Moody v. Johnson

• Decision Date: 16 April 1998
• Docket Number: No. 96-10645,96-10645
• Citation: 139 F.3d 477
• Parties: John Glenn MOODY, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Gary L. JOHNSON, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Institutional Division, Respondent-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 477

139 F.3d 477

John Glenn MOODY, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Gary L. JOHNSON, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Institutional Division, Respondent-Appellee.

No. 96-10645.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

April 16, 1998.

Raoul Dieter Schonemann, Austin, TX, for Moody.

Douglas A. Danzeiser, Austin, TX, for Respondent-Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas.

Before DAVIS, JONES and DUHE, Circuit Judges.

EDITH H. JONES, Circuit Judge:

Petitioner John Glenn Moody appeals from the judgment of the district court denying his request for habeas relief. Moody's issues center around claims that he was incompetent to stand trial and that the state's expert witnesses on future dangerousness, Dr. Grigson and Dr. Griffith, testified falsely. We affirm.

FACTUAL BACKGROUND

Moody was convicted of killing Maureen Maulden, a 77-year-old widow for whom Moody occasionally did yard work. Mrs. Maulden's body was discovered in her home in Abilene, Texas by her sister on July 4, 1988; she was nude with a telephone cord wrapped tightly around her neck. Her dentures were loose and later tests detected the presence of spermatozoa in her mouth, indicating that she had been orally sodomized. Her home had been ransacked, and her purse as well as two rings which she normally wore were missing.

The day after Mrs. Maulden's body was discovered, Moody was arrested by local authorities on an unrelated charge of public intoxication. At the time of his arrest, he had in his possession the two rings missing from Mrs. Maulden. Testimony at Moody's trial indicated that a bloody fingerprint found on Mrs. Maulden's telephone belonged to Moody and that Mrs. Maulden's neighbors had seen a vehicle resembling Moody's wife's car driving slowly through the neighborhood and parked in Mrs. Maulden's driveway on the day of the murder.

On February 28, 1989, a jury convicted Moody of capital murder and sentenced him to death. His conviction and sentence were affirmed by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. See Moody v. State, 827 S.W.2d 875 (Tex.Crim.App.), cert. denied, 506 U.S. 839, 113 S.Ct. 119, 121 L.Ed.2d 75 (1992). In April of 1993, Moody, while represented by counsel, filed a state application for writ of habeas corpus, in which he raised fourteen claims. The state court denied him relief on September 27, 1993. In December of 1993, Moody again petitioned for state habeas relief, raising six additional claims. He was again denied relief.

On March 3, 1994, Moody filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus below, raising 23 grounds for relief. The magistrate judge conducted a five-day evidentiary hearing on Moody's request for federal habeas relief, after which he recommended denial on all grounds. The district court adopted the recommendation of the magistrate judge and denied Moody's claims. After Moody timely filed a notice of appeal and applied for a certificate of probable cause ("CPC") with the district court, the district court granted both a certificate of appealability ("COA") and CPC. ¹

DISCUSSION

In an appeal from a request for habeas relief, we review a district court's findings of fact for clear error and issues of law de novo. See Barnard v. Collins, 958 F.2d 634, 636 (5th Cir.1992), cert. denied, 506 U.S. 1057, 113 S.Ct. 990, 122 L.Ed.2d 142 (1993).

A. COMPETENCY TO STAND TRIAL

Moody first complains that at his state court trial his right to due process of law was violated because he was tried while incompetent. "It is well settled that due process prohibits prosecution of a defendant who is not competent to stand trial." Washington v. Johnson, 90 F.3d 945, 949-50 (5th Cir.1996) (citing Cooper v. Oklahoma, 517 U.S. 348, 355, 116 S.Ct. 1373, 1377, 134 L.Ed.2d 498 (1996)), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 117 S.Ct. 1259, 137 L.Ed.2d 338 (1997). The constitutional standard for competency to stand trial is whether the defendant "has sufficient present ability to consult with his lawyer with a reasonable degree of rational understanding--and whether he has a rational as well as a factual understanding of the proceedings against him."

Carter v. Johnson, 131 F.3d 452, 459 (5th Cir.1997)(quoting Dusky v. United States, 362 U.S. 402, 80 S.Ct. 788, 4 L.Ed.2d 824 (1960)); see Washington, 90 F.3d at 950. Before the federal district court has a duty to investigate a habeas petitioner's claim of incompetency, the petitioner must show that there are sufficient facts to " 'positively, unequivocally and clearly generate a real, substantial and legitimate doubt as to the mental capacity of the petitioner to meaningfully participate and cooperate with counsel during trial.' " Washington, 90 F.3d at 950 (quoting Bruce v. Estelle, 536 F.2d 1051, 1058-59 (5th Cir.1976)). Once the petitioner has presented enough probative evidence to raise a substantial doubt as to his competency at the time of trial, he must then prove that incompetency by a preponderance of the evidence. See id. (citing Bruce, 536 F.2d at 1059).

In Moody's case, whether the magistrate judge determined that Moody had presented enough probative evidence to raise a substantial doubt as to his competency at the time of his trial is unclear. In any event, the court held an evidentiary hearing which lasted for five days. At the conclusion of that hearing, the court ruled, first, that Moody had shown no basis to overcome the presumption of correctness afforded state court findings and, second, that even if he considered the evidence from the evidentiary hearing, Moody did not prove that he was incompetent at the time of his trial.

Moody complains that the court erred in according the presumption of correctness to the state court determination of competence because (a) competency is a mixed question of law and fact that must be reviewed de novo by federal habeas courts and (b) the presumption cannot apply where the state courts plainly failed to adjudicate Moody's claim. Additionally, he asserts, the court's alternative denial of relief on the merits was wrong. Each of these arguments is seriously flawed.

No caselaw in the Supreme Court or in this circuit requires a federal habeas court to review de novo the state court's determination of competency to stand trial. See Carter, 131 F.3d at 460 (habeas petitioner is entitled to federal evidentiary hearing only by offering clear and convincing evidence of a threshold doubt of competency). In this case, the magistrate judge, barraged with evidence that was not fully and timely presented to the state courts, elected to conduct an evidentiary hearing. He was not inevitably required to do so, however, and he was not bound, after having conducted the hearing, to deny the presumption of correctness. See id.

Second, it is bold indeed for Moody to assert that there should be no presumption of correctness because the state court never adjudicated competency. Any lack of adjudication was largely his fault. He raised competency in his second habeas petition, describing in general terms his experience of parental neglect and abuse, his chronic addiction to mind-altering substances, a family history of brain aneurysms, and the conclusions of unspecified mental health experts, then-recently retained, that he suffers from mental illness, paranoid delusions, and brain damage. These experts concluded, according to the generalized allegations of the petition, that Moody was unable rationally to consult with trial counsel.

The state's response to this state petition cited Bruce v. Estelle, supra, for the proposition that a petitioner who after the fact claims incompetency to stand trial has a heavy burden of proof and then noted:

Moody merely states conclusions that he may have had genetically transmitted brain aneurysms and mental illness, that a CAT SCAN in 1984 detected a likely brain aneurysm. He does not present any evidence that he was suffering from brain damage that rendered him incompetent at the time of trial. Mr. Moody points to post-conviction evaluations in asserting that he suffers brain damage and mental illness. Furthermore, Moody does not offer The state habeas court and Texas Court of Criminal Appeals adopted the state's response and denied relief on the record before them. Although Moody does not admit it, this is a finding that he did not carry his burden of proof of incompetency at trial. A state court's finding against a habeas petitioner is not deprived of the presumption of correctness simply because the petitioner disagrees with the state court's finding. ²

any evidence in the form of affidavits or test results, he merely promises to present some unspecified expert testimony at a hearing to support a showing of actual incompetence at the time of trial. Because Moody has not met his burden, relief should be denied. (citations to Moody's pleadings omitted.)

But even if we accepted Moody's contention that the presumption of correctness does not apply, we would still affirm the district court's denial of relief on the merits. We review a district court's decision regarding the competency of a petitioner to stand trial, when a hearing has been conducted in federal court, as a mixed question of law and fact:

Whether a [p]etitioner suffers from a mental disorder or incapacitating mental illness is a question of fact reviewed under the clearly erroneous standard. However, we take a "hard look" at the ultimate competency finding.

Washington, 90 F.3d at 951 (citations omitted).

A review of the testimony presented at the evidentiary hearing--including evidence from Moody's own expert witnesses--indicates that at the time of Moody's trial, he had sufficient present ability to consult with his counsel with a reasonable degree of rational understanding and that Moody had a rational as well as a factual understanding of the proceedings against him. It is unnecessary to analyze all the evidence presented at the federal hearing. Moody relied on various experts who based...