United States v. Caro
| Decision Date | 08 May 2018 |
| Docket Number | No. 16-1,16-1 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. CARLOS DAVID CARO, Defendant - Appellant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit |
UNPUBLISHED
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia, at Abingdon. James P. Jones, District Judge. (1:06-cr-00001-JPJ-1; 1:13-cv-80553-JPJ)
Before GREGORY, Chief Judge, DUNCAN, Circuit Judge, and SHEDD, Senior Circuit Judge.
ARGUED: Timothy Michael Gabrielsen, OFFICE OF THE FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER, Tucson, Arizona, for Appellant. Anthony Paul Giorno, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Roanoke, Virginia, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Jon M. Sands, Federal Public Defender, District of Arizona, OFFICE OF THE FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER, Tucson, Arizona; Fay F. Spence, First Assistant Federal Public Defender, Roanoke, Virginia, Brian J. Beck, Assistant Federal Public Defender, OFFICE OF THE FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER, Abingdon, Virginia, for Appellant. Rick A. Mountcastle, Acting United States Attorney, Roanoke, Virginia, Jean B. Hudson, Assistant United States Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Charlottesville, Virginia, for Appellee.
A jury convicted Petitioner-Appellant Carlos David Caro of first-degree murder and sentenced him to death. Following a direct appeal, in which this court affirmed his conviction and sentence, Caro filed a 28 U.S.C. § 2255 Motion for Collateral Relief ("§ 2255 motion") challenging his death sentence on several grounds. The district court denied Caro's § 2255 motion but granted him permission to appeal whether the government violated his due process rights under Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963), by withholding Bureau of Prisons ("BOP") data on the amount of time that inmates are housed at U.S. Penitentiary, Administrative Maximum Facility ("Florence ADMAX").1 The key legal issue in this appeal is whether Caro can relitigate a subsequent, duplicative Brady claim on the basis of data that was available to him at the time the first claim was made. Because there is no legal basis for Caro's position, we affirm the denial of his § 2255 motion.
In summary, Caro's Brady claim fails for at least two independent reasons. First, it is procedurally barred because this court previously denied the same claim on direct appeal. Under Brady, the government must disclose evidence that is (1) "favorable to[the] accused" and (2) "material either to guilt or to punishment." Brady, 373 U.S. at 87 (emphases added). This court rejected Caro's Brady claim on direct appeal because he failed to demonstrate that the requested data was favorable. United States v. Caro, 597 F.3d 608, 619 (4th Cir. 2010). Caro's § 2255 motion raises the same alleged Brady violation except that it includes previously available statistics, left out of the direct appeal record, from which to argue that the requested BOP data would be favorable. Additional, previously available statistics are insufficient to distinguish the Brady claim raised in Caro's § 2255 motion from the claim we denied on direct appeal.
As we explain below, the dissent's argument to the contrary fails as a matter of law. The dissent argues that a Brady claim is only procedurally barred "if it is made with exactly the same evidence and exactly the same arguments raised on direct appeal." Infra at 48. But it cites no precedent for this proposition and we have found none. In fact, the weight of Supreme Court precedent indicates that previously available evidence is insufficient to revive a claim that was denied on direct appeal, unless that evidence could not reasonably have been included in the direct appeal record. See Sanders v. United States, 373 U.S. 1, 17 (1963); see also Townsend v. Sain, 372 U.S. 293, 317 (1963); Davis v. United States, 417 U.S. 333, 342 (1974). We are therefore unwilling to create out of whole cloth authority so fundamentally at odds with the central purpose of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act ("AEDPA")--partially codified at § 2255--which is "to reduce delays in the execution of state and federal criminal sentences, particularly in capital cases." Woodford v. Garceau, 538 U.S. 202, 206 (2003).
Even if Caro's Brady claim were not procedurally barred, however, it is unavailing. Caro provides no indication that the requested BOP data would have been favorable. Nor does he satisfy Brady's materiality requirement that there was a "reasonable probability" of a different sentence if the BOP data had been disclosed, see United States v. Bagley, 473 U.S. 667, 682 (1985), because, at best, the requested data would reiterate undisputed information that the jury found unpersuasive.
We begin with a history of Caro's criminal career, which culminated in the murder of Roberto Sandoval. Next, we discuss the penalty phase of Caro's murder trial because the evidence adduced during the penalty phase and its effect on the jury's decision to impose the death penalty are crucial to our Brady analysis. Finally, we recount the procedural history of this case, which is the basis for our conclusion that the Brady claim in Caro's § 2255 motion is procedurally barred.
Caro was recruited to the drug trade at a young age and has spent most of his adult life incarcerated as a result. When he was twenty-one years old, Caro was convicted of possession of marijuana with intent to distribute and received a twenty-four-month prison sentence. Upon his release, Caro reentered the drug trade. He was promptly arrested and convicted for a second time of possession of marijuana with intent to distribute. The court sentenced Caro to seventy-one months in prison. After completing this sentence,Caro was arrested with five kilograms of cocaine. In 2001, thirty-four-year-old Caro was convicted of his third drug-related offense and sentenced to 360 months imprisonment.
Since then, Caro has become increasingly violent and repeatedly defied the BOP's efforts to securely house him. In 2002, Caro was incarcerated at the low-security Federal Correctional Institution in Oakdale, Louisiana ("FCI Oakdale"), where he became a leader in one of the most violent prison gangs: the Texas Syndicate.2 When members of a rival gang were transferred to FCI Oakdale, the prison staff asked Caro to maintain the peace, but he refused to cooperate. Instead, Caro led an attack against the newcomers, beating one of the rival gang members so severely that he was hospitalized. His clothes and boots covered with blood, Caro boasted to the guards: J.A. 321.
Shortly after this attack, the BOP transferred Caro to the high-security U.S. Penitentiary in Lee County, Virginia ("USP Lee"). The additional security, however, did not deter Caro from injuring another inmate. In August 2003, Caro and another member of the Texas Syndicate stabbed a prisoner twenty-nine times with homemade knives. Caro pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit homicide and was sentenced to twenty-seven years in prison.
Caro was subsequently transferred to USP Lee's secure housing unit. On December 16, 2003, Sandoval was placed in Caro's cell. The next day, Caro ate Sandoval's breakfast. When Sandoval objected, Caro wrapped a wet towel around Sandoval's neck and strangled him to death. After he killed Sandoval, Caro yelled to a passing guard: "[G]et this piece of shit out of here." United States v. Caro, 102 F. Supp. 3d 813, 824 (W.D. Va. 2015). The guard asked Caro if Sandoval was alive and Caro responded, Id. The BOP transferred Caro to Florence ADMAX pending his trial for Sandoval's murder.
On February 1, 2007, a jury convicted Caro of first-degree murder for killing Sandoval. The trial advanced to the penalty phase, which proceeded in two stages. First, the jury determined that Caro was eligible to receive the death penalty under 18 U.S.C. § 3591. Second, the jury found that the aggravating factors established at trial sufficiently outweighed the mitigating factors to justify a death sentence.
Section 3591 provides that the death penalty is only available for defendants who have been convicted of a capital offense and for whom the government has proven at least one of the statutory aggravating factors provided in 18 U.S.C. § 3592(c). Here, the jury found that Caro was eligible for the death penalty because first-degree murder is a capital offense and the government proved two statutory aggravating factors: (1) Caro was previously convicted of two offenses involving distribution of illegal drugs committed on different occasions and punishable by imprisonment for over one year, see 18 U.S.C. § 3592(c)(10); and (2) Caro was previously convicted of a federal drug offense punishable by five or more years, see 18 U.S.C. § 3592(c)(12).
In the second stage of the penalty phase, the jury was asked to determine whether the aggravating factors of Caro's case--including ones not provided by statute--sufficiently outweighed the mitigating factors to justify a death sentence. The government alleged three non-statutory aggravating factors. At issue here is the government's allegation that Caro would pose a danger to inmates and BOP staff if he was sentenced to life in prison. To counter the government's future-dangerousness factor, Caro alleged that he would spend the rest of his life in a secure institution and would grow less violent with age.
The second stage of the penalty phase progressed in four parts that are significant to this appeal: (a) a discovery dispute over BOP statistics regarding the average...
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