State v. Dewaine Poindexter
| Decision Date | 06 March 1991 |
| Docket Number | C-890734,91-LW-2550 |
| Parties | STATE OF OHIO, Respondent-Appellee, v. DEWAINE POINDEXTER, Petitioner-Appellant. APPEAL TRIAL NO. B-850757 |
| Court | Ohio Court of Appeals |
Criminal Appeal from: Hamilton County Court of Common Pleas
Judgment Appealed from is: Affirmed
Arthur M. Ney, Jr., Prosecuting Attorney, and Christian J. Schaefer Esq., 411 Hamilton County Courthouse, Court and Main Streets Cincinnati, Ohio 45202, for Respondent-Appellee,
Randall M. Dana, Ohio Public Defender, Randall L. Porter, Esq.1 and William S. Lazarow, Esq., Ohio Public Defender Commission, 8 East Long Street, Eleventh Floor, Columbus, Ohio 43266-0587 for Petitioner-Appellant.
This cause came on to be heard upon the appeal, the transcript of the docket, journal entries and original papers from the Hamilton County Court of Common Pleas, the transcript of the proceedings, the assignments of error, the briefs and the arguments of counsel.
Petitioner Dewaine Poindexter appeals from the order granting summary judgment to the state and dismissing his petition for postconviction relief brought pursuant to R.C. 2953.21. The trial court held that an evidentiary hearing was not necessary to determine the issues raised in Poindexter's petition and, concurrent with its entry granting summary judgment, filed its findings of fact and conclusions of law. Poindexter advances five assignments of error challenging (1) the trial court's denial of an evidentiary hearing, (2) its grant of summary judgment to the state, (3) the sufficiency of its findings of fact and conclusions of law (4) its refusal to consider the affidavit of a juror tendered in support of Poindexter's petition, and (5) its denial of his motion for the release of information held by the Hamilton County Department of Human Services. Because none of these assignments is well taken, we affirm the judgment of the trial court.
The postconviction proceedings stemmed from a prosecution in which a team of two attorneys [1] was appointed to defend Poindexter against a series of charges that included two counts of death-eligible aggravated murder. Acting on Poindexter's claim that he was on a bus at the time the offenses were allegedly committed, the defense team prepared for trial by, inter alia, filing a notice of alibi and obtaining a subpoena for the driver of the bus in question. Initial efforts to locate the purported witness, however, proved unsuccessful, and counsel elected to proceed to trial without requesting a continuance.
During voir dire, counsel addressed the potential for the presentation of an alibi defense while also cautioning prospective jurors to "keep an open mind" and to hold the state to its burden of proof even if the claim of alibi was not actually pursued. Thereafter, when it finally appeared during the guilt phase of the trial itself that the bus driver who had been sought as an alibi witness could not, in fact, substantiate Poindexter's alibi, counsel decided not to present any evidence on behalf of Poindexter at the conclusion of the state's case.
The jury found Poindexter guilty as he stood charged, and following the mitigation hearing required in any capital case, the trial court imposed a sentence that included, in addition to several terms of incarceration, the death penalty. On direct appeal, the conviction was upheld both by this court, State v. Poindexter (Dec. 24, 1986), Hamilton App. No. C-850394, unreported, and by the Ohio Supreme Court. State v. Poindexter (1988), 36 Ohio St. 3d 361, 520 N.E.2d 568. A petition for certiorari was later denied by the United States Supreme Court. Poindexter v. Ohio (1988), 488 U.S. 916, 109 5. Ct. 272.
Poindexter, with the aid of the state public defender, filed two motions with the court below in connection with his later-filed petition for postconviction relief. The first of the two sought to compel the Hamilton County Department of Human Services to release, for inspection and copying, any records relating to Poindexter. The second sought to supplement the record with transcripts of pretrial proceedings that had previously been untranscribed and omitted from the record of Poindexter's initial trial. On May 12, 1989, the trial court denied Poindexter's motion for release of records and granted his motion to supplement the record.
On July 26, 1989, Poindexter filed his petition for post-conviction relief pursuant to R.C. 2953.21, and on August 21, 1989, he filed a notice of supplementation for his petition (collectively referred to as the "postconviction petition"). The petition set forth twenty-six causes of action [2] alleging various errors including erroneous jury instructions given by the trial court, prosecutorial misconduct and misstatements, ineffective assistance of counsel during trial and on direct appeal, and failures of the trial court to appoint experts to assist in Poindexter's defense and to provide access to records.
Accompanying the petition were twenty-four exhibits, including the affidavits of twelve of Poindexter's friends and relatives. Also included were the affidavits of a forensic psychologist and an anthropologist. The affidavit of an attorney was added in support of Poindexter's allegations of ineffective assistance of counsel.
In yet another affidavit, one of Poindexter's trial counsel stated, among other things, that he did not request either a continuance or a plea bargain, and that he did not seek a plea bargain or use a "crime of passion" defense because Poindexter continued to deny his presence at the crime scene. Counsel further stated that he was unaware of any paranoid personality disorder suffered by Poindexter, and that he would have handled the defense differently if he had known of a disorder.
An affidavit from one of the jurors at Poindexter's trial stated in part that no black jurors were empanelled at trial, that the affiant no longer believed that Poindexter should receive the death penalty for what was described as a crime of passion, and, generally, that allegedly erroneous instructions and comments compelled the jury to make a death recommendation, and that the jury did not expect the trial judge to adopt the jury's recommendation.
Several other exhibits accompanying the petition related to Poindexter's attempt to gain access to visitation records from the jails in which Poindexter and an informant witness, Lee Antonio Holmes, were incarcerated, and to Poindexter's unsuccessful motion for the release of records held the Hamilton County Department of Human Services.
After filing its answer, the state moved for summary judgment and a dismissal of Poindexter's postconviction petition. The motion, which addressed each of the causes of action and raised, inter alia, a claim of res judicata, was accompanied by five affidavits, including the affidavit of an assistant prosecutor who stated that no plea bargain would have been considered by the state, and that Poindexter presented no signs of mental illness, either before or during his trial. In another affidavit, Poindexter's trial counsel stated, among other things, that he interviewed all critical witnesses; that no continuance was requested because he had completed all the interviews; that he felt he had a rapport with Poindexter and did not detect any sign of mental illness; that he did not request a mental examination or presentence examination of Poindexter because he "could not control their content"; and that he prepared potential jurors on voir dire for the prospect that Poindexter's alibi would not be proved and cautioned them to keep an open mind and to require the state to meet its burden of proof.
The state also presented the affidavit of a clinical psychologist who opined that the information used as a basis for the forensic psychologist's opinion demonstrated Poindexter's potential dangerousness more than the information presented to the jury at trial, although he also conceded that a case could be made for giving Poindexter less punishment as a result of the additional information due to Poindexter's dysfunctional family environment. Two additional affidavits from assistant prosecutors challenged the effectiveness and strategic wisdom of presenting additional psychological testimony during the mitigation phase or requesting a presentence mental examination in capital cases.
Poindexter's counsel submitted a memorandum opposing the motion for summary judgment on October 5, 1989. The following day, the trial court advised the parties that it intended to grant the state's motion for summary judgment without a hearing and requested counsel for both sides to propose findings of fact and conclusions of law. In the court's order of October 23, 1989, which denied Poindexter's R.C. 2953.21 petition without a hearing,[3] the court apparently adopted the state's fifty-page proposal as its own. Compare T.d. 25, Exhibit B, with T.d. 26. In our discussion of Poindexter's five assignments of error, we depart from the order in which they have been advanced in his brief. We first address the fourth and fifth assignments of error to determine whether the trial court considered all the appropriate materials before it ruled on the state's motion for summary judgment. Following this, we turn to the first and second assignments, which concern the merits of the motion itself. And we conclude with a review of the third assignment of error, which relates to the adequacy of the findings of fact and conclusions of law issued by the trial court.
Poindexter's fourth assignment of error claims that the trial court erred when it made its October 26, 1989, ruling that the affidavit of the juror could not be considered in determining Poindexter's entitlement to postconviction relief. This...
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