Opinion ID: 669740
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: sixth and fourteenth amendment right to effective assistance of counsel

Text: 7 Starr was entitled to effective assistance of counsel at his trial, sentencing, and at his appeal of right. Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 689, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 2065, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984); Evitts v. Lucey, 469 U.S. 387, 396, 105 S.Ct. 830, 836, 83 L.Ed.2d 821 (1985). Starr alleges that his counsel's failure to object to either the pecuniary gain or the heinous, atrocious, or cruel aggravating circumstances instruction at the sentencing stage constituted ineffective performance. We agree. 8 Because the facts are not in dispute, the district court, as it is permitted to do, decided this ineffective assistance claim on the record. See Chandler v. Armontrout, 940 F.2d 363, 366 (8th Cir.1991). We review questions of ineffective assistance based on an undisputed factual record de novo. See Laws v. Armontrout, 863 F.2d 1377, 1381 (8th Cir.1988), cert. denied, 490 U.S. 1040, 109 S.Ct. 1944, 104 L.Ed.2d 415 (1989). 9 Our scrutiny of defense counsel's performance is deferential. We presume counsel's conduct to be within the range of competence demanded of attorneys under like circumstances. Strickland, 466 U.S. at 687-89, 104 S.Ct. at 2064-65. However, when the appellant shows that defense counsel failed to exercise the customary skills and diligence that a reasonably competent attorney would exhibit under similar circumstances, that presumption must fail. Hayes v. Lockhart, 766 F.2d 1247, 1251 (8th Cir.) (emphasis added), cert. denied, 474 U.S. 922, 106 S.Ct. 256, 88 L.Ed.2d 263 (1985). 10 In evaluating counsel's performance, we must take into consideration all the circumstances, including the fact that this was a capital sentencing proceeding. The basic concerns of counsel during a capital sentencing proceeding are to neutralize the aggravating circumstances advanced by the state, and to present mitigating evidence. The state asserted two aggravating circumstances at Starr's sentencing hearing. They were: 1) [t]he capital murder was committed for pecuniary gain; and 2) [t]he capital murder was committed in an especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel manner. The jury was instructed that it must find that either one or the other of the aggravating circumstances existed beyond a reasonable doubt in order to sentence Starr to death. At the time of Starr's sentencing, both of these aggravating factors had been found to be unconstitutional. See Godfrey v. Georgia, 446 U.S. 420, 100 S.Ct. 1759, 64 L.Ed.2d 398 (1980) (outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible or inhuman is an unconstitutionally vague aggravating circumstance); Collins v. Lockhart, 754 F.2d 258 (8th Cir.) (pecuniary gain aggravating circumstance in burglary context is impermissible double counting), cert. denied, 474 U.S. 1013, 106 S.Ct. 546, 88 L.Ed.2d 475 (1985). Despite the fact that a minimum of research would have revealed these cases, counsel failed to object to either aggravating factor as unconstitutional. 11 Since Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 92 S.Ct. 2726, 33 L.Ed.2d 346 (1972), constitutional concern has been directed toward whether the aggravating circumstances used by states in death penalty proceedings adequately prevent the substantial risk of arbitrary and capricious imposition of the death penalty prohibited by the Eighth Amendment. Failure to investigate the constitutionality of the aggravating circumstances under which one's client is to be put in jeopardy of the death penalty falls well below the standard of representation required for capital defendants. See Lockhart v. Fretwell, --- U.S. ----, ---- n. 1, 113 S.Ct. 838, 842 n. 1, 122 L.Ed.2d 180 (1993).
12 In order to prevail on his ineffective assistance claim, Starr must also show prejudice in addition to deficient performance. Fretwell, --- U.S. at ----, 113 S.Ct. at 842. The failure to discover that a likely meritorious objection could have been made to the pecuniary gain aggravating factor did not prejudice Starr because that factor was subsequently found to be constitutional. Perry v. Lockhart, 871 F.2d 1384 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 493 U.S. 959, 110 S.Ct. 378, 107 L.Ed.2d 363 (1989). As the Court explained in Fretwell, the failure to object to an aggravating circumstance which, at the time of trial, had been held unconstitutional by the relevant circuit court, but which was later deemed constitutional, does not result in ineffective assistance of counsel because there has been no prejudice to the defendant. Fretwell, --- U.S. at ---- - ----, 113 S.Ct. at 843-44. In such a case, counsel's deficient performance merely results in the defendant losing a legal windfall rather than a constitutional right to which he or she was entitled. Loss of a windfall does not constitute prejudice. Id. Thus, Starr cannot show prejudice by his counsel's failure to object to the pecuniary gain instruction. 13
14 The district court found that Starr's counsel did not perform deficiently in failing to object to the heinous, atrocious, or cruel aggravating circumstance, on the ground that the impermissible vagueness of that instruction was a new rule that counsel was not required to foresee. We disagree. 15 In 1980, six years before Starr's sentencing proceeding, the Supreme Court reversed a jury's imposition of a death sentence which was based on the aggravating circumstance that the crime was outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible, and inhuman. Godfrey, 446 U.S. at 428-29, 100 S.Ct. at 1764-65. In Godfrey, the Court explained that such an aggravating circumstance instruction could not prevent a substantial risk of the arbitrary and capricious imposition of the death penalty. Such standardless discretion in the imposition of the death penalty violates the Eighth Amendment. Id. at 427-28, 100 S.Ct. at 1764-65. 16 The Supreme Court later held in Maynard v. Cartwright, 486 U.S. 356, 362-64, 108 S.Ct. 1853, 1858-59, 100 L.Ed.2d 372 (1988), that there is no functional difference between the especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel aggravating circumstance and the outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible, and inhuman aggravating circumstance rejected in Godfrey. Either instruction is too vague to adequately channel a death sentence determination for Eighth Amendment purposes. 17 Subsequently, the Supreme Court addressed the question of whether Maynard 's invalidation of the heinous, atrocious, or cruel aggravating circumstance created a new rule for the purposes of habeas review. Stringer v. Black, --- U.S. ----, 112 S.Ct. 1130, 117 L.Ed.2d 367 (1992). New rules, with few exceptions, are not available to those defendants seeking habeas relief whose convictions were final (i.e., who had exhausted all direct appeals) before the new rule was announced. Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288, 311, 109 S.Ct. 1060, 1075-76, 103 L.Ed.2d 334 (1989); see also Penry v. Lynaugh, 492 U.S. 302, 314, 109 S.Ct. 2934, 2944, 106 L.Ed.2d 256 (1989). A decision is a new rule if the result was not dictated by precedent existing at the time the defendant's conviction became final. Teague, 489 U.S. at 301, 109 S.Ct. at 1070. Precedent does not dictate the result in a given case when it is susceptible to debate among reasonable minds. Butler v. McKellar, 494 U.S. 407, 415, 110 S.Ct. 1212, 1217, 108 L.Ed.2d 347 (1990). Applying this new rule standard, the Supreme Court held that Maynard 's invalidation of the heinous, atrocious, or cruel aggravating circumstance did not state a new rule. Stringer, --- U.S. at ----, 112 S.Ct. at 1135. 18 Thus, the Supreme Court has determined that, after the 1980 Godfrey decision, reasonable minds could not fail to realize that the heinous, atrocious, or cruel aggravating circumstance was unconstitutionally vague. We must therefore reject the district court's determination that counsel was not ineffective for failing to make this novel argument at trial. The argument was not novel in any sense of the word. The state's argument that Starr's counsel should not have been expected to foresee the expansion of Godfrey to Maynard is completely circular, because as the state itself admits, Maynard was not an expansion of Godfrey. See Stringer, --- U.S. at ----, ----, 112 S.Ct. at 1135, 1140 (that Maynard is not a new rule is a wise concession by the State of Mississippi); Newlon v. Armontrout, 885 F.2d 1328, 1333 (8th Cir.1989) (Maynard is an application of, not an extension of, Godfrey and is therefore not a new rule), cert. denied, 497 U.S. 1038, 110 S.Ct. 3301, 111 L.Ed.2d 810 (1990). To be effective, counsel in capital cases must at least recognize and object to those sentencing factors which cannot reasonably be argued to be valid under existing law. We can conceive of no trial strategy that justifies a contrary approach, and therefore reaffirm our finding that Starr's counsel performed deficiently in failing to object to this aggravating circumstance. 19 We now consider whether Starr suffered Strickland prejudice from counsel's deficient performance. To amount to prejudice, counsel's errors must have rendered the outcome of the preceding unreliable. Fretwell, --- U.S. at ----, 113 S.Ct. at 842. The Supreme Court has held that in weighing states such as Arkansas, the consideration of an invalid aggravating sentencing factor is fatal to the reliability of the sentence. 1 Stringer, --- U.S. at ----, 112 S.Ct. at 1137. Use of one invalid aggravating factor is fatal to a death sentence in a weighing state, even where the jury has found other valid aggravating circumstances, because the invalid factor operates as an impermissible thumb on death's scale. Id. Such a result is dictated by existing precedent and is not a new rule unavailable to habeas petitioners. Id. Starr's counsel's deficient performance therefore resulted in Starr being subjected to an unreliable determination that he should receive the death penalty. Such unreliability easily suffices to establish Strickland prejudice.