern the case now before us.

1.The Amended Standard Procedures

Although the AEDPA specifically provides that the expedited procedures in § 2264 are immediately applicable when a state fulfills the "opt-in" requirements, the Act is silent concerning the effective date of the amended standard procedures in § 2254.⁵Recently, in Drinkard v. Johnson, ⁶ another panel of this court held that the amendment to § 2254(d)(1) concerning the appropriate standard of review applicable to federal courts considering habeas corpus proceedings arising out of state convictions is procedural in nature and therefore immediately applicable under the Landgraf v. USI Film Products ⁷ analytic framework.We see no basis for divorcing the remainder of the § 2254amendments--all of which involve standards of review--from the Drinkard application of Landgraf.We hold that the entire amended § 2254 applies to the issues raised by Mata in this case.

2.The Expedited Procedures

Section 107 of AEDPA, entitled "Death Penalty Litigation Procedures," expressly provides that the Expedited Procedures codified in 28 U.S.C. § 2262-2266 are immediately applicable to pending petitions brought by death row prisoners held in state custody.⁸Application of these new procedures, however, is conditioned on the State establishing:

[by]statute, rule of its court of last resort or by another agency authorized by State law, a mechanism for the appointment, compensation and payment of reasonable litigation expenses of competent counsel in state post-convictions proceedings by indigent prisoners....The rule of court or statute must provide standards of competency for the appointment of such counsel.⁹

A state may opt in to the expedited procedures by fulfilling these requirements.Even prior to the enactment of AEDPA, Texas had established a statewide mechanism for the appointment of counsel to represent its burgeoning death row population in post-conviction proceedings.¹⁰

a. Attorney's fees and costs

The AEDPA requires a qualifying state to have established "a mechanism for the ... compensation and payment of reasonable litigation expenses of competent counsel."¹¹The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has adopted strict guidelines limiting compensation to $7,500 and reimbursement of expenses to $2,500 for each appointment made under art. 11.071.Mata contends that these rates are inadequate to ensure the ability of death row inmates to obtain competent counsel to represent them in state habeas proceedings, urging that Texas is therefore disqualified as an opt-in state.In other words, Mata contends that $7,500/$2,500 will not pay the "compensation and reasonable litigation expenses of competent counsel."

We do not find the limits facially inadequate, and Mata has not established any circumstances that would prove the limits inadequate in his case.

b. Standards for ensuring competency of counsel

Mata next argues that Texas has not satisfied the requirement set out...