Matheney v. State

Decision Date24 November 1997
Docket NumberNo. 45S00-9207-PD-584,45S00-9207-PD-584
PartiesAlan L. MATHENEY, Appellant (Petitioner Below), v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee (Respondent Below).
CourtIndiana Supreme Court

Susan K. Carpenter, Public Defender, J. Jeffreys Merryman, Jr., Steven H. Schutte, Deputy Public Defenders, Indianapolis, for Appellant.

Jeffrey A. Modisett, Attorney General, Arthur Thaddeus Perry, Deputy Attorney General, Indianapolis, for Appellee.

SHEPARD, Chief Justice.

Alan L. Matheney filed a petition for post-conviction relief challenging his conviction and death sentence for the murder of his former wife. Judge Richard J. Conroy denied Matheney's petition, and Matheney appeals. We affirm.

I. Case History

A jury found that in March 1989 Matheney murdered his ex-wife, Lisa Bianco, while on an eight-hour pass from the Correctional Industrial Complex in Pendleton, Indiana, where he was serving a sentence for battery and confinement in connection with a previous assault on Bianco. Following the jury's recommendation, the court sentenced Matheney to death. This Court affirmed Matheney's conviction and sentence. Matheney v. State, 583 N.E.2d 1202 (Ind.1992). This post-conviction proceeding ensued.

II. Burdens in Post-Conviction Relief

Post-conviction procedures do not afford the convicted an opportunity for a "super appeal." Rather, they create a narrower remedy for subsequent collateral challenges to convictions, challenges which must be based on grounds enumerated in the post-conviction rules. Weatherford v. State, 619 N.E.2d 915 (Ind.1993). Petitioners bear the burden of establishing their grounds by a preponderance of the evidence. Ind.Post-Conviction Rule 1, § 5; Weatherford, 619 N.E.2d at 917. When appealing the negative judgment of a post-conviction court, petitioners must show that the evidence, when taken as a whole, "leads unerringly and unmistakably to a conclusion opposite to that reached by the trial court." Weatherford, 619 N.E.2d at 917; Lowe v. State, 455 N.E.2d 1126 (Ind.1983). If the evidence does not unswervingly point in that direction, the decision of the post-conviction court will stand.

III. Due Process Claims

Matheney claims that he was denied a full and fair hearing at the post-conviction court because of Matheney's inability to rationally consult with and assist his post-conviction counsel, the court's refusal to provide the names of the jurors at Matheney's original trial so he could investigate the possibility of juror misconduct, the unconstitutionality of the Lake County Magistrate Act which empowered the magistrate who presided in his case, and bias and prejudice on the part of the magistrate hearing the case.

A. Competency to Proceed with Post-Conviction Petition

Matheney's counsel argue that mental illness prevented Matheney from rationally consulting with them, thus depriving him of a fair post-conviction proceeding. Matheney's counsel filed a motion to stay the post-conviction proceedings due to incompetence, and received an opportunity to testify ex parte, with the agreement of the State, as to why they believed Matheney incompetent. After their testimony, the magistrate asked questions of Matheney. He then recessed the hearing to consult with Judge Conroy on the issue of Matheney's competence, and returned with a decision to deny the motion to stay the proceedings. (P.C.R. at 1359-61.)

Counsel presses two arguments on this front: first, whether or not the facts show Matheney "incompetent," or unable to assist his counsel in the preparation of his case and to understand the nature of the post-conviction proceedings; and second, even if he is "incompetent," whether "competence," as that term is understood in cases addressing a defendant's due process rights at trial, see, e.g., Cooper v. Oklahoma, 517 U.S. 348, 352-356, 116 S.Ct. 1373, 1376-77, 134 L.Ed.2d 498 (1996), applies to post-conviction proceedings. The post-conviction court found against Matheney on both issues. Because we conclude that Matheney's mental state did not make him unable to proceed, we affirm the trial court's factual finding about competence. We therefore leave for another day the Attorney General's plausible contention that a post-conviction petitioner need only be able to assist counsel sufficiently to permit performance adequate under Baum v. State, 533 N.E.2d 1200 (Ind.1989) (holding that postconviction proceedings are not subject to Sixth Amendment or Article I, section 13 guarantees).

The record shows that Matheney believes there to be an organized, systematic conspiracy designed to persecute him, originally spearheaded by his now deceased ex-wife and the prosecutor who tried his criminal battery case. According to his attorneys, Matheney believes this alleged conspiracy to be the only issue relevant to his case, and he will not cooperate with them if he does not find his attorneys' actions or strategic decisions relevant to exposing this conspiracy against him. His counsel and a psychiatrist for the defense claim that Matheney's belief results from a mental disease which causes him to see the world only through a deluded version of reality, namely the conspiracy.

Our review of the record causes us to agree with the post-conviction court's ruling on Matheney's competency. First, Matheney was able to understand the nature of the proceedings against him. Magistrate Page stated,

The repeated pro se criticisms of the attorneys, the courts, and the rulings on the admissibility of evidence, all are in themselves sufficient to support the conclusion that the petitioner has always had a very clear understanding of the nature of the proceedings even if he did not agree with others' opinions of what should be presented in those proceedings.

(P.C.R. at 935-36.) The following colloquy between the magistrate and Matheney supports the court's assessment of Matheney's ability to understand legal strategy and the nature of the proceedings in which he found himself:

Q. Mr. Matheney, do you know who I am?

....

A. Magistrate Page.

Q. And do you know what my function is here?

A. Today you are presiding over this post conviction hearing....

Q. What is a post conviction hearing?

A. The attack of the legalities of your conviction, whether it was legal or illegal, to bring up issues that you feel that a defendant has a right to a new trial or sentence relief or whatever.

....

Q. Your attorneys have filed a Petition for Post Conviction Relief, in which numerous grounds are alleged. Have you had an occasion to read this petition?

A. I read it a couple of times, and I just paid attention to the grounds that pertained to me. There's a lot of stuff in there, statutorily, that they put in everybody's death penalty; and I didn't pay too much attention to, because they've already been ruled on over and over again.

Q. And the doctor said that you felt or seemed to indicate or give the impression that you felt that these issues were frivolous, because the only issue you feel is relevant is the one about [the alleged conspiracy between your wife and the prosecuting attorney at your trial] or this--

A. No. There's a lot of issues in there that I agree with. The only ones that I didn't agree with were the ones that they keep putting in everybody's issue, that the Supreme Court keeps turning down.

....

Q. Well, the general challenges to the death penalty itself?

A. Right, yes.

Q. You feel that those are a waste of time because of the previous rulings of the Supreme Court?

A. Yeah. When I discussed them, they said, well, you never know when you're going to get a new Supreme Court; but a new Supreme Court don't come along often enough in this decade.

Q. Does that seem unreasonable for them to take that position? Have you not seen cases where a court will rule the same way over and over again; and then all of a sudden, along comes the same question and they say, well, now that we think about it, we've changed our mind?

A. Yeah, I've seen cases like that. I just felt that there could have been more issues investigated and put in this than what was.

Q. Your attorneys have suggested that the failure to include additional grounds are a result of you specifically instructing others not to cooperate. Is that the fact of the matter?

A. I believe during this whole thing that they want to investigate my childhood. Well, that has absolutely nothing--what I repeatedly told them, over and over again, is that what you should concentrate on is what had taken place, you know, the death of Lisa Bianco, and what caused it; and we should concentrate on investigating this particular, you know, period of time. Going back to my childhood 30 or 40 years ago, to me, doesn't seem like it's--you know, it's a waste of time, a waste of valuable time. I think time could be better spent on investigating things about the incident itself.

Q. You may not be alone in thinking that. I understand; that argument has been made before.

A. And I also--from what I've read, the courts don't--well, I know the state courts don't put a whole lot of weight on stuff that's, as mitigators, on things that happened 30 or 40 years ago, in my opinion.

(P.C.R. at 1336, 1341-44.) Matheney's responses to the magistrate indicate a clear understanding of the posture of his case and what strategies he and his attorneys sought to employ.

Second, while Matheney may not have cooperated with his lawyers when he disagreed with some of their strategies and may have been an extremely difficult client, they were able to converse with him and provide an adequate post-conviction review of his conviction and sentence. For instance, counsel claims that Matheney would not cooperate in their attempts to ask him questions about his background for purposes of developing potential mitigating evidence. Matheney's uncooperativeness did not arise from an inability to comprehend the situation or a desire to thwart the attempts of his attorneys at every...

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