Source: http://openjurist.org/366/f3d/266/humphries-v-e-ozmint
Timestamp: 2013-12-11 10:46:35
Document Index: 465580000

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 2253', '§ 2254', '§ 2254', '§ 2254', '§ 2254', '§ 2254']

366 F3d 266 Humphries v. E Ozmint | OpenJurist
366 F. 3d 266 - Humphries v. E Ozmint	Home366 f3d 266 humphries v. e ozmint
366 F3d 266 Humphries v. E Ozmint 366 F.3d 266
Shawn Paul HUMPHRIES, Petitioner-Appellant,v.Jon E. OZMINT, Director, South Carolina Department of Corrections; Henry Dargan Mcmaster, Attorney General, State of South Carolina, Respondents-Appellees.
ARGUED: Teresa Lynn Norris, Center For Capital Litigation, Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellant. Donald John Zelenka, Assistant Deputy Attorney General, Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellees. ON BRIEF: Joseph Maggiacomo, Center For Capital Litigation, Columbia, South Carolina; Thomas R. Haggard, Ridgeway, South Carolina, for Appellant. Henry Dargan McMaster, Attorney General, John W. McIntosh, Chief Deputy Attorney General, Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellees.
Before WILKINSON and DUNCAN, Circuit Judges, and HAMILTON, Senior Circuit Judge.
Affirmed in part; vacated and remanded in part by published opinion. Judge WILKINSON wrote the opinion, in which Judge DUNCAN joined, and in Part IV of which Senior Judge HAMILTON joined. Senior Judge HAMILTON wrote an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part.
Shawn Paul Humphries received a sentence of five years for criminal conspiracy, twenty years for attempted armed robbery, and death for the murder of Mendal "Dickie" Smith. After exhausting appropriate state remedies, Humphries filed an unsuccessful habeas petition in federal district court. He claimed that he received ineffective assistance of counsel under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments because of his counsel's failure to object to the State's closing arguments at sentencing, which compared the respective worth of the life of the victim to that of Humphries. Humphries also claimed that the State's failure to notify him of the use of victim impact evidence violated his right to a fair trial under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The district court dismissed the petition.
We affirm in part, and vacate and remand in part. The South Carolina Supreme Court reasonably interpreted federal law when it found no constitutional violations concerning the extent of notice about the introduction of victim impact evidence. On the facts of this case, however, we find that the failure of Humphries' counsel to object to the State's extensive and egregious use of comparative human worth arguments amounted to ineffective assistance of counsel. This omission by Humphries' counsel was, on these facts, so unduly prejudicial that it rendered the jury's recommendation of a capital sentence fundamentally unfair. We thus affirm Humphries' convictions, but we vacate the sentence of death and remand to the district court with instructions that the writ be issued solely for purposes of resentencing.
On August 5, 1994, a jury convicted Shawn Paul Humphries of the murder of Mendal "Dickie" Smith in Fountain Inn, South Carolina. On the morning of January 1, 1994, Humphries, then age 22, and Eddie Blackwell, then age 19, had been drinking beer when they decided to rob a convenience store run by Smith. Humphries flashed a gun he had stolen the night before and demanded Smith's money. Smith appeared to reach under the convenience store counter to get a gun, and Humphries responded by firing a single, fatal shot at Smith. Humphries was successfully prosecuted in South Carolina state court, and a jury convicted him of attempted armed robbery, possession of a firearm during the commission of a violent crime, criminal conspiracy, and murder. On August 9, 1994, Humphries was sentenced to death for murder, twenty years for attempted armed robbery, and five years for criminal conspiracy.
The South Carolina Supreme Court affirmed Humphries' conviction and sentence on direct appeal, and the Supreme Court denied certiorari. See State v. Humphries, 325 S.C. 28, 479 S.E.2d 52 (1996), cert. denied, 520 U.S. 1268, 117 S.Ct. 2441, 138 L.Ed.2d 201 (1997). Humphries' application for post-conviction relief in South Carolina state court was dismissed by the Common Pleas Court on December 21, 1998, and his appeal was rejected by the South Carolina Supreme Court on August 26, 2002. See Humphries v. State, 351 S.C. 362, 570 S.E.2d 160 (S.C.2002). Humphries then filed for habeas relief in federal district court. The district court dismissed Humphries' habeas petition, but subsequently granted a certificate of appealability for the issues now before this court. See 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c) (2000).
We review de novo a district court's decision on a petition for writ of habeas corpus based on a state court record. Spicer v. Roxbury Corr. Inst., 194 F.3d 547, 555 (4th Cir.1999); see also Bell v. Ozmint, 332 F.3d 229, 233 (4th Cir.2003). If a state court has resolved the merits of a claim for post-conviction relief, a federal court may not grant a writ of habeas corpus unless the state court's holding "was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States," 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1), or "resulted in a decision that was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding." 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(2).
In the present case, we focus on the question of whether the state court decision "was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law." 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1). A state court decision is contrary to clearly established federal law if the state court "applies a rule that contradicts the governing law set forth in [the Supreme Court's] cases." Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 405, 120 S.Ct. 1495, 146 L.Ed.2d 389 (2000). A state court decision involves an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law if it "correctly identifies the governing legal rule but applies it unreasonably to the facts of a particular prisoner's case." Id. at 407-08, 120 S.Ct. 1495.
The requirements Humphries must satisfy in demonstrating an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law under § 2254(d)(1), however, are onerous. As the Supreme Court has recently reiterated,
"a federal habeas court may not issue the writ simply because that court concludes in its independent judgment that the state-court decision applied [a Supreme Court case] incorrectly. Rather, it is the habeas applicant's burden to show that the state court applied [that case] to the facts of his case in an objectively unreasonable manner."
Price v. Vincent, 538 U.S. 634, 123 S.Ct. 1848, 1853, 155 L.Ed.2d 877 (2003) (quoting Woodford v. Visciotti, 537 U.S. 19, 24-25, 123 S.Ct. 357, 154 L.Ed.2d 279 (2002) (per curiam) (internal quotations omitted)). Notably, an "`unreasonable application of federal law is different from an incorrect application of federal law.'" (Woodford, 537 U.S. at 25, 123 S.Ct. 357 (quoting Williams, 529 U.S. at 410, 120 S.Ct. 1495)) (emphasis in original).
Humphries argues that he received ineffective assistance of counsel in violation of the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments when his counsel failed to object to the State's closing arguments at sentencing, in which the State compared the general worth of Humphries' life to that of the victim. He also claims that the State's failure to provide notice that it intended to introduce victim impact evidence in the sentencing proceedings violated his right to a fair trial under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
We consider first Humphries' claim of ineffective assistance of counsel. For the reasons explored below, we conclude Humphries has satisfied the foregoing requirements in arguing his counsel rendered ineffective assistance in failing to object to the prosecution's argument for the imposition of the death penalty. The Supreme Court has concluded that a prosecutor may appropriately argue, and a jury may appropriately consider, "victim impact" evidence relating to the victim's personal characteristics at a capital sentence hearing. Payne v. Tennessee, 501 U.S. 808, 823, 111 S.Ct. 2597, 115 L.Ed.2d 720 (1991). Recognizing that precedent, the stringent requirements AEDPA places on the grant of federal habeas relief, and mindful of the serious consideration given to this matter by prior courts, we are nevertheless constrained to conclude that, because of the use to which the "victim impact" evidence was put in this case, Humphries is entitled to federal habeas relief under § 2254(d)(1).
The Supreme Court has laid out a two-part test for evaluating claims of ineffective assistance of counsel. See Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984). First, the defendant "must show that counsel's performance was deficient." Id. at 687, 104 S.Ct. 2052. To establish this deficiency, the defendant must produce evidence that the "counsel's representation fell below an objective standard of reasonableness." Id. at 688, 104 S.Ct. 2052.
Second, the defendant must show that the deficient performance resulted in actual prejudice to his case. A showing of prejudice requires the defendant to prove that "counsel's errors were so serious as to deprive the defendant of a fair trial." Id. at 687, 104 S.Ct. 2052. In the context of a capital sentencing proceeding, the question is whether "there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different." Id. at 694, 104 S.Ct. 2052. Prejudice is established in a capital case where the jury is considering both aggravating and mitigating evidence during sentencing if "there is a reasonable probability that at least one juror would have struck a different balance," but for the constitutional error. Wiggins v. Smith, 539 U.S. 510, 123 S.Ct. 2527, 2543, 156 L.Ed.2d 471 (2003).
The Strickland standard is a difficult one to satisfy, and for good reason. Counsel must often make instantaneous decisions without the luxury of hindsight that appellate courts, and especially habeas courts, enjoy. See Truesdale v. Moore, 142 F.3d 749, 753-54 (4th Cir.1998). But there are some actions or omissions that are so prejudicial that a reviewing court must necessarily recognize counsel's errors as ineffective assistance. The failure of Humphries' counsel to object to the State's sentencing arguments comparing the overall worth of Humphries' life with that of the victim constitutes such a case of constitutionally deficient representation with a clearly prejudicial effect.
In his closing arguments, the State's solicitor repeatedly emphasized the comparative worth of the lives of the victim and of the defendant. While the solicitor did not use the actual words "comparative worth" or "value," he insistently and systematically contrasted the apparently virtuous and productive life of the victim with Humphries' allegedly worthless existence, and asked jurors to impose a death sentence on that basis.
The solicitor began his closing arguments by announcing that, in addition to considering mitigating and aggravating evidence, the jury would:
... have evidence about the character of the Defendant to consider. And you're going to have evidence about the victim, Dickie Smith, to consider, because I would submit to you that he is as much a part of this portion of this trial as is Shawn Paul Humphries.
If the solicitor had merely used victim impact evidence to illustrate the "victim's uniqueness as an individual human being," Payne, 501 U.S. at 823, 111 S.Ct. 2597 (internal quotations omitted), his actions would be beyond scrutiny. The prosecution could further have independently challenged the character and criminal history of the defendant, and Humphries' counsel would have had no grounds to lodge a sustainable objection.
The problem is that the prosecutor did not stop there. Instead, he drew repeated comparisons between the value and worth of the victim's life and that of the defendant, an argument which any reasonable observer would have found designed to secure a death sentence from the jury. The way in which the victim led his life was contrasted, at identical points in time, with the way the defendant had led his. For example, the solicitor stated that:
[I]n 1984 [Dickie Smith, the victim] met Pat, and they fell in love, and they got married. That's the same year Shawn Paul Humphries committed two house breakins at age 13. 1986 Dickie makes a pretty drastic move. He decides he's going to quit Kemet and go build homes full-time, and he goes out, and he starts building homes in the community he had grown up in. That's the same year Shawn Paul Humphries is up for his second probation violation and sent down to Columbia.
Then in 1988, July the 4th, they have a little baby girl named Ashley. You know, the Defense brought in a 12 year old stepdaugher — stepsister, said, "Please don't put Shawn Paul Humphries in the electric chair." I'm sorry I did not feel it was appropriate to bring in a six year old girl Ashley and parade her in front of you.
In 1988 Ashley is born. That's the same year Shawn Paul Humphries went to jail for two years. And in the spring of 1992, I believe, Dickie Smith, opens the doors to the MaxSaver, building a business in that community.
The State's clear purpose in using this time line was to contrast the life of the victim with the life of the defendant in order to exhort the jury to return a death sentence on the basis of the latter's relative lack of worth. The solicitor emphasized that "Dickie Smith is as much about this case as Shawn Paul Humphries." He rhetorically asked the jury "Who is the victim here, Shawn Paul Humphries or is it Dickie Smith?" and argued for the death penalty by asking the jury "if not in a case with a character like this, if not in a case when somebody like Dickie Smith is taken, then when are you going to do it?" He concluded by telling the jury that, while weighing the evidence of aggravation and mitigation, they should consider that "when you look at the character of this Defendant, and when you look at Dickie Smith, how profane when you look at all the circumstances of this crime and of this Defendant, how profane to give this man a gift of life under these circumstances." This argument was set forth without objection, and the jury, as noted, recommended a sentence of death.
Victim impact evidence has an important and legitimate place in capital sentencing proceedings. The Supreme Court in Payne v. Tennessee has made clear that "if the State chooses to permit the admission of victim impact evidence and prosecutorial argument on that subject, the Eighth Amendment erects no per se bar." Payne, 501 U.S. at 827, 111 S.Ct. 2597. "A state may legitimately conclude that evidence about the victim and about the impact of the murder on the victim's family is relevant to the jury's decision as to whether or not the death penalty should be imposed." Id. As its name thus suggests, victim impact evidence allows the jury "a quick glimpse of the life" that a defendant "chose to extinguish"; it demonstrates the full impact of a crime, not only on the victim, but also on loved ones left behind. Id. at 822, 111 S.Ct. 2597 (internal quotations omitted).
The facts of Payne plainly illustrate the use to which such evidence may be put. The case involved the murder of a twenty-eight-year-old mother and her two-year-old daughter whom the defendant viciously stabbed to death with a butcher knife. The Payne Court approved the introduction of victim impact evidence concerning the physical and psychological harm inflicted on the victim's three-year-old son who was also stabbed repeatedly, yet survived, and who thus witnessed the murder of his mother and sister.
Yet, while the states plainly "remain free, in capital cases, as well as others, to devise new procedures and new remedies to meet felt needs," id. at 824-25, 111 S.Ct. 2597, neither Payne nor any other Supreme Court case has suggested that victim impact evidence may be used without limit, constraint, or reference to the harm caused by the crime to those aggrieved. To the contrary, the Payne Court clearly limited the introduction and use of victim impact evidence by prohibiting victim impact evidence "that is so unduly prejudicial that it renders the trial fundamentally unfair." Id. at 825, 111 S.Ct. 2597.
In particular, the Supreme Court has disapproved of the use of victim impact evidence to make comparative human worth arguments. The Payne Court noted the concern "that the admission of victim impact evidence permits a jury to find that defendants whose victims were assets to their community are more deserving of punishment than those whose victims are perceived to be less worthy." Id. at 823, 111 S.Ct. 2597. The Court concluded that:
As a general matter ... victim impact evidence is not offered to encourage comparative judgments of this kind — for instance, that the killer of a hardworking, devoted parent deserves the death penalty, but that the murderer of a reprobate does not. It is designed to show instead each victim's "uniqueness as an individual human being," whatever the jury might think the loss to the community resulting from his death might be. Id. at 823, 111 S.Ct. 2597 (emphasis in original).
The Payne Court also laid out a framework for drawing the line between the legitimate and illegitimate uses of victim impact evidence. The Court found that "[i]n the majority of cases ... victim impact evidence serves entirely legitimate purposes." Id. at 825, 111 S.Ct. 2597. But it concluded that "[i]n the event that evidence is introduced that is so unduly prejudicial that it renders the trial fundamentally unfair, the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment provides a mechanism for relief." Id. at 825, 111 S.Ct. 2597. Victim impact evidence that emphasizes the harm a murder caused the victim, his family, and his loved ones is unquestionably legitimate. However, the comparative worth argument presented in this case, calling for a death sentence based on the relative value of Sean Humphries' life vis-a-vis Dickie Smith's, falls squarely within the category of prosecutorial conduct that may be so prejudicial that it renders a trial fundamentally unfair.
The South Carolina Supreme Court held that Payne only prohibited comparisons between the relative worth of victims, rather than comparisons between victims and perpetrators. See Humphries v. State, 351 S.C. 362, 570 S.E.2d 160, 167-68 (2002). It is true that a comparison of one victim to another may differ from a comparison of a victim to a defendant. The former permits the introduction of collateral evidence — the worthiness of other members of society — while the latter invites a commentary on evidence already before the jury. Nonetheless, distinguishing these two types of human worth comparisons splits an awfully thin hair. Both comparisons miss the main point of Payne, which is that victim impact evidence must be used to further the traditional purposes of sentencing: namely that a sentence reflect such factors as the nature and severity of the crime, the consequences of the crime upon the unique lives of the victim and his family, or the criminal history of the defendant. To permit a sentence of death to be returned on the explicit and pointed comparative worth argument in this case pushes Payne so far that the major objective of victim impact evidence is lost, which is "informing the sentencing authority about the specific harm caused by the crime in question." Payne, 501 U.S. at 825, 111 S.Ct. 2597. This focus on the consequences of the crime ensures that victim impact evidence promotes rather than retards the fundamental purposes of the sentencing function. See id. at 820, 111 S.Ct. 2597 (noting that the objective of the Sentencing Guidelines is to calibrate sentences "to the subjective guilt of the defendant and to the harm caused by his acts").
It is undeniable that "`[t]he State has a legitimate interest in counteracting the mitigating evidence which the defendant is entitled to put in, by reminding the sentencer that just as the murderer should be considered as an individual, so too the victim is an individual whose death represents a unique loss to society and in particular to his family.'" Payne, 501 U.S. at 825, 111 S.Ct. 2597 (quoting Booth v. Maryland, 482 U.S. 496, 517, 107 S.Ct. 2529, 96 L.Ed.2d 440 (1987) (White, J., dissenting)). The State here claimed that its comparisons between the victim and the defendant merely advanced this legitimate purpose and served as nothing more than a comment on the evidence. The dissent notes that the sentencing proceeding included evidence about both the victim's unique life and the perpetrator's at-risk childhood and subsequent criminal acts. See Humphries v. State, 351 S.C. 362, 570 S.E.2d 160, 167-68 (2002). It stresses that all of the solicitor's arguments were based on evidence that was properly included in the record. Id.
We do not at all suggest this evidence was inadmissible. The state court properly admitted the victim-impact evidence. Our fine dissenting colleague notes the testimony of Randy and Pat Smith, Dickie's brother and wife. But we have found no error in the admission of their testimony. Much of the solicitor's closing argument also conformed to the strictures of Payne. That the facts from which the prosecutor drew his comparison were already in the record, however, does not cure the prejudice resulting from the format in which the prosecutor chose to present a significant portion of his close. The comparison between the victim and perpetrator that formed the focus of closing argument reached the point at which differences in degree ripen into differences in kind. The State did not simply seek to explore the tragic consequences of this crime for the victim's family and community or to lay out the victim's uniqueness as an individual. Nor was its argument confined to addressing the defendant's past criminal record or history. Rather, it sought, point-by-point and year-by-year, to demonstrate to the jury unambiguously that at the very instant one life was being put to good use, the other was not. This side-by-side comparison of the relative value of two lives was calculatedly incendiary and rendered the sentencing fundamentally infirm.
We recognize that many capital sentencing proceedings are going to focus upon the persons of the victim and the perpetrator. This is especially true since Payne approved many uses of victim impact evidence. It may be to the advantage of the defendant to portray the victim of the offense unsympathetically, and it may be to the advantage of the prosecution to paint the victim and his family in a feeling manner and to cast doubt on the defendant's mitigating evidence. All of this is well within the bounds of permissible argument. But Payne warns against the type of argument in support of the death penalty based on comparative human worth employed here. See Payne, 501 U.S. at 825, 111 S.Ct. 2597. To argue that a murderer merits mercy because he killed "only" a prostitute or drug user, rather than a philanthropist, would strike us as profoundly lawless. Similarly, to argue that a defendant should be sent to death because his life was of less value than his victim is to ask a jury to decide, not on the character of the crime, not on the consequences of the crime, not on the criminal record of the perpetrator of the crime, but on some unfettered evaluation of human worth that works improper prejudice.
The words "Equal Justice Under Law" are engraved over the entrance of the United States Supreme Court as a symbol of the law's commitment to treat all litigants as individuals of equal dignity. See Lyng v. Castillo, 477 U.S. 635, 636 n. 2, 106 S.Ct. 2727, 91 L.Ed.2d 527 (1986). This individuality is compromised, however, when prosecutors implore juries to hand down death sentences on theories of comparative human worth. The p