Watkins v. Miller

• Decision Date: 24 April 2000
• Docket Number: No. IP97-0485-C-H/G.,IP97-0485-C-H/G.
• Parties: Jerry E. WATKINS, Petitioner, v. Charles MILLER, Respondent.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of Indiana

92 F.Supp.2d 824

Jerry E. WATKINS, Petitioner, v. Charles MILLER, Respondent.

No. IP97-0485-C-H/G.

United States District Court, S.D. Indiana, Indianapolis Division.

April 24, 2000.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Joseph M. Cleary, Hammerle Foster & Long-Sharp, Indianapolis, IN, William E. Marsh, Indiana Federal Community Defenders, Indianapolis, IN, for Plaintiff.

Michael A. Hurst, Deputy Attorney General, Indianapolis, IN, Thomas D. Perkins, Office of the Indiana Attorney General, Indianapolis, IN, for Defendant.

ENTRY ON PETITION FOR WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS

HAMILTON, District Judge.

The United States Constitution requires a fair trial but not a perfect one. Petitioner Jerry E. Watkins received neither, for the prosecutor in his murder case failed to disclose to Watkins' lawyers important information tending to show he was not guilty. The Constitution requires the government in a criminal prosecution to disclose exculpatory information to the defense. Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963).

The rule of Brady v. Maryland is founded upon the most basic constitutional guarantee to a person accused of a crime: the right to due process of law and a fair trial. The government is not entitled to convict a person and send him to prison while it conceals from him material evidence that tends to show he is not guilty. This habeas corpus case illustrates both the importance of this principle and the fallibility of the criminal justice system.

A jury convicted petitioner Jerry E. Watkins of a brutal murder, and the Indiana state courts have upheld Watkins' conviction. However, Watkins has presented to the state courts and to this court new evidence from DNA tests that show he is probably innocent of the murder. In the course of this federal proceeding, Watkins has also discovered and has demonstrated that the prosecution systematically violated his constitutional right to a fair trial by failing to disclose to his lawyers important evidence that tends to show he is not guilty. These circumstances dictate that Watkins is entitled to a federal writ of habeas corpus setting aside his state conviction.

Summary

In November 1984, eleven-year-old Margaret ("Peggy") Sue Altes was abducted, raped, and brutally murdered. Her body was left in brush at the edge of a field and was discovered five days after she had disappeared. The shocking crime received extensive publicity. The Hancock County Sheriff's Department investigated a number of suspects and leads for months without success.

Petitioner Watkins was, understandably, a suspect from the early stages of the case. Peggy Sue was the younger sister of Watkins' wife Janice. In September 1984, Watkins had sexually molested Peggy Sue. On Saturday, November 10, 1984, two days before Peggy Sue disappeared, Watkins' wife had caught Watkins molesting Peggy Sue again. Other family members quickly learned of the incident, although Watkins and his wife reconciled that same weekend. In 1985, after Peggy Sue's death, Watkins was charged with and pled guilty to having molested her in September 1984. He served his prison sentence for that crime.

Then, in March 1986, more than a year after Peggy Sue's death, Watkins was charged with her murder. The prosecution sought the death penalty. In a trial during August and September 1986, a jury found Watkins guilty of murder. At the penalty phase of the trial, the jury recommended against the death penalty. The Hancock Superior Court accepted the jury's recommendation and sentenced Watkins to 60 years in prison. The Supreme Court of Indiana affirmed Watkins' conviction and sentence on direct appeal. Watkins v. State, 528 N.E.2d 456 (Ind. 1988).

In 1992, Watkins sought post-conviction relief in the state courts based on new evidence from DNA testing, which had not been available at the time of his trial. As explained in more detail below, the DNA testing showed the victim's body contained semen which — to a certainty — could not have come from Watkins. The trial court nevertheless denied relief, concluding the DNA evidence was only cumulative of evidence at trial of inconclusive blood tests that suggested the possibility of a blood type not consistent with either Watkins or the victim.

The Indiana Court of Appeals affirmed the denial of post-conviction relief in an unpublished opinion. See Watkins v. State, No. 30A04-9504-PC-118, 1996 WL 42093 (Ind.App. Jan.29, 1996). That opinion reflects a clear misunderstanding of the DNA evidence. The Court of Appeals said the DNA results only "suggest the possibility" of another perpetrator. In fact those results prove beyond a reasonable doubt that someone other than Jerry Watkins raped the victim when she was murdered. Based on that misunderstanding of the evidence, the Court of Appeals also concluded that the DNA evidence was merely "cumulative" of the inconclusive trial evidence about the results of blood type tests. The Supreme Court of Indiana denied Watkins' petition for transfer.

In March 1997, acting pro se, Watkins filed in this court a petition for a writ of habeas corpus contending that his conviction was obtained in violation of his federal constitutional rights. This court initially denied Watkins' request for appointment of counsel on his behalf. After full briefing of the petition by Watkins, however, in November 1998 this court appointed counsel for Watkins to file a supplemental brief on his behalf. Counsel prepared and filed a supplemental brief. After a conference with counsel for both Watkins and respondent in July 1999, and with the agreement and cooperation of counsel for respondent, the court gave Watkins' counsel a further opportunity to investigate the facts of the case and to file an amended petition. The amended petition was filed on November 5, 1999, along with an Appendix containing new documentary evidence. Watkins' custodian has responded to the claims, and Watkins filed his traverse on March 29, 2000.

On April 10, 2000, the court conferred with counsel for both parties on their interest in an evidentiary hearing. Counsel for both sides stated that they did not seek an evidentiary hearing and that the court should decide the matter on the written submissions. The expansion of the record that has occurred in this case is the functional equivalent of an evidentiary hearing. That approach was appropriate under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(2) because, as explained below, there is no indication here that Watkins or his lawyers were at fault for failing to discover the prosecutor's Brady violations before the state proceedings concluded. See Michael Williams v. Taylor, ___ U.S. ____, 120 S.Ct. 1479, 1487, 1491-92, 146 L.Ed.2d 435 (2000) (§ 2254(e)(2) bars evidentiary hearing in federal habeas action only if failure to present factual basis of claim to state court was the result of some fault on petitioner's part).¹ Moreover, even if § 2254(e)(2) applied Watkins also satisfies the stringent requirements of the escape clause in that provision. Watkins' Brady claims that entitle him to relief are based on a factual predicate that could not have been previously discovered through the exercise of due diligence, and the facts underlying the claims establish by clear and convincing evidence that, but for the Brady violations, no reasonable fact finder would have found Watkins guilty of the underlying offense. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(2) (exception permitting evidentiary hearings even if petitioner was at fault for failing to develop factual predicate in state court).

As explained in detail below, the court grants Watkins' petition for a writ of habeas corpus because his conviction and continued imprisonment violate the United States Constitution. Watkins has come forward with compelling evidence that he is actually innocent of murdering Peggy Sue Altes. The state has always contended that Peggy Sue was raped at the time she was killed. The DNA evidence shows conclusively that Watkins could not have been the source of at least some of the semen found in the victim's body. The most reasonable explanation of that scientific evidence is that one man — who could not have been Watkins — raped the victim.

The DNA evidence does not exclude the theoretical possibility that the semen might have come from two men, one of whom might have been Watkins. However, the undisputed expert testimony shows that such a possibility is "farfetched" from a scientific standpoint. The theory depends on the improbable assumption that semen from two different men just happened to be collected on the same vaginal swab in exactly equal amounts. The theory is also utterly inconsistent with the theory of the case the prosecution presented to the jury. In addition, the state courts' treatment of the DNA evidence as merely cumulative of the blood type test results introduced at trial was plainly unreasonable because it was based on a clear misunderstanding of that evidence.

Whether even powerful evidence of actual innocence as a free-standing claim is enough to justify federal habeas relief from a state conviction is a matter of considerable debate in the courts. See, e.g., Herrera v. Collins, 506 U.S. 390, 417, 113 S.Ct. 853, 122 L.Ed.2d 203 (1993) (noting that "the traditional remedy for claims of innocence based on new evidence, discovered too late in the day to file a new trial motion, has been executive clemency," then assuming but declining to hold that "a truly persuasive demonstration of `actual innocence' made after trial would render the execution of a defendant unconstitutional").

In this case, however, petitioner Watkins is not making a free-standing claim of innocence. He has also shown that the prosecution systematically violated his constitutional right to a fair trial and due process of law by failing to disclose to his lawyers a variety of exculpatory evidence. That suppressed evidence includes evidence: (a) that an undisclosed witness saw Peggy Sue being abducted at a time...