Tibbetts v. Bradshaw

• Decision Date: 15 February 2011
• Docket Number: No. 06–3886.,06–3886.
• Citation: 633 F.3d 436
• Parties: Raymond TIBBETTS, Petitioner–Appellant,v.Margaret BRADSHAW, Warden, Respondent–Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

633 F.3d 436

Raymond TIBBETTS, Petitioner–Appellant,

v.Margaret BRADSHAW, Warden, Respondent–Appellee.

No. 06–3886.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Argued: June 15, 2010.Decided and Filed: Feb. 15, 2011.Rehearing and Rehearing En Banc * Denied March 25, 2011.

ARGUED: David L. Doughten, Cleveland, Ohio, for Appellant. Holly E. LeClair, Office of the Ohio Attorney General, Columbus, Ohio, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: David L. Doughten, Cleveland, Ohio, Lori Ann McGinnis, Mount Gilead, Ohio, for Appellant. Holly E. LeClair, Office of the Ohio Attorney General, Columbus, Ohio, for Appellee.Before: BATCHELDER, Chief Judge; MOORE and McKEAGUE, Circuit Judges.BATCHELDER, C.J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which McKEAGUE, J., joined. MOORE, J. (pp. 447–59), delivered a separate dissenting opinion.

OPINION

ALICE M. BATCHELDER, Chief Judge.

Raymond Tibbetts, an Ohio death row inmate represented by counsel, appeals the district court's decision to deny his petition for a writ of habeas corpus filed pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254. A certificate of appealability (“COA”) was granted for three claims: (1) whether trial counsel was ineffective for failing to develop and present evidence about Tibbetts' mental status at the penalty phase; (2) whether trial counsel was ineffective for failing to present mitigating evidence at the penalty phase; and (3) whether counsel on direct appeal was ineffective for failing to argue that the trial court did not consider all relevant information to support the imposition of a sentence less than death. We AFFIRM the district court's decision to deny the petition for a writ of habeas corpus because we find that the efforts of Tibbetts' trial counsel were not constitutionally deficient and because any failure of the trial court to consider relevant mitigation evidence was cured by the Ohio Supreme Court's independent reweighing of the relevant mitigating factors.

BACKGROUND

In 1998, a Hamilton County, Ohio, jury found Tibbetts guilty on three counts of aggravated murder, one count of murder, and one count of aggravated robbery, in connection with the robbery and murder of James Hicks and Susan Crawford. Each guilty verdict for the aggravated murder and murder counts contained two death penalty specifications: that the offense was committed during the course of an aggravated robbery; and that the offense included the murder of two or more persons. The Ohio Supreme Court summarized the facts as follows:

On November 6, 1997, Hicks's sister, Joan Hicks Landwehr, arrived at Hicks's home in Cincinnati to meet him for lunch. Landwehr often visited Hicks, who was sixty-seven years old and suffered from emphysema. Due to his condition, Hicks employed Crawford as a live-in caretaker. Tibbetts, who had married Crawford just over a month earlier, also lived in the house.

After getting no answer at the door and seeing Hicks's car missing from its usual parking space, Landwehr entered the home with her spare key. Landwehr went to a second-floor living room and found Hicks's dead body slumped in a chair. Landwehr immediately called 911. Landwehr noticed that her brothers' chest and stomach were bloody and that his right pants pocket, where Hicks usually kept his money, was turned inside out.

When Cincinnati police officers responded a short time later, they found Hicks with a tube still connecting his nose to a nearby oxygen tank. Two knives protruded from Hicks's chest, a third knife protruded from his back, and the broken blade of a fourth knife was also in his back. Officers found additional knives and a knife sheath near Hicks. A butcher block used to store knives lay behind Hicks's chair. Deputy coroner Daniel Schultz later determined that Hicks died as a result of multiple stab wounds to his chest that punctured Hicks's heart, lungs, and aorta. Hicks did not have any defensive wounds.

Officers searched the rest of the house and found Crawford lying dead on the floor of a third-floor room, covered with a sheet. Crawford had been brutally beaten; her head was cracked open and lay in a pool of blood. Pieces of Crawford's brain were lying on the floor next to her head. Crawford had also been stabbed several times, with one knife still stuck in her neck. Crawford also had a broken left arm, which Dr. Schultz characterized as a probable result of her attempt to ward off blows. Police found a bloodstained baseball bat and several knives near Crawford's body. Dr. Schultz concluded that Crawford died of multiple skull fractures and that at least nine of her stab wounds were inflicted after her death. In all, Crawford had been struck at least four times in the head with blunt-force blows and sustained stab wounds to her back, lungs, chest, arm, shoulder, and neck.

Dr. Schultz, who also investigated the crime scene, determined that Hicks and Crawford had been dead for several hours. Police investigators found no identifiable fingerprints on the baseball bat or the knives. The only fingerprints found in the house belonged to either Tibbetts or Crawford. There were no signs of forced entry anywhere in the residence. Police also learned from Landwehr and others at the scene that Hicks's car, a white Geo Metro, was missing. Landwehr told police that Tibbetts did not have permission to drive the car.

The day after discovering the bodies, Cincinnati police learned that a Covington, Kentucky police officer had stopped Tibbetts on the night of the murders. Just after midnight on November 6, 1997, Covington police lieutenant Michael Kraft found Tibbetts in a white Geo Metro that had broken down in the middle of an intersection. According to Kraft, Tibbetts appeared nervous and “smelled somewhat of intoxicants.” Tibbetts also lied to Kraft about the car's owner, saying that the car belonged to a friend in Covington.

Kraft summoned another officer to the scene to assist Tibbetts and investigate whether Tibbetts was driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Officer David Finan arrived a short time later and also noted that Tibbetts was nervous and smelled of intoxicants. He allowed Tibbetts to go, however, after concluding that Tibbetts was not under the influence of alcohol or drugs. The car was towed away and impounded by Covington police. Cincinnati police later recovered the Geo Metro from the Covington impoundment lot and found bloodstains on the steering wheel, gearshift, door panel, and brake handle.

After learning of the Covington police's encounter with Tibbetts, Cincinnati police charged Tibbetts with receiving stolen property and obtained an arrest warrant on November 7, 1997. The very next day, Tibbetts voluntarily admitted himself to the psychiatric unit at St. Elizabeth Hospital in Edgewood, Kentucky. Tibbetts told nurses that his name was Ray Harvey and provided an incorrect Social Security number. Despite the false name and identification information, nurses at the psychiatric unit recognized Tibbetts from his previous treatment at the hospital. On the same day that Tibbetts checked into St. Elizabeth, police arrested Tibbetts on the warrant for receiving stolen property and took him to a local jail for questioning.

Tibbetts signed a waiver of his Miranda rights and calmly cooperated with the two investigating officers who questioned him. Tibbetts had a noticeable cut on his hand and told the investigators he had cut his hand on a river barge where he had been staying. When an officer asked whether Tibbetts had seen his wife lately, Tibbetts responded that he had not and then terminated the interview. As police were leaving, Tibbetts queried, “What's the charge, manslaughter?” The investigators, who had not mentioned the murders to Tibbetts during the interview, responded that the matter was under investigation.

A few days later, a Cincinnati police officer retrieved from St. Elizabeth the clothing Tibbetts was wearing when he checked himself into the psychiatric unit and took it to the crime lab for DNA testing. The socks, T-shirt, and blue jeans Tibbetts was wearing on November 8, 1997, were all stained with human blood. A serologist found that the blood on Tibbetts T-shirt matched Tibbetts's blood, that blood on the socks matched Hicks's blood, and that blood on the blue jeans matched blood from Tibbetts, Crawford, and an unknown person. The serologist also analyzed blood found in the Geo Metro and concluded that blood on the door, brake handle, and gearshift matched Tibbetts's blood.

State v. Tibbetts, 92 Ohio St.3d 146, 749 N.E.2d 226, 237–39 (2001).

In preparation for the penalty phase, trial counsel hired a mitigation specialist, James Crates, and a forensic psychiatrist, Dr. Glen Weaver. Crates obtained numerous records from the Hamilton County Department of Children Services; St. Elizabeth, Eastgate Psychiatric Center; Anderson High School; Forest Hill School District; Live Oaks Career; Transitions, Inc./ Droege House; and McGuinness Corp., Tibbetts' former employer. Crates also contacted and interviewed members of Tibbetts' family. Dr. Weaver met with Tibbetts on three occasions, each meeting lasting between two and two and a half hours. Apart from Tibbetts' own unsworn statement to the jury, Dr. Weaver was the only witness called during the penalty phase, and he testified primarily as to Tibbetts' upbringing and his difficulties with drugs and alcohol.

Dr. Weaver characterized Tibbetts' childhood as “miserable,” detailing his parents' use of drugs and his father's abuse of alcohol. Dr. Weaver testified that Tibbetts was removed from his parents' home and placed into foster homes. Dr. Weaver described those foster homes as “punitive” and related that Tibbetts' sister had said that Tibbetts and his brothers “were tied in bed at night so they would not be any problem. No sheets, no pillows, no pillow case or anything. Treated more like animals. There wasn't any touching of him or the other sibling. Matter of fact, there was no touching even with his own...