Taylor v. State , 20090771.
| Decision Date | 24 January 2012 |
| Docket Number | No. 20090771.,20090771. |
| Citation | 2012 UT 5,700 Utah Adv. Rep. 81,270 P.3d 471 |
| Parties | Von Lester TAYLOR, Petitioner and Appellant, v. STATE of Utah, Defendant and Appellee. |
| Court | Utah Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Brian M. Pomerantz, Los Angeles, CA, Megan Blythe Moriarty, Salt Lake City, for appellant.
Mark L. Shurtleff, Att'y Gen., Thomas Brunker, Erin Riley, Asst. Att'ys Gen., Salt Lake City, for appellee.
INTRODUCTION
¶ 1 In this appeal we decide whether the district court correctly granted the State's motion to dismiss Von Lester Taylor's second petition for post-conviction relief. The district court held that all of Taylor's claims 1 were procedurally barred under the Post–Conviction Remedies Act (PCRA) because they were raised, or could have been, but were not, raised in a prior proceeding. Because Taylor has failed to establish that his claims could not have been raised in a prior proceeding and has failed to meet any statutory or common law exceptions to the procedural bar, we affirm.
¶ 2 In December 1990, Taylor and Edward Deli (Deli) broke into the Tiede family cabin while the Tiedes were away for the night. The next day, Kay Tiede returned to the cabin with her daughter, Linae, and her mother, Beth Potts. Upon entering the cabin, Taylor ordered Kay and Beth upstairs. They were then shot to death. A short time after the shootings, Kay's husband, Rolf, and the couple's other daughter, Ticia, returned to the cabin. Taylor ordered them to the garage where Taylor demanded money and then shot Rolf. Before leaving the cabin, Taylor shot Rolf in the head a second time and doused him with gasoline. Next, he spread gasoline throughout the cabin and set it on fire. Taylor and Deli then took Linae and Ticia with them and left the cabin. Rolf survived and alerted the police. Taylor and Deli took Linae and Ticia hostage, stole Rolf's car, and led police on a high-speed chase before they were caught and arrested.
¶ 3 Taylor pled guilty to two capital homicide charges for the murders of Kay Tiede and Beth Potts. The State then agreed to drop all additional charges, including attempted criminal homicide, aggravated arson, aggravated kidnaping, aggravated robbery, theft, and failure to respond to an officer's signal. 2 The penalty phase of the trial was conducted in May 1991, and the jury unanimously voted to sentence Taylor to death. Following the penalty phase, Taylor filed a motion with the trial court to withdraw his guilty plea. That motion was denied.
¶ 4 In October 1991, Taylor's trial counsel filed a notice of appeal. The State moved to dismiss Taylor's counsel and strike his opening brief. Counsel was ordered to withdraw, but his brief was not stricken. In September 1993, new counsel was appointed to represent Taylor. He filed a motion under rule 23B of the Utah Rules of Appellate Procedure asking us to remand the case to the district court for an evidentiary hearing on the issue of whether trial counsel had been ineffective. We granted the motion. The rule 23B hearing was held before the district court in May 1995. The district court rejected all of Taylor's claims of ineffective assistance of trial counsel, and we affirmed. See State v. Taylor ( Taylor I ), 947 P.2d 681, 690 (Utah 1997). The United States Supreme Court subsequently denied Taylor's petition for a writ of certiorari. Taylor v. Utah, 525 U.S. 833, 119 S.Ct. 89, 142 L.Ed.2d 70 (1998).
¶ 5 In February 1998, the district court appointed post-conviction counsel to represent Taylor in proceedings under the PCRA. Counsel filed a petition for post-conviction relief in February 1999 and amended the petition in May 2002. The State responded to the amended petition by filing a motion for summary judgment. The court granted the State's motion for summary judgment. It held that (1) all claims for ineffective assistance of trial counsel were procedurally barred because they were raised, or could have been raised, during the rule 23B hearing, and (2) all claims for ineffective assistance of appellate counsel failed because Taylor had not established that appellate counsel missed an obvious claim that might have resulted in a reversal on appeal. See Taylor II, 2007 UT 12, ¶ 11, 156 P.3d 739. We affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment, holding that appellate counsel did not provide ineffective assistance because he did not overlook any claims that could have resulted in a different outcome on appeal. Id. ¶ 127.
¶ 6 In September 2007, Taylor filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus in federal court. He amended the petition in November 2007. That case has been stayed pending conclusion of the present case.
¶ 7 Taylor filed this successive petition for post-conviction relief in the district court on November 5, 2007. The parties then filed several motions, responses, and supplemental memoranda with the district court. In particular, the State filed a February 15, 2008 motion to dismiss Taylor's petition. On August 17, 2009, the district court granted the State's motion. Taylor timely appealed to this court.
¶ 8 “ ‘We review an appeal from an order dismissing or denying a petition for post-conviction relief for correctness without deference to the lower court's conclusions of law.’ ” Taylor II, 2007 UT 12, ¶ 13, 156 P.3d 739 (internal quotation marks omitted).
¶ 9 Taylor's second petition for post-conviction relief asserted thirty claims. The district court ruled that the PCRA procedurally barred all of Taylor's claims because they could have been raised in a prior proceeding. Additionally, the district court held that Taylor had not established “that any of the statutory or common law exceptions [to the procedural bar] appl[ied] that would permit the court to consider the merits of Taylor's claim.” On appeal, Taylor challenges the district court's dismissal of twelve of his original thirty claims. These claims include the following: (1) the trial court erred in dismissing Taylor's motion for change of venue, (2) the trial court erred in failing to strike potential jurors for cause, (3) the trial court erred in failing to ask certain voir dire questions, (4) the trial court erred by allowing the introduction of the doctrine of blood atonement during voir dire, (5) the prosecutor engaged in misconduct when he allegedly excluded potential jurors based on religious affiliation, (6) the jurors impermissibly considered extrinsic evidence, (7) the trial court erred by admitting inadmissible evidence during the penalty phase, (8) the State failed to disclose exculpatory evidence, (9) Taylor's death sentence was disproportionate to his culpability, (10) the appellate record is inadequate, (11) post-conviction counsel was ineffective, and (12) the cumulative impact of these errors prejudiced the outcome of Taylor's sentencing hearing.
¶ 10 Taylor contends that these claims could not have been raised in an earlier proceeding because they “present new facts that were not previously known.” Additionally, he claims that, even if these claims are procedurally barred, we should consider them under the common law exceptions to the procedural bar and under the statutory exception for ineffective assistance of counsel.
¶ 11 We first examine Taylor's claims under the PCRA and hold that all of them are procedurally barred because (1) they were either raised and addressed, or could have been raised, in his first petition for post-conviction relief, and (2) they fail to meet the PCRA's exceptions to the procedural bar. We next examine the common law exceptions 3 to the procedural bar and the statutory exception for ineffective assistance of counsel and hold that none of these exceptions apply.
¶ 12 Taylor argues that the district court erred in holding that twelve of his post-conviction claims could have been raised in a previous proceeding. 4 Specifically, Taylor argues that the evidence supporting these claims was not discovered until after he filed his first petition for post-conviction relief and therefore he could not have raised these claims in that petition. We are unpersuaded.
¶ 13 The PCRA precludes relief “upon any ground that ... was raised or addressed ... or could have been, but was not, raised in a previous request for post-conviction relief.” Utah Code § 78–35a–106(1)(d) (2007).5 But the PCRA contains exceptions to the procedural bar that allow a petitioner to seek relief from a conviction or sentence even though the specific grounds for relief could have been raised in a prior proceeding. See id. § 78–35a–104. These exceptions include cases of newly discovered material evidence. Id. § 78–35a–104(1)(e); see also Gardner v. Galetka (Gardner I), 2004 UT 42, ¶ 14, 94 P.3d 263. Taylor contends that this exception applies here.6
¶ 14 The newly discovered evidence exception provides that “a person who has been convicted and sentenced for a criminal offense may file an action in the district court ... for post-conviction relief to vacate or modify the conviction or sentence [if] ... newly discovered material evidence exists that requires the court to vacate the conviction or sentence.” Utah Code § 78–35a–104(1)(e). To invoke this exception, a petitioner must meet the following four conditions:
(i) neither the petitioner nor petitioner's counsel knew of the evidence at the time of trial or sentencing or in time to include the evidence in any previously filed post-trial motion or post-conviction proceeding, and the evidence could not have been discovered through the exercise of reasonable diligence;
(ii) the material evidence is not merely cumulative of evidence that was known;
(iii) the material evidence is not merely impeachment evidence; and
(iv) viewed with all the other evidence, the newly discovered...
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