Smith By and Through Missouri Public Defender Com'n v. Armontrout

• Decision Date: 08 April 1987
• Docket Number: No. 86-1457,86-1457
• Citation: 812 F.2d 1050
• Parties: Gerald M. SMITH, By and Through the MISSOURI PUBLIC DEFENDER COMMISSION and Joseph W. Downey, Public Defender for the Twenty-second Judicial Circuit of Missouri, as Next Friends, Appellants, v. William ARMONTROUT, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

Page 1050

812 F.2d 1050

Gerald M. SMITH, By and Through the MISSOURI PUBLIC DEFENDER

COMMISSION and Joseph W. Downey, Public Defender

for the Twenty-second Judicial Circuit

of Missouri, as Next Friends, Appellants, v. William ARMONTROUT, Appellee.

No. 86-1457.

United States Court of Appeals,

Eighth Circuit.

Submitted Nov. 10, 1986.

Decided March 2, 1987.

Rehearing and Rehearing En Banc Denied April 8, 1987.

Jordan Cherrick, St. Louis, Mo., for appellants.

Stephen D. Hawke, Asst. Atty. Gen., Jefferson City, Mo., for appellee.

Before ARNOLD, JOHN R. GIBSON, and FAGG, Circuit Judges.

ARNOLD, Circuit Judge.

Appellants Missouri Public Defender Commission and Joseph W. Downey ¹ seek to present a next-friend petition for habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2254 on behalf of Gerald M. Smith, a death-row inmate at the Missouri State Penitentiary who declared that he wished to cease pursuit of post-conviction relief and proceed to his execution. The District Court ² dismissed the next-friend petition for lack of standing, ruling that under Rees v. Peyton, 384 U.S. 312, 86 S.Ct. 1505, 16 L.Ed.2d 583 (1966) (per curiam), Smith possessed the requisite mental competence to abandon his post-conviction remedies, and that his decision to do so was voluntary. 632 F.Supp. 503 (W.D.Mo.1986). We affirm. ³

I.

A.

In 1981, Gerald Smith was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1980 slaying of Karen Roberts in St. Louis, Missouri. Since Smith's conviction, a direct appeal and several state- and federal-court collateral proceedings attacking the conviction and sentence have been filed by Smith or by his brother, Eugene Smith, Jr., acting as a next friend. From the time of the conviction to the filing of the present habeas corpus petition, Smith changed his mind about the desirability of post-conviction relief at least eight times.

Smith shifted his position on this question several times during the course of his direct appeal. However, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled that the appeal was mandatory; it went on to affirm Smith's capital murder conviction and death sentence. State v. Smith, 649 S.W.2d 417 (Mo.1983) (en banc). Smith approved the filing of a petition for a writ of certiorari, but the Supreme Court denied his petition. Smith v. Missouri, 464 U.S. 908, 104 S.Ct. 262, 78 L.Ed.2d 246 (1983). Smith initially opposed pursuing collateral review, then relented and permitted his attorney to file for relief in a Missouri circuit court under Mo.S.Ct.R. 27.26, and then moved that the petition be dismissed. In October 1984, the state circuit court granted Smith's motion, ruling that Smith was competent to abandon the proceeding, though it held no formal adversarial hearing on competence. ⁴ Days later, the Missouri Supreme Court affirmed the dismissal and set Smith's execution for November 9, 1984.

Eugene Smith then filed a next-friend petition in the District Court, which stayed Smith's execution pending a competency hearing. 604 F.Supp. 840 (1984). Gerald Smith thereafter elected to resume pursuit of his remedies, and was substituted for Eugene Smith as sole petitioner. However, the District Court determined that Smith had not exhausted his state-court remedies and dismissed his claims without prejudice pursuant to Rose v. Lundy, 455 U.S. 509, 522, 102 S.Ct. 1198, 1205, 71 L.Ed.2d 379 (1982). Then, because Gerald Smith had again recanted and decided to abandon further attacks on his conviction, Eugene Smith filed a next-friend petition in the state circuit court. See Mo.S.Ct.R. 27.26 and 52.02. The Missouri Supreme Court, however, refused to stay Smith's execution, holding that the Rule 27.26 petition was a nullity on the ground that the October 1984 state circuit court determination that Smith was competent barred further inquiry into the matter; the Court stated that it would grant no further extensions of Smith's execution date.

Eugene Smith returned to the District Court, filing the petition now before us, in which he alleged that his brother was not competent and that his decision was not voluntary. As grounds for overturning Gerald Smith's conviction and sentence, Eugene Smith alleged, inter alia, that Missouri's death-penalty procedures violate the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, and that Smith did not have effective assistance of counsel at trial. The District Court stayed Smith's execution pending an up-to-date evaluation of his competence, and ordered him transferred to the Federal Medical Center in Springfield, Missouri, for examination and testing.

B.

A person generally lacks standing to prosecute a federal habeas corpus petition on behalf of another unless he or she can show a reasonable excuse as to why the detainee did not sign and verify the petition, and a sufficient relationship and interest linking the would-be next friend to the detainee. Weber v. Garza, 570 F.2d 511, 513-14 (5th Cir.1978); see Gilmore v. Utah, 429 U.S. 1012, 97 S.Ct. 436, 50 L.Ed.2d 632 (1976); 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2242 ("[a]pplication for writ of habeas corpus shall be in writing signed and verified by the person for whose relief it is intended or by someone acting in his behalf.") The sufficiency of Eugene Smith's relationship with his brother was, of course, undisputed, so the District Court hearing, which began February 18, 1986, focused upon Smith's decision to waive further proceedings. This inquiry resolved into two questions: first, whether Smith had the capacity to appreciate his position and make a rational decision, or was suffering from a mental disease, disorder, or defect that substantially affected his capacity, see Rees v. Peyton, 384 U.S. at 314, 86 S.Ct. at 1506; and second, whether the conditions of Smith's confinement rendered his decision involuntary. See Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U.S. 458, 58 S.Ct. 1019, 82 L.Ed. 1461 (1938); Groseclose ex rel. Harries v. Dutton, 594 F.Supp. 949, 953, 957, 961 (M.D.Tenn.1984).

Gerald Smith testified in the District Court that the reason for his decision to acquiesce in the imposition of his death penalty was that he hated confinement and preferred death to life imprisonment. Smith observed that the most he could hope to gain through post-conviction proceedings would be a new trial, that in a new trial he would have no realistic chance of avoiding a guilty verdict, and that the lightest sentence he could receive would be life imprisonment without parole for 50 years. See R.S.Mo. Sec. 565.008.

Besides Smith's testimony, the Court received a variety of evidence that assisted it in evaluating his decision and the rationale he articulated for it. There was evidence from a number of sources concerning Smith's life and medical history. The Court heard live or videotaped expert testimony from six psychiatrists who had examined Smith to evaluate his competency; it also received these witnesses' written reports, as well as those of two psychiatrists and one psychologist who did not testify. Finally, Missouri prison officials and two death-row inmates testified about Smith's behavior and prison conditions.

Smith's childhood and adolescence were chaotic and disruptive. The District Court noted, inter alia, that Smith, who was born October 7, 1958, suffered serious head injuries and was treated for lead poisoning as a child, that Smith's father was an alcoholic given to beating his wife and children, and that Smith began using drugs and alcohol by age 13. Further, Smith had begun petty thievery by age ten, and was placed in a Missouri juvenile-detention center at age 15. After his release from this center, Smith had no steady job, and instead continued to steal to support himself. Smith had a girlfriend whom he abused physically; she gave birth to their daughter in July 1979.

On September 8, 1980, Smith killed Karen Roberts, bludgeoning her with a heavy iron bar. Smith stated that he did this because Roberts gave him a venereal disease, which caused his girlfriend to take their child and leave him. A few months later, after Smith's arrest for the murder, Smith's lawyer and the prosecutor were on the verge of entering a plea-bargain agreement for a second-degree murder plea when the St. Louis Globe-Democrat published a letter from Smith. Smith signed the letter "Gerald Smith, the cold-blooded killer," and claimed in it that he had planned the murder for four months, and that, though he had a gun with him, he bludgeoned Roberts so that she would feel more pain. As a result, the prosecutor ended plea negotiations, and Smith was tried and convicted for capital murder. Smith testified in the competency hearing that he had not, in fact, planned the murder or carried a gun at the time. Though Smith has told psychiatrists that he wrote the Globe-Democrat letter because he wished to die, he testified in the District Court that he did not know why he had written the letter.

Before the murder, Smith had attempted suicide three times. On the last such occasion, Smith was admitted to Alexian Brothers Hospital in St. Louis; he was diagnosed as suffering from depression and a personality disorder, but was released from the hospital. In 1981 and 1982, after his imprisonment, Smith on several occasions engaged in self-mutilation, such as the infliction of multiple lacerations on his wrist and forearm. In May 1983, Smith attempted suicide a fourth time, overdosing on Elavil, an antidepressant.

As discussed above, Smith has frequently shifted his position on the desirability of post-conviction proceedings. When he has opposed ongoing proceedings, he has written a number of letters to the courts involved, calling them vulgar names, and urging and daring them to permit his execution. Smith has also threatened to kill his attorneys and prison guards if his wish to be executed is not respected. On the other hand, when he has favored pursuing relief, Smith has apologized profusely for his statements and behavior.

Smith's latest change of position before the District Court hearing, a change to opposition to...