Raleigh v. Sec'y, Fla. Dep't of Corr.
| Citation | 827 F.3d 938 |
| Decision Date | 30 June 2016 |
| Docket Number | No. 14–14198,14–14198 |
| Parties | Bobby A. Raleigh, Petitioner–Appellant, v. Secretary, Florida Department of Corrections, Attorney General, State of Florida, Respondents–Appellees. |
| Court | United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (11th Circuit) |
Martin J. McClain, Linda McDermott, McClain & McDermott, PA, Wilton Manors, FL, for Petitioner–Appellant.
Stacey E. Kircher, Vivian Ann Singleton, Attorney General's Office, Daytona Beach, FL, for Respondents–Appellees.
Before TJOFLAT, MARCUS and JORDAN, Circuit Judges.
MARCUS
, Circuit Judge:
In this capital case, Bobby Allen Raleigh pled guilty to two counts of first-degree murder for the 1994 killings of Donald Cox and Timothy Eberlin. A unanimous jury in Volusia County, Florida, recommended that he be sentenced to death for each homicide, and in 1996 the state circuit court sentenced him to die. The Florida Supreme Court affirmed his death sentences on direct appeal and then on collateral review. Thereafter, the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida denied Raleigh's petition for a writ of habeas corpus, which included claims that: (1) the state violated Raleigh's due process rights by knowingly presenting false evidence at his sentencing proceeding; (2) the state violated the Due Process Clause and the Eighth Amendment by presenting differing theories about Raleigh's culpability at his sentencing proceeding and at his co-defendant's trial; (3) trial counsel provided unconstitutionally ineffective assistance by opening the door to the admission of Raleigh's co-defendant's tape-recorded confession; and (4) trial counsel provided ineffective assistance by inadequately preparing a mental health expert who testified in mitigation at Raleigh's penalty phase trial. After thorough review, we affirm the judgment of the district court and deny the petition.
The essential facts are these.1 In the early morning hours of June 5, 1994, while at the Club Europe in DeLand, Florida, Domingo Figueroa, Raleigh's cousin, told Raleigh that someone had slapped Raleigh's mother.2 Thereafter, Raleigh and Domingo Figueroa confronted Douglas Cox and his brother. While the four men were talking in the parking lot outside Club Europe, Raleigh's mother ran out of the bar and began screaming at Mr. Cox. Raleigh took his mother to the car and returned to confront Cox. After apologizing for his mother's behavior and shaking hands with Cox, Raleigh went to his home to retrieve some firearms. Raleigh and Figueroa then drove to Cox's trailer.
Raleigh went to the door of the trailer with a gun in his hand. Ronald Baker answered the door and told Raleigh that Cox was asleep. Raleigh and Figueroa left, drove down a nearby dirt road, parked, and later returned to Cox's trailer, both carrying firearms. Raleigh walked to the end of the trailer and shot Cox in the head three times at close range, killing him. Then, Figueroa and Raleigh shot Tim Eberlin, Cox's roommate, until their guns jammed, whereupon Raleigh beat Mr. Eberlin in the head with the barrel of his gun until Eberlin stopped screaming. Afterwards, Raleigh and Figueroa drove to Raleigh's home where they burned the clothes they were wearing during the murders, dumped their remaining bullets into a neighbor's yard, and hid their guns in a secret compartment in Raleigh's car. The police went to Raleigh's house that night and he agreed to talk to them. Raleigh initially denied his involvement in the murders. But after being told that Figueroa had implicated him, he admitted in a taped statement that he had killed both Cox and Eberlin.
The state charged Raleigh with two counts of first-degree murder, one count of burglary, and one count of shooting into a building. On June 6, 1995, pursuant to a plea agreement, Raleigh pled guilty to two counts of first-degree murder, and the state agreed to nolle prosequi the counts of burglary and shooting into a building.
The state elected to seek the death penalty, and Raleigh's penalty-phase trial was conducted in the circuit court for Volusia County, Florida, from August 8 to 15, 1995. Neither the state nor the defense called Figueroa to testify. However, during cross-examination of a state witness, police investigator Lawrence Horzepa, the jury learned of a taped statement that Figueroa had given to Investigator Horzepa on the day of the murders. Initially, through a series of leading questions during cross-examination, Raleigh's counsel asked Horzepa to confirm specific portions of Figueroa's statement. Among other things, defense counsel asked Horzepa whether Figueroa had told him that Figueroa's “Aunt Janice” (Raleigh's mother) had been called a bad name by Cox, and whether Figueroa admitted to owning the safe that contained the guns. On redirect examination, the state introduced Figueroa's entire statement by playing the tape for the jury. Defense counsel did not object. In the tape, Figueroa admitted that he shot Eberlin at Raleigh's direction. Figueroa claimed that he was not sure if his shot hit Eberlin and that, before he fired the shot, Raleigh had already shot Eberlin once.
Raleigh testified on his own behalf at the penalty phase. He described his participation in the double homicide this way:
I thought I had only hit [Eberlin] at most four times.3
Raleigh called nine other witnesses to testify in support of his mitigation case: Dr. James Upson, a psychologist who examined Raleigh prior to trial; Dr. Myrna Garcia, a psychiatrist who met with Raleigh after he had attempted suicide; his mother; his younger brother; his aunt; his girlfriend; a childhood friend; a man who met Raleigh while he was in jail; and a retired minister who also met with Raleigh when he was in jail.
Dr. Upson testified that he met with Raleigh for approximately eleven-and-a-half hours, interviewed Raleigh's mother for approximately one hour, reviewed Raleigh's school and medical records, and conducted twenty tests. Dr. Upson found Raleigh to be of normal intelligence with an IQ of ninety-eight. He testified that Raleigh was a follower who was easily manipulated by others and that Raleigh portrayed some allegiance to Figueroa. Dr. Upson opined that Raleigh fit the criteria for antisocial personality disorder
, although he did not clinically diagnose Raleigh with a personality disorder. He added that Raleigh's neuropsychological functions may have been impaired by the consumption of alcohol at the time of the murders, but there was no significant impairment. Ultimately, Dr. Upson concluded that he could not find any statutory mitigators to apply in Raleigh's case except Raleigh's age at the time of the murders (nineteen).
At the conclusion of the penalty phase, the jury unanimously recommended that Raleigh be sentenced to death on each first-degree murder count. After the penalty phase but before Raleigh was sentenced, the state proceeded separately to trial against Figueroa. Based on the evidence presented by the state at Figueroa's trial, Raleigh learned that Figueroa had made another statement about his involvement in the crime. According to Figueroa's uncle, the day following the murder, Figueroa told his uncle that he had killed one victim and Raleigh had killed the other. The state introduced this statement at Figueroa's trial and, during its closing argument, contended that it demonstrated Figueroa had formed the intent to kill Eberlin, regardless of whether Figueroa was the one who actually killed him. The state maintained that Figueroa's admission to his uncle, coupled with forensic evidence that two of the three shots that hit Eberlin may have been fired from Figueroa's gun, demonstrated that Figueroa had downplayed his role in the murders when he gave his statement to Investigator Horzepa.
On February 16, 1996, the trial court sentenced Raleigh to death for each murder upon finding that the state had proven five statutory aggravators: (1) Raleigh had committed a prior violent felony (applied to the murders of both Cox and Eberlin); (2) the murders were committed while Raleigh was engaged in a burglary (also applied to the murders of both Cox and Eberlin); (3) the murder of Cox was cold, calculated, and premeditated; (4) the murder of Eberlin was committed to avoid arrest or effect escape; and (5) the murder of Eberlin was especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel. The court also concluded that the aggravators outweighed the one statutory mitigating factor that it found—that Raleigh was nineteen at the time of the crime—and the fifteen nonstatutory mitigators that Raleigh had proven—that he (1) was intoxicated; (2) was remorseful; (3) pled guilty; (4) offered to testify against codefendant Figueroa; (5) could probably adjust well to prison life; (6) was a good son and friend to his mother; (7) was a good brother; (8) was a good father figure to his ex-girlfriend's daughter; (9) was born into a dysfunctional family; (10) did...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Saunders v. Stewart
...State the opportunity to pass upon and correct alleged violations of its prisoners' federal rights." Raleigh v. Secretary, Florida Dep't of Corrections, 827 F.3d 938, 956 (11th Cir. 2016) (citation omitted). It is not sufficient "that a somewhat similar state-law claim was made." Kelley v. ......
-
Taylor v. Dunn
...State the opportunity to pass upon and correct alleged violations of its prisoners' federal rights." Raleigh v. Secretary, Florida Dep't of Corrections, 827 F.3d 938, 956 (11th Cir. 2016) (citation omitted). "Fair presentment" does not mean reciting an oblique reference to Supreme Court pre......
-
Green v. Sec'y, Dep't of Corr.
...in a manner that affords the [s]tate a full and fair opportunity to address and resolve the claim on the merits." Raleigh v. Secretary , 827 F.3d 938, 956-57 (11th Cir. 2016) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). "We are not so draconian or formalistic as to require petitioners t......
-
Barksdale v. Dunn, CASE NO. 3:08-CV-327-WKW [WO]
...for appellate counsel's objectively unreasonable conduct, the petitioner would have prevailed on appeal); Raleigh v. Sec'y, Fla. Dep't of Corr., 827 F.3d 938, 957 (11th Cir. 2016) ("The Strickland standard for ineffective assistance of counsel governs claims of ineffective assistance of app......
-
Review Proceedings
...F.3d 724, 736 (10th Cir. 2016) (circuit court limited to examining issues on which COA granted); Raleigh v. Sec’y, Fla. Dep’t of Corr., 827 F.3d 938, 948 (11th Cir. 2016) (circuit court generally only examines claims on which district court granted COA). In 2012, the Supreme Court held that......