Murdaugh v. Ryan

• Citation: 724 F.3d 1104
• Decision Date: 26 July 2013
• Docket Number: No. 10–99020.,10–99020.
• Parties: Michael Joe MURDAUGH, Petitioner–Appellant, v. Charles L. RYAN, Respondent–Appellee.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (9th Circuit)

724 F.3d 1104

Michael Joe MURDAUGH, Petitioner–Appellant,

v.Charles L. RYAN, Respondent–Appellee.

No. 10–99020.

United States Court of Appeals,Ninth Circuit.

Argued and Submitted Feb. 13, 2013.

Filed July 26, 2013.

Paula K. Harms (argued) and Therese M. Day, Federal Public Defender's Office, Phoenix, AZ, for Petitioner–Appellant.

Jeffrey A. Zick (argued), Arizona Attorney General's Office, Phoenix, AZ, for Respondent–Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Arizona, Frederick J. Martone, District Judge, Presiding. D.C. No. 2:09–CV–00831–FJM.

Before: DOROTHY W. NELSON, STEPHEN REINHARDT, and MILAN D. SMITH, JR., Circuit Judges.

OPINION

NELSON, Senior Circuit Judge:

Petitioner Michael Joe Murdaugh appeals the denial of his federal habeas petition, which challenges his murder conviction and death sentence. Murdaugh claims that the district court erred in denying claims brought pursuant to Ring v. Arizona, 536 U.S. 584, 122 S.Ct. 2428, 153 L.Ed.2d 556 (2002), and Tennard v. Dretke, 542 U.S. 274, 124 S.Ct. 2562, 159 L.Ed.2d 384 (2004), as well as claims raising other errors by the state court and the ineffective assistance of counsel. Murdaugh also argues that the district court erred in deeming various claims procedurally defaulted. We grant relief on Murdaugh's Ring claim and reserve judgment on Murdaugh's claims about his competence to waive the presentation of mitigating evidence. We otherwise affirm the district court.

I. Background

1. The Murders of David Reynolds and Douglas Eggert

On June 26, 1995, Murdaugh's girlfriend, Rebecca Rohrs, met David Reynolds at a gas station.¹ She told him she was looking for a job, and they exchanged phone numbers. The conversation took a sordid turn when Reynolds offered to pay Rohrs to perform oral sex. Rohrs declined, returned home, and described the encounter to Murdaugh. Murdaugh decided “to teach Reynolds a lesson,” and told Rohrs to invite him over. Murdaugh then left with his friend Jesse Dezarn to buy methamphetamine, instructing Rohrs to page them as soon as Reynolds arrived.

When they learned that Reynolds had arrived, Murdaugh and Dezarn quickly returned to the house, brandishing firearms. While Murdaugh confronted Reynolds, Rohrs and her friend Betty Gross looted Reynolds's plumbing van outside. Murdaugh eventually came out of the house and reprimanded them for not wearing gloves and leaving fingerprints on everything. He exclaimed, “Do you know what I am going to have to do now?”

Later that night, Murdaugh took Reynolds to his garage and ordered him into the trunk of his car. Murdaugh, Dezarn, Gross, and Rohrs all returned to the garage throughout the night to use methamphetamine.

In the early hours of the next morning, Murdaugh and Dezarn decided to abandon Reynolds's van near a cemetery. While stopping for gas on the way back to the house, they ran into an acquaintance, Ron Jesse. They asked Jesse for drugs, and he returned to the house with them. Dezarn and Jesse then left the house to buy more methamphetamine. Upon their return, Murdaugh, Dezarn, and Jesse began using methamphetamine in the garage. At around 8:30 AM, Gross and Rohrs joined them, and the group continued taking drugs.

While they were all in the garage, Murdaugh opened the trunk of his car to show Jesse that he was holding Reynolds inside. At this point, Reynolds asked to use the bathroom. Murdaugh led Reynolds to a corner of the garage to urinate, and while Reynolds's back was turned, Murdaugh struck him on the head with a meat tenderizer. Reynolds fell to the ground, and Murdaugh picked up a metal jackhammer spike and continued to hit him in the face and head. Three major crushing blows to Reynolds's skull killed him. Murdaugh then instructed Gross and Rohrs to sprinkle horse manure over the body and the surrounding blood.

At some point after the murder, Jesse attempted to leave Murdaugh's property but could not because the gate was locked. Murdaugh approached Jesse and threatened him, saying that if he told anyone what happened, Murdaugh would “kill [Jesse] last and peel the skin off his children.”

That evening, Murdaugh and Dezarn loaded Reynolds's body into Murdaugh's horse trailer. Murdaugh told Rohrs to clean up the blood in the garage and then left to go camping. At the campsite, Murdaugh dismembered Reynolds's body in an effort to prevent identification of the remains. He cut off Reynolds's head and hands, sliced off Reynolds's finger pads, and pulled out Reynolds's teeth. As he was driving to a separate site to bury the body, he threw the teeth and finger pads from the window of his truck. He then buried the head and hands in one shallow grave and the torso in another.

Over the next several days, the police began investigating Reynolds's disappearance. The police found Reynolds's van, obtained copies of Reynolds's cell phone records, and then contacted Rohrs. The police also interviewed Jesse, who told them he had witnessed Reynolds's murder. The police obtained a search warrant for Murdaugh's home and garage and found the scene exactly as Murdaugh had left it. The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office put out an alert notifying law enforcement agencies that they were looking for Murdaugh.

Investigators ultimately tracked down Murdaugh after he checked himself into an emergency room for a knife wound he sustained while cleaning one of his horses's hooves. After waiving his Miranda rights, Murdaugh confessed to the murder and told the detectives where to find Reynolds's body. Because Reynolds's murder was similar to the previous murder of a victim named Douglas Eggert, the police asked Murdaugh if he had ever done anything like this before. Murdaugh then admitted to killing Eggert by beating him to death with a meat tenderizer.

2. Conviction

An Arizona grand jury charged Murdaugh with first degree murder, kidnapping, aggravated robbery, and aggravated assault in connection with Reynolds's death. It also charged Murdaugh with the first-degree murder and kidnapping of Eggert. The state appointed Jess Lorona to represent Murdaugh.

In November 1998, the trial court ordered a competency screening of Murdaugh. Dr. Jack Potts, a forensic psychologist, noted that Murdaugh held some fringe beliefs but expressed a desire to plead guilty to avoid putting his family and those of the victims through a trial. Dr. Potts concluded that Murdaugh was aware of the charges against him and understood both his constitutional rights and the consequences of pleading guilty.

The court then appointed Drs. Scialli and Sindelar to assess Murdaugh's competence. Both found Murdaugh competent to plead guilty. The parties stipulated that the court could determine Murdaugh's competency on the basis of these reports. The trial court then found Murdaugh competent.

Around this time, Murdaugh repeatedly requested a skull x-ray because he believed that a tracking device had been implanted in his head. The deputy district attorney, Mark Barry, asked the court to order the skull x-ray. He argued that the x-ray would reassure Murdaugh that no tracking device existed and that it would “alleviate any potential coercive allegations raised at any future plea proceedings.” The trial court granted the request.

In May 1999, the trial court ordered a competency screening to reevaluate Murdaugh. Dr. Potts submitted a screening evaluation of Murdaugh in September 1999, in which he described Murdaugh as “continuing to experience paranoid beliefs and delusions secondary to his past amphetamine abuse.” Dr. Potts recounted that Murdaugh had requested a skull x-ray but had received a CT scan instead. The scan did not show an implant, but Murdaugh believed the results were doctored and requested an MRI. Dr. Potts concluded that Murdaugh “is an intelligent man who is simply expressing a very strong desire based on a clearly false belief. He is capable of weighing various options.” Dr. Potts opined that Murdaugh “fully appreciates the necessary waiver of his rights by entering a plea of guilty,” and “fully understands the consequences of entering the plea.”

Murdaugh pled guilty to both indictments in January of 2000. The plea agreement provided that the state would not seek the death penalty for Eggert's murder, but that the conviction for that crime could still constitute an aggravating factor in sentencing Murdaugh for Reynolds's murder.

3. Sentencing

Over the course of the next year, the defense team prepared a mitigation case by retaining a psychiatrist and an addictionologist, seeking the release of Murdaugh's Rolodex from the state to contact character witnesses, and having the mitigation specialist prepare a mitigation report. The trial court ordered Murdaugh's mitigation experts, Dr. Deming and Dr. Shaw, and Lisa Christianson, to submit their reports to the state by August 24, 2001.

On August 27, 2001, Lorona notified the state that Murdaugh would not allow him to file with the court, or provide to the prosecution, any of the mitigation materials the defense had prepared. The state moved to compel and sought sanctions against Lorona.

The trial court held a hearing on September 7, 2001. Lorona told the court that Murdaugh feared that his life was in danger and believed that staying in the Arizona Department of Corrections would effectively be a death sentence whether or not he was sentenced to death. Lorona had asked the state to agree to an interstate compact to allow Murdaugh to serve his time outside Arizona, but the state refused. The court clarified that it did not have the authority to tell the Department of Corrections where to place an inmate.

Because he could not serve a life sentence outside of Arizona, Murdaugh instructed his counsel that he did not want to put on any mitigation case at all. The court informed Murdaugh that if he did not present mitigation, the court would seek mitigating evidence from any source legitimately available to the court and would put the burden on the...