Yeatts v. Angelone

• Decision Date: 12 January 1999
• Docket Number: No. 98-19,98-19
• Parties: Ronald Dale YEATTS, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Ronald J. ANGELONE, Director, Virginia Department of Corrections, Respondent-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

Page 255

166 F.3d 255

Ronald Dale YEATTS, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Ronald J. ANGELONE, Director, Virginia Department of Corrections, Respondent-Appellee.

No. 98-19.

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

Argued Oct. 29, 1998.

Decided Jan. 12, 1999.

ARGUED: Gerald Thomas Zerkin, Gerald T. Zerkin & Associates, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellant. Pamela Anne Rumpz, Assistant Attorney General, Office of the Attorney General, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Robert E. Lee, Jr., Virginia Capital Representation Resource Center, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellant. Mark L. Earley, Attorney General of Virginia, Office of the Attorney General, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellee.

Before WILKINS, HAMILTON, and LUTTIG, Circuit Judges.

Dismissed by published opinion. Judge WILKINS wrote the majority opinion, in which Judge LUTTIG joined. Judge HAMILTON wrote a separate opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment.

OPINION

WILKINS, Circuit Judge:

Ronald Dale Yeatts filed this petition for habeas corpus relief ¹ from his Virginia conviction for capital murder and his resulting death sentence. See 28 U.S.C.A. § 2254 (West 1994). ² The district court denied the relief sought. Yeatts now maintains that the state trial court violated his constitutional right to due process by failing to permit him to inform the jury that he would not be eligible for parole for 30 years if sentenced to life imprisonment and that his trial counsel was constitutionally ineffective for failing to adequately voir dire prospective members of the jury concerning their ability to consider a life sentence. Because we conclude that Yeatts has not made a substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right, we deny Yeatts' request for a certificate of probable cause to appeal and dismiss.

I.

On the afternoon of September 23, 1989, after ingesting alcohol, marijuana, and cocaine base, Yeatts and his friend Charles Michael Vernon decided to rob Ruby Meeks Dodson, a 70-year-old woman for whom Vernon previously had performed plumbing work. After gaining entry to Dodson's home on the pretense of having experienced problems with his automobile, Yeatts stabbed Dodson and slit her throat while Vernon searched her bedroom for money. Finding none, Vernon stole Dodson's pocketbook and fled with Yeatts. Dodson's body was discovered on the floor of her kitchen later that evening.

The investigation of Dodson's murder led law enforcement officials to Vernon, who implicated himself and Yeatts in the crime. Vernon agreed to testify against Yeatts in exchange for a 20-year sentence. In addition, Yeatts confessed to the crime, and physical evidence connected him to the killing.

The state trial court conducted voir dire by separating the prospective jurors into groups of four to six individuals. For each group, the court conducted a general voir dire, and then the individual prospective jurors were questioned by the court and counsel. The state trial court asked questions to "death qualify" the prospective jurors. Although the words that the court used were not identical with respect to each prospective juror, the court proceeded through essentially the same colloquy with each. The court advised the prospective jurors that capital murder was punishable by death or life imprisonment. Then, the court asked three questions. It inquired whether each prospective juror possessed "any opinion, conscientious, religious, psychological, moral, or any other beliefs" that would prevent him from convicting someone of a crime punishable by death; whether the prospective juror held any such beliefs that would prevent him from imposing the death penalty if he believed based on the facts and circumstances that death was the appropriate sentence; and finally, whether the prospective juror would be able to consider voting to impose a sentence of life imprisonment if Yeatts were convicted of capital murder. E.g., J.A. 19-20. After questioning by the prosecution, defense counsel questioned the prospective jurors individually. In addition to other questions, counsel asked each prospective juror death-qualifying questions in similar language. First, defense counsel inquired, "Do you believe that the death sentence is the only appropriate punishment for capital murder?" E.g., id. at 27. Next, defense counsel asked whether the prospective juror could consider all of the evidence and still impose a life sentence.

During the sentencing proceeding that followed Yeatts' convictions for capital murder and robbery, the prosecution elicited information concerning each of Yeatts' prior convictions--including the date, the sentence imposed, and his parole or probation status at the time of the commission of each prior offense. This testimony demonstrated that for nearly ten years--from March 3, 1980 when Yeatts was first convicted of burglary until four days before Dodson's murder--Yeatts was incarcerated, on parole, or on probation. In closing argument, the prosecution stressed Yeatts' criminal record, emphasizing that Yeatts had been given numerous opportunities to amend his behavior yet had demonstrated a pattern of consistent criminal activity. Yeatts requested that the state court instruct the jurors that in assessing his future dangerousness and in selecting an appropriate punishment they could consider that he would not be eligible for parole consideration for 30 years if the jury imposed a life sentence. The state court refused Yeatts' request.

During its deliberations, the jury queried the court concerning how many years Yeatts would be required to serve before becoming eligible for parole if he were given a life sentence; the court instructed, consistent with Virginia law, that the jury should not consider the question of parole. Although preserving his prior objection to the failure of the court to instruct the jury concerning his parole eligibility, Yeatts agreed that the proposed answer was a correct statement of Virginia law. The jury subsequently returned a sentence of death based upon a finding of future dangerousness.

Yeatts' convictions and sentences were affirmed on direct appeal, and the Supreme Court denied certiorari. See Yeatts v. Commonwealth, 242 Va. 121, 410 S.E.2d 254 (Va.1991), cert. denied, 503 U.S. 946, 112 S.Ct. 1500, 117 L.Ed.2d 639 (1992). Yeatts subsequently filed a petition for habeas corpus relief in state court in October 1992 raising a plethora of issues, including several claims of ineffective assistance of counsel. The Commonwealth opposed the petition, filing affidavits from Yeatts' trial counsel. The state habeas court dismissed Yeatts' petition with out conducting an evidentiary hearing. The Supreme Court of Virginia granted Yeatts' petition for appeal on two issues, but denied relief. See Yeatts v. Murray, 249 Va. 285, 455 S.E.2d 18, 20, 22 (Va.1995).

Thereafter, Yeatts filed this § 2254 petition, claiming in pertinent part that the state trial court erred in refusing to permit him to inform the jury of his parole eligibility during the sentencing phase of his trial and that his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to adequately death qualify the prospective jurors during voir dire. The district court dismissed Yeatts' petition, finding it to be without merit, and denied Yeatts' request for a certificate of probable cause to appeal.

II.

Yeatts first contends that the state trial court deprived him of due process by refusing to permit him to inform the jury that, taking into account the 20-year sentence he received for the robbery, he would not be eligible for parole for 30 years if he were given a life sentence for Dodson's murder. See Clemons v. Mississippi, 494 U.S. 738, 746, 110 S.Ct. 1441, 108 L.Ed.2d 725(1990) (recognizing that "[c]apital sentencing proceedings must ...satisfy the dictates of the Due Process Clause"). Yeatts maintains that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment mandates that he be permitted to respond to evidence and argument offered by the prosecution and that the refusal of the trial court to inform the jury of his parole eligibility deprived him of his due process right to respond to the Commonwealth's evidence and argument concerning his prior criminal record.

The Commonwealth first asserts that we cannot consider this claim because it is procedurally defaulted. Absent cause and prejudice or a miscarriage of justice, a federal habeas court may not review constitutional claims when a state court has declined to consider their merits on the basis of an adequate and independent state procedural rule. See Harris v. Reed, 489 U.S. 255, 262, 109 S.Ct. 1038, 103 L.Ed.2d 308 (1989). Such a rule is adequate if it is regularly or consistently applied by the state court, see Johnson v. Mississippi, 486 U.S. 578, 587, 108 S.Ct. 1981, 100 L.Ed.2d 575 (1988), and is independent if it does not "depend[ ] on a federal constitutional ruling," Ake v. Oklahoma, 470 U.S. 68, 75, 105 S.Ct. 1087, 84 L.Ed.2d 53 (1985).

The Commonwealth explains that at trial and on direct appeal, Yeatts claimed only that he should have been permitted to present his parole eligibility as mitigating evidence required by the Eighth Amendment in reliance on Mills v. Maryland, 486 U.S. 367, 374-75, 108 S.Ct. 1860, 100 L.Ed.2d 384 (1988) (recognizing that the sentencer in a capital proceeding may not be prevented from taking into consideration, as a mitigating factor, any relevant circumstance, including any facet of the accused's character or record and any of the circumstances of the offense that the accused offers as a justification for a sentence less than death). The Commonwealth notes that Yeatts did not raise any due process claim relating to the presentation of his parole eligibility to the jury either on direct appeal or during his state habeas proceedings. Consequently, the Commonwealth continues, Yeatts has failed to exhaust this claim and this court should treat it as procedurally defaulted since...