Williams v. State

• Citation: 706 N.E.2d 149
• Decision Date: 19 February 1999
• Docket Number: No. 45S00-9303-PD-397,45S00-9303-PD-397
• Parties: Darnell WILLIAMS, Appellant (Petitioner Below), v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee (Respondent Below).
• Court: Supreme Court of Indiana

706 N.E.2d 149

Darnell WILLIAMS, Appellant (Petitioner Below), v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee (Respondent Below).

No. 45S00-9303-PD-397

Supreme Court of Indiana.

February 19, 1999.

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Susan K. Carpenter, Public Defender of Indiana, Ann M. Pfarr, Deputy Public Defender, Juliet M. Yackel, Special Assistant to the State Public Defender, Indianapolis, Indiana, Attorneys for Appellant.

Jeffrey A. Modisett, Attorney General of Indiana, Arthur Thaddeus Perry, Deputy Attorney General, Indianapolis, Indiana, Attorneys for Appellee.

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SHEPARD, Chief Justice.

A jury found Darnell Williams guilty of the felony murders of John and Henrietta Rease. In accordance with the jury's recommendation, the trial court sentenced Williams to death. On direct appeal, we affirmed. Rouster v. State, 600 N.E.2d 1342 (Ind.1992). Williams petitioned for post-conviction relief. The post-conviction court denied the petition and Williams appeals. He asserts numerous claims which we consolidate and review as follows:

I. Ineffective assistance of counsel;

II. Systemic defects in the Lake County public defender program;

III. Williams' pre-sentencing psychological profile;

IV. Errors of fact in direct appeal opinion;

V. Post-conviction due process.

Facts

Williams and his co-defendant Gregory Rouster robbed and shot to death Rouster's ex-foster parents, John and Henrietta Rease. Rouster, 600 N.E.2d at 1344.

In the late afternoon of August 12, 1986, Rouster learned from a welfare caseworker that the Reases had received a clothing allowance, amounting to around five or six dollars per month, on his behalf. About four hours later, Rouster, Williams, and their girlfriends rode a bus to the Reases' neighborhood. Rouster and Williams entered the home and started to argue with the Reases about the clothing allowance. After a short time, Mr. Rease ordered them to leave. Once out in the front yard, Williams said to Rouster "don't let them do you this way" and "you know they owe you." (T.R. at 185A.) Edwin Taylor, another teenager living in the foster-care of the Reases, said "you all have guns ... go take the money" and told Rouster and Williams that the Reases had money on their bedroom dresser. Rouster, 600 N.E.2d at 1345.

Both Williams and Rouster re-entered the home. Williams told Henrietta to get on the floor. She pleaded with Williams not to hit Mr. Rease because he had a bad heart. Id. at 1345-46. Williams replied, "his heart is stronger than mine." Id. at 1346. Rouster demanded to be told "where's the money at?", and told Williams to "bring both of them back here." Id. Williams then said "it's your time." Id. Rouster was heard to say something like "waste them." Id. Henrietta pleaded "Greg, why are you doing this?" Id.

The police apprehended Williams after a foot chase which included a dash across a busy highway intersection. Id. at 1345. Williams had a pouch containing $232 in cash and a wristwatch at the time of his arrest. He also had some .30 caliber ammunition. Id. Several shells of the same caliber and brand were discovered on the floor of the Reases' home. Id. Tests indicated that John Rease had been killed with a .32 caliber bullet while a .22 caliber bullet was found in Henrietta's brain. Id.

Standard of Review

Post-conviction procedures do not afford the petitioner with a super-appeal. Instead, they create a narrow remedy for subsequent collateral challenges to convictions, challenges which must be based on grounds enumerated in the post-conviction rules. Ind.Post-Conviction Rule 1(1); Weatherford v. State, 619 N.E.2d 915 (Ind. 1993). Petitioners bear the burden of establishing their grounds for relief by a preponderance of the evidence. P-C.R. 1(5); Weatherford, 619 N.E.2d at 917. If an issue was known and available but not raised on appeal, it is waived. If it was raised on appeal but decided adversely, it is res judicata. Lowery v. State, 640 N.E.2d 1031 (Ind. 1994), cert. denied, 516 U.S. 992, 116 S.Ct. 525, 133 L.Ed.2d 432 (1995).

When one appeals the negative judgment of a post-conviction court, the standard is even more rigorous. Petitioners must show that the evidence as a whole, "leads unerringly and unmistakably to a conclusion opposite to that reached by the trial court." Weatherford, 619 N.E.2d at 917.

I. Ineffective Assistance of Counsel

The right to effective assistance of trial and appellate counsel has been firmly established by the U.S. Supreme Court and by this Court. United States v. Cronic, 466 U.S. 648, 654, 104 S.Ct. 2039, 80 L.Ed.2d 657 (1984); King v. State, 467 N.E.2d 726, 728-29 (Ind.1984). In his post-conviction petition, Williams listed more than sixty alleged errors to show trial counsel ineffectiveness.¹ The post-conviction court considered Williams' claims and concluded that "the allegations fail to establish that counsel's overall performance was deficient as measured by prevailing professional norms" and that "the petitioner has failed to persuade us that the outcome of the trial or sentencing hearing would have been different but for trial counsel's performance." (P-C.R. at 1317-18.)

We analyze claims of ineffective assistance of trial and appellate counsel under the two part test announced in Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984). To prevail on an ineffective assistance of counsel claim, one must show both deficient performance and resulting prejudice. A deficient performance is a performance which falls below an objective standard of reasonableness. Strickland, 466 U.S. at 687, 104 S.Ct. 2052 (1984); see also Douglas v. State, 663 N.E.2d 1153, 1154 (Ind. 1996). Prejudice exists when a claimant shows "there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different. A reasonable probability is a probability sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome." Strickland, 466 U.S. at 694, 104 S.Ct. 2052; see also Cook v. State, 675 N.E.2d 687, 692 (Ind.1996).²

Even if the claimant succeeds in showing a reasonable probability the results would have been different, he must also show his conviction was fundamentally unfair or unreliable. Lockhart v. Fretwell, 506 U.S. 364, 369, 113 S.Ct. 838, 122 L.Ed.2d 180 (1993). A fair trial has been denied a defendant when his conviction or sentence has resulted from a breakdown in the adversarial process which rendered the result unreliable. Strickland, 466 U.S. at 686, 104 S.Ct. 2052; see also Canaan v. State, 683 N.E.2d 227, 229 (Ind.1997), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 118 S.Ct. 2064, 141 L.Ed.2d 141 (1998). The two prongs of the Strickland test are separate and independent inquiries. Thus, "if it is easier to dispose of an ineffectiveness claim on the ground of lack of sufficient prejudice... that course should be followed." Strickland, 466 U.S. at 697, 104 S.Ct. 2052. An appellant/petitioner must offer strong and convincing evidence to overcome the presumption that counsel prepared and executed an effective defense. Burris v. State, 558 N.E.2d 1067, 1072 (Ind.1990), cert. denied, 516 U.S. 922, 116 S.Ct. 319, 133 L.Ed.2d 221 (1995).

On appeal from the post-conviction court, Williams re-asserts his trial counsel were ineffective for the following reasons: (a) counsel failed to conduct a minimally adequate review of discovery materials, (b) failed to advocate sufficiently for a motion for severance, (c) failed to prepare adequately for the penalty phase of trial and the sentencing hearing, (d) failed to investigate the crime scene evidence adequately, and, (e) failed to object to erroneous instructions. We review each of Williams' claims in the following subsections.³

A. Inadequate Review of Discovery. Williams argues that counsel were ineffective for failing to review fully materials given to them by the State during discovery. Specifically, Williams points to his counsel's failure to realize that a report by State's expert Kimberly Epperson showed that blood found on Williams' shorts was consistent with the blood of either John Rease, Henrietta Rease, or Gregory Rouster. (P-C.R. at 4424; T.R. at 1852-58; T.R. at 1966-67.) He claims that had his counsel known about the blood before trial, they could have revealed to the jury that the evidentiary chain of custody was suspect,⁴ hired a serology expert to testify that 45% of all people in Indiana have a blood type which matches that found on the shorts, and hired a blood splatter expert to refute the State's closing argument about the significance of the blood. (Appellant's Br. at 30-41.) Williams believes that these failures fall below an objective standard of reasonable representation.

Williams also asserts, as he must to succeed under Strickland, that the blood evidence was determinative regarding his conviction and, alternatively, his sentence. To bolster this contention, Williams relies on comments made by the State in its closing argument, by the trial judge in his findings of fact, and by Williams' trial counsel in post-conviction testimony. (Appellant's Br. at 27, 40, 42-43.)

The post-conviction court agreed that counsel's oversight of discovery materials indicating that blood had been found on Williams' shorts was difficult to excuse in light of the significance of the evidence. The court concluded, however, that the outcome of the trial or sentencing hearing was not affected by that oversight and thus that Williams had not shown he was prejudiced by counsel's failure. (P-C.R. at 1321.) The post-conviction court wrote:

The petitioner takes the position that trial counsel could have, and should have, obtained the services of expert witnesses who might have established that the blood found on the petitioner's shorts got there through transference from other blood stained evidence or, at least, was not necessarily evidence that he was present at the...