Williams v. Cain, Civil Action No. 96-1004.
| Decision Date | 09 October 1996 |
| Docket Number | Civil Action No. 96-1004. |
| Citation | 942 F.Supp. 1088 |
| Parties | Dobie Gillis WILLIAMS v. Burl CAIN, Warden, Louisiana State Penitentiary, Angola, Louisiana. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Western District of Louisiana |
Nicholas J. Trenticosta, New Orleans, LA, for plaintiff Dobie Gillis Williams.
Don M. Burkett, Burkett & Chevallier, Many, LA, for defendant Burl Cain, Warden, Louisiana State Penitentiary.
Habeas petitioner Dobie Gillis Williams presents a number of theories suggesting that his state court conviction was constitutionally infirm. The relief requested includes suspension, if not elimination, of the death penalty and a new trial, or certainly no less than a retrial of the sentencing phase of his trial. For the following reasons, this court GRANTS Williams' petition for writ of habeas corpus and REMANDS this matter to the state trial court for the purpose of conducting a resentencing hearing and ultimately a sentencing.
No purpose will be served to describe in lurid detail the facts surrounding the murder for which Dobie Gillis Williams was found responsible. A vivid account appears in the Louisiana Supreme Court decision. State v. Williams, 490 So.2d 255 (La.1986), reh'g denied, 490 So.2d 255 (La.1986). For the sake of completeness, however, we mention a few essential details. Shortly after midnight on 7 July 1984, Mrs. Sonja Knippers awoke and went into her bathroom. She closed the door only to discover Williams in the bathroom, pantless and brandishing a knife. Williams had gained access to the room by climbing on boxes he had stacked below a window and cutting a screen. Mrs. Knippers yelled, hollered, and attempted to avoid Williams. Williams locked the bathroom door, stabbed Mrs. Knippers eight times, departed hastily through the bathroom window and returned to the house of his grandfather. During these crowded moments the victim's screams awoke her husband, who attempted to break down the locked door, but to no avail. After Williams fled, Mrs. Knippers unlocked the door. Her husband assisted her to a couch in the living room. There, in his arms, she bled to death.
The husband could not identify the intruder. He did tell the police, however, that he heard his wife yelling about a black man trying to kill her. Williams was in Many, Louisiana, staying a short distance from the Knippers' residence. Ordinarily Williams would be immured at Camp Livingston where he was serving a sentence after having been convicted of attempted simple burglary. But Williams had been given a five-day furlough from prison to visit his relatives in Sabine Parish, Louisiana, hence his authorized presence in the victim's neighborhood.
The police, who were aware of Williams' permitted absence from incarceration and his proximity to the victim, picked him up for questioning. Williams ultimately confessed to the crime and identified the locations of the murder weapon and a bloody shirt. Forensic evidence unquestionably supported the confession.
Williams was indicted by the Sabine Parish Grand Jury of first degree murder. La.Rev. Stat. § 14:30. Trial venue, at the defendant's request, was changed to Grant Parish, Louisiana. The defendant was convicted at the jury trial. At the sentencing phase of the trial, death was the unanimous decision of the jury due to the presence of two aggravating circumstances, to wit: the offender was engaged in the perpetration of aggravated burglary or the attempted perpetration of aggravated rape; and the offense was committed in an especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel manner.
The defendant has exhausted all state court remedies and is properly before this court.1 We find all but two of the protestations of the defendant to be meritless. The primary issue that warrants our attention is the inadequacy of counsel, or more aptly, the lackluster performance by Williams' attorney at the sentencing stage of trial. So deficient in professional fulfillment of representational skills was the defendant's attorney that one must conclude that Williams was without any legal representation at this life or death segment of his trial. Some detail is essential.
Louisiana law requires a sentencing hearing subsequent to a guilty verdict in a capital case. See La.Code Crim.Proc. art. 905 et seq. Specific articles in the Louisiana Code of Criminal Procedure describe explicitly the scope of the sentencing hearing and particularly the evidence to be considered by the jury. We observe that article 905.2 sets the tone for a sentencing hearing: "The sentencing hearing shall focus on the circumstances of the offense and the character and propensities of the offender...." The following article directs the jury to consider any mitigating circumstances before reaching a decision on penalty. "A sentence of death shall not be imposed unless the jury finds beyond a reasonable doubt that at least one statutory aggravating circumstance exists and, after consideration of any applicable mitigating circumstances, recommends that the sentence of death be imposed...." La.Code Crim.Proc. art. 905.3.
There are a number of examples of "mitigating circumstances" itemized in article 905.5, but that statute also authorizes a defendant to introduce "any other relevant mitigating circumstance." La.Code Crim.Proc. art. 905.5(h). The definition of "mitigation" is not arcane. In common usage, confirmed in any dictionary, "mitigate" means to make milder, less painful, or less rigorous. Thus, the obvious command of Louisiana law is for the defendant to present evidence that may convince at least one juror that something less than death would be the appropriate penalty. The jury must agree on a death penalty or must agree on a life in jail penalty. If they can't agree, then the judge must sentence to a life in jail penalty. La.Code Crim.Proc. art. 905.8. Hence, all the defendant need do to save his life is convince one juror that the death penalty should not be employed. La.Code Crim.Proc. arts. 905.6, 905.8.
At the sentencing stage of the trial, counsel for the defendant made this opening promise to the jury:
"... [Y]ou must consider whatever mitigating circumstances arose out of the case. Mitigating circumstances are that the offender had no significant prior history of criminal conduct; the offense was committed while the offender was under the influence of extreme mental or emotional disturbance; at the time of the offense the capacity of the offender to appreciate the criminality of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of law was impaired as a result of mental disease, or defect, or intoxication; the youth of the offender at the time of his offense. You see Dobie, he's a kid, he's twenty-four, he was twenty-three; and, any other relevant mitigating circumstances, any other relevant mitigating circumstances. You should consider all that are presented. And, in fact, I think you must consider all the mitigating circumstances, any mitigating circumstances which are presented.... I ask you to consider what will be presented at this Sentencing Hearing and afterwards to render a just and fair decision.
State of La. v. Williams, La.Dist.Ct., Trial Transcript, p. 1016-17 (Wright, J., 35th Jud. Dist., Parish of Grant, May 13, 1985) (emphasis added). Defendant's counsel, however, called no witnesses and introduced no evidence at the sentencing hearing. Id. at 1039. Counsel's presentation was limited to eleven cross-examination questions to Larry Wayne Gene, the administrator for Camp Beauregard, as to Williams' furlough. Id. at 1033-34. Counsel did not introduce evidence of the background, upbringing, family values, treatment, experiences, attention, or punishments to which the defendant was exposed during his formative years. Evidence also existed as to the diminished intellect of the defendant. The defense should have brought out that Williams is a borderline, slow learner; that he was a consummate drinker and drug taker; that he, like other family members, attempted suicide.
It is uncontroverted that all of this information was readily available from family members and even presumably from the defendant, but had never been collected, let alone considered, by counsel for the defendant. We are neither weighing a conscientious decision of an attorney to tender or withhold a particular piece of evidence, nor evaluating a trial strategy, however lame, where one course of conduct is chosen over another. We must measure the mettle of one who never saw because he never looked. Does the failure to amass and collate the evidence we have referred to amount to an ineffective assistance of counsel, to such a degree as to render the defendant without representation at the sentencing session? We hold that Dobie Williams was without counsel during the penalty phase of his trial. The absence created a constitutionally impermissible condition.
This opinion proceeds in four parts. First, we consider the application of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 ("AEDPA"), which was enacted on 24 April 1996. Pub.L. 104-132, 110 Stat. 1217. The AEDPA amends the habeas procedure under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. We conclude that even if the new habeas rules as amended by the AEDPA apply, the outcome is the same. Second, we consider the substance of Williams' claim of ineffective assistance of counsel at the sentencing stage. We conclude that Williams was denied the effective assistance of counsel at the sentencing stage of his trial and grant his petition for writ of habeas corpus on that ground. Third, we consider whether a death sentence after the ineffective assistance of counsel at the sentencing stage of trial constitutes cruel and unusual punishment where counsel's failures preclude the jury from considering mitigating evidence. We conclude that Williams' death sentence violates the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. Fourth, we...
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Williams v. Cain, 98-30587
...District Court for the Western District of Louisiana. On October 9, 1996, District Judge Little granted the writ, see Williams v. Cain, 942 F.Supp. 1088 (W.D.La.1996), from which final decision Cain timely appealed. On October 3, 1997, this court reversed the judgment of the district court ......