Richards v. Quarterman

• Decision Date: 27 April 2009
• Docket Number: No. 08-10934.,08-10934.
• Citation: 566 F.3d 553
• Parties: Albert Clinton RICHARDS, Petitioner-Appellee, v. Nathaniel QUARTERMAN, Director, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Correctional Institutions Division, Respondent-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

566 F.3d 553

Albert Clinton RICHARDS, Petitioner-Appellee, v. Nathaniel QUARTERMAN, Director, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Correctional Institutions Division, Respondent-Appellant.

No. 08-10934.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

April 27, 2009.

Danny D. Burns (argued), (Court-Appointed), Fort Worth, TX, for Richards.

Susan Frances San Miguel (argued), Postconviction Lit. Div., Austin, TX, for Quarterman.

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

Before KING, BENAVIDES and CLEMENT, Circuit Judges.

BENAVIDES, Circuit Judge:

Respondent-Appellant Nathaniel Quarterman, Director of the Correctional Institutions Division of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice ("the State") appeals the district court's grant of habeas relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 to Petitioner-Appellee Albert C. Richards ("Richards"). We affirm.

I. Factual and Procedural Background

Richards was convicted, after rejecting a plea offer of five years, of murdering Cullen Baker ("Baker") in Tarrant County, Texas, and sentenced to twenty-five years in prison on October 30, 2003. At trial, the prosecution put forth evidence that Richards and Baker had an altercation around 3:00 a.m. the morning of February 14, 2003, during which Baker suffered injuries resulting in his death roughly twenty-four hours later from a brain hemorrhage. The prosecution presented eyewitness testimony from Arthur Brown, Jr. ("Brown"), and Leo Qualls ("Qualls"). Brown, Qualls, Richards, and Baker, all of whom were homeless, were together during part of the day of February 13, 2003, and, according to the prosecution, the early morning of February 14. All four used drugs and alcohol during this time. Most of the relevant activities took place in an area near a tent on a concrete slab for church services for the homeless (the "slab church") and another tent in which Baker lived.

According to Brown's testimony, which was substantially corroborated by Qualls's testimony, Baker and Richards had had a minor altercation over Baker's use of a racially derogatory term. Brown and Qualls left to do some panhandling, and when they returned they witnessed the assault that, according to the prosecution, led to Baker's fatal injuries. As they returned in Brown's car, Richards appeared to be asleep on the concrete slab as Baker was walking around him holding both a stick they had previously seen Richards possess and a piece of rebar (a length of steel). Baker stated that he had bested Richards in a fight and choked him into unconsciousness. While Brown was still in his car, Richards got up, tied his shoes, picked up a piece of asphalt, and started hitting Baker with the asphalt. Richards knocked Baker down and struck him on the head and face nine or ten times, when Brown separated the two before leaving. According to Qualls, Baker and Richards were talking when Brown and Qualls left.

Richards's brother, Roger Richards, who had discovered Baker's body while looking for Richards, testified that Richards had said that he (Richards) had hit Baker in self-defense. Richards himself testified that he struck Baker in self-defense, presenting a version of events fairly similar to that of Brown and Qualls, asserting that Baker had attacked him with a stick while he was asleep before choking him into unconsciousness with the same stick. After coming to, Richards testified, he used a rock that Baker had thrown at him while he was asleep to hit Baker only two or three times in order to get Baker's stick away from him.

The Texas Second Court of Appeals affirmed Richards's conviction, Richards v. State, No. 2-03-453-CR, 2005 WL 1048716 (Tex.App.—Fort Worth May 5, 2005), and the Court of Criminal Appeals refused discretionary review. Richards filed an application for a state writ of habeas corpus. Richards raised several claims in this application, including that his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to present exculpatory evidence, request a lesser-included offense instruction, or present Richards's medical records. As provided by Texas law, the application was handled by the trial court in which Richards was convicted. See Tex.Code.Crim. Proc. art. 11.07. The trial court, at the State's suggestion, ordered a hearing consisting only of an affidavit from Richards's trial counsel, Jill L. Davis ("Davis"), which she filed February 2, 2006.

In her affidavit, Davis stated, without additional explanation, that she "presented any and all exculpatory evidence available to [her]," and that she did not request a lesser-included offense instruction because she believed that such a request "would have been frivolous." Davis further stated that she did not offer Richards's medical records into evidence because "I could not present a medical records `alibi' with clear conscience based on my duty as a lawyer." With regard to interviewing the prosecution's witnesses before trial, Davis stated in her affidavit that because the prosecution's witnesses were not made available to the defense, it was nearly impossible to interview them before the day of trial, but that she did speak to them before their testimony in the witness area of the courthouse.

On October 27, 2006, the State filed its proposed findings of fact, which the state trial court adopted six days later, recommending that Richards be denied relief. The state trial court's findings mirror Davis's affidavit testimony on all relevant points. The Court of Criminal Appeals denied Richards's application without written order on January 31, 2007. On February 20, 2007, Richards filed a pro se petition for writ of habeas corpus in the district court, alleging multiple grounds for relief. The magistrate judge made his findings, conclusion, and recommendation on April 24, 2008, and recommended that the petition be denied. The district court accepted the magistrate's recommendation except as to Richards's ineffective assistance of counsel claim. After first directing the State to provide copies of witness statements, reports of witness statements, and related material, the district court issued a memorandum opinion on June 2, 2008, discussing the court's "areas of concern relative to petitioner's trial representation," appointed counsel for Richards, and ordered an evidentiary hearing. At the hearing July 21-22, the witnesses were Tiffany Burks, one of the prosecutors at Richards's criminal trial; Richards; Davis; and Deborah Cauffman ("Cauffman"), Davis's legal assistant.

On August 27, 2008, the district court entered its memorandum opinion and order conditionally granting Richards's petition on the grounds that the state court's rejection of Richards's ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim: (1) was "based on unreasonable determinations of the facts in the light of the evidence presented in the state court proceeding" and (2) involved "unreasonable applications of clearly established federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court." Richards v. Quarterman, 578 F.Supp.2d 849, 855 (N.D.Tex. 2008); see 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d). As an initial matter, the district court made credibility assessments of the witnesses at the hearing, concluding, "[a]fter having heard Davis's testimony and compared it with the documentary evidence, and having observed her demeanor on the witness stand," that "she was doing what she could to assist the State in defeating her former client's habeas petition, even if it meant being less than candid."¹ Richards, 578 F.Supp.2d at 855, 858. The district court further noted that "[t]o the extent any findings and conclusions the court expresses in this memorandum opinion and order are at variance with testimony Davis gave at that hearing, the variance is because the court is unwilling to accept as accurate the testimony of Davis." Id. The district court made similar findings as to Cauffman, whereas it found Burks to be truthful and Richards to be truthful except as to whether Davis called him to testify without warning, although even there the court was "not so certain Richards intentionally misrepresented what happened." Id.

The district court concluded that Davis's performance was constitutionally deficient because she failed to present exculpatory evidence, request a lesser-included offense instruction, place into evidence Richard's medical records from the Department of Veterans Affairs, and, more generally, to interview important witnesses before trial, have an organized plan of defense, and conduct Richards's defense in an acceptable manner. But for Davis's failures, the district court concluded, there is a reasonable probability that the result of Richards's trial would have been different: (1) the jury might not have convicted Richards of murder, (2) the jury might have convicted Richards of a lesser offense, and (3) the judge might have imposed a lesser sentence. The State timely appealed. This Court granted the State's motion for stay pending appeal.

II. Standard of Review

In reviewing a grant of habeas relief, the Court examines "factual findings for clear error and issues of law de novo." Barrientes v. Johnson, 221 F.3d 741, 750 (5th Cir.2000). "An ineffective assistance of counsel claim presents a mixed question of law and fact." Ward v. Dretke, 420 F.3d 479, 486 (5th Cir.2005). When examining mixed questions of law and fact, the Court employs "a de novo standard by independently applying the law to the facts found by the district court, as long as the district court's factual determinations are not clearly erroneous." Ramirez v. Dretke, 396 F.3d 646, 649 (5th Cir.2005). "A finding is clearly erroneous only if it is implausible in the light of the record considered as a whole." Rivera v. Quarterman, 505 F.3d 349, 361-63 (5th Cir.2007).

This case is governed by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act ("AEDPA"). Under AEDPA, a federal court may not grant habeas relief after an adjudication on the merits in a state court proceeding unless the...