Piper v. Young

• Decision Date: 11 December 2019
• Docket Number: #28153
• Citation: Piper v. Young, 936 N.W.2d 793 (S.D. 2019)
• Parties: Briley W. PIPER, Petitioner and Appellant, v. Darrin YOUNG, Warden of the South Dakota State Penitentiary, Respondent and Appellee.
• Court: South Dakota Supreme Court

936 N.W.2d 793

Briley W. PIPER, Petitioner and Appellant,

v.Darrin YOUNG, Warden of the South Dakota State Penitentiary, Respondent and Appellee.

#28153

Supreme Court of South Dakota.

ARGUED OCTOBER 1, 2018

OPINION FILED December 11, 2019

RYAN KOLBECK, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Attorney for petitioner and appellant.

MARTY J. JACKLEY, Attorney General, PAUL S. SWEDLUND, MATTHEW W. TEMPLAR, Assistant Attorneys General, Pierre, South Dakota, Attorneys for respondent and appellee.

SALTER, Justice

[¶1.]Briley Piper pled guilty to five separate crimes, including first-degree felony murder, and was originally sentenced to death following a court sentencing.We affirmed his sentence on direct review, but later granted habeas relief, vacated the death sentence, and remanded the case for resentencing by a jury.The jury also sentenced Piper to death, which we affirmed in his second direct appeal.Piper now appeals the circuit court’s denial of his second application for writ of habeas corpus, claiming his original guilty pleas were not made voluntarily and intelligently.Piper also claims that the resentencing court abused its discretion when it denied his motion to introduce evidence of what he alleged were the State’s inconsistent previous arguments.Finally, Piper argues he received ineffective assistance of counsel at his initial change of plea hearing and at his jury resentencing.We affirm.

Background

[¶2.]In March of 2000, Chester Allan Poage was brutally beaten and killed at a remote location in Lawrence County.His body was found approximately one month later, and law enforcement officers quickly identified Briley Piper, Elijah Page, and Darrell Hoadley as suspects in the murder and a related burglary and theft at Poage’s home.The State charged the three with first-degree murder, kidnapping, first-degree robbery, first-degree burglary, and grand theft.The State also filed a notice of its intent to seek the death penalty for each of the three co-defendants.A more complete factual summation is set forth in State v. Piper(Piper I ), 2006 S.D. 1, 709 N.W.2d 783, but here we confine ourselves to the procedural progression of this case through its successive stages of litigation.

The Guilty Pleas and Court Sentencing

[¶3.]On January 3, 2001, Piper pled guilty to all five principal charges.¹His guilty pleas came shortly before his capital murder trial was scheduled to begin and after the circuit court² denied, in part, his motions to suppress statements to law enforcement officers and to a former jail cellmate.The pleas were not prompted by a plea agreement and were unanticipated by the prosecutor and the circuit court, who were expecting to discuss additional pretrial motions at the hearing.

[¶4.]During what became his change of plea hearing, Piper’s attorneys opined that the text of SDCL 23A-27A-2andSDCL 23A-27A-6 seemed to contemplate that the court would sentence the defendant in a capital case following a guilty plea.The issue was a novel one, though, and the court called a recess to consider it further.At the heart of the inquiry, and a recurring theme in all of Piper’s post-plea litigation, was whether the same forum (court or jury) had to decide both the guilt and sentencing phases, or whether a defendant in a capital case could have alternate forums at each phase.³When the January 3 hearing resumed, the parties and the court did not discuss the topic further, but the record supports the inference that the court, counsel, and Piper all understood that Piper would continue with his stated intention of pleading guilty and asking the court to conduct his sentencing.

[¶5.]The court advised Piper of his constitutional rights, including the separate right to have his sentence determined by a jury.The court explained the effect of Piper’s waiver of a jury trial and the statutory maximum penalty for each offense, telling Piper specifically that the punishment for the murder conviction could include death by lethal injection.Piper acknowledged the risks of his pleas and waived his rights to a jury trial,⁴ telling the court that he was pleading guilty to take responsibility for his conduct.After canvassing Piper further, the court determined that the pleas were voluntary and intelligent and accepted them.

[¶6.]After three days of evidence, the court imposed a sentence of death for the first-degree murder conviction, life imprisonment for the kidnapping conviction, and consecutive maximum sentences for the robbery, burglary, and grand theft convictions.As to the murder sentence, the court found the existence of three statutory aggravating factors, which authorized the capital sentence.SeeSDCL 23A-27A-6.In this regard, the court specifically found that Piper had killed Poage "for the purpose of receiving money or any other thing of monetary value[,]" that the killing "was outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible, or inhuman in that it involved torture, depravity of mind, or an aggravated battery to the victim[,]" and that the killing "was committed for the purpose of avoiding, interfering with, or preventing a lawful arrest or custody in a place of lawful confinement, of the defendant or another[.]"⁵SeeSDCL 23A-27A-1(3), (6), (9).

Piper I

[¶7.]In the decision now known as Piper I , we affirmed Piper’s death sentence.2006 S.D. 1, 709 N.W.2d 783.Among the arguments we considered was Piper’s claim that SDCL 23A-27A-2⁶andSDCL 23A-27A-6⁷ were unconstitutional because they deprived him of his right to have a jury determine his sentence in contravention of Ring v. Arizona , 536 U.S. 584, 122 S. Ct. 2428, 153 L. Ed. 2d 556(2002).In Ring , the United States Supreme Court held that Arizona’s death penalty statutes violated a defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial because they required a judge, instead of a jury, to determine the existence of statutory aggravating factors following a guilty plea in a capital case.536 U.S. at 589, 122 S. Ct. at 2432.

[¶8.]Despite this argument on appeal, Piper expressed no more than a theoretical interest in having a jury determine his sentence.Piper I , 2006 S.D. 1, ¶ 66, 709 N.W.2d at 808-09.He had not made a Ring argument to the circuit court and was advised of his right to a jury for sentencing at his change of plea hearing.We affirmed Piper’s sentence, holding Piper had, in fact, requested sentencing by the court and waived his right to jury sentencing:

We will not, without any supporting authority, sanction the remarkable proposition that a defendant may waive the right to a jury at sentencing, allow the trial court to impose a sentence in accordance with the defendant’s wishes, and then, to avoid an unfavorable sentence, invalidate the waiver on appeal by arguing a deprivation of the constitutional right that the defendantdid not want to exercise.

Id.¶ 68, 709 N.W.2d at 810.

[¶9.]Nevertheless, we also analyzed the merits of Piper’s Ring claim.Construing the text of SDCL 23A-27A-2andSDCL 23A-27A-6, we held that our capital punishment statutes only regulate the sentencing procedure and, unlike the statutes at issue in Ring , "do not purport to regulate the right to jury sentencing in capital cases."Id.¶ 51, 709 N.W.2d at 804.The right to have a jury determine whether aggravating factors exist during the sentencing phase remains available to all defendants in capital cases by virtue of separate constitutional and statutory guarantees.Id.¶¶ 52-56, 709 N.W.2d at 804-06.

[¶10.]Although Piper had argued that our statutes required a court to conduct the sentencing in a capital case involving a guilty plea, he did not make the alternative argument—that in the absence of a Ring deficiency, our statutes unconstitutionally required a capital defendant to plead guilty in order to be sentenced by a judge.

Piper II

[¶11.]Piper’s first petition seeking a writ of habeas corpus was solely directed at his death sentence.In an entirely new claim, Piper alleged the plea-taking court misstated the unanimity requirement related to a jury’s sentencing determination in a capital case.The plea-taking court had, in fact, incorrectly advised Piper that the jury must unanimously agree on any sentence.Piper claimed the court’s advisement suggested that the jury must unanimously agree to recommend life in prison, overlooking the fact that one juror’s decision to not impose the death penalty would result in a life sentence.Piper claimed the court’s misstatement prevented a voluntary and intelligent waiver of his right to have a jury sentencing, but he made no argument about any potential impact on the guilty pleas, themselves.

[¶12.]Piper was unsuccessful before the initial habeas court.⁸We reviewed the merits of the claim in Piper v. Weber (Piper II) , identified the erroneous unanimity advisement, and granted relief, but not the relief Piper had sought.2009 S.D. 66, ¶¶ 20-21, 771 N.W.2d 352, 360.Piper argued that we should correct the plea-taking court’s error by converting his sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole.Id.We declined, however, and remanded the case for resentencing by a jury.Id.

Piper’s First Motion to Withdraw his Pleas and Piper III

[¶13.]Following our remittal in Piper II , Piper moved for the first time to withdraw his guilty pleas pursuant to SDCL 23A-27-11, arguing among other things that the plea-taking court failed to ensure that Piper understood he did not have to plead guilty to obtain a court sentencing.The circuit court⁹ denied the motion on its merits, finding no manifest injustice.SeeSDCL 23A-27-11(stating that a motion to withdraw a guilty plea can be made after sentencing "to correct manifest injustice").

[¶14.]The case proceeded to a jury resentencing and concluded with the jury’s unanimous recommendation to impose a sentence of death.The jury found the existence of the same three aggravating factors the plea-taking court had previously found.SDCL 23A-27A-1(3), (6), (9).

[¶15.]Piper appealed the jury’s...