Thomas v. Attorney Gen., 13-14635

• Decision Date: 31 March 2021
• Docket Number: No. 13-14635,13-14635
• Citation: 992 F.3d 1162
• Parties: William Greg THOMAS, Petitioner - Appellant, v. ATTORNEY GENERAL, State of Florida, Secretary, Florida Department of Corrections, Respondents - Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

992 F.3d 1162

William Greg THOMAS, Petitioner - Appellant,

v.ATTORNEY GENERAL, State of Florida, Secretary, Florida Department of Corrections, Respondents - Appellees.

No. 13-14635

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

March 31, 2021

Martin J. McClain, McClain & McDermott, PA, Wilton Manors, FL, John Stewart Mills, Attorney, Courtney Rebecca Brewer, The Mills Firm, Tallahassee, FL, for Petitioner-Appellant.

Jennifer A. Donahue, Florida Supreme Court, Tallahassee, FL, Charmaine Mary Millsaps, Office of the Attorney General, Tallahassee, FL, Stephen Richard White, Law Office of Stephen R. White, Tallahassee, FL, for Respondents-Appellees.

Before WILLIAM PRYOR, Chief Judge, and LAGOA and ED CARNES, Circuit Judges.

LAGOA, Circuit Judge:

William Greg Thomas, a Florida prisoner convicted and sentenced to death for the kidnapping and first-degree murder of his wife, appeals the district court's denial of his federal habeas petition following our remand in Thomas v. Attorney General , 795 F.3d 1286, 1296–97 (11th Cir. 2015). In that decision, we directed the district court to conduct a more thorough analysis of whether Thomas was entitled to equitable tolling of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act's ("AEDPA") one-year statute of limitations for filing his federal § 2254 habeas petition. Following our remand, the district court again concluded that Thomas was entitled to equitable tolling beginning in April 2003, deemed the petition timely filed, and denied Thomas's petition on the merits. For the reasons discussed below, we conclude that Thomas is entitled to equitable tolling as he demonstrated that he exercised reasonable diligence in pursuing his rights and he further demonstrated extraordinary circumstances—his counsel, Mary Catherine Bonner's abdication of her duty of loyalty to Thomas so she could promote her own interests—that prevented the filing of his petition. Indeed, Thomas's counsel's interests were so adverse to those of her client that Bonner effectively abandoned Thomas. Turning to the merits of the petition, the district court correctly ruled that Thomas procedurally defaulted on his first two claims and the state court reasonably denied relief on his third claim. We therefore affirm the denial of Thomas's petition.

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

A. State Court Proceedings

1. Trial and Direct Appeal

The Florida Supreme Court previously explained the essential facts of this case as follows:

Thomas planned the kidnapping and murder of his wife, Rachel, in order to avoid paying his part of a settlement agreement in their pending divorce. Thomas and a friend, Douglas Schraud, went to Rachel's house, September 12, 1991, the day before a substantial payment was due, and Thomas beat, bound, and gagged Rachel. When Rachel tried to escape by hopping outside, Thomas knocked her to the ground and dragged her back inside by her hair. He then put her in the trunk of her car and drove off. She was never seen again.

Thomas v. State (Thomas I ), 693 So. 2d 951, 951 (Fla. 1997). Thomas was charged with first-degree murder, burglary, and kidnapping, and Richard Nichols ("Nichols") was appointed to represent Thomas at trial. Id. During the guilt phase of the trial, "[t]he State presented numerous witnesses to whom [Thomas] had made incriminating statements," including Thomas's accomplice, Schraud. See id. at 951–52, 952 n.3. Thomas presented no evidence during the guilt phase. Id. at 951. The jury found Thomas guilty on all counts. Id.

During the penalty phase, a Florida jury recommended death by an eleven-to-one vote, and the Florida trial court imposed a sentence of death based on five aggravating circumstances and zero mitigating circumstances. Id. The Florida trial court found the following five aggravators:

(1) Thomas had previously been convicted of murdering his mother, Fla. Stat. § 921.141(5)(b) ; (2) the murder was committed in the course of a burglary, id. § 921.141(5)(d) ; (3) the murder was committed for pecuniary gain, id. § 921.141(5)(f) ; (4) the murder was especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel, id. § 921.141(5)(h) ; and (5) the murder was committed in a cold, calculated, and premeditated manner, id. § 921.141(5)(i).

Thomas , 795 F.3d at 1288 ; accord Thomas I , 693 So. 2d at 951 n.1. As to the aggravator that Thomas had previously been convicted of murdering his mother, Elsie Thomas, Thomas had entered a guilty plea in Florida circuit court case number 93-5393 on the charge of first-degree murder of Elsie prior to his sentencing in the instant case. The State presented evidence during the penalty phase of Thomas's trial in the instant case that Thomas murdered his mother to prevent her from talking to the police about Rachel's death. Thomas I , 693 So. 2d at 953. As part of the written plea agreement in his mother's murder case, Thomas "agree[d] to waive [his] rights to appeal any matter whatsoever arising out of [Rachel's murder case] whether direct, colarteral [sic] on appeals under [Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 3.850]," but "specifically reserve[d] the right to appeal matters concerning the sentencing in [Rachel's murder case]."

On direct appeal to the Florida Supreme Court, Thomas raised the following claims: (1) the State failed to prove the corpus delicti; (2) the sentencing order was deficient; (3) the jury instruction on the cold, calculated, and premeditated ("CCP") aggravator was faulty; (4) the prosecutor misinformed the jury about the weighing process for aggravators and mitigators; (5) the trial court improperly informed the jury on the weighing process; (6) the jury instruction on the heinous, atrocious, or cruel ("HAC") aggravator was faulty; (7) the prosecutor made improper closing comments; (8) the trial court used the felonies underlying the murder conviction as an automatic aggravator; and (9) the evidence was insufficient to support the pecuniary gain aggravator. Thomas I , 693 So. 2d. at 951 n.2. The Florida Supreme Court affirmed Thomas's convictions and sentence of death. Id. at 953. Regarding Thomas's first claim, the Florida Supreme Court determined that "the State introduced sufficient evidence to prove the corpus delicti of the murder and to lay the predicate for admission of Thomas's inculpatory statements." Id. at 952. As to Thomas's second claim, the Florida Supreme Court found that the trial court had failed to address mitigating evidence in its sentencing order but that the error was harmless, as the evidence of aggravation in the case was "massive." Id. at 953. The Florida Supreme Court found Thomas's remaining claims to be either not preserved or without merit. See id. at 953 & nn.4–5. On November 17, 1997, the United States Supreme Court denied Thomas's petition for writ of certiorari, Thomas v. Florida , 522 U.S. 985, 118 S.Ct. 449, 139 L.Ed.2d 385 (1997), at which point his conviction and sentence became final and AEDPA's one-year statute of limitations began to run.

2. Postconviction Evidentiary Hearing and Appeal

On October 5, 1998, Thomas filed his first motion for postconviction relief in state court. That motion, which was filed 321 days after his petition for writ of certiorari was denied, tolled the running of AEDPA's limitations period. On April 19, 2000, Thomas filed an "Amended Motion to Vacate Judgment and Sentence" (the "Amended Postconviction Motion"). In the Amended Postconviction Motion, Thomas raised the following claims: (1) Thomas's "sentencing jurors were repeatedly misinformed and mislead [sic] by instructions and arguments which unconstitutionally and inaccurately diluted their sense of responsibility for sentencing contrary to the Eight and Fourteenth Amendments," and defense counsel's failure to object and adequately litigate this issue was ineffective assistance of counsel; and (2) Thomas was denied the effective assistance of counsel at the guilt and sentencing phases of his trial.

As to his second claim, Thomas identified numerous instances of alleged ineffective assistance by his appointed trial counsel, Nichols, including: (1) Nichols was unprepared for the penalty phase and had "little or no discussions with the defendant prior to said penalty phase"; (2) Nichols did not adequately discuss with Thomas that he could testify in his defense; (3) Nichols did not interview witnesses Thomas identified; (4) Nichols's pretrial preparation was inadequate, as he only visited Thomas a few times prior to trial and, during those visits, Thomas noticed "the odor of alcohol on [Nichols's] breath"; (5) Nichols failed to investigate the primary motive presented by the State that Thomas "was required pursuant to a civil divorce judgment to pay sums of money to [his wife]," as Nichols did not have Harry Mahon, Thomas's civil counsel, testify at trial that Thomas had already given the sum of money to Mahon for payment to Rachel; (6) Nichols failed to object to the CCP aggravator instruction; (7) Nichols failed to object to certain comments made by the prosecutor and the state trial court to the venire panel about the death penalty; (8) Nichols failed to object to the HAC aggravator instruction; (9) Nichols failed to object to the prosecutor's improper comments made during closing argument; (10) Nichols failed to object to the use of the felonies underlying the murder as qualifying as an "automatic aggravator"; and (11) Nichols failed to argue that the evidence was insufficient to support a finding that the murder was committed for pecuniary gain. On August 15, 2000, Thomas filed an Addendum to the Amended Postconviction Order with two additional claims: (1) at the conclusion of the trial, Nichols failed to object to the prosecutor dropping a hangman's noose on the counsel table, which greatly prejudiced the jury; and (2) Nichols did not inform Thomas that "a guilty plea relative to the charge of murder (wherein his mother was the victim) could result in an aggravating circumstance in the penalty phase of the murder trial...