Walker v. State
| Decision Date | 23 July 2020 |
| Docket Number | NO. 2018-CA-01059-SCT,2018-CA-01059-SCT |
| Parties | ALAN DALE WALKER v. STATE OF MISSISSIPPI |
| Court | Mississippi Supreme Court |
ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLEE: OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL BY: LADONNA C. HOLLAND MARVIN L. WHITE, JR. BRAD A. SMITH
NATURE OF THE CASE: CIVIL - POST-CONVICTION RELIEF
DISPOSITION: AFFIRMED - 10/08/2020
MOTION FOR REHEARING FILED: 07/23/2020
MANDATE ISSUED:
EN BANC.
COLEMAN, JUSTICE, FOR THE COURT:
¶1. The motion for rehearing is denied. The previous opinions are withdrawn, and the following opinions are substituted.
¶2. Alan Dale Walker was convicted of the capital murder of Konya Edwards during the commission of sexual battery, and he was sentenced to death. Walker v. State, 671 So. 2d 581, 587 (Miss. 1995). He also was convicted of forcible rape and kidnapping for which he was sentenced to thirty and thirty-five years, to run consecutively. Id. On direct appeal, the Court affirmed his convictions and sentences. Id. at 588. We denied Walker's application for leave to file a motion for post-conviction relief. Walker v. State, 863 So. 2d 1, 31 (¶ 92) (Miss. 2003). Walker filed a successive motion, and the Court held that his post-conviction counsel had rendered ineffective assistance of counsel. We remanded the case to the trial court for a hearing to determine whether Walker's trial counsel had been ineffective under the standard set forth in Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 687-88 (1984), in searching for and presenting mitigating evidence during the penalty phase of the trial and whether such deficient performance, if any, had prejudiced Walker.
¶3. After a hearing on remand, the Circuit Court of the First Judicial District of Harrison County held that Walker had failed to meet his burden of proof that trial counsel had rendered deficient performance that prejudiced him. Walker appeals. Following a review of the record, we discern no grounds for reversing the trial judge's determination. Accordingly, we affirm.
FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY
¶4. On December 10, 2013, we granted Walker's motion for leave to file a successive motion for post-conviction relief and ordered the circuit court to conduct a hearing on the following issue:
whether Alan Dale Walker's trial counsel was ineffective in searching for and presenting mitigation evidence during the penalty phase of his trial, and whether Walker suffered prejudice from such deficient performance, if any, "sufficient to undermine the confidence in the outcome actually reached atsentencing." Doss v. State, 19 So. 3d 690, 708 (Miss. 2009) (quoting Rompilla v. Beard, 545 U.S. 374, 393, 125 S. Ct. 2456, 162 L. Ed. 2d 360 (2005) (internal quotation [mark] omitted)).
Walker v. State, 131 So. 3d 562, 564 (Miss. 2013).
¶5. On April 29, 2014, Walker filed a motion to vacate sentence in the circuit court. After the conclusion of pretrial matters and additional psychological testing, the circuit court held an evidentiary hearing. On February 22, 2016, the circuit court heard lay-witness testimony from Walker's family members and from his mother's friend. On December 1, 2016, the circuit court heard testimony from Walker's trial counsel, Earl Stegall, and from his experts, psychologist Matthew Mendel, Ph.D., and neuropsychologist Robert Shaffer, Ph.D.
Evidentiary Hearing Testimony
Earl Stegall
¶6. Earl Stegall represented Walker in his capital-murder trial with Robin Midcalf, a relatively new lawyer, as cocounsel. Stegall testified that he had memory problems after suffering a stroke in 2005 and that he had reviewed the case and refreshed his memory but that he was unable to recall everything. Throughout his testimony, Stegall exhibited a significant inability to recall past events.
¶7. Stegall related what he could remember of his representation of Walker. He was proud that he successfully had moved to suppress Walker's confession. He testified that until the confession had been suppressed, he had thought the guilt phase was a "foregone conclusion," but that afterwards he thought "he had a shot." Stegall testified that he had believed that Jonathan Riser, Walker's accomplice, was not going to testify due to hispending charges. Stegall said his defense strategy was going to be that Riser had committed the acts and that Walker happened to be present during the crime. Stegall had thought "for sure" that after the confession was suppressed, the State would offer Walker a plea deal and, at worst, Walker would face a life sentence. Because Stegall had thought he "had a lock on the life sentence," he was not "as worried about the penalty phase at all." "[A]t the last second," however, Riser made a deal with the State to testify against Walker, after which Stegall requested a continuance. The trial court denied his request.
¶8. Stegall testified as follows about his penalty-phase strategy:
I remember I was going to have him address the jury rather than have him testify. I think that's exactly what I did. And I wanted to—my thing in death penalty cases was to personalize them. Make them a person, you know. And tell their life history as well as you could so the jury could look at them and think of them as a person and not just somebody sitting there charged as a murderer. And I remember, I don't have an independent recollection of this, but I know I must have done it. We had the mother come and testify, that was the plan, and then a sister or a brother was going to testify.
Stegall testified that he could not remember having done so but that he would have spoken with the penalty-phase witnesses before trial by phone or before they took the stand. He could not recall having spoken with Walker's father or other non-local relatives or whether he had moved for funds for an investigator for the mitigation case. He thought he would have asked Midcalf to investigate. He did not remember having consulted any experts.
¶9. Stegall did remember that he had asked for a mental evaluation to assess Walker's competency to stand trial, but he said that nothing about Walker had given him cause to think to hire a psychologist. He was shown a July 26, 1991 order granting the defense's motion for a mental evaluation, but Stegall was unable to recall speaking with the psychiatrist whohad performed the mental evaluation, Dr. Maggio, before the trial. When asked if he would have wanted the State to obtain a report that showed criminal behavior, he said he would not have wanted the State to hear of any violent or serious crime and use it against his client.
Discovery of Pretrial Psychiatric Evaluation
¶10. After the hearing concluded, the circuit court reviewed the original trial exhibits and found a report of the pretrial psychiatric evaluation by Dr. Maggio that had been requested by defense counsel and was believed to have gone missing after the trial. The report was found under seal in the circuit clerk's files.
¶11. The trial court notified the parties and allowed Walker's counsel to view the sealed report. Walker requested that the court either not consider the report or reopen the evidentiary hearing to take additional testimony from Stegall. The circuit court denied his requests, finding that the report was relevant and that Stegall likely would have nothing helpful to add to his original testimony. The circuit court asked the parties to resubmit their post-hearing briefs, including arguments addressing the report.
Circuit Court's Ruling
¶12. The circuit court entered an order and a corrected order denying Walker's motion to vacate sentence. Under the first prong of the Strickland test, deficient performance, the circuit court found that Stegall's strategy of seeking to humanize Walker before the jury had been reasonable. The court found that although PCR counsel would have used a different mitigation strategy, Stegall's approach was not constitutionally deficient, that Walker likewise had failed to meet his burden of proving Strickland prejudice, and that given thebrutality of the crime, no reasonable probability existed that the alleged childhood trauma and impaired brain function would have caused a jury to impose a life sentence instead of the death penalty.
¶13. Walker filed a motion to alter or amend or for reconsideration. In furtherance of his argument that Stegall's performance had been deficient, he attached the affidavits of criminal-defense attorneys Thomas Fortner and Ross Parker Simons, who opined that Stegall's penalty-phase preparation had breached the prevailing professional standards for capital-defense attorneys. We agree with the State that because the affidavits were not admitted at the evidentiary hearing, they cannot be considered. Fowler v. White, 85 So. 3d 287, 292 (¶ 20) (Miss. 2012). Therefore, we do not address Walker's many arguments that rely on the affidavits.
STANDARD OF REVIEW
¶14. "When reviewing a lower court's decision to deny a petition for post conviction relief, this Court will not disturb the trial court's factual findings unless they are found to be clearly erroneous." Manning v. State, 158 So. 3d 302, 304 (¶ 4) (Miss. 2015) (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Doss v. State, 19 So. 3d 690, 694 (¶ 5) (Miss. 2009)).
In making that determination, "[t]his Court must examine the entire record and accept 'that evidence which supports or reasonably tends to support the findings of fact made below, together with all reasonable inferences which may be drawn therefrom and which favor the lower court's findings of fact . . . .'" Mullins v. Ratcliff, 515 So. 2d 1183, 1189 (Miss. 1987) (quoting Cotton v. McConnell, 435 So. 2d 683, 685 (Miss. 1983)). That includes deference to the circuit judge as the "sole authority for determining credibility of the witnesses." Mullins, 515...
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