Roberts v. State

• Decision Date: 30 January 2020
• Docket Number: No. CR-18-845,CR-18-845
• Citation: 592 S.W.3d 675,2020 Ark. 45
• Parties: Karl D. ROBERTS, Appellant v. STATE of Arkansas, Appellee
• Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

2020 Ark. 45

592 S.W.3d 675

Karl D. ROBERTS, Appellant

v.STATE of Arkansas, Appellee

No. CR-18-845

Supreme Court of Arkansas.

Opinion Delivered: January 30, 2020

Lisa G. Peters, Federal Defender, by: Scott W. Braden, for appellant.

Leslie Rutledge, Att’y Gen., by: Jason Michael Johnson, Ass’t Att’y Gen., for appellee.

ROBIN F. WYNNE, Associate Justice

Karl D. Roberts appeals from the Polk County Circuit Court’s order denying his amended petition for postconviction relief pursuant to Arkansas Rule of Criminal Procedure 37.5. Roberts raises nine points on appeal, none of which require reversal. We therefore affirm.

Roberts was convicted of the capital murder of twelve-year-old Andria Brewer, who was his niece, and sentenced to death in May 2000. He filed a waiver of his rights to appeal and to pursue postconviction remedies, but this court conducted an automatic review pursuant to State v. Robbins , 339 Ark. 379, 5 S.W.3d 51 (1999), and affirmed his conviction and sentence in Roberts v. State , 352 Ark. 489, 102 S.W.3d 482 (2003) ( Roberts I ).¹ The record shows that Roberts went to Andria’s house when he knew her parents were not home, ordered her to get into his truck, drove to a remote area, raped her, and then strangled her to death. Roberts later confessed to police. At trial,

the evidence showed that Andria was taken from her home by Roberts on May 15, 1999. According to his confession, Roberts knocked on the door, and Andria answered. Roberts knew that her parents were not home at the time. He told Andria to get into his truck. Andria then asked him what was wrong, and Roberts responded by telling her to just get in the truck. Andria complied. Roberts then proceeded on a journey of approximately ten miles that, according to Arkansas State Police Detective Lynn Benedict, would have taken twelve to thirteen minutes. Benedict also stated that the road that Roberts took continued to become darker and more remote, covered with low hanging trees and brush.

According to Roberts’s statement, Andria asked him to take her home several times along the way. Roberts kept on driving. He eventually stopped his truck on an old logging road and told Andria to get out. When she asked him what he was going to do, he told her he was going to "fuck" her. He told her to take off her shirt and lay down. He then took off the girl’s pants and raped her. While he was violating her, Andria tried to get away from him, but he was able to hold her down. He told police that when he finished raping her, he knew that he could not let her live, because he had ejaculated inside her. He then decided to kill her by mashing his thumbs into her throat. Once the child turned blue and passed out, he dragged her body off into the woods and covered her up with limbs and brush. He then took her clothes and threw them off a nearby bridge, into a creek.

Roberts I , 352 Ark. at 507, 102 S.W.3d at 494–95. The jury rejected Roberts’s defense that he was unable to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law due to a brain injury

, found him guilty of capital murder, and ultimately sentenced him to death.

Numerous proceedings followed. State v. Roberts , 354 Ark. 399, 123 S.W.3d 881 (2003) ( Roberts II ) (per curiam affirming the trial court’s finding, following hearing at which Roberts appeared pro se, that Roberts was competent to waive Rule 37.5 rights); Roberts v. Norris , 526 F. Supp. 2d 926 (E.D. Ark. 2007) (staying federal habeas corpus action while Roberts exhausted his claims in state court that he did not competently waive his right to appeal and to seek state postconviction relief); Roberts v. State , 2011 Ark. 502, 385 S.W.3d 792 ( Roberts III ) (dismissing appeal upon finding that the circuit court was without jurisdiction to entertain Roberts’s Rule 37.5 petition, and this court was likewise without jurisdiction to hear an appeal); Roberts v. State , 2013 Ark. 56, 425 S.W.3d 771 ( Roberts IV ) (denying petition to recall mandate issued after this court’s mandatory review of Roberts’s conviction and sentence in Roberts I and denying petition to reinvest jurisdiction to consider writ of error coram nobis); Roberts v. State , 2013 Ark. 57, 426 S.W.3d 372 ( Roberts V (handed down simultaneously with Roberts IV )) (holding that failure to ensure that Roberts was competent to waive his rights to postconviction relief constituted breakdown in appellate process that warranted reopening his postconviction proceedings).

In December 2014, a competence hearing was held in Polk County Circuit Court. The State presented the testimony of Dr. Mark Peacock, a forensic psychologist with the Arkansas State Hospital, and the defense presented the testimony of neuropsychologist Dr. Daryl Fujii, who specializes in psychotic disorders

stemming from traumatic brain injury. Both doctors concluded that Roberts was schizophrenic and that his mental illness affected his ability to make a rational decision about his case. Although the circuit court found that Roberts was competent to waive his postconviction rights, this court reversed and remanded, holding that the circuit court was clearly erroneous when it concluded that Roberts was competent to waive postconviction review. Roberts v. State , 2016 Ark. 118, 488 S.W.3d 524 ( Roberts VI ). Upon remand, Roberts filed a 171-page petition for postconviction relief. His final amended petition, filed on February 27, 2017, asserted eighteen claims for relief in ten pages. Roberts’s pre-hearing brief included the facts and legal support for the claims in his petition.

The circuit court held a hearing on Roberts’s petition on May 15–17, 2017. Defense counsel presented the testimony of eighteen witnesses, including four expert witnesses, and introduced over forty exhibits. Three mental-health experts testified for the defense. Dr. Matthew Mendel, a clinical psychologist, testified regarding the effects of extreme trauma and how that trauma shaped Roberts. Dr. Daryl Fujii, who had also testified at the 2014 hearing on Roberts’s competence to waive postconviction remedies, attested to Roberts’s schizophrenia

and its impact on his ability to assist his counsel in his own defense and conform his conduct to the requirements of the law. Finally, Dr. Garrett Andrews, a neuropsychologist, concluded that, based on objective data, Roberts was intellectually disabled as defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). The circuit court excluded the testimony of the final defense expert, Michael Wiseman, an attorney who proffered testimony regarding the standard of care for capital attorneys at the time of Roberts’s trial. Following the hearing and the completion of the transcript, the circuit court allowed the parties to file simultaneous briefs. On May 17, 2018, the circuit court entered a 95-page order denying Roberts relief on every claim. This appeal followed.

Our standard of review in Rule 37 petitions is that, "on appeal from a circuit court’s ruling on a petitioner’s request for Rule 37 relief, this court will not reverse the circuit court’s decision granting or denying post-conviction relief unless it is clearly erroneous. A finding is clearly erroneous when, although there is evidence to support it, the appellate court, after reviewing the entire evidence is left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed." Wood v. State , 2015 Ark. 477, at 2–3, 478 S.W.3d 194, 197 (citations omitted). For claims of ineffective assistance of counsel, we assess the effectiveness of counsel under the two-prong standard set forth by the Supreme Court of the United States in Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S. Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984). Watson v. State , 2014 Ark. 203, at 3, 444 S.W.3d 835, 838–39. In asserting ineffective assistance of counsel under Strickland , the petitioner first must demonstrate that counsel’s performance was deficient. Id. This requires a showing that counsel made errors so serious that counsel was not functioning as the "counsel" guaranteed the petitioner by the Sixth Amendment. Id. The reviewing court must indulge in a strong presumption that counsel’s conduct falls within the wide range of reasonable professional assistance. Id. The defendant claiming ineffective assistance of counsel has the burden of overcoming that presumption by identifying the acts and omissions of counsel which, when viewed from counsel’s perspective at the time of trial, could not have been the result of reasonable professional judgment. Id.

Second, the petitioner must show that the deficient performance prejudiced the defense, which requires a demonstration that counsel’s errors were so serious as to deprive the petitioner of a fair trial. Id. This requires the petitioner to show that there is a reasonable probability that the fact-finder’s decision would have been different absent counsel’s errors. Id. A reasonable probability is a probability sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome of the trial. Id.

In making a determination of ineffective assistance of counsel, the totality of the evidence must be considered. Springs v. State , 2012 Ark. 87, at 3, 387 S.W.3d 143, 147. Unless a petitioner makes both Strickland showings, it cannot be said that the conviction resulted from a breakdown in the adversarial process that renders the result unreliable. Sales v. State , 2014 Ark. 384, at 6, 441 S.W.3d 883, 887. We also recognize that "there is no reason for a court deciding an ineffective assistance claim ... to address both components of the inquiry if the defendant makes an insufficient showing on one." See id. (quoting Strickland ).

I. Competency to Stand Trial

First, Roberts argues that overwhelming evidence establishes that he has long suffered from schizophrenia

; that his schizophrenia rendered him incompetent to stand trial; and that trial counsel failed to investigate and present evidence of his schizophrenia during the guilt phase. Regarding the alleged...