Raulerson v. Warden

• Decision Date: 28 June 2019
• Docket Number: No. 14-14038,14-14038
• Citation: 928 F.3d 987
• Parties: Billy Daniel RAULERSON, Jr., Petitioner-Appellant, v. WARDEN, Respondent-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

928 F.3d 987

Billy Daniel RAULERSON, Jr., Petitioner-Appellant,

v.WARDEN, Respondent-Appellee.

No. 14-14038

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

June 28, 2019

Julie M. Carpenter, David W. DeBruin, Jenner & Block, LLP, Kathleen R. Hartnett, Spiva & Hartnett, LLP, WASHINGTON, DC, Steven Beauvais, Zipperer Lorberbaum & Beauvais, PC, SAVANNAH, GA, for Petitioner-Appellant.

Sabrina Graham, Beth Attaway Burton, Attorney General's Office, ATLANTA, GA, for Respondent-Appellee.

Before WILLIAM PRYOR, JORDAN, and HULL, Circuit Judges.

WILLIAM PRYOR, Circuit Judge:

Billy Raulerson Jr., a Georgia prisoner under three death sentences for murdering two teenagers, one of whom he sodomized after killing her, and for murdering a woman he robbed the next day, appeals the denial of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus, 28 U.S.C. § 2254.At trial, Raulerson's counsel argued that he was "guilty but mentally retarded" beyond a reasonable doubt and so ineligible for the death penalty.The jury disagreed and sentenced Raulerson to death.After unsuccessfully pursuing postconviction relief in Georgia courts, Raulerson filed a federal petition, which the district court denied.Raulerson contends that his counsel were ineffective by failing to investigate mitigating evidence and present it during the penalty phase; that the Georgia requirement that a criminal defendant prove his intellectual disability beyond a reasonable doubt violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment; and that he is actually innocent of the death penalty because he is intellectually disabled.Because the Georgia superior court reasonably determined that the first two claims fail and because Raulerson fails to establish his intellectual disability, we affirm.

I.BACKGROUND

We divide the background of this appeal in three parts.First, we discuss the facts of Raulerson's crime.Next, we describe Raulerson's trial and sentencing.Then, we provide an overview of his state and federal habeas proceedings.

A.The Crime

In a two-day span, Billy Raulerson, Jr. killed three people in Ware County, Georgia.On May 30, 1993, Raulerson parked his car by a pickup truck occupied by two teenagers, Jason Hampton and Charlye Dixon, on a lakeside lovers' lane.Raulerson v. State , 268 Ga. 623, 491 S.E.2d 791, 795–96(1997).Raulerson stood on the bed of the truck and shot Hampton several times.Id. at 796.As Dixon tried to flee, he shot her.Id.He then "dragged Hampton's body from the truck and shot him several more times."Id.Raulerson went on to take two fishing rods from the truck and put the rods and Dixon in his car.Id.He drove to a wooded area several miles away where he shot Dixon again and sodomized her.Id.

When he tried to return to Dixon's body the next day, people were at the site, so he"drove to a rural section of the county looking for a house to burglarize."Id.He stopped at a home that had no vehicle in the carport.After no one responded to his knock at the door, Raulerson broke into a shed and stole meat from the freezer.Id.When he was loading the meat into his car, he heard someone in the house.Id.Raulerson went inside and encountered Gail Taylor, who was armed with a knife.Id.A struggle ensued, and Raulerson shot Taylor multiple times.Id.He then stole her purse and left.Id.Later that day, the bodies of Hampton, Dixon, and Taylor were discovered in separate locations.Id. at 795.

Several months later, the police arrested Raulerson on unrelated charges.He gave the police a blood sample, which matched the semen recovered from Dixon's body.Id.When the police questioned Raulerson about the murders, he confessed to killing all three people.Id.The police searched Raulerson's home and found the fishing rods taken from Hampton's truck and a gun that matched the shell casings recovered from the crime scenes.Id.A grand jury charged Raulerson with the murders of Dixon, Hampton, and Taylor; burglary; kidnapping; aggravated sodomy; necrophilia ; two counts of possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony; and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.Id. at 795 n.1.

B.The Trial and Sentencing

Leon Wilson and Mark Hatfield represented Raulerson.Wilson, who served as lead counsel, had tried several capital cases in his 46 years as an attorney, although he had not done so in 20 years when he represented Raulerson.Hatfield, a new attorney, assisted Wilson with the case.

Before trial, Raulerson's counsel conducted an investigation of Raulerson's background.They hired five experts, including a licensed clinical social worker, Audrey Sumner; a psychologist, Dr. Daniel Grant; a psychiatrist, Dr. John Savino; a neurologist, Dr. Michael Baker; and a neuropsychologist, Dr. Manual Chaknis.The experts interviewed Raulerson and his family and reviewed Raulerson's medical, school, and criminal records.Among other things, Raulerson's counsel learned that Raulerson had a tumultuous childhood, abusive parents, substance-abuse issues, and several emotional and intellectual problems.

During the guilt phase of trial, Raulerson's counsel presented the defense that Raulerson was "guilty but mentally retarded."In Georgia, a criminal defendant who proves beyond a reasonable doubt that he is intellectually disabled is ineligible for the death penalty.SeeO.C.G.A. § 17-7-131(c)(3).In July 2017, Georgia amended section 17-7-131 to substitute the term "mentally retarded" for "intellectual disability."Seeid.§ 17-7-131;see also2017 Ga. Laws 189 § 1.We will use the term "intellectual disability" unless we are quoting directly from the record.SeeBrumfield v. Cain , ––– U.S. ––––, 135 S. Ct. 2269, 2274 n.1, 192 L.Ed.2d 356(2015)("While this Court formerly employed the phrase ‘mentally retarded,’we now use the term ‘intellectual disability’ to describe the identical phenomenon."(alteration adopted)(citation and internal quotation marks omitted)).To prove intellectual disability, Raulerson needed the jury to determine, beyond a reasonable doubt, that he had "significantly subaverage general intellectual functioning resulting in or associated with impairments in adaptive behavior which manifested during the developmental period."O.C.G.A. § 17-7-131.

To support his claim of intellectual disability, Raulerson's counsel presented the expert testimony of their psychologist, Dr. Grant.He testified that he had spent about 15 hours with Raulerson, administered about 25 different tests, interviewed his parents, and reviewed extensive records.Although Raulerson had received IQ scores of 78 and 83 as a child, which are above the range of intellectual disability, Grant testified that his tests determined Raulerson had an IQ around 69 and was "functioning at about a 12-year level."And he testified that Raulerson's deficits onset before age 18 because Raulerson had abused drugs and alcohol at a young age, suffered head injuries, and had memory and attention problems.Grant concluded that Raulerson was intellectually disabled.

Dr. Grant also testified about Raulerson's background.He testified that Raulerson always had trouble in school and never had any friends.He explained that Raulerson had suffered multiple head injuries, including being hit by a car at age three.And Grant described Raulerson's home life.He testified that Raulerson's father was abusive; by age ten, "he and his father would actually get in the yard and fist-fight like two adults."Grant explained that Raulerson's environment made him "predisposed" for substance abuse.After Raulerson began using drugs and alcohol around age ten, Grant testified that Raulerson spent "his leisure time ... drinking or using drugs" and sitting outside his parents' house "just staring out."Grant also discussed Raulerson's failed marriage and his child.He explained that Raulerson had been married at age 18 and had a tumultuous relationship with his then-wife.When she was five months pregnant, Raulerson shot himself in the chest.

The state presented its own expert, Dr. Gerald Lower, who disagreed with some of Dr. Grant's conclusions that led to his diagnosis that Raulerson had an intellectual disability.Dr. Lower's test also determined that Raulerson had an IQ of 69, but he testified that he found signs of malingering.Lower testified that he did not have enough information to make a diagnosis about Raulerson's adaptive functioning.When asked whether there was "any convincing demonstration" that Raulerson had an intellectual disability onset before age 18, he testified, "Absolutely none whatever."

The jury rejected that Raulerson was "guilty but mentally retarded" beyond a reasonable doubt.It convicted him on three counts of capital murder, in addition to burglary, kidnapping, necrophilia, and two counts of possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony.

The penalty phase began the next morning.The state called six witnesses and presented several victim-impact statements.Raulerson's counsel presented no additional witnesses in mitigation and instead relied on the testimony presented during the guilt phase.During Wilson's closing argument, he maintained that although the jury had found that Raulerson was "not ... legally retarded," Raulerson's actions were of a "sick mind" and "not entirely his fault."Wilson urged the jury to consider Raulerson's background and not to impose the death penalty.The court instructed the jury that it could rely on all testimony received in both stages of the proceedings.The jury returned a verdict of death for all three counts of capital murder for which Raulerson was convicted and found the existence of seven statutory aggravating circumstances beyond a reasonable doubt.

Raulerson appealed his convictions and sentences to the Supreme Court of Georgia.He argued, among other things, that section 17-7-131(c)(3), which requires the accused to prove his intellectual disability beyond a reasonable doubt, violated his state right not to be executed...