Weeks v. Angelone

• Decision Date: 10 May 1999
• Docket Number: No. 98-21,98-21
• Citation: 176 F.3d 249
• Parties: Lonnie WEEKS, Jr., Petitioner-Appellant, v. Ronald J. ANGELONE, Director of the Virginia Department of Corrections, Respondent-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

Page 249

176 F.3d 249

Lonnie WEEKS, Jr., Petitioner-Appellant, v. Ronald J. ANGELONE, Director of the Virginia Department of

Corrections, Respondent-Appellee.

No. 98-21.

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

Argued March 1, 1999.

Decided May 10, 1999.

ARGUED: Timothy Meade Richardson, Huff, Poole & Mahoney, P.C., Virginia Beach, Virginia, for Appellant. Robert H. Anderson, III, Assistant Attorney General, Office of the Attorney General, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Glen A. Huff, Huff, Poole & Mahoney, P.C., Virginia Beach, Virginia; Sterling H. Weaver, Sr., Portsmouth, Virginia, for Appellant. Mark L. Earley, Attorney General of Virginia, Office of the Attorney General, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellee.

Before WILKINSON, Chief Judge, and HAMILTON and WILLIAMS, Circuit Judges.

Application for a certificate of appealability denied and petition dismissed by published opinion. Judge WILLIAMS wrote the opinion, in which Chief Judge WILKINSON and Judge HAMILTON joined.

OPINION

WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge:

On October 21, 1993, a Commonwealth of Virginia jury convicted Lonnie Weeks, Jr., of the capital murder of Virginia State Trooper Jose Cavazos. Following the jury's determination that Weeks's conduct satisfied the "vileness" aggravating factor, the trial court sentenced Weeks to death. After exhausting all available state remedies, Weeks petitioned the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia for habeas corpus relief. See 28 U.S.C.A. § 2254 (West 1994 & Supp.1998). The district court dismissed his petition. Weeks subsequently filed an application for a certificate of appealability with this Court raising numerous constitutional claims of error. Weeks argues, inter alia, that the trial court's refusal to clarify its capital sentencing instruction to the jury after they indicated confusion with the instruction prevented the consideration of relevant mitigating evidence in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, that the trial court's refusal to appoint ballistics and pathology experts violated his due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment, and that the Supreme Court of Virginia's refusal to suppress his confession to the murder of Trooper Cavazos violated his Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment rights. After reviewing the record and briefs and hearing oral argument, we conclude that Weeks has failed to make "a substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right." 28 U.S.C.A. § 2253(c)(2) (West Supp.1998). Accordingly, we deny his application for a certificate of appealability and dismiss his petition.

I.

The undisputed facts of this case, as recited by the Supreme Court of Virginia, are as follows:

In early February 1993, [Weeks], who was age 20, a North Carolina resident, and on probation for a 1992 drug conviction, participated in the burglary of a residence in the Fayetteville, North Carolina area. During the course of that crime, [Weeks] obtained a set of keys to a 1987 Volkswagen Jetta automobile parked at the residence, and stole the vehicle. Later that month, [Weeks] drove the vehicle to Washington, D.C., intending to sell it or trade it for drugs. [Weeks] carried in the vehicle a Glock Model 17, nine millimeter, semi-automatic pistol loaded with hollow-point bullets. According to the testimony, the bullets were designed for police use, not target practice or hunting; this type of bullet is referred to as a "man stopper."

During the late evening of February 23, [Weeks] was riding as a passenger in the vehicle being driven by his uncle, 21-year-old Lewis J. Dukes, Jr., a resident of the District of Columbia. The pair was traveling en route from Washington to Richmond southbound on Interstate Route 95.

Around midnight, Trooper Cavazos was operating radar from his marked police vehicle parked in the highway medium monitoring southbound traffic. The Volkswagen driven by Dukes passed the trooper's position at a high rate of speed. The officer activated his vehicle's emergency lights and proceeded to chase the vehicle occupied by [Weeks]. After traveling a brief distance, and passing other vehicles by driving on the right shoulder of the highway, Dukes brought the car to a stop on the Dale City exit ramp, in a dark, remote area.

The trooper pulled his patrol car to a stop behind the Volkswagen, which he approached on foot on the driver's side. Upon the officer's request, Dukes alighted and was standing toward the left rear of the Volkswagen when the trooper asked [Weeks] to step out of the vehicle.

[Weeks] complied with the officer's request and alighted on the right side of the vehicle as the trooper was near the left side. As [Weeks] left the vehicle he was carrying the fully loaded pistol. He then fired at least six bullets at the officer, two of which entered his body beside the right and left shoulder straps of the protective vest the trooper was wearing. The officer was immediately rendered unconscious and fell to the pavement, dying within minutes at the scene with his police weapon in its "snapped" holster.

[Weeks], with Dukes as a passenger, then drove the Volkswagen from the scene and parked it on the lot of a nearby service station. [Weeks] returned to the scene of the crime on foot and retrieved Dukes' District of Columbia driver's license that had been dropped on the pavement. [Weeks] rejoined Dukes, and they were found by police shortly thereafter in the parking lot of a nearby motel.

. . . . .

About 2:45 a.m., after [Weeks] had been with [the Prince William County police officer who had first encountered Weeks in the motel parking lot] for about two hours, state police officers arrived to question [Weeks] and Dukes. Near 3:00 a.m., state police Special Agent J.K. Rowland met [Weeks] in the motel lobby. Rowland "explained to him that he was not under arrest" and asked [Weeks] "if he would like to talk ... about what he had seen up on Interstate 95." [Rowland], who ... testified [that Weeks] was "free to leave at that time," conducted an interview with [Weeks] in private in one of the motel rooms.

. . . . .

[A]s Rowland questioned [Weeks] in the motel room, Rowland became "more and more suspicious" of[Weeks]. Even though [Weeks] "was free to leave" at that point, Rowland advised [Weeks] of his constitutional rights according to Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), as a precaution at 7:40 a.m. [Weeks] then exercised his right to remain silent and wrote, "Do not want to discuss case any further," on the "Advice of Rights" form that he signed. Rowland honored this request, and ceased questioning.

At 7:50 a.m., Rowland was advised by another investigator that Dukes had just stated that [Weeks] shot the trooper. Rowland arrested [Weeks] at 7:52 a.m.

Subsequently, [Weeks] was taken before a magistrate and then to the Adult Detention Center in Manassas. Later that morning, classification officers in the jail routinely questioned [Weeks] about his physical and mental state; no attempt was made to elicit information about the crime. During the interview, [Weeks] indicated that he was considering suicide because he had shot the trooper. [Weeks] also voluntarily wrote a letter to a jail officer admitting the killing and expressing remorse. [Weeks] does not contest either of these admissions but attacks the constitutional validity of the following interview.

Near 6:00 p.m. on February 24, [Weeks] was brought to the lounge of the local prosecutor's office where Rowland again interviewed him; additional information had been developed by the police during the day between the termination of the first interview and the beginning of the second interview. Rowland asked [Weeks], "Do you remember the rights I read to you earlier today?" to which[Weeks] responded affirmatively. Rowland proceeded "to summarize the investigation through the course of the day's events to that point in time."

Among other things, Rowland told [Weeks] that an eyewitness to the shooting had made a positive identification of him as the assailant. A witness actually had identified [Weeks] as a person she saw at the scene after the homicide, but she had not witnessed the shooting. At the conclusion of Rowland's summary, he said to [Weeks], "This is your opportunity to provide your explanation as to what happened at the shooting scene." [Weeks] responded, "Yes, I was packing." The officer knew that "packing" meant "carrying a firearm."

[Weeks] then confessed to the trooper's murder. [Weeks] stated that when the trooper asked him to get out of the Volkswagen, he picked up the pistol and "thought about throwing it away." Instead, he saw the trooper put his hand down toward his service revolver. [Weeks] said he then "panicked" and shot the victim "several times rapidly." [Weeks] stated that he drove, with Dukes as a passenger, to the service station, placing the pistol under the front floor mat of the Volkswagen. This interview lasted about one hour during which [Weeks] readily answered questions and did not invoke his right to remain silent or any other constitutional right.

Weeks v. Commonwealth, 248 Va. 460, 450 S.E.2d 379, 382-86 (Va.1994).

After a jury trial in the Circuit Court of Prince William County, Virginia, Weeks was convicted of the capital murder of Cavazos pursuant to Va.Code Ann. § 18.2-31(6) (Michie Supp.1998). ¹ Based on its finding--made during the sentencing phase of Weeks's trial--that Weeks's conduct was outrageously or wantonly vile in that it involved depravity of mind and/or aggravated battery to the victim beyond the minimum necessary to commit the murder, see Va.Code.Ann. § 19.2-264.4(C) (Michie 1995), the jury recommended that Weeks be sentenced to death. After conducting a post-trial hearing pursuant to Va.Code. Ann. § 19.2-264.5 (Michie 1995), the Circuit Court of Prince William County followed the jury's recommendation and sentenced Weeks to death. On direct appeal, the Supreme Court of...