Menzies v. Powell

• Decision Date: 07 November 2022
• Docket Number: 19-4042
• Parties: RALPH LEROY MENZIES, Petitioner - Appellant, v. ROBERT POWELL, Warden of the Utah State Penitentiary, Respondent - Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit

RALPH LEROY MENZIES, Petitioner - Appellant, v. ROBERT POWELL, Warden of the Utah State Penitentiary, Respondent - Appellee.

No. 19-4042

United States Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit

November 7, 2022

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Utah (D.C. No. 2:03-CV-00902-CVE-FHM)

Lindsey Layer, Assistant Federal Public Defender (Jon M Sands, Federal Public Defender, and Eric Zuckerman, Assistant Federal Public Defender, with her on the briefs), Phoenix Arizona, for Petitioner-Appellant.

Erin Riley, Assistant Solicitor General (Sean D. Reyes, Utah Attorney General, Andrew F. Peterson and Aaron G. Murphy Assistant Solicitors General, with her on the briefs), Salt Lake City Utah, for RespondentAppellee.

Before HARTZ, BACHARACH, and EID, Circuit Judges.

BACHARACH, CIRCUIT JUDGE.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Mr. Menzies's Murder Conviction and Sentence

2. Appellate and Post-Conviction Proceedings

3. Federal Habeas Proceedings

4. Standard of Review

5. The Utah Supreme Court reasonably rejected Mr. Menzies's claims of ineffective assistance of counsel during the guilt phase

5.1 Standard for Obtaining Relief Based on Ineffective Assistance of Counsel

5.2 Identification Testimony at Trial

5.2.1 Photo Arrays

5.2.2 Identification of Objects

5.2.3 Lineup

5.3 The Utah Supreme Court's Disposition of Claims Involving Identification Testimony

5.4 Mr. Menzies's Challenges to the Utah Supreme Court's Decision

5.4.1 The Photo Arrays

5.4.1.1 Deficiency

5.4.1.1.1 Statement that a Suspect was Already in Custody

5.4.1.1.2 Second Viewing of the Photo Array

5.4.1.1.3 Lack of an Admonition

5.4.1.1.4 False Dichotomy

5.4.2 The Lineup

5.4.3 The Identification of Objects

5.4.4 Failure to Investigate the Account of Mr. Larrabee and His Girlfriend

5.5 Failure to Challenge the Testimony of Walter Britton

5.5.1 The Utah Supreme Court's Disposition of the Claim

5.5.2 Mental-Health Evidence

5.5.3 Benefits from Testimony

5.5.4 Mr. Benitez's Statement

5.5.4.1 Procedural Default

5.5.4.2 Merits

6. The trial court's instruction on reasonable doubt constituted a reasonable application of Supreme Court precedent and conformed to the Constitution

6.1 Reasonableness of the Utah Supreme Court's Decision

6.1.1 Substantial Doubt

6.1.2 Willingness to Act

6.2 Absence of a Constitutional Violation

7. The Utah Supreme Court reasonably rejected Mr. Menzies's claim of ineffective assistance of counsel during sentencing

7.1 The Evidence Presented in State Court

7.2 Mr. Menzies's Theories of Ineffectiveness

7.3 The Attorney's Duty to Investigate

7.4 Bar to Considering Evidence Presented in Federal Court

7.5 Delayed Investigation of the Mitigating Evidence

7.6 Failure to Investigate Other Mitigating Evidence

7.7 Failure to Present Evidence of Organic Brain Damage

8. The Utah Supreme Court acted reasonably in rejecting Mr. Menzies's challenges to the admissibility of documents from his prison file

8.1 The Utah Supreme Court reasonably concluded that introduction of mental-health evaluations had not violated the Fifth Amendment

8.2 Introduction of Mr. Menzies's prison file did not deny the right to confrontation, constitute a denial of due process, or entail cruel and unusual punishment

8.2.1 Confrontation Clause

8.2.2 Due Process

8.2.3 Cruel and Unusual Punishment

9. The Utah Supreme Court reasonably concluded that the trial court had not violated the Constitution by relying on uncharged aggravating circumstances

9.1 Utah law allowed the prosecution to allege additional aggravating circumstances at sentencing

9.2 Mr. Menzies obtained adequate notice of the aggravating circumstances bearing on the sentence 9.3 The prosecution did not need to prove each aggravating circumstance beyond a reasonable doubt

9.4 The Utah Supreme Court didn't violate any constitutional rights by omitting discussion of two aggravating circumstances from the analysis of harmless error

10. The Utah Supreme Court reasonably rejected Mr. Menzies's challenge to the constitutionality of the aggravating circumstances

10.1 Aggravating Circumstances for Murders that are Heinous, Atrocious, and Cruel

10.1.1 Merits

10.1.2 Consideration of Mitigating Factors

10.2 Sufficiency of the Evidence on Aggravating Circumstances

10.3 Reasonable jurists could reject Mr. Menzies's involving reliance on duplicative aggravating circumstances

11. In rejecting Mr. Menzies's challenges involving errors in the trial transcript, the Utah Supreme Court reasonably applied Supreme Court precedent and found the pertinent facts

11. 1 The Utah courts provided the parties with an opportunity to correct errors in the trial transcript

11.2 The trial court found no constitutional violation, and the record contained two versions of the transcript

11.3 The Utah Supreme Court upheld the trial court's ruling that the transcript was accurate enough for a meaningful appeal 11.4 The Utah Supreme Court's decision was not based on an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law

11.5 The Utah Supreme Court did not base its decision on an unreasonable determination of fact

11.5.1 Reliance on the Docketing Statement

11.5.2 Failure to Provide a Sufficient Transcript of Voir Dire

11.5.3 Omission of a Conference Outside the Jury's Presence

11.5.4 Additions by the Note Reader

11.5.5 Errors Involving Numbers

12. A certificate of appealability is unwarranted on the admissibility at trial of Mr. Britton's testimony from the preliminary hearing

12.1 Standard for a Certificate of Appealability

12.2 Mr. Britton's Unavailability

12.3 Reliability

13. Conclusion Mr. Ralph Leroy Menzies was convicted of first-degree murder in Utah state court and sentenced to death. The Utah Supreme Court affirmed the denial of his motion for a new trial, State v. Menzies, 845 P.2d 220, 242 (Utah 1992), and then affirmed his conviction and death sentence, State v. Menzies, 889 P.2d 393, 396 (Utah 1994). Mr. Menzies sought postconviction relief, but the state courts rejected his claims. Menzies v. Galetka, 150 P.3d 480, 489 (Utah 2006); Menzies v. State, 344 P.3d 581, 588 (Utah 2014).

The state court decisions led Mr. Menzies to seek habeas relief in federal court. The federal district court denied relief, prompting Mr. Menzies to appeal. We affirm.

In this appeal, we address eight issues:

1. Ineffective assistance of trial counsel in the guilt phase.

To establish ineffective assistance of counsel, a criminal defendant must show that his Attorney's performance was deficient and prejudicial. Mr. Menzies argued to the Utah Supreme Court that his counsel had been deficient by failing to

• move for suppression of identification testimony,

• investigate the accounts from prosecution witnesses identifying Mr. Menzies, and

• challenge the admissibility of testimony from the preliminary hearing.

Although these three challenges weren' t made, Mr Menzies's trial counsel undermined the prosecution's case in other ways. Counsel pointed out that the witnesses couldn't definitively identify Mr. Menzies and challenged the credibility of the prosecution's witnesses. Given these challenges to the prosecution's case, the Utah Supreme Court concluded that trial counsel's performance was neither deficient nor prejudicial. Habeas relief is warranted only if this conclusion constituted an unreasonable application of the United States Supreme Court's precedent. Under this standard, habeas relief was unwarranted because the state appellate court had reasonably applied the United States Supreme Court's precedents.

2. Jury instruction on reasonable doubt. Under the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause, a trial court must instruct the jury that the prosecution bears the burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The trial court gave this instruction, adding that the doubt must be substantial and real rather than imaginary. The Utah Supreme Court determined that this additional explanation hadn't tainted the jury instruction. This determination constituted a reasonable application of the United States Supreme Court's precedents.

3. Ineffective assistance of counsel in the sentencing phase. At the sentencing phase, counsel's performance may be deficient if the attorney fails to conduct a thorough investigation of mitigating circumstances. Mr. Menzies's attorneys conducted a reasonably thorough investigation. So the Utah Supreme Court reasonably rejected Mr. Menzies's claim of ineffective assistance in the sentencing phase.

4. Introduction of statements made during psychiatric evaluations. The United States Supreme Court has not interpreted the Fifth Amendment to bar admission of a defendant's un-Mirandized statements made during psychiatric evaluations preceding the charged crime. The psychiatric evaluations-conducted without Miranda warnings-had preceded the alleged murder. So the Utah Supreme Court reasonably rejected Mr. Menzies's Fifth Amendment challenge to the introduction of his statements for his psychiatric evaluations.

5. Introduction of Mr. Menzies's prison file. The trial court allowed the prosecution to use Mr. Menzies's prison file at the sentencing stage, and the Utah Supreme Court upheld this ruling. And the Supreme Court has not • applied the Sixth Amendment's Confrontation Clause to sentencing proceedings or

• found a violation of due process from the introduction of false or misleading prison records.

Given the absence of governing precedent, the Utah Supreme Court acted reasonably in concluding that the introduction of the prison file hadn't violated Mr. Menzies's rights to confrontation or due process.

6. Notice of aggravating circumstances. A defendant has a right to notice of aggravating circumstances. The Utah Supreme Court concluded that the State had satisfied this right

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