Opinion ID: 2977343
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Sexual-Abuse Expert

Text: At the mitigation phase of his trial, Murphy provided an unsworn statement regarding his horrific childhood. Murphy stated that beginning at age five, various relatives and family friends sexually abused him. According to Murphy, he was abused by two of his father’s friends when he was five years old and repeatedly raped by the son of his baby-sitter when he was between the ages of six and eight. Murphy also told the jury that when he was being held at the Dayton Children’s Psychiatric Hospital, an officer took him into seclusion with another inmate, told both of them to disrobe, and photographed them posing in sexually suggestive positions; Murphy also claimed that the officer used physical force to prevent him from escaping. Trial counsel retained psychologist Dr. Nancy Schmidtgoessling, Ph.D. to evaluate Murphy’s mental ability, criminal responsibility, and competency based upon her review of Murphy’s past hospitalizations and interviews of both Murphy and his family. Dr. Schmidtgoessling diagnosed Murphy as having “either a borderline Nos. 00-4558; 06-4428 Murphy v. State of Ohio Page 13 personality disorder with prominent antisocial features or mixed personality disorder. In either case, Mr. Murphy’s disorder is severe, chronic, and disabling.” (JA 1292-93.) Dr. Schmidtgoessling explained that an individual’s development can influence whether he or she develops a personality disorder, and that, generally, the hallmarks of such disorders are “personality characteristics that a person very inflexibly uses across a variety of situations where they are not appropriate to be used. Most people who adjust well and adapt well to life use certain kinds of behavioral strategies in one situation because that’s what the environment expects and demands.” (JA 1295.) As to Murphy’s “borderline personality,” Dr. Schmitgoessling opined that such personalities are not ingrained, but rather, “are thought to develop in response to the environment, particularly the social environment, but of course also the physical environment [a person is] in.” (JA 1298-99.) She further noted that “the type of experiences [Murphy] had early on were very much influential in his personality assets expressed today. If he had other experiences, I couldn’t say what he would be like. But it’s clear to me that those experiences very much affect how he looks at himself, how he looks at other people, and how he regulates his behavior . . . .” (JA 1302-03.) Murphy argues that his trial counsel rendered ineffective assistance by presenting evidence of sexual abuse without offering accompanying expert testimony to explain the impact of that evidence on Murphy’s mental health. The State counters that trial counsel’s failure to retain a sexual-abuse expert was not ineffective assistance because the jurors heard testimony about the abuse through Murphy’s unsworn testimony, as well as through testimony by Dr. Schmidtgoessling and his parents. In support of his argument that his trial counsel should have presented testimony by a sexual-abuse expert in addition to Murphy’s unsworn testimony, Murphy relies on the affidavit of Dr. Julia H. Hawgood, Psy.D., an Ohio-licensed clinical psychologist whose work “involves the assessment and treatment of adults who have been sexually, physically and emotionally abused as children.” (JA 646.) Dr. Hawgood based her July 10, 1998 affidavit on her review of extensive background material in Murphy’s case; numerous interviews she had with Murphy’s family members, friends, neighbors, school Nos. 00-4558; 06-4428 Murphy v. State of Ohio Page 14 teachers, school administrators, and court personnel; and a three-and-one-half hour clinical interview she had with Murphy on May 29, 1998 while he was housed at the Mansfield Correctional Institution. She concluded that Murphy suffered significant instances of sexual abuse over the course of his life. As a result of these incidents, Dr. Hawgood contended that “the defendant’s inherent sense of worth was severely diminished, his shame internalized. His understanding of his body, and thus, himself, was that it was a cheap commodity to be bartered, used by others, but certainly not something that was his to give or withhold with no strings attached. Sexual submission became a way of surviving.” (JA 647.) Further, Dr. Hawgood concluded that the recurrent, forced sexual abuse to which Joseph Murphy was subjected throughout his developmental years had a significantly negative impact on his personality dynamics and resulting behavioral manifestations at the time of the instant offense. The cumulative effect of repeated sexual abuse, coupled with on-going physical, emotional and verbal abuse in his family of origin, resulted in the young man who exhibited a deep sense of shame and worthlessness, suppressed rage, inability to experience empathy or intimacy, driven to fulfill both psychic and basic functional needs. Because internal resources, of necessity, had been focused on surviving the abuse with no support from his family of origin, his psychological development was stunted. He was a young man adrift in the world without a mature, responsible, adult “compass” to govern his actions. (JA 649.) Having reviewed the record thoroughly, we conclude that Murphy’s claim that his counsel rendered ineffective assistance by failing to call a sexual-abuse expert does not warrant relief. Dr. Hawgood could not isolate the effects of the sexual abuse from the other troubling aspects of Murphy’s life when she characterized him as a “young man who exhibited a deep sense of shame and worthlessness, suppressed rage, inability to experience empathy or intimacy, driven to fulfill both psychic and basic functional needs.” (JA 649.) Though not an identical description, the jury also heard from Dr. Schmidtgoessling that “Murphy doesn’t feel quite like the rest of us. He feels very bored by life, that things are sort of dead and empty. He feels ambivalent, wishing that things were otherwise, but unable to trust others, always expecting that others will reject him. Nos. 00-4558; 06-4428 Murphy v. State of Ohio Page 15 And so I guess the thing that most strikes me as I talked with him was his emptiness and then his desire for affection and closeness.” (JA 1301-02.) Because the two experts reached similar conclusions about Murphy’s mental state resulting from his traumatic upbringing, details of which the jury also heard, there is no reasonable likelihood that the outcome of Murphy’s sentencing would have been different. See Getsy v. Mitchell, 495 F.3d 295, 313-14 (6th Cir. 2007), cert. denied, 128 S. Ct. 1475 (2008) (citing Broom v. Mitchell, 441 F.3d 392, 410 (6th Cir. 2006)). It is clear that Murphy has suffered severe abuse throughout his life, and undoubtedly, such experiences have had a profound effect on him. Nonetheless, the abuse suffered by Murphy alone does not support granting the relief he requests. In short, because Murphy cannot establish that the finding by the Ohio Court of Appeals that his counsel’s failure to appoint a sexual-abuse expert was objectively unreasonable or that the testimony by a sexual-abuse expert would have caused a reasonable juror to give him life rather than death, his claim must fail.