State v. Williams

Citation167 N.E.3d 527
Decision Date29 January 2021
Docket NumberNO. 2019-T-0028,2019-T-0028
Parties STATE of Ohio, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Andre R. WILLIAMS, Defendant-Appellant.
CourtUnited States Court of Appeals (Ohio)

167 N.E.3d 527

STATE of Ohio, Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
Andre R. WILLIAMS, Defendant-Appellant.

NO. 2019-T-0028

Court of Appeals of Ohio, Eleventh District, Trumbull County.

January 29, 2021


TIMOTHY P. CANNON, J.

{¶1} Andre R. Williams, an offender on Ohio's death row, appeals from the April 11, 2019 judgment of the Trumbull County Court of Common Pleas, denying Williams’ petition for postconviction relief. Pursuant to Atkins v. Virginia , 536 U.S. 304, 122 S.Ct. 2242, 153 L.Ed.2d 335 (2002), Williams claims he is intellectually disabled and challenges imposition of the death penalty against him as cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The judgment is reversed, and the matter is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

Relevant Procedural History

{¶2} Williams and a co-defendant were charged with the home invasion and murder of George Melnick and the attempted murder of Katherine Melnick. Williams was additionally charged with the rape of Katherine Melnick. In 1989, a jury found Williams guilty of three counts of aggravated murder and four death penalty specifications for each count; attempted aggravated murder; aggravated burglary; aggravated robbery; and the lesser included offense of attempted rape. During the penalty phase, the prosecution moved to dismiss two of the aggravated murder charges. The jury unanimously recommended a sentence of death on the remaining count of aggravated murder based on the underlying felony of aggravated burglary. The Trumbull County Court of Common Pleas sentenced Williams to the death penalty and prison terms. The Supreme Court of Ohio upheld Williams’ convictions and death sentence in State v. Williams , 74 Ohio St.3d 569, 660 N.E.2d 724 (1996).

167 N.E.3d 531

{¶3} Williams’ initial claim for habeas relief from the federal courts was filed in 1999. Subsequent to the denial of his habeas petition, the United States Supreme Court decided Atkins v. Virginia , 536 U.S. 304, 122 S.Ct. 2242, 153 L.Ed.2d 335 (2002). Atkins stands for the proposition that the execution of an intellectually disabled criminal is "cruel and unusual punishment" prohibited by the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Id. at syllabus.

{¶4} Following Atkins , the Supreme Court of Ohio developed procedures and substantive standards for resolving claims of intellectual disability in the context of death penalty cases (" Atkins claims"). State v. Lott , 97 Ohio St.3d 303, 2002-Ohio-6625, 779 N.E.2d 1011. The Court set forth a three-part test for intellectual disability (the " Lott Test"): (1) significantly subaverage intellectual functioning; (2) significant limitations in two or more adaptive skills, such as communication, self-care, and self-direction; and (3) onset before the age of 18. Id. at ¶12. The Lott Court further held that IQ tests alone "are not sufficient to make a final determination" on the issue and that "there is a rebuttable presumption that a defendant is not [intellectually disabled]1 if his or her IQ is above 70." Id.

{¶5} In 2003, Williams filed an Atkins claim with the Trumbull County Court of Common Pleas via a petition for postconviction relief. On October 19, 2004, the trial court granted summary judgment to the state of Ohio and dismissed Williams’ petition without hearing. The trial court found Williams failed to meet his burden to submit evidentiary documents containing sufficient operative facts to demonstrate intellectual disability because (1) his expert witness had reported Williams obtained a full scale IQ of 75, which did not meet the criteria based upon the Lott definition; and (2) the evidence revealed no deficiencies in adaptive skills. On appeal, this court reversed the trial court's judgment and remanded the matter for the trial court to address the issues of dismissal and summary judgment separately and to enter a new judgment on Williams’ petition. State v. Williams , 165 Ohio App.3d 594, 2006-Ohio-617, 847 N.E.2d 495, ¶21 (11th Dist.), appeal not accepted , 110 Ohio St.3d 1410, 850 N.E.2d 72 (2006).

{¶6} On remand, the trial court issued a revised entry granting summary judgment to the state without holding a hearing and without any new testing of Williams. This court affirmed the trial court's judgment. We held that "[t]he only criterion for which Williams met his burden [to raise a genuine issue of material fact] is the third criterion. The evidence before the court does demonstrate that Williams had indications of [intellectual disability] before the age of 18." State v. Williams , 11th Dist. Trumbull No. 2007-T-0105, 2008-Ohio-3257, 2008 WL 2582849, ¶34, appeal not accepted , 120 Ohio St.3d 1453, 898 N.E.2d 968 (2008). Unlike the trial court, we credited Williams’ school and psychological records, which included the school psychologists’ description of "educable mentally retarded"; a full scale IQ score of 67 from the age of nearly 16; and an evaluation that determined Williams’ adaptive behavior functioning was several years behind his actual age in areas of communication and self-direction. Id. We rejected this evidence, however, in assessing whether Williams satisfied the first two Lott factors because it did "not constitute competent evidence from which inferences

167 N.E.3d 532

may be made regarding his present mental capacity." Id. at ¶37 (emphasis added).

{¶7} In 2009, Williams filed an Atkins claim in the federal district court via a petition for habeas corpus. The district court held that, because we had determined Williams satisfied the "age of onset" criterion, it needed only review our factual determinations regarding the other two criteria. The district court held our factual determinations that Williams failed to demonstrate "significant subaverage intellectual functioning" and "adaptive skills deficits" was not unreasonable in light of the evidence presented. Williams v. Mitchell , N.D.Ohio No. 1:09 CV 2246, 2012 WL 4505774, *38 (Sept. 28, 2012).

{¶8} The U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the district court's decision, finding this court's decision was contrary to clearly established federal law for a number of reasons. Williams v. Mitchell , 792 F.3d 606 (6th Cir. 2015).

{¶9} First, the Sixth Circuit criticized our "wholesale exclusion" of past evidence of intellectual disability in determining whether Williams has significantly subaverage mental functioning and adaptive skills limitations as "opposite" and "directly contrary" to clearly established Federal law set forth in Atkins : "notwithstanding the Lott court holding that past evidence of intellectual functioning (e.g. , past IQ scores, evidence of adaptive limitations from ‘early-life’) was relevant to the three Atkins factors, the court of appeals rejected outright any pre-1989 evidence from its analysis of Williams's intellectual functioning and adaptive skills, despite finding this same evidence showed that Williams was intellectually disabled before he turned eighteen." Id. at 617. "[T]here is no basis for the Ohio Court of Appeals to have assumed, as it apparently did, that most low childhood IQ scores (or, to be precise, age-fifteen IQ scores) are the result of developmental delays." Id. at 618. "[B]ecause intellectual disability manifests itself during childhood and remains static throughout life, evidence of intellectual disability from one point in life is relevant to an examination of intellectual disability in another." Id. at 619, citing State v. White , 118 Ohio St.3d 12, 2008 -Ohio- 1623, 885 N.E.2d 905 and State v. Lorraine , 11th Dist. Trumbull No. 2006-T-0100, 2007-Ohio-6724, 2007 WL 4376250.

{¶10} Second, the Sixth Circuit held that our ruling was "contrary to the established definition of intellectual disability as set forth in clearly established Supreme Court precedent" by categorically excluding "substantial and weighty evidence" from our analysis and ignoring the medical community's determination that intellectual disability manifests before the age of 18. Id. at 619, 621. "Importantly, the clinical definitions cited with approval by Atkins and adopted by Lott do not treat present functioning and early onset as unrelated parts of a disconnected three-part test. To the contrary, a plain reading of these clinical definitions makes clear that if an individual is indeed presently intellectually disabled , as the term is understood, the disability would have manifested itself before the individual turned eighteen. " Id. at 619-620, citing Heller v. Doe , 509 U.S. 312, 323, 113 S.Ct. 2637, 125 L.Ed.2d 257 (1993) (intellectual disability "is a permanent, relatively static condition") and Hall v. Florida, 572 U.S. 701, 724, 134 S.Ct. 1986 (a petitioner must be able to present evidence regarding "deficits in adaptive functioning over his lifetime").

{¶11} Finally, the Sixth Circuit found our decision "applied an arbitrary and disproportionate evidentiary rule to exclude the pre-1989 evidence at issue," thereby abridging Williams’ due process right to present evidence. The Sixth Circuit noted that this arbitrary "cutoff" resulted in a

167 N.E.3d 533

categorical exclusion only to evidence that was submitted by Williams. Id. at 622-623, citing United States v. Scheffer , 523 U.S. 303, 308, 118 S.Ct. 1261, 140 L.Ed.2d 413 (1998) and Holmes v. S. Carolina , 547...

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