Matheney v. Anderson, 03-1739.

• Decision Date: 29 July 2004
• Docket Number: No. 03-1739.,03-1739.
• Citation: 377 F.3d 740
• Parties: Alan L. MATHENEY, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Rondle ANDERSON, Respondent-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

377 F.3d 740

Alan L. MATHENEY, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Rondle ANDERSON, Respondent-Appellee.

No. 03-1739.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued December 11, 2003.

Decided July 29, 2004.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Indiana, Allen Sharp, J Alan M. Freedman (Argued), Carol R. Heise, Midwest Center for Justice, Evanston, IL, for Petitioner-Appellant.

Thomas D. Perkins (Argued), Stephen R. Creason, Office of the Attorney General, Indiana Government Center South, Indianapolis, IN, for Respondent-Appellee.

Before BAUER, KANNE, and ROVNER, Circuit Judges.

KANNE, Circuit Judge.

In April of 1990, an Indiana state court jury convicted Alan Matheney of murder and burglary. Agreeing with the jury's recommendation, the trial judge sentenced Matheney to death. Matheney exhausted his state-court direct appeals and post-conviction proceedings. Moving to the federal courts on July 11, 1998, he filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus, which included a claim that he had been incompetent to stand trial. On July 30, 1999, the district court, without a hearing but in a detailed examination of the extensive record, found, among other things, that Matheney was competent to stand trial and denied his habeas petition. On appeal, this court remanded the case to the district court for an evidentiary hearing on issues related to Matheney's incompetency claim.

On November 27, 2002, the district court, in compliance with our directions, held an evidentiary hearing addressing the same matters decided in its Memorandum and Order of 1999, to wit: (1) whether Matheney was competent to stand trial in 1990; (2) whether Matheney's attorneys at his trial were ineffective because they did not demand a competency hearing prior to the trial; and (3) whether the state trial court was obligated to hold a competency hearing sua sponte.

As before, the district court considered the totality of the evidence that pertained to these issues from the trial record, the post-conviction proceedings record, and the federal habeas record, along with some additional evidence submitted by the parties.

It again concluded that Matheney had been competent to stand trial in 1990. Hence, the district court reasoned, his attorneys did not provide ineffective assistance at his trial, and the trial court did not err in failing to sua sponte consider Matheney's competency.

Matheney appeals only the district court's determinations as to his competency and his attorneys' effectiveness. For the reasons stated herein, we affirm the district court's decision to deny the writ.

I. History

The factual and procedural background of this case has been thoroughly laid out in prior opinions. See Matheney v. Anderson, 253 F.3d 1025 (7th Cir.2001) ("Matheney IV"); Matheney v. Anderson, 60 F.Supp.2d 846 (N.D.Ind.1999) ("Matheney III"); Matheney v. Indiana, 688 N.E.2d 883 (Ind.1997) ("Matheney II"); Matheney v. Indiana, 583 N.E.2d 1202 (Ind.1992) ("Matheney I"). It will suffice for present purposes to supply only a brief factual introduction to the relevant issues and refer to prior treatments of the case as necessary.

On March 4, 1989, Matheney took advantage of an eight-hour pass from an Indiana state prison to break into the home of his ex-wife, chase her outside, and brutally bludgeon her to death with a shotgun. Faced with overwhelming evidence linking Matheney to the crimes, Matheney's trial counsel admitted in the first line of his opening statement that Matheney indeed performed this horrific act and subsequently presented the legal defense of insanity. This defense strategy ultimately proved to be unsuccessful.

Shortly after his indictment, his original counsel requested the evaluation of Matheney by court-appointed psychiatrists for the purpose of determining Matheney's competency to stand trial and his mental state at the time of the offense. The incompetency claim and the insanity defense were both premised on Matheney's unique understanding of the events of his life. Matheney was in prison at the time of the murder because he had kidnapped his children and battered his ex-wife. Rather than attributing his imprisonment to his own actions, Matheney blamed a conspiracy between his ex-wife and a prosecutor, whom he believed were having an affair. In preparing for trial (and at his post-conviction proceedings), Matheney insisted that the focus of his defense should be to expose this conspiracy and thereby — by Matheney's reasoning — excuse his crimes.

The defense's early request for a competency examination notwithstanding, the trial court did not order the doctors to address Matheney's competency to stand trial. So, the court-appointed doctors, Dr. Batacan and Dr. Berkson, made no explicit competency findings in their written reports on Matheney's sanity. Instead, the doctors limited their inquiries into whether Matheney was sane under Indiana law at the time of his crimes. The issue of competency was not raised by defense counsel after the initial motion.

Competency to stand trial, however, was addressed five years later by the Indiana trial court in the post-conviction review of Matheney's conviction. A lengthy evidentiary hearing was conducted. The hearing included an ex parte examination of Matheney's counsel by the magistrate, testimony by Matheney himself, and expert testimony.

Along with many other issues, the question of Matheney's competency to stand trial in 1990 was fully reviewed in the trial court's post-conviction proceeding. It was argued that Matheney received ineffective assistance of counsel because his attorneys failed to secure a competency determination prior to his trial. However, in a seventy-nine page "Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law," entered on April 10, 1995, the post-conviction magistrate and judge found to the contrary. We quote extensively from that document:

3.08 Petitioner's Allegation: The petitioner was denied the effective assistance of trial and appellate counsel because counsel failed to notify the court that the petitioner was incompetent to stand trial and was incompetent to proceed on direct appeal. [¶ 9(C)(6).] Conclusion: The petitioner was competent.

The petitioner asserts that he was incompetent at the time of trial and appeal. We note that counsel at the hearing on the petition for post-conviction relief attempted to halt the post-conviction proceedings because of their stated belief that the petitioner remains incompetent. For the reasons discussed below, it is the conclusion of this court that the petitioner is, and always has been, competent.

The petitioner raised the affirmative defense of mental disease or defect at trial. He was examined by a number of mental health professionals who testified at trial. The petitioner's mental condition was no secret from either the trial court or the jury. The decision to raise the affirmative defense was made by the trial attorney who also acted as appellate counsel. Counsel sincerely believed (and continues to believe) that the petitioner had a mental illness. The affirmative defense was pursued at trial for this reason and because part of the petitioner's trial strategy regarding the defense took into account the evidentiary advantage of presenting testimony from the petitioner through third parties without putting him personally on the witness stand. The petitioner was consulted on this strategy and agreed to it.

One thing about the petitioner seems very clear. He is one of the most difficult clients that any lawyer could be obliged to represent. From virtually the day the case was filed, the petitioner has routinely papered the courts with pro se pleadings that have perhaps doubled the volume of the record. They have kept his lawyers scurrying to deal with the collateral problems those pleadings create. The previously cited filing of the pro se motion for change of venue from the county is but one example. As trial counsel has implied, working with the petitioner requires a great deal of patience.

What is the petitioner's problem? First and foremost, he is intensely and narrowly focused on the belief that his ex-wife and the prosecuting attorney in St. Joseph County were having an affair. He believes that he was imprisoned prior to the murder as part of a conspiracy between the putative lovers to keep him out of the way. And finally, he also believes that his capital prosecution for murder was an extension of that conspiracy because the prosecuting attorney wanted to forever silence the petitioner about the affair. The petitioner is so narrowly focused on this alleged conspiracy that he sees the actions of others, including those of the trial court and his own attorneys, as extensions of the conspiracy to keep the affair from being litigated in the courts. He believes that the affair is the only matter worth litigating even now and he has little patience for those who suggest that the affair is irrelevant to the question of whether or not he murdered his ex-wife.

The attorneys for the petitioner at trial, on appeal, and in these proceedings have all had trouble communicating with the petitioner because of his reaction to those he feels are not giving sufficient attention to the conspiracy issue. As appellate counsel tells it, one needs to let the petitioner talk on and on about the things he feels are important before other issues can be discussed. Communication is possible, however, if not efficient. Most significantly, counsel has stated that the petitioner was substantively involved in the trial process even if he wasn't as helpful as another client might have been.

The petitioner alleges that he was and remains incompetent. "Competency" as used here means the ability to understand the nature of the proceedings and assist in the preparation of a defense. It is the conclusion of this court that the petitioner has always been competent because: (1) he understood the nature of the...