United States v. LeCroy

• Decision Date: 30 March 2012
• Docket Number: CRIMINAL ACTION NO. 2:02-CR-38-RWS-SSC,CIVIL ACTION NO. 2:08-CV-2277-RWS
• Parties: UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff, v. WILLIAM EMMETT LECROY, JR., Defendant. WILLIAM EMMETT LECROY, JR., Petitioner, v. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Respondent.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Georgia

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff,

v.WILLIAM EMMETT LECROY, JR., Defendant.

WILLIAM EMMETT LECROY, JR., Petitioner,

v.UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Respondent.

CRIMINAL ACTION NO. 2:02-CR-38-RWS-SSC

CIVIL ACTION NO. 2:08-CV-2277-RWS

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF GEORGIA GAINESVILLE DIVISION

Dated: March 30, 2012

Prisoner Habeas Petition 28 U.S.C. § 2255

ORDER

This case comes before the Court on Defendant LeCroy's Motion to Vacate, Set Aside, or Correct Sentence under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 [493]. After a review of the record, the Court enters the following order.

A. Relevant Factual and Procedural Background¹

Mr. LeCroy is on death row for the murder of Joann Tiesler in October 2001, but events that occurred well before her death are relevant to this case.² We begin in 1989, when LeCroy was 19 years of age. After leaving the Army, LeCroy spent time at the home of his mother and stepfather, Donna and Sam Houston. Houston had two daughters, one of whom, Alecia, was 13 years old and lived with her father. LeCroy and Alecia began a sexual relationship that the parents discovered in January of 1990. Alecia's mother—Sam Houston's former wife—urged the authorities to prosecute LeCroy for statutory rape.

Around the same time, Cobb County police were investigating a series of burglaries in a residential neighborhood occurring in late 1990 and early 1991, and Cobb County Detective Kevin Flynn identified LeCroy as a suspect. On March 3, 1991, LeCroy was arrested following a traffic stop. In his car police found a holster and gun and several hand-written notes. One of the notes described a plan to "rob cars and kill people driving so the car can be used two or three days." Another listed steps to take in case of being chased, including "burglarize house," "flee and switch cars," "be ruthless and famous," and "rape rob and pillage [sic]." A third document had "H-L" written at the top and contained a list ofnames; authorities contended this was a "hit list" of people LeCroy wanted to kill.

The investigation and evidence discovered in LeCroy's car resulted in multiple state charges, and authorities decided to simultaneously prosecute LeCroy for his relationship with Sam Houston's daughter and for burglary. In August of 1991, LeCroy was sent to prison in Georgia for aggravated assault, burglary, child molestation, and statutory rape. As he was serving his sentence for those crimes, he was charged and convicted under federal law of possession of a sawed-off shotgun, an item he had obtained during one of the burglaries. He served an additional five years in prison, this time in a federal facility.

LeCroy was released from federal custody in August 2001. Upon his release, he began serving a three-year term of supervised probation and moved into the home of his mother and stepfather, Mr. Houston, on Cherry Log Mountain in Gilmer County, Georgia.

As a condition of his supervised release, and because of his prior convictions for statutory rape and aggravated child molestation, LeCroy was ordered to undergo a psychosexual evaluation in September of 2001. LeCroy prematurely left the evaluation, and only agreed to return to submit to the testing after being warned by his probation officer that he risked being sent back to prison if he refused again. The evaluation was rescheduled for October 22, 2001. The government argues that despite agreeing to be retested, LeCroy had decided to flee.

In the weeks preceding Ms. Tiesler's death, LeCroy's stepfather was growing concerned about his stepson's behavior. Mr. Houston testified that LeCroy spent a great deal of time on the computer, rarely leaving his bedroom. Later investigation of the computer showed that it had been used to search for survival gear, and to scan and copy Mr. Houston's passport. On the back of the letter scheduling his original psychosexual evaluation, which was laterfound by police, LeCroy wrote out a "need to acquire" list of items he intended to collect. These included binoculars, boots, gloves, guns, ammunition, and food and water.

On Friday, October 5, Donna and Sam Houston left LeCroy alone at the Cherry Log cabin, informing him that they would be gone until the night of October 8. This was the first time since his release from prison that Mr. LeCroy was left alone at the home. A series of robberies on Cherry Log Mountain occurred over the weekend of October 5-7, 2001, including the theft of medical supplies, a shotgun, and ammunition from homes in the neighborhood. Several weeks before Ms. Tiesler was killed, LeCroy purchased camouflage makeup and plastic cable ties. The government contends that the purchases and the robberies were part of LeCroy's plan to collect the items from his need to acquire list and flee the country.

It is undisputed that at some point on the evening of Sunday, October 7, LeCroy broke into the home of Joann Tiesler, who lived in the same neighborhood as LeCroy's stepfather. Entering through a bedroom window that overlooked a porch, LeCroy took steps to return the open blinds of the window to their original position so that it would look undisturbed from the outside. At the time of the break-in, LeCroy was armed with a loaded shotgun, a knife, and plastic cable ties.

Ms. Tiesler had spent the weekend in Rome, Georgia at the house of her fiance. Around 5:40 pm on October 7, Tiesler was seen driving up the mountain toward her cabin. She entered her home and placed her purse on an island in the kitchen. Soon after that LeCroy attacked her, striking her in the back of the head with the shotgun and discharging it in the hallway outside her bedroom. He bound her hands behind her back with cable ties and strangled her with an electrical cord. Still alive, Ms. Tiesler was stripped of her underwear and forced to kneel at the foot of her bed, where shewas raped and then anally sodomized. Semen found in Tiesler's body was identified as that of LeCroy.

After raping her, LeCroy slashed Tiesler's throat with the knife. Doctors determined that this was likely the fatal wound, as the knife severed the external jugular vein, right internal jugular vein, and right carotid artery, penetrating down to Tiesler's cervical vertebrae. Finally, LeCroy stabbed Tiesler five times in the back and wiped his knife off on her shirt. She was left naked and bound on her bed, and was discovered the next day by a co-worker and a real estate agent.

After killing Ms. Tiesler, LeCroy took her keys and her car, a Ford Explorer, loaded it up with some supplies, and headed for Canada. Two days later, on Tuesday, October 9, 2001, LeCroy was captured at the border between Minnesota and Canada driving Ms. Tiesler's vehicle. Inside police found a knife stained with Tiesler's blood; a map with writing on the back;³ a separate written note;⁴ and plastic cable ties like those LeCroy used to tie up Ms. Tiesler. Police also discovered two unspent shotgun shells, boots, food, water, ammunition, gloves, and other items from LeCroy's need to acquire list.

LeCroy was indicted in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia on May 15, 2002 for taking a motor vehicle by force, violence, and intimidation from Joann Tiesler resulting in her death, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2119(3). A superseding indictment added special death-eligibility allegations subsequently found by the grand jury on August 13, 2002.

United States v. LeCroy, 441 F.3d 914, 918-20 (11th Cir. 2006).

Shortly following the initial indictment, Federal Defender Program, Inc. attorneys Paul Kish,⁵ Stephanie Kearns,⁶ and Brian Mendelsohn⁷ were appointed to represent LeCroy. Dkt. No. [5]. Soon after, private attorney Daniel Summer⁸ was also appointed via a CJA appointment. Dkt. No. [7].Counsel agreed that while all would work together on all issues prior to trial, during trial Kish and Summer would focus on the guilt/innocence portion of the case, and Kearns and Mendelsohn would primarily be responsible for sentencing. EHT, Dkt. No. [534] at 12:19-13:3, 13:21-24.

1. Jury Underrepresentation Challenge

On June 12, 2002, Defendant filed a Motion to Stay Proceedings (Petit Jury Challenge) in which he challenged the petit jury composition and selection process of the Northern District of Georgia, in the Gainesville Division, pursuant to the Jury Service and Selection Act of 1968, 28 U.S.C. § 1861 et seq. ("JSSA") and the Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. Dkt. No. [12]. On the same date, Defendant also filed a Motion to Stay Proceedings and/or Motion to Dismiss Indictment (Grand Jury Challenge), in which he challenged the grand jury composition and selection process on the same grounds stated in his petit jury challenge. Dkt. No. [13]. Defendant argued in both motions that the Northern District of Georgia's method of selecting persons for the master jury wheel from which the prospective grand and petit jurors are drawn, in particular the sole reliance on voter registration lists, resultsin a substantial underrepresentation of African-Americans and persons of Hispanic origin in the jury wheel, and thus deprived Defendant of his due process rights, in violation of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, and of his right to a fair cross-section of the community, in violation of the JSSA and the Sixth Amendments. He requested in both motions "that the Court set down a hearing on this Motion . . . and after receiving evidence thereon that the Court stay the proceedings in this case until such time as a plan is properly devised which fulfills the mandate a fair cross-section of the community be represented in the [petit jury and grand jury] pursuant to Title 18 28 U.S.C. § 1861 and the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution." He attached to both motions a copy of the 2002 "Amended Plan for the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia for the Random Selection of Grand and Petit Jurors" and the JS-12 reports for the 2001 master jury wheel...