Opinion ID: 2798156
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: First Motion under Section 2255

Text: At that point, Webster filed a motion for post-conviction relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2255. Webster’s counsel had sought additional discovery on the question of mental retardation, but two days before Atkins was decided and well before it decided the motion, the district court denied the request for additional discovery and required Webster’s motion to be filed within 60 days. Webster III, 605 F.3d at 259 n.1 (Wiener, J., concurring). Webster’s motion raised 16 grounds for relief, but the district court rejected all of them. Seconded by the Fifth Circuit, it granted a certificate of appealability on only 3 As this comment illustrates, the court took the position that the jury did not need to be unanimous on the question of mental retardation. Webster has not separately attacked this ruling in his section 2241 petition. 18 No. 14-1049 two claims: “first, that the evidence presented at trial was insufficient to warrant the district court’s finding that Webster is not mentally retarded; and second, that his alleged retardation renders him ineligible for a death sentence.” Webster II, 421 F.3d at 310. Although the court of appeals had briefly considered these points on direct appeal, it agreed with Webster that a fresh look was warranted, in light of the Supreme Court’s intervening decision in Atkins, which held that the Eighth Amendment—not just a statute—prohibits the execution of the intellectually disabled. The Fifth Circuit saw little difference between the governing standards under the Constitution and section 3596(c), however, and so it was not persuaded that Atkins required a different result. It was willing to accept that Webster had a low I.Q., but it found that the government’s evidence of his adaptive functioning had effectively countered those numbers. The Vineland test that Dr. Keyes had conducted was all well and good, the court of appeals thought, but it accepted the “direct evidence” of adaptive functioning that the government had proffered. Id. at 313. It therefore affirmed the district court’s judgment denying Webster’s motion under section 2255. D. Application for Successive Relief under Section 2255 After losing that round, nothing of legal significance happened for four years. Some 13 years after Webster’s conviction, and four years after his section 2255 motion was denied, new counsel uncovered previously undisclosed evidence revealing that Webster had been diagnosed as mentally retarded a year before the commission of the crime. With those records in hand, counsel filed an application with the Fifth Circuit for permission to file a successive motion under No. 14-1049 19 section 2255; the proposed motion was directed exclusively at the death sentence. Before turning to the Fifth Circuit’s disposition of that application, we describe the new evidence and why it had not come to light earlier. Among many other things that they did, Webster’s trial counsel had submitted a request to the Social Security Administration for any records that it might have. There had been hints in the record that he, or he and his mother, had sought some kind of benefit, and counsel were following up on that clue. (The government challenges Webster’s contention that defense counsel actually tried to locate the records, either before the trial, when the government contends Webster must have known they existed, or for the original 2255 motion. But the facts about these old records are contested, to say the least.) The Social Security Administration produced nothing. Webster’s new lawyers contend that trial counsel, having hit a dead end, reasonably dropped the inquiry at that point. They also stress that when most of the records were produced in response to their own request, it was by mistake. Equally troubling is the fact that the remainder of the records were destroyed. The newly produced records, which Webster’s current lawyers received on February 9, 2009, showed that Webster applied for Social Security benefits based on a sinus condition when he was 20 years old, approximately a year before the crime. The agency’s attention was evidently quickly redirected to Webster’s mental capacity. Two psychologists and one physician examined him. On December 22, 1993, Dr. Charles Spellman, a psychologist, evaluated him for the purpose of ascertaining his eligibility for Social Security benefits. He noted that “[i]deation was sparse and this appeared 20 No. 14-1049 to be more of a function of his lower cognitive ability than of any mental illness.” Dr. Spellman also observed that Webster’s intellectual functioning was quite limited: he could not register three objects (meaning that he could not remember three objects a short time after they were shown to him); he could not do simple calculations; and he did not know what common sayings meant. With respect to adaptive functioning, Dr. Spellman stated that Webster lived with his mother; that he watched television, listened to the radio, and went walking; that he did no chores around the house; and that he was idle both in the house and on the streets. Taking into account both his estimate that Webster’s I.Q. was 69 or lower and his assessment of adaptive functioning, Dr. Spellman concluded that Webster was mentally retarded and antisocial. He found no evidence of exaggeration or malingering. A few months earlier, in October 1993, Dr. Edward Hackett conducted a full-scale WAIS I.Q. test on Webster. He came up with a verbal I.Q. of 71, a performance I.Q. of 49, and a full-scale I.Q. of 59. He evaluated Webster as “mildly retarded, but … also antisocial.” Pertinent to the central question of adaptive functioning, Dr. Hackett noted in a later report that “[Webster] was viewed as a somewhat mild[ly] retarded con man, but very street wise. … [H]e could not be functional in a community setting. … He would also not function well in the work place.” Dr. Hackett did not believe that Webster was capable of managing his own benefits. He found Webster’s behavior somewhat bizarre. Finally, he commented that on the I.Q. tests, Webster’s performance was estimated to be lower than his verbal score, and that some organic function might be involved. No. 14-1049 21 The last professional to examine Webster in conjunction with the 1993 Social Security application was Dr. C. M. Rittelmeyer, a physician. Dr. Rittelmeyer found Webster’s physical health to be fine, but he also had this to say: “Mental retardation. Flat feet. Chronic sinus problems and allergies by history.” The Social Security records included an intriguing letter that strongly suggested that Webster in fact had been in special education classes. It was dated November 8, 1993, and had been written by Lou Jackson, the Special Education Supervisor for the school system Webster had attended, Watson Chapel Schools. Jackson’s letter explained that Webster’s special education records had been destroyed in 1988, after the family did not respond to a letter “telling them they could have the records if they wanted them.” The Social Security records also provide some direct evidence about Webster’s abilities. The form Webster completed, for example, is rife with errors in syntax, spelling, punctuation, grammar, and thought. In response to a question asking him to describe his pain or other symptoms, Webster wrote “it causEs mE to gEt up sEt Easily hEadhurtsdiffiErnt of brEdth.” When asked about the side effects of his medication, he wrote “Is lEEp bEttEr.” When asked about his usual daily activities, Webster wrote (consistently with the comments from his teacher and employer) “I slEEps look at. cartoon.” He reported that he “ain’t got no chang” in his condition since its onset. These records, new counsel urged, raised serious questions about the linchpins of the government’s case at trial with respect to intellectual disability. Counsel argued that they strongly refuted the consistent theme that Webster was 22 No. 14-1049 malingering on the I.Q. tests he took after the crime was committed, since they showed a level consistent with those tests from a time (a) before the crime, and (b) when he was not under the emotional stress that tainted the 1992 tests at the Clinic. They also provided direct evidence of adaptive functioning consistent with the I.Q. test scores—evidence that might have changed the minds of experts had they seen a more complete picture. The Fifth Circuit, however, concluded that Webster’s proposed new evidence did not meet the stringent standards imposed by section 2255(h), which reads as follows: (h) A second or successive motion must be cer- tified as provided in section 2244 by a panel of the appropriate court of appeals to contain-- (1) newly discovered evidence that, if proven and viewed in light of the evidence as a whole, would be sufficient to establish by clear and convincing evidence that no reasonable fact- finder would have found the movant guilty of the offense; or (2) a new rule of constitutional law, made ret- roactive to cases on collateral review by the Supreme Court, that was previously unavaila- ble. The Webster III judges concluded that a petitioner seeking only to challenge his eligibility for the death penalty cannot do so under section 2255(h)(1), because that section requires evidence that shows that the movant could not be found No. 14-1049 23 guilty of the offense. 4 Webster’s application did not attack his guilt of the offense of murder but instead challenged only his sentence. Section 2255(h)(2) requires a new rule of constitutional law that previously was unavailable, but Atkins had already been decided at the time of Webster’s initial section 2255 motion, and nothing else came close to satisfying that criterion.