Richardson v. Branker, Nos. 11–1

• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (4th Circuit)
• Writing for the Court: BARBARA MILANO KEENAN
• Citation: 668 F.3d 128
• Parties: Timothy RICHARDSON, Petitioner–Appellee, v. Gerald J. BRANKER, Warden, Central Prison, Raleigh, North Carolina, Respondent–Appellant.Timothy Richardson, Petitioner–Appellant, v. Gerald J. Branker, Warden, Central Prison, Raleigh, North Carolina, Respondent–Appellee.
• Docket Number: 11–2.,Nos. 11–1
• Decision Date: 06 February 2012

668 F.3d 128

Timothy RICHARDSON, Petitioner–Appellee,
v.
Gerald J. BRANKER, Warden, Central Prison, Raleigh, North Carolina, Respondent–Appellant.Timothy Richardson, Petitioner–Appellant,
v.
Gerald J. Branker, Warden, Central Prison, Raleigh, North Carolina, Respondent–Appellee.

Nos. 11–1

11–2.

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

Argued: Dec. 7, 2011.Decided: Feb. 6, 2012.

[668 F.3d 131]

ARGUED: Jonathan Porter Babb, Sr., North Carolina Department of Justice, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellant/Cross–Appellee. Stanley F. Hammer, Wyatt, Early, Harris & Wheeler, LLP, High Point, North Carolina, for Appellee/Cross–Appellant. ON BRIEF: Roy Cooper, Attorney General, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellant/Cross–Appellee. Kenneth J. Rose, Center for Death Penalty

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Litigation, Durham, North Carolina, for Appellee/Cross–Appellant.

Before TRAXLER, Chief Judge, and MOTZ and KEENAN, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded by published opinion. Judge KEENAN wrote the opinion, in which Chief Judge TRAXLER and Judge MOTZ joined.

OPINION BARBARA MILANO KEENAN, Circuit Judge:

In this appeal, the State of North Carolina seeks reversal of the district court's judgment granting a writ of habeas corpus to Timothy Richardson. In granting the writ, the district court vacated the sentence of death imposed after Richardson's conviction for first-degree murder. The district court concluded that the state courts of North Carolina unreasonably applied the Supreme Court's holding in Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984), in rejecting Richardson's claim that his attorney on direct appeal failed to provide effective assistance of counsel. The district court held that Richardson's appellate counsel rendered ineffective assistance by not raising on direct appeal the state trial court's failure to instruct the jury at sentencing concerning the statutory mitigating factor of Richardson's age.

Although the district court granted Richardson's petition with respect to his Strickland claim, the district court rejected Richardson's additional claims that he was entitled to a writ of habeas corpus because the prosecution withheld exculpatory evidence in violation of Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963) (the Brady claim), and that he was mentally retarded and thus could not be sentenced to death following the decision in Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304, 122 S.Ct. 2242, 153 L.Ed.2d 335 (2002) (the Atkins claim). Richardson has filed a cross-appeal in this Court, asserting that the district court erred in rejecting his Brady and Atkins claims.

In reviewing the parties' arguments, we are guided and restricted by the statutory language of 28 U.S.C. § 2254, as amended by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (hereafter, we use the term “AEDPA” to refer to 28 U.S.C. § 2254 as amended), and a wealth of Supreme Court precedent interpreting and applying this statute. We are mindful that “state courts are the principal forum for asserting constitutional challenges to state convictions,” that habeas corpus proceedings are a “guard against extreme malfunctions in the state criminal justice systems, not a substitute for ordinary error correction through appeal,” and that a federal court may only issue the writ if “there is no possibility fairminded jurists could disagree that the state court's decision conflicts with [the Supreme Court's] precedents.” Harrington v. Richter, ––– U.S. ––––, 131 S.Ct. 770, 786–87, 178 L.Ed.2d 624 (2011) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted).

Upon our review, we hold that the district court's decision granting Richardson's petition runs contrary to the deference that federal courts are required to afford state court decisions adjudicating the merits of habeas corpus claims. Accordingly, we reverse the portion of the district court's judgment granting Richardson's petition on his claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, and we affirm the remainder of the district court's judgment rejecting Richardson's petition on his Brady and Atkins claims.

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I.

We briefly set forth the facts of this matter, because the issues presented primarily involve questions of law rather than questions of fact, and because the Supreme Court of North Carolina previously has provided in great detail the factual background of this case. See State v. Richardson, 346 N.C. 520, 488 S.E.2d 148 (1997).

A.

Timothy Richardson was convicted by a jury in 1995 of first-degree murder and first-degree kidnapping in connection with the death of Tracy Marie Rich.¹ Id. at 151. The evidence at trial showed that on October 6, 1993, Richardson abducted Ms. Rich after her work shift at the L & L Food Store (the store) in Castalia, North Carolina. Id. at 151, 157. As stated by the Supreme Court of North Carolina, “the evidence tended to show that [Richardson] abducted the victim from the store, drove her to a secluded area, and ran her down with her own car. As the victim tried to crawl away, [Richardson] drove over her again. [Richardson] then went back to the store to make a robbery attempt.” Id. at 157. Ms. Rich's lifeless body was found wedged under her car. Id. at 152. The cause of Ms. Rich's death was “multiple blunt-force injuries and compression injuries to her body, head, and chest as a result of being hit by and run over with a vehicle.” Id. at 153.

Ample evidence supported the jury's finding that Richardson was the perpetrator who killed Ms. Rich. The prosecution presented the testimony of an expert in the field of forensic fiber identification, who testified that fibers from Richardson's t-shirt were consistent with fibers found on Ms. Rich's shirt. Id. at 153, 157. Another expert witness testified that a shoe impression found on a piece of plasterboard inside the store could only have been made by Richardson's right shoe. Id. at 152–53, 157.

Additionally, during the course of the abduction, the store's alarm “tripped.” Id. at 151. This caused a police officer to come to the store, where he observed a red car that he later learned was registered to Terry Richardson, the defendant's wife. Id. Police officers suspected that Richardson had participated in the crime, and they went to Richardson's home and arrested him after finding him hiding in the attic. Id. at 152, 157–58.

Richardson initially denied any knowledge of Ms. Rich's murder, but later told police officers that he was present during the crime while an acquaintance, Kevin Hedgepeth, killed Ms. Rich.² Id. at 152. The police interviewed Hedgepeth, as well as several witnesses who provided an alibi for Hedgepeth, and determined that Hedgepeth was not involved in Ms. Rich's murder. Id. at 152, 156–57. The evidence obtained during the police investigation also discredited numerous other aspects of Richardson's story, rendering Richardson's statements implicating Hedgepeth implausible. Id. at 152, 157. Hedgepeth and his

[668 F.3d 134]

alibi witnesses testified at Richardson's trial. Id. at 156.

After the jury convicted Richardson of first-degree murder and first-degree kidnapping,³ the case proceeded to the sentencing phase. The jury found as aggravating circumstances that the murder was committed for pecuniary gain, and that the murder was especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel. Id. at 160.

The trial court instructed the jury on four statutory mitigating factors, including: (i) that the defendant had no significant history of prior criminal activity, N.C.G.S. § 15A–2000(f)(1); (ii) that the murder was committed while the defendant was under the influence of mental or emotional disturbance, N.C.G.S. § 15A–2000(f)(2); (iii) that the capacity of the defendant to appreciate the criminality of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of law was impaired, N.C.G.S. § 15A–2000(f)(6); and (iv) any other circumstance arising from the evidence which the jury deems to have mitigating value, N.C.G.S. § 15A–2000(f)(9) (the “catchall” mitigating factor). 488 S.E.2d at 160. The jury found that the first two of these mitigating factors were applicable under the evidence, but declined to find the latter two mitigating factors.⁴ Id. Notably, Richardson's defense counsel did not ask for, and the trial judge did not submit, the statutory mitigating factor of “[t]he age of the defendant at the time of the crime,” N.C.G.S. § 15A–2000(f)(7) (the (f)(7) mitigation instruction). ⁵

After balancing the mitigating and aggravating circumstances, the jury recommended a sentence of death. 488 S.E.2d at 151, 160. The trial court followed the jury's recommendation and sentenced Richardson to death, in addition to a sentence of forty years' imprisonment for the first-degree kidnapping conviction. Id. at 151.

B.

Richardson filed an appeal with the Supreme Court of North Carolina, in which his appellate counsel raised six guilt-phase issues, and one sentencing-phase issue challenging the proportionality of Richardson's death sentence. Richardson's appellate counsel did not raise as error the state trial court's failure to instruct the jury on the (f)(7) mitigation factor. The Supreme Court of North Carolina affirmed Richardson's convictions and sentences. Id. at 162.

In March 1999, Richardson filed a Motion for Appropriate Relief in the Superior Court of Nash County, North Carolina

[668 F.3d 135]

(the MAR court), seeking to vacate his convictions and sentences. In his motion, Richardson raised numerous claims, including claims regarding the effectiveness of his trial counsel, the effectiveness of his appellate counsel, and the State's purported withholding of certain exculpatory evidence. Richardson later filed two amended Motions for Appropriate Relief, adding a second category of allegedly exculpatory evidence withheld by the State, as well as a claim that he was mentally retarded and thus could not be executed under state and federal law. ⁶

Richardson's...