Mitchell v. Ward

• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Oklahoma
• Writing for the Court: Ralph G. Thompson
• Citation: Mitchell v. Ward, 150 F.Supp.2d 1194 (W.D. Okla. 1999)
• Decision Date: 27 August 1999
• Docket Number: No. CIV-97-283-T.,CIV-97-283-T.
• Parties: Alfred Brian MITCHELL, Petitioner, v. Ron WARD, Warden, Oklahoma State Penitentiary, Respondent.

150 F.Supp.2d 1194

Alfred Brian MITCHELL, Petitioner, v. Ron WARD, Warden, Oklahoma State Penitentiary, Respondent.

No. CIV-97-283-T.

United States District Court, W.D. Oklahoma.

August 27, 1999.

As corrected September 3, 1999.

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Randy A. Bauman, Federal Public Defender's Office, Rand C. Eddy, Eddy & Jones, Oklahoma City, OK, for petitioner.

Alfred Brian Mitchell, Oklahoma State Penitentiary, McAlester, OK, pro se.

William L. Humes, Office of the Attorney General, Oklahoma City, OK, for respondent.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

RALPH G. THOMPSON, Senior District Judge.

Alfred Brian Mitchell ("Petitioner" or "Mitchell") petitions the Court for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254. Petitioner appears through counsel and challenges his convictions and death sentence from the District Court of Oklahoma County, Case No. CRF-91-206. Respondent has responded to the petition and Petitioner has replied. The Court has reviewed the arguments and the law, as well as the state court record.¹ In addition, the Court held an evidentiary hearing on August 6, 1999, during which testimony and exhibits were received and considered.

Petitioner was tried by a jury in June 1992. He was convicted of Count I: murder in the first degree; Count II: robbery with a dangerous weapon; Count III: larceny of an automobile; Count IV: rape in the first degree; and Count V: forcible anal sodomy. The jury recommended a sentence of death for Count I, 30 years imprisonment for Count II, 20 years imprisonment for Count III, 100 years imprisonment for Count IV and 20 years imprisonment for Count V. Petitioner was formally sentenced, in accordance with the jury's recommendation, on July 10, 1992.

I. Factual Background.

Because 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(1) requires that this Court that presume all factual issues determined by the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals are correct, the findings of the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals will be relied upon as the factual background for this Memorandum Opinion. The following quoted factual background is from the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals' opinion on Petitioner's direct appeal. Additional factual information is provided throughout this memorandum in connection with the legal issues to which the facts are relevant.²

Mitchell was released from the Lloyd Rader Center juvenile correctional facility when he reached his 18th birthday on December 23, 1990.³ He returned to his family home in Oklahoma City, near the Pilot Recreation Community Center ("Center"). The Center served disadvantaged youth in the neighborhood of 1435 N.W. Second Street. Elaine Scott, a student at the University of Oklahoma, volunteered at the Pilot Center and was at work with the Center's director, Carolyn Ross, on January 7, 1991. The Center's roof was leaking badly due to earlier heavy rains and ice storms; the Center gym was closed. About 1:35 p.m., as Ross left the Center, she met Mitchell in the hallway. They had a brief discussion during which Ross explained she was leaving but that Scott could show Mitchell the Center library. Allen Biggs, an Oklahoma City ("City") municipal roofing crew supervisor, arrived at the Center about 1:45 to check on the roof leaks. Mitchell met Biggs at the door and told him they were cleaning bathrooms, the Center was closed, and that a City crew had already placed trash buckets under the gym roof leaks. Biggs testified he felt Mitchell did not want him to enter the Center. Between 1:00 and 2:00 p.m., Velma Kibbey saw a black man in a red⁴ knit cap leave the Center in Scott's car. Jessie Richards and another City worker reached the Center about 2:20; they entered the deserted Center, went straight to the gym, and spent about half an hour mopping and setting out buckets. Ross returned about 2:50 p.m. She noticed the door was not properly fastened, called out for Scott, and, through the glass in the office door, saw Scott's nude body facedown in a pool of blood. Scott's car was abandoned several blocks away.⁵

During that day's investigation Billy Tuimalu directed police to Mitchell, saying Mitchell, wearing white tennis shoes and a red or orange cap, had been at the Center that day.

Mitchell v. State, 884 P.2d 1186, 1191-92 (Okla.Crim.App.1994), cert. denied 516 U.S. 827, 116 S.Ct. 95, 133 L.Ed.2d 50 (1995).

II. Procedural History.

Following Petitioner's sentencing, he filed his direct appeal with the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals. That appeal became at issue on March 11, 1994. The judgment and sentence entered in the trial court was affirmed on October 18, 1994. Mitchell v. State, 884 P.2d at 1186, 1191. The United States Supreme Court denied certiorari on October 2, 1995. See, Mitchell v. Oklahoma, 516 U.S. 827, 116 S.Ct. 95, 133 L.Ed.2d 50 (1995). Petitioner filed his Application for Post-Conviction Relief in the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals on July 1, 1996. His application was denied on February 27, 1997. Mitchell v. State, 934 P.2d 346 (Okla.Crim.App.1997). The Supreme Court denied certiorari on June 23, 1997. See, Mitchell v. Oklahoma, 521 U.S. 1108, 117 S.Ct. 2489, 138 L.Ed.2d 996 (1997).

On August 4, 1997, Petitioner filed his Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus by a Person in State Custody in this Court. The petition contains eighteen grounds for relief. Petitioner later filed supplemental briefs, advancing three additional grounds for relief. The grounds advanced by Mitchell are:

1. Mr. Mitchell was found competent to stand trial under an unconstitutional standard of proof in violation of the Sixth, Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments; 2. Admission of Mr. Mitchell's statement into evidence at trial violated his constitutional rights;

3. Mr. Mitchell's due process rights were violated by the trial court's instruction which permitted the jury to disregard the police's failure to record a portion of his statement;

4. Evidence obtained pursuant to search and evidence obtained from blood, hair and saliva should have been suppressed;

5. Mr. Mitchell's rights to present a defense, to a fair trial, and to a reliable determination of sentence were violated when a police officer was allowed to testify Mr. Mitchell was "disassociating" and Mr. Mitchell was not allowed to introduce contrary testimony;

6. The evidence was insufficient to establish the decedent was sexually assaulted;

7. Mr. Mitchell was denied his Sixth Amendment right to confrontation by the Trial Court's refusal to permit counsel to impeach the State's witness, Joyce Gilchrist;

8. Mr. Mitchell's Sixth Amendment rights were violated when defense counsel was prohibited from cross examining State witness Michael Harjochee about his sexual relationship with the decedent;

9. Prosecutorial misconduct in both stages of trial violated Mr. Mitchell's rights to a fair and impartial trial under the Fourteenth and Eighth Amendments to the United States Constitution;

10. Mr. Mitchell's constitutional rights were violated when the trial court refused his requested instructions on lesser-included offenses of manslaughter and murder in the second degree;

11. The "continuing threat" aggravating circumstances is unconstitutionally vague in its statutory definition and in the instructions given to Mr. Mitchell's jury;

12. The "heinous, atrocious or cruel" aggravating circumstance continues to operate outside constitutional bounds;

13. The "avoid arrest" aggravating circumstance is constitutionally infirm;

14. Fundamental error in the sentencing instructions deprived Mr. Mitchell of his constitutional rights to an individualized sentencing proceeding, to be free from the arbitrary imposition of the death penalty, and to a meaningful appellate review of his death sentence;

15. Admission of the victim impact evidence in this case violated the Ex Post Facto clause and other provisions of the Constitution;

16. Mr. Mitchell's constitutional rights were violated when the Trial Court refused to give the jury a cautionary instruction on informer testimony as requested by the defense;

17. The Trial Court's denial of Mr. Mitchell's request for allocution violated his constitutional rights under the Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments;

18. The Trial Court erred in not granting the defense motion to quash the jury panel where certain cognizable classes of citizens were directly or indirectly excluded from the pool of jurors in violation of the Constitution.

19. Mitchell's nineteenth ground is contained in a supplemental brief, filed on May 26, 1998. Mitchell did not title this ground for relief, but it is based on the argument that the State violated Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963) and Giglio v. United States, 405 U.S. 150, 92 S.Ct. 763, 31 L.Ed.2d 104 (1972) when it did not disclose exculpatory information regarding the rape and sodomy charges.

20. Sentencing evidence was double counted improperly in support of two aggravating circumstances.

21. The sentencing jury was not informed adequately of the meaning of the life without parole sentencing option, in violation of Simmons v. South Carolina, 512 U.S. 154, 114 S.Ct. 2187 (1994).

III. Application of the AEDPA to the Review of the State Court Decision.

The AEDPA Applies to the Present Case. The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (the "AEDPA") became law on April 24, 1996. The AEDPA significantly changed 28 U.S.C. § 2254, which governs the scope of this Court's review of the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals' findings and decision.

Petitioner argues that, because the alleged constitutional violations for which he seeks relief occurred prior to April 24, 1996, and because he filed his appeal in the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals prior to April 24, 1996, the AEDPA does not apply to his case. Respondent claims that, because Petitioner's petition was filed after the effective date of the AEDPA, the...