Mobley v. State

• Decision Date: 21 February 2013
• Docket Number: No. E2010–00379–SC–R11–PC.,E2010–00379–SC–R11–PC.
• Parties: Brandon MOBLEY v. STATE of Tennessee.
• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

397 S.W.3d 70

Brandon MOBLEY

v.STATE of Tennessee.

No. E2010–00379–SC–R11–PC.

Supreme Court of Tennessee,

at Knoxville.

Oct. 5, 2012 Session Heard at Tennessee Wesleyan College.¹

Feb. 21, 2013.

Robert E. Cooper, Jr., Attorney General and Reporter; William E. Young, Solicitor General; Leslie E. Price, Assistant Attorney General; Randall E. Nichols, District Attorney General; and TaKisha Fitzgerald, Assistant District Attorney General, for the appellant, State of Tennessee.

Wade V. Davies, Knoxville, Tennessee, for the appellee, Brandon Mobley.

OPINION

WILLIAM C. KOCH, JR., J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which GARY R. WADE, C.J., JANICE M. HOLDER, CORNELIA A. CLARK, and SHARON G. LEE, JJ., joined.

WILLIAM C. KOCH, JR., J.

This appeal involves a petition for post-conviction relief based on multiple ineffective assistance of counsel claims. The petitioner was convicted in the Criminal Court for Knox County of two counts of premeditated first degree murder, one count of especially aggravated robbery, and one count of setting fire to personal property. His convictions were affirmed and his sentences were modified on direct appeal. State v. Mobley, No. E2006–00469–CCA–R3CD, 2007 WL 1670195 (Tenn.Crim.App. June 11, 2007), perm. app. denied (Tenn. Sept. 24, 2007). Thereafter, the petitioner filed a petition for post-conviction relief based on numerous instances of his trial counsel's alleged ineffective assistance and on several instances of alleged trial court errors. Following a two-day hearing, the post-conviction court dismissed the petition. On appeal, the Court of Criminal Appeals reversed the petitioner's convictions and remanded the case for a new trial after determining that the petitioner's trial counsel had been ineffective with regard to limitations placed on the ability of a defense expert to testify that the petitioner's mental condition rendered him unable to premeditate. Mobley v. State, No. E2010–00379–CCA–R3–PC, 2011 WL 3652535 (Tenn.Crim.App. Aug. 18, 2011). We granted the State's Tenn. R.App. P. 11 application for permission to appeal. We have determined that the petitioner is not entitled to post-conviction relief based on the manner in which his trial counsel dealt with the limitations placed on the defense's expert witness. However, we have also determined that the record does not permit the reviewing courts to determine whether the performance of the petitioner's trial counsel was deficient with regard to the requirement that the petitioner wear a stun belt during the trial. Accordingly, we affirm the judgments of the lower courts denying post-conviction relief based on the alleged errors of the trial court and on all the ineffective assistance of counsel claims except the claims based on the testimony of the defense's mental health expert and the use of the stun belt during the trial. We reverse the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals and affirm the judgment of the post-conviction court with regard to the ineffective assistance of counsel claim based on trial counsel's failure to elicit a specific opinion from the defense's mental health expert. We also reverse the judgment of the lower courts denying the ineffective assistance of counsel claim relating to trial counsel's failure to object to the use of a stun belt during the trial and remand that issue alone to the post-conviction court for a new hearing.

I.

Brandon Mobley was sixteen years old on May 26, 2003, when he shot and killed Joshua Nance, his drug supplier, and Oshalique Hoffman, Mr. Nance's girlfriend. Two weeks earlier, Mr. Mobley, who “sold a substantial amount of drugs to help [his] family,” had obtained $2,000 worth of cocaine from Mr. Nance with the promise that he would pay Mr. Nance in “about a week.” On the day of the shooting, Mr. Mobley had sold only $400 worth of the cocaine and was concerned that Mr. Nance was expecting him to pay $2,000 for the cocaine Mr. Nance had provided him.

Mr. Mobley was carrying a pistol on the day of the shooting.² He met Mr. Nance and Ms. Hoffman in a parking lot several minutes away from Mr. Mobley's home. Ms. Hoffman had driven her car to the parking lot and was sitting in the driver's seat. Mr. Nance was sitting in the front passenger's seat, and Mr. Mobley was sitting in the rear seat on the passenger's side. Mr. Mobley fired one shot from extremely close range into the left side of Mr. Nance's head and fired one shot into the back of Ms. Hoffman's head. After pushing Ms. Hoffman's body out of the automobile, Mr. Mobley drove away from the parking lot in Ms. Hoffman's automobile with Mr. Nance's body still in the front seat. He drove to a nearby church and disposed of Mr. Nance's body in a wooded area by pushing it down a hill.³

Residents near the parking lot observed Mr. Mobley driving away in Ms. Hoffman's automobile. They summoned the authorities after they discovered Ms. Hoffman's body in the parking lot. Near Ms. Hoffman's body, the authorities found a six-shot revolver, identified at trial as belonging to Mr. Mobley, with two spent cartridges and four bullets. Mr. Mobley's fingerprint and Ms. Hoffman's blood were on the revolver.⁴

Later the same day, Mr. Mobley drove Ms. Hoffman's automobile to an acquaintance's home and asked for a bowl of water and towels to clean the automobile's interior. Later, he asked three other acquaintances to follow him as he drove the automobile to an isolated gravel road where he set the automobile on fire. The authorities discovered the burning automobile approximately two hours after being summoned to the scene of the shooting.

When Mr. Mobley returned from the burning car, one of his friends noticed that there were blood spots on Mr. Mobley's clothing and shoes and that Mr. Mobley had a great deal of money. While his friends drove him to a motel, Mr. Mobley told them that he had killed Ms. Hoffman and Mr. Nance after Mr. Nance threatened him.⁵ He also told them that “he'd rather have 12 judging him than six carrying him.” The authorities received a tip that Mr. Mobley was at the motel and arrested him a short distance from the motel as he was trying to escape.

A Knox County grand jury indicted Mr. Mobley with two counts of both premeditated and felony first degree murder for the deaths of Ms. Hoffman and Mr. Nance, one count of especially aggravated robbery of Ms. Hoffman, and one count of setting fire to personal property for the burning of Ms. Hoffman's automobile. The State also gave notice that it intended to seek life sentences without parole.

Mr. Mobley's trial lasted from May 2 through May 6, 2005. His defense at trial was that he had shot Mr. Nance and Ms. Hoffman in self-defense and that the killings had not been premeditated. The State objected to the testimony of Dr. Pamela Auble, the defense's clinical psychologist, particularly her opinion that “because of ... mental illnesses, Mr. Mobley would have been unable to premeditate at the time of the killings.” The trial court initially sustained the State's objection and excluded Dr. Auble's testimony in its entirety.

After the trial court excluded Dr. Auble's testimony, Mr. Mobley himself took the stand. He testified that he knew that Mr. Nance was in the habit of going armed and that Mr. Nance threatened to kill him if he did not pay for the cocaine. Mr. Mobley also testified that he shot Mr. Nance after Mr. Nance laid a gun on the front seat. In addition, he stated that he shot Ms. Hoffman because he thought that she was reaching for a weapon.⁶

Following Mr. Mobley's testimony, the State withdrew its objection to most of Dr. Auble's testimony. The trial court determined that the defense could call Dr. Auble but also that she could not testify that Mr. Mobley's mental illnesses prevented him from being able to “premeditate at the time of the killings.” Accordingly, Dr. Auble took the stand and testified that she had diagnosed Mr. Mobley with recurrent major depression, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and oppositional defiant disorder. She also testified that because of these conditions, Mr. Mobley “tends to act without thinking” and “tends to respond first and then think about what he did later.” With specific reference to the shooting, Dr. Auble opined that Mr. Mobley responded “quickly,” “impulsively,” and “without thinking through what he was doing.” During the State's cross-examination, Dr. Auble conceded that her opinion depended to some degree on the veracity of the information that Mr. Mobley had provided her.

The jury found Mr. Mobley guilty of two counts of premeditated first degree murder, one count of especially aggravated robbery, and one count of setting fire to personal property. The trial court sentenced Mr. Mobley to two consecutive life sentences ⁷ plus twenty-two years. On appeal, the Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the convictions and the sentences for premeditated first degree murder. However, the Court of Criminal Appeals modified the sentences for the remaining convictions from twenty-two years to nineteen years. State v. Mobley, No. E2006–00469–CCA–R3CD, 2007 WL 1670195, at *17 (Tenn.Crim.App. June 11, 2007), perm. app. denied (Tenn. Sept. 24, 2007). The Court of Criminal Appeals also determined that the trial court had erred by initially excluding Dr. Auble's testimony but held that this error was harmless because Dr. Auble was eventually permitted to testify. State v. Mobley, 2007 WL 1670195, at *14.

On April 24, 2008, Mr. Mobley filed a timely pro se petition for post-conviction relief in the Criminal Court for Knox County. The judge who was assigned to hear Mr. Mobley's case was not the same judge who had presided over Mr. Mobley's trial. In his petition, Mr. Mobley asserted that he had received ineffective assistance of counsel at trial and on appeal in twenty-four particulars. He also asserted three instances of prosecutorial misconduct and eleven errors on the part of the trial court, and he contended that the...