Ryan v. Clarke
| Decision Date | 11 September 2003 |
| Docket Number | No. 4:99CV3318.,4:99CV3318. |
| Citation | 281 F.Supp.2d 1008 |
| Parties | Michael RYAN, Petitioner, v. Harold W. CLARKE, Director of the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services, Respondent. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Nebraska |
Michael A. Nelsen, Hillman, Forman Law Firm, Omaha, NE, Steven E. Achelpohl, Omaha, NE, for Petitioner.
J. Kirk Brown, Attorney General's Office Nebraska, Lincoln, NE, Jon C. Bruning, Attorney General's Office Nebraska, Kimberly A. Klein, Attorney General's Office Nebraska, Lincoln, NE, for Respondent.
This is a death penalty habeas corpus case. It involves the most horrendous torture and sickening murder imaginable. There is not the slightest doubt about the petitioner's guilt. If any man deserves to be put to death, that man is Michael Ryan.
Michael Ryan (Ryan or the petitioner) was sentenced to death for torturing and then killing James Thimm. Ostensibly in the name of his God, and over a period of two days, Ryan and others at his direction tied and chained Thimm in a hog confinement shed; on several occasions sodomized Thimm with a shovel handle or a pick handle to the point that the man's guts ruptured; whipped and beat Thimm; shot off some of the victim's finger tips; partially skinned Thimm alive; and caused the man's bones to be broken, once using a piece of lumber and a block of wood to complete the fracture of a leg with one blow. After that, Ryan stomped Thimm to death. Although a five-year-old child, Luke Stice, was also killed a month or so earlier as the events culminating in Thimm's death boiled up, Ryan did not receive the death penalty for that crime.1
Pending before me is the 93-page final report and recommendation of Magistrate Judge Piester (Filing 202).2 Following a thorough and extensive review, including an independent mental evaluation of the petitioner at a Federal Medical Center and an evidentiary hearing on the petitioner's competency, Judge Piester recommends that I deny the petition for a writ of habeas corpus.
After de novo review, I agree with Judge Piester. Given the excellent quality of his work, I fully adopt the report and recommendation. In the interests of judicial economy, I will not discuss Judge Piester's careful exposition of most of the facts and the law. I only add the following to clarify and amplify my views.
With only a few exceptions, the facts of how Ryan killed James Thimm and Luke Stice are not disputed even by Ryan. Although excruciating, a careful reading of the details of Ryan's crime is fundamental to the proper resolution of this case.
Before doing so, however, it is important to understand the defense at trial. The evidence against Ryan was overwhelming. With Thimm's mutilated body located and the subject of a thorough autopsy, testimony from cooperating eye witnesses, and physical evidence derived from a raid conducted by federal and state law enforcement agents, the prosecution's case was very strong.
While always personally contending that he was sane, Ryan's defense at trial included a claim of insanity. His two lawyers, one of whom had a lot of experience in defending first-degree murder cases,3 decided, with Ryan's agreement, that the best, and perhaps only, way for Ryan to avoid the death penalty was to minimize Ryan's involvement in the final act that killed Thimm and, at the same time, present the defense of insanity. Ryan and the lawyers agreed that the best way to do that was to have him testify. Essentially, the defense was this: Buttressed by the testimony of the petitioner and mental health experts, Ryan did not do the specific act that killed Thimm, and, besides, no sane man could have done what Ryan was alleged to have done; even though he claimed to be sane, Ryan's own testimony and bizarre beliefs would prove him otherwise.
I next quote from the full, fair, and accurate summary of the facts presented at Ryan's jury trial for the Thimm murder as set forth by the Nebraska Supreme Court. While the quotation is very long, every word is important to the discussion which will follow:
The record shows the following. Defendant was described as the leader of a group, characterized at trial as both a religious cult and a band of criminals, living on a farm outside of Rulo, in Richardson County, Nebraska. The cult largely developed out of the teachings of Rev. James Wickstrom, the self-proclaimed leader of a group which called itself the "Posse Comitatus." See Williams v. State, 253 Ark. 973, 490 S.W.2d 117 (1973). Defendant met Wickstrom at a Bible lecture in Hiawatha, Kansas.
Wickstrom's teachings centered around Anglo Saxon supremacy, the unconstitutionality of income taxes, and the coming Battle of Armageddon. Although Ryan did not agree with all of Wickstrom's teachings, particularly with regard to tax matters, Wickstrom's ideology was the catalyst that formed the Rulo cult's belief system. As a result of his involvement with the Posse Comitatus, defendant met James Haverkamp, John David Andreas, Ora Richard (Rick) Stice, and James Thimm during 1982 and 1983. In June of 1983, Ryan and some of the other members of the group met with Wickstrom at a large meeting of the Posse Comitatus in Wisconsin.
During the Hiawatha meeting, Wickstrom showed Ryan what was known as the arm test. That test was described as follows. Defendant would face a group member, who would extend his right arm out at approximately a 90 degree angle from his or her body. Defendant would then place his left hand on the member's right shoulder and place his right hand on the member's right wrist. After asking Yahweh (the name used by defendant and his group for God) a question, defendant would apply pressure to the person's right arm. If the arm dropped, the answer to the question being asked of Yahweh was "no"; if the person's arm stayed up, the answer was "yes." As time went on, others in the group used this arm test, and after awhile every aspect of the lives of the Rulo group was controlled by the use of the arm test.
Sometime in 1983, defendant began telephoning the individuals who later constituted the Rulo group with "orders from headquarters." Defendant would tell the person he called that he (defendant) had "talked to Yahweh and [the men were] supposed to go out and do some stealing...." If any of the men refused to go on these stealing raids, defendant would remind them that their families would not be safe if they angered Yahweh.
The men, in keeping with the group's plans to build a "base camp," converted the spoils of these thefts into weapons, ammunition, and clothing and began to stockpile those items in preparation for the Battle of Armageddon. These stealing raids were conducted in the states of Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska. The thefts involved the stealing of cattle, hogs, and various large items of farm machinery and construction equipment. Many of those items, including all the stolen livestock, were sold, and the proceeds financed the stockpiling mentioned above. At the time of defendant's arrest, officers recovered stolen property with a value in excess of $120,000 at the Rulo farm.
By the summer of 1983, it was determined, through the arm test, that defendant had the spirit of the Archangel Michael. Defendant also told the group that he could communicate directly with Yahweh through his mind.
The group began to meet each Saturday to study the Bible. These meetings were conducted by defendant and were usually attended by James Haverkamp; his sisters Cheryl Gibson and Lisa Haverkamp; his mother, Maxine Haverkamp; defendant's wife, Ruth; and defendant's three children. James Haverkamp's younger brother and father would also attend, as did Thimm, Andreas, Rick Stice, Stice's children, and Stice's girlfriend.
During these meetings, defendant would read and interpret various verses of the Bible. He told the group that "the Jews added" any passages that disagreed with his teachings. During these meetings, verses of the Bible were rewritten to conform to the group's beliefs. At the conclusion of these meetings, the group would smoke marijuana.
At one of these meetings, held in Kansas, where defendant and his family then lived, defendant took Cheryl Gibson aside and told her that Yahweh wanted her to leave her husband. Defendant used the arm test to determine that in Yahweh's eyes Gibson was not married to her husband, who was "on Satan's side." Defendant also told her that if she did not stay with defendant and Ruth Ryan, her husband and children would be killed in an automobile accident.
Gibson eventually left her husband, and for a time she and her children lived with Michael and Ruth Ryan. In May of 1984, a cult service was held, with Rick Stice officiating, where defendant and Gibson were married in Yahweh's eyes.
In June of 1984, defendant told his wife, Ruth, and Gibson that Yahweh wanted them to get better acquainted by going to the Rick Stice farm outside of Rulo. During the summer of 1984, defendant, Ruth Ryan, the three Ryan children (including Dennis), Rick Stice and his three children, Cheryl Gibson and her five children, James Haverkamp, Lisa Haverkamp, and James Thimm moved to the Rulo farm. In August 1984, John David Andreas and, in October, Timothy Haverkamp, a cousin of the Haverkamps, moved to the farm. This group of 7 adult men (including Dennis Ryan), 3 adult women (Ruth Ryan, Gibson, and 15 year old Lisa Haverkamp), and 10 young children constituted the basic Rulo group. Maxine Haverkamp was a regular visitor.
In the meantime, in June of 1984, defendant officiated at the cult wedding of Rick Stice and Lisa Haverkamp, and, in August of 1984, defendant took his second cult wife by marrying Cheryl Gibson's mother, Maxine Haverkamp.
The Rulo farmstead included two trailer houses. Rick Stice was determined to...
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