Opinion ID: 2555770
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 17

Heading: Department of Corrections Mental Health Reports

Text: In Issue 15, Appellant asserts a violation of Brady v. Maryland and ineffective assistance of counsel, both grounded in the failure of the Department of Corrections to provide two reports of a mental health evaluation of Appellant conducted by prison health care personnel in January 1996. Appellant contends that one of these documents constituted mitigation evidence because it indicated that he would adjust well to prison life; in addition, Appellant contends that the documents provided support for a diminished capacity/emotional disturbance defense, as well as for a finding that Appellant was not competent to waive counsel. Appellant's Brief at 57-59. The PCRA court made the following findings of fact with regard to this matter. See PCRA Court Opinion at 46. When defense counsel Andrews sought Appellant's mental health records from the Department of Corrections, the Department informed him that such records would not be released without a court order. See N.T. PCRA Hearing, 5/10/07, at 160-64; Letter to Mr. Andrews from Ben Livingood, Corrections Superintendent Assistant, dated 11/13/95 (Petitioner's Exhibit 82). Knowing that the Office of the Public Defender in York County was seeking the same records, Attorney Andrews deferred to that office. The Department of Corrections sent Appellant's psychological/psychiatric records, noting that they were compiled prior to his incarceration for murder, to the York County public defender on February 21, 1996. [42] These records, which dated from Appellant's 1990 incarceration for robbery, simple assault, burglary, and conspiracy, were forwarded from York County to Attorney Andrews on February 23, 1996. Subsequently, PCRA counsel discovered two additional documents, which summarized Appellant's mental health evaluation by prison personnel on January 31, 1996, but which apparently had not been sent to counsel. The PCRA court concluded that counsel was not ineffective for not re-requesting Department of Correction records immediately before trial; in addition, the PCRA court noted that there was no evidence that Appellant had told counsel that he had been evaluated by prison mental health professionals. Finally, the PCRA court recognized that Appellant had raised, and this Court had rejected, a similar issue in the collateral appeal of Appellant's first-degree murder conviction in Schuylkill County. PCRA Court Opinion at 47 (citing Spotz V, 896 A.2d at 1237). In Spotz V, we denied relief on this issue, based on the speculative nature of the documents' assessment of Appellant's future adjustment to prison life and on Appellant's failure to demonstrate prejudice. Spotz V, 896 A.2d at 1237. The same conclusion applies here, and thus we affirm the PCRA court's ruling on this issue. We consider first the content of the two documents at issue. The first document is a psychological evaluation of Appellant, conducted by Franklin P. Ryan, Ph.D., the chief psychologist for the Department of Corrections, on January 31, 1996, which was a year after Appellant's crime spree and shortly before his murder trials. Psychological Evaluation, conducted by Dr. Ryan, dated 1/31/96 (Petitioner's Exhibit 84) (hereinafter Ryan Report). The evaluation was apparently prompted by Appellant's complaints to prison personnel of decreased sleep, hallucinations, and depression. Psychiatry Department Referral Form, referred by Cynthia M. Crowell, dated 1/29/96 (Petitioner's Exhibit 34). The Ryan Report included, inter alia, the following findings: Appellant had a verbal IQ in the bright normal range; he had a markedly deviant Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory profile; he described his family as critical, quarrelsome, lacking in love, understand[ing] or support; he was isolated, alienated, lonely, unhappy, generally obnoxious, and immature, and viewed himself as misunderstood and a failure; he had demonstrated aggression towards others and admitted to having impulses to do something harmful and shocking. Ryan Report at 1-2. The report also suggested the following Diagnostic Impressions: (1) adjustment disorder with anxious mood; (2) personality disorder, severe, mixed, with features of passive-aggressive, passive dependent, narcissistic, antisocial; (3) polysubstance abuse/dependence, in remission; (4) problems with legal system. Id. at 2-3. Finally, under Recommendations, the report stated the following: [Appellant] eventually will adjust well to prison life. It provides him with a structure, limits, and guidelines. It will meet his dependency strivings, and won't tolerate his acts of aggression. He is bright and can be trained at a prison trade. During the next year, however, while his cases are being heard and decided, he must be held in closer custody for the safety of those around him. Id. at 3. The second document, authored by Department of Corrections psychiatrist Frederick R. Maue, and also dated January 31, 1996, is extremely short and informal, comprising only a few hand-written notations. According to the notations, Dr. Maue saw Appellant, who claimed to have felt better after meeting with Dr. Ryan, slept well, and had fewer flashbacks and nightmares. Psychiatry Department Referral Form, completed by Frederick R. Maue, M.D., dated 1/31/96 (Petitioner's Exhibit 34) (hereinafter Maue Notes). The Maue Notes do not mention any diagnosis or potential for adjustment to prison life. [43] For his argument as to the relevance of these documents to the penalty phase of trial, Appellant relies on Skipper v. South Carolina, 476 U.S. 1, 4, 7 & n. 2, 106 S.Ct. 1669, 90 L.Ed.2d 1 (1986). In Skipper, the United States Supreme Court held that the state court had committed constitutional error by excluding, from a capital sentencing hearing, testimony proffered by the defendant regarding his good behavior in prison during the time between his arrest and trial. The high Court concluded that it was a not undesirable element of criminal sentencing for the jury to consider a defendant's past conduct as indicative of his probable future behavior. Id. at 5, 106 S.Ct. 1669. Relying on its prior holding that a sentencing court not be precluded from considering, as a mitigating factor, any aspect of a defendant's character or record and any of the circumstances of the offense that the defendant proffers as a basis for a sentence less than death, the high Court concluded that a defendant's disposition to make a well-be-haved and peaceful adjustment to life in prison is itself an aspect of his character that is by its nature relevant to the sentencing determination. Id. at 4, 106 S.Ct. 1669 (quoting Eddings v. Oklahoma, 455 U.S. 104, 110, 102 S.Ct. 869, 71 L.Ed.2d 1 (1982) (emphasis in original)) and 7, respectively. In the instant case, Appellant submits that his counsel was ineffective for not proffering, as mitigation evidence under Skipper, the projection in the Ryan Report that Appellant eventually will adjust well to prison life. Ryan Report at 3. Appellant has failed to establish that, had the Ryan Report and/or the Maue Notes been offered as additional mitigation evidence, there is a reasonable probability that the jury would have decided upon life imprisonment, not the death penalty. Appellant totally ignores the fact that the documents present a far from uniformly positive picture of his personal characteristics, interpersonal relations, and likely future conduct. Although Appellant had been imprisoned for nearly a year when the documents were written, they give little, if any, insight as to his conduct in and adjustment to prison during that time. While the Ryan Report does indeed speculate that Appellant  eventually will adjust well to prison life, it also mentions several times his aggressive tendencies toward others, and notes the need to maintain him in closer custody for the safety of those around him while his cases were being decided. Ryan Report at 3 (emphasis added). There is no reasonable probability that the jury would have chosen not to sentence Appellant to death based upon the speculativeand largely negativeassessments in the documents at issue. Accordingly, we will not hold counsel ineffective for failing to proffer these documents as mitigation evidence. Furthermore, we will not hold counsel ineffective for failing to proffer these documents as guilt phase evidence in support of a diminished capacity defense or of Appellant's incompetence to waive counsel. The documents provide absolutely no insight as to Appellant's mental state at the time of the offense, the only relevant time for a diminished capacity defense. See Commonwealth v. Rainey, 593 Pa. 67, 928 A.2d 215, 237 (2007) (requiring a defendant advancing a defense of diminished capacity based on mental defect to establish [that he or she] had a mental defect at the time of [the] murder that affected his [or her] cognitive abilities of deliberation and premeditation necessary to formulate specific intent to kill.). Furthermore, nothing in the documents remotely implies that Appellant did not have the mental capacity to understand the legal proceedings, and thus was not competent to stand trial or to waive counsel. See Starr, 664 A.2d at 1339; Puksar, 951 A.2d at 288. In fact, the Ryan Report constitutes evidence to the contrary, noting that Appellant exhibited a verbal IQ of 118, which placed him in the bright normal range of mental ability. Thus, far from supporting a diminished capacity defense, the documents more logically support Appellant's competence to stand trial and waive counsel. Accordingly, there is no arguable merit to Appellant's assertions that counsel was ineffective for failing to offer these documents as evidence during the guilt phase of trial. Finally, in Issue 15, Appellant asserts a violation of Brady v. Maryland grounded in the failure of the Department of Corrections to produce the documents at issue. Appellant neglects to accompany his assertion with any argument, but it is meritless on its face. To establish a Brady violation, an accused must prove, inter alia, that the evidence allegedly withheld was material evidence that deprived the defendant of a fair trial. Commonwealth v. Johnson, 572 Pa. 283, 815 A.2d 563, 573 (2002). Favorable evidence is material, and constitutional error results from its suppression by the government, if there is a reasonable probability that, had the evidence been disclosed to the defense, the result of the proceeding would have been different. A reasonable probability is a probability sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome. Id. (quoting Kyles v. Whitley, 514 U.S. 419, 433, 115 S.Ct. 1555, 131 L.Ed.2d 490 (1995)). For the reasons discussed supra, neither the Ryan Report nor the Maue Notes constitutes material evidence. Appellant's assertions to the contrary are entirely meritless and he is entitled to no relief on his fifteenth issue.