Mendenhall v. Hopper

• Decision Date: 09 May 1978
• Docket Number: No. CV476-335.,CV476-335.
• Citation: 453 F. Supp. 977
• Parties: Bobby Wayne MENDENHALL, Petitioner v. Joe S. HOPPER, Warden, Georgia State Prison, Respondent.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of Georgia

453 F. Supp. 977

Bobby Wayne MENDENHALL, Petitioner v. Joe S. HOPPER, Warden, Georgia State Prison, Respondent.

No. CV476-335.

United States District Court, S. D. Georgia, Savannah Division.

May 9, 1978.

Edward T. M. Garland, Atlanta, Ga. (Garland, Nuckolls, Kadish, Cook & Weisensee, P. C.), Atlanta, Ga., Gerald Alch, Boston, Mass., for petitioner.

Arthur K. Bolton, Atty. Gen., Richard L. Chambers, John C. Walden, John W. Dunsmore, Jr., Asst. Attys. Gen., Atlanta, Ga., for respondent.

ORDER

LAWRENCE, District Judge.

Petitioner is an inmate at Georgia State Prison in Reidsville. He filed a petition in this Court for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254 on December 20, 1976. Mr. Mendenhall entered a guilty plea on April 24, 1973, in the Superior Court of DeKalb County to two counts of murder in the first degree and one count of aggravated assault. He was sentenced by Judge Clyde Henley to life imprisonment on each murder count and to ten years imprisonment on the aggravated assault charge, the sentences to run concurrently.

Prior to filing his federal habeas petition, Mendenhall sought state habeas corpus relief in the Superior Court of Tattnall County, urging the same grounds now raised in this Court. Mendenhall vs. Hopper, Case No. 75-209. An evidentiary hearing was held before Judge John R. Harvey on January 27, 1976. On June 6, 1976, that Court denied the petition. The Supreme Court of Georgia thereafter denied the request for a certificate of probable cause to appeal from the lower court's ruling. Mr. Mendenhall has exhausted his available state remedies as required by 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b). Martin v. Estelle, 492 F.2d 1120 (5th Cir.), cert. den. 419 U.S. 868, 95 S.Ct. 125, 42 L.Ed.2d 106.

Petitioner's collateral attack on the convictions is based on the following grounds:

(1) His guilty plea was not voluntary and was not based on an intelligent waiver of his rights to a trial properly resolving the issue of his sanity at the time of the alleged offense;

(2) Following Petitioner's release from a pretrial psychiatric examination, the trial court failed to conduct on its own motion an evidentiary hearing to resolve the issue of Mendenhall's sanity at the time of the commission of the acts constituting the crime which failure was a denial of due process of law;

(3) The failure of the Superior Court judge who accepted the plea and imposed punishment to disqualify himself in the proceeding was a deprivation of Petitioner's right of due process.¹

(4) Petitioner was denied effective assistance of counsel in that Petitioner's attorney failed to have him enter a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity and because counsel did not more exhaustively examine the psychiatrist prior to trial in connection with the psychiatric report submitted to the court.

As stated, a hearing on Petitioner's state habeas corpus petition was conducted on January 27, 1976, before Judge Harvey in Tattnall County Superior Court. Findings of fact and conclusions of law were embodied in his Order of June 7, 1976. See Mendenhall vs. Hopper, Case No. 75-209. The transcript and the Order are part of the record.

Under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d), the findings of fact by the state court after a full and fair hearing on the merits are generally presumed to be correct upon federal review unless the proceeding in the state court falls within one of the statutory exceptions which rebut the presumption of reliability. LaVallee v. Delle Rose, 410 U.S. 690, 93 S.Ct. 1203, 35 L.Ed.2d 637 (1973); Townsend v. Sain, 372 U.S. 293, 83 S.Ct. 745, 9 L.Ed.2d 770 (1963); Banda v. Estelle, 519 F.2d 1057 (5th Cir.), cert. den. 423 U.S. 1024, 96 S.Ct. 467, 46 L.Ed.2d 398. Considerations of comity and judicial economy require that federal courts do not hold separate evidentiary hearings where the fact finding on the state level is found to be adequate. West v. Louisiana, 478 F.2d 1026 (5th Cir.).

The transcript and hearing record reveal that the Superior Court of Tattnall County conducted a full and fair hearing on the merits of the issues raised in the same petition. This Court accepts the findings of fact contained in the State court's order.

However, a district judge may not defer to a state court's finding of law on a habeas corpus petition. "It is the district judge's duty to apply the applicable federal law to the state court fact findings independently." Townsend v. Sain, supra, 372 U.S. at 318, 83 S.Ct. at 760; Stone v. Wainwright, 478 F.2d 390 (5th Cir.), rev'd on other grounds, 414 U.S. 21, 94 S.Ct. 190, 38 L.Ed.2d 179; Peters v. Rutledge, 397 F.2d 731 (5th Cir.). There remains only the task of applying federal legal standards to those factual findings.

I

On December 14, 1971, Petitioner fatally wounded two of his neighbors and seriously wounded another by use of a high-powered rifle. The neighbors had voiced opposition to his wife's application for a zoning variance which would allow her to run a beauty shop in their home, and the application had been denied.

One or two days after this tragic incident, Clyde Henley, then a practicing attorney, visited Petitioner at the request of Mrs. Mendenhall. He made no inquiry as to the facts surrounding the charges but inquired only as to Mendenhall's financial status. Mr. Henley declined to take the case and told Mrs. Mendenhall that her husband "was a sick man and needed treatment." (T-80). Subsequently he became a judge of the Superior Court of DeKalb County. Petitioner's guilty plea was entered before Judge Henley.

Thereafter Mr. Charles Edwards was retained by Petitioner. He moved for and was granted a psychiatric evaluation by a Dr. Cohen in Atlanta. Dr. Cohen reported that Mendenhall "suffers from a serious depressive illness with a distinct possibility of suicidal attempt." A Petition for Mental Examination was granted by Judge Clarence Peeler, Jr., of the DeKalb County Superior Court on January 24, 1972. Petitioner was delivered to Central State Hospital in Milledgeville "to be examined as to his sanity on and subsequent to December 14, 1971."

Examination upon admission to Central State Hospital revealed that Mendenhall had a past history of mental disease. Records procured from Grady Memorial Hospital indicated that he had been admitted for one and a half months in 1964, and diagnosed as having a "depressive reaction."

Petitioner stayed at Central State Hospital from January 25, 1972, until March 27, 1973, under the care of Dr. Bosch, Unit Director of the Maximum Security Unit, and others. The court was notified of the diagnosis of schizophrenia, schizo-affective type, with some paranoid trend. On March 21, 1973, fourteen months after admission, the Superior Court of DeKalb County was advised by a letter from Dr. Bosch that the forensic staff had determined that Petitioner's psychosis was in partial remission and that he was competent to advise counsel and assist in the preparation of his defense. The Staff's opinion further stated that "as to his condition at the time of the alleged crime, it is felt that probably he was suffering from an acute psychosis on that date and therefore, he could not control his actions and could not distinguish right from wrong, and this opinion is based upon our examinations, evaluations, and diagnosis given."

Mrs. Mendenhall testified at the State habeas hearing that Mr. Edwards told her that he had received the medical report. She stated that "he said they had used the word, probably, in that report. I do not know what the report said other than probably that he was not responsible for what happened the day that it happened . . the jury could take it either way." (T-86). Mr. Mendenhall testified, "I didn't know anything about it. As far as I knew I was okay and I was headed for the electric chair." (T-110).

Attorney Edwards did not contact the doctors at Central State Hospital in order to discuss the meaning of the report. Dr. Bosch testified at the habeas hearing that he used the word "probably" because "this is something you can never be sure, because you are not there." It was his opinion, based on a reasonable degree of medical certainty, that on the day of the crimes Mr. Mendenhall "was having a compulsive delusion to do that." (T-39). Judge Harvey found that Dr. Bosch was of the "opinion, based on a degree of reasonable medical certainty that Petitioner on the 14th day of December, 1971, the date that the Petitioner shot the three people, could not distinguish right from wrong." (Superior Court Order, p. 4).

When Mendenhall pleaded guilty before Judge Henley in DeKalb Superior Court on April 24, 1973, he responded thusly to the following questions:

"Q. Are you able to hear and understand my statements and questions?

A. I am not well.

Q. You can understand what I am saying?

A. I hope so."

Thereafter the plea of guilty was entered. Mrs. Mendenhall testified that Mr. Edwards whispered the proper responses to her husband. (T-92). His attorney testified that he could not recall doing so but that he could have, as he sometimes does. (T-126).

At the State habeas hearing Mr. Taylor, Assistant District Attorney who participated in the arraignment and sentencing, related a conversation between Judge Henley and Mr. Edwards in which Judge Henley said he "wouldn't have touched the case for less than $15,000.00." (T-94, T-145). Mr. Taylor was aware, at the time the plea was entered, of the report from Central State Hospital and of the testimony that Dr. Bosch would give if called upon. After his sentencing, Petitioner made irrational statements regarding his neighbors. Testimony at the habeas corpus hearing indicated that he feared his neighbors and was suspicious of them.²

II

The United States Supreme Court has ruled that due process requires that a guilty plea must be knowingly, intelligently and voluntarily made and that the court make a determination to this effect before accepting the plea. Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U.S. 238, 89 S.Ct. 1709,...