Opinion ID: 42775
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the crime and the prosecution

Text: On October 13, 1980, Nichols, Willie Ray Williams, Charlotte Parker, and Evelyn Harvey drove to an apartment building in Houston, Texas, intending to rob a nearby grocery store. Committing the robbery was Nichols’ idea. Armed with guns, Nichols and Williams entered the grocery. Seventy-year old Claude Shaffer, Jr. (“Shaffer”) was working as a deli clerk behind the counter. Nichols pointed his gun at Shaffer, and Shaffer made a movement that Nichols interpreted as gun retrieval. Nichols then shot at Shaffer. Williams also shot at Shaffer while fleeing the store, but he returned to the counter to take the cash box. Shaffer was killed by one bullet to the back. Parker and Harvey drove Nichols and Williams away from the scene. The quartet were arrested soon thereafter. 3 Because neither side addressed the issue, we requested letter briefs from the parties inquiring whether Nichols’ second federal habeas petition qualifies as “successive” under 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(2)(B). They correctly responded that Nichols’ petition is not successive because, after Nichols discovered and requested resolution of his Brady claim in the midst of the evidentiary hearing for this first federal habeas petition, the habeas court dismissed the claim without prejudice to refiling for state exhaustion purposes. See e.g., Stewart v. Martin-Villareal, 523 U.S. 637, 644, 118 S. Ct. 1618, 1621-22 (1998). 4 The State’s first attempt at prosecuting Nichols ended in a mistrial.4 A description of Nichols' second trial appears in this court’s previous opinion: In February 1982, Nichols was tried before another jury on the same indictment. Generally the same evidence was presented as at his first trial in July 1981. The prosecutor was the same as in that first trial. In the guilt/innocence phase, Williams was called as a defense witness but claimed his Fifth Amendment privilege and refused to testify. The defense then put in evidence Williams’ testimony as given at Nichols’ first trial. At the close of the evidence on the guilt/innocence stage of the trial, the trial court extensively instructed the jury on the Texas law of parties (see note 9, supra) such that the jury could, depending on what else it found, find Nichols guilty as charged either for personally having fired the fatal shot or for the fatal shot fired by Williams, if that was done pursuant to and in furtherance of their conspiracy to rob the deli and should have been anticipated by Nichols as a result of carrying out the conspiracy. The defense argued, as it had at Nichols’ first trial, that Williams fired the fatal shot from the deli door as he exited and came back in, and that this was, in the words of the charge, “the separate act of Willie Ray Williams, acting inde- pendently,” for which Nichols would not be responsible. The state primarily argued that Nichols fired the fatal shot. But, it also argued extensively, in the alternative, that even if Williams had fired the fatal shot, Nichols was guilty of capital murder under the law of parties. The jury returned its verdict finding Nichols guilty of capital murder. At the subsequent punishment phase the state submitted evidence that Nichols had been convicted of 4 That Nichols’ first case resulted in a mistrial does not inform our analysis as “inconsistent verdicts are constitutionally tolerable.” Dowling v. United States, 493 U.S. 342, 353-54, 110 S. Ct. 668, 675 (1990). In any event, Nichols has failed to set forth information regarding events that led to the mistrial in his first case, especially in light of the state habeas court’s rejection of his proposed finding that the jury in the first trial focused on whether Shaffer pulled a gun. As such, Nichols has failed to demonstrate how any inconsistency between his first and second trials “could reasonably be taken to put the whole case in such a different light as to undermine confidence in the [second jury’s] verdict.” Kyles, 514 U.S. at 435, 115 S. Ct. at 1566. 5 theft in 1979, and had pleaded guilty in May 1980 to an April 1980 robbery for which he was sentenced in July 1980 to nine years’ felony probation, which he was serving when he committed the instant offense. Additionally, it was shown that on August 13, 1980, Nichols committed an armed robbery of a convenience store, shooting the clerk in the shoulder when he did not respond speedily enough to Nichols’ demand for more money. Nichols continued to demand more money as the clerk was bleeding from his wound. Further, on October 11, 1980, two days before the present offense, Nichols committed another robbery of a convenience store, aiming his pistol at the clerks. There was also evidence that when booked into jail following his arrest for the instant offense, Nichols had stated he would “shoot any deputy that got in his way.” Finally, there was evidence that in June 1981, while in jail awaiting trial, Nichols conspired with others to engage in an escape involving the use of a firearm and other weapons. The defense called fifteen witnesses. Many testified they thought Nichols could be rehabilitated, that he was nineteen at the time of the offense, and that at school he had had average grades, had been an excellent athlete, and had presented no disciplinary problems. His parents divorced when he was seven, but both maintained a good relationship with him. He married, and dropped out of school, at about age seventeen to support his young child. His parents thought he had gotten into trouble due to the pressure he was under to support his young child and because he got in with a bad crowd. The court submitted the three punishment special issues to the jury (see note 6, supra). No instruction was given respecting the law of parties. The defense argued, among other things, that the fatal shot was fired by Williams, and that any shooting was in reaction to Shaffer’s having grabbed his gun. Emphasis was put on Nichols’ youth, his family, his character witnesses, and his potential for rehabilitation. The state argued that Nichols fired the fatal shot, but did not argue any of the special issues solely on that theory. It stressed Nichols’ prior offenses and conduct in jail. Neither side argued that the verdict of guilty established or meant that Nichols fired the fatal shot, or that any of the special issues were to be answered by reference to Williams’, rather than Nichols’, state of mind or conduct or the like. On February 26, 1982, the jury returned its 6 verdict answering all three special issues in the affirmative, and the court sentenced Nichols to death. Nichols did not testify at either stage of his February 1982 trial. The charge also submitted the lesser included offense of murder. Thus, for example, the prosecutor argued: ‘This lawsuit, if you really boil it down, concerns itself with parties, the law of parties given to you in number five and number six of this charge. Note that in parties to be guilty of capital murder as a party to it, a defendant does not have to fire the fatal shot that killed somebody.’ (Emphasis added). The prosecutor further argued: ‘The Judge has instructed you to find the defendant guilty of capital murder if you believe from the evidence, number one, that he’s involved in a conspiracy to rob, number two, that at the time of the robbery he was doing something to help or make that robbery successful, that there was a murder and that somebody had the specific intent to kill somebody, either Jojo had it or Willie had it, either one. It doesn’t matter. That the murder was done in furtherance of the original plan of the robbery, to help it in some way or to get away, immediate flight therefrom. And you must believe that this murder was an offense that the defendant should have antici- pated. If you believe those five things from the evidence it will be your duty to find that man guilty of capital murder.’ (Emphasis added). Additionally the prosecutor argued: ‘The defense is saying that what you really have here is a situation where there are cracks in the law and we want you to let Jojo Nichols slip through these cracks and get away. Well, the legislature thought about 7 that. They’re not completely dumb up there. Somebody told them what to do. And they have the law of parties. It fills in the cracks. It’s like the mortar in a brick wall. You guys are all responsible when you go in there with loaded guns under certain conditions. Was there a conspiracy to rob, rob them of anything, money, guns, anything else. Was there a conspiracy to rob. The defense admits that, yes, there was. When the robbery occurred, was Jojo doing anything to promote or assist that robbery? The defense admits, yes, he was pointing a gun, telling you to put money in the sack and fired a gun. The defense admits it. He fired a gun before he ran out that door. Was there a murder? You bet. And it doesn’t matter who killed him under our law, under this rule of parties. Was it reasonable to expect that this could happen? Of course.’ (Emphasis added). For example, in respect to the first special issue, dealing with deliberateness, the prosecutor argued: ‘Was his conduct deliberate. He doesn’t have to fire the fatal shot. But was his conduct deliberate. You bet it was deliberate. It was even more than that. He planned that rob- bery. He picked that store. It was a pre- meditated robbery. He thought about the fact that he’s going to need a gun when he went in there. You know that he meant to use it because it was loaded and you know he fired that gun into an innocent man.’ (Emphasis added). Nichols v. Scott, 69 F.3d at 1262-64 (footnotes omitted). It should also be noted that Nichols (in his confession), Williams (through his prior testimony), and deli employee Cindy Johnson all testified about the series of events and shots inside the deli during the robbery. Nichols told his confederates as they 8 drove from the scene that he thought he had shot Shaffer in the chest and that Williams shot Shaffer in the shoulder. Williams’ testimony was that when he and Nichols drew guns on Shaffer, Shaffer pointed a gun at them, and Nichols shot at Shaffer first; Williams shot at Shaffer as Williams was fleeing toward the door. Johnson had given an initial police statement indicating that Shaffer squatted behind the counter reaching for a gun. At trial, however, she disavowed this statement as a mistake and testified firmly instead that Shaffer did not reach for anything. Finally, the medical examiner’s testimony tended to support the State’s theory that Nichols shot Shaffer, although the fatal bullet was not identified and this conclusion was based on inference from the bullet’s trajectory through Shaffer’s body.