Opinion ID: 2167655
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Jury's Information Regarding Sentencing Alternatives

Text: Williams argues that the trial court erred in failing to instruct the jury at sentencing on what options were available to the judge if the jury did not recommend death. The instruction the court actually gave stated: In the State of Indiana, if the death penalty is not imposed, the sentence for murder is a fixed sentence of from thirty (30) to sixty (60) years. The presumptive penalty is forty (40) years. The Court at sentencing imposes a specific number of years within that range. In the State of Indiana, a defendant can earn credit for good behavior to apply against the sentence, with a maximum allowable credit of fifty percent (50%) of the sentence imposed by the Court. (T.R. at 175A.) No information within the court's instructions informed the jury about the potential for consecutive or concurrent sentencing. The court's procedures complied with the death penalty sentencing statute then in force, Ind.Code Ann. § 35-50-2-9 (West 1986), and thus the court's instructions were within the bounds of Indiana law at the time. [7] Williams claims, however, that these procedures violated his Fourteenth Amendment right to due process under the Federal Constitution as that right was described in the case of Simmons v. South Carolina, 512 U.S. 154, 114 S.Ct. 2187, 129 L.Ed.2d 133 (1994). In Simmons, the Court held that where the defendant's future dangerousness is at issue, and state law prohibits the defendant's release on parole, due process requires that the sentencing jury be informed that the defendant is parole ineligible. Id. at 156, 114 S.Ct. 2187. Williams reads this case for the broad proposition that a defendant's due process rights are violated whenever the jury is not instructed on the possibility of concurrent or consecutive sentences. ( See Appellant's Br. at 112-16.) Williams' argument is unavailing. Simmons was handed down more than a year after we decided Williams' case on appeal. Because Simmons was unavailable to either Williams' trial or appellate counsel, we cannot say their respective performances were deficient for their failure in making a claim based on Simmons, even if we accept Williams' reading of that case.
Williams says his trial counsel should have offered a penalty phase instruction informing the jury that, if proven, Williams' intoxication could have negated the intent requirements inherent in two of the three statutory aggravating factors alleged by the Stateintentionally killing John and Henrietta Rease during the commission or attempted commission of a knowing or intentional taking of property. The jury was instructed on the defense of intoxication during the guilt phase, but not during the sentencing phase. At sentencing, Williams' counsel did not offer an instruction on the intoxication defense as to aggravating circumstances, but did argue to the jury that the evidence of his intoxication was sufficient to show Williams could not have intentionally killed the victims. (T.R. at 3063.) Johnson v. State explained how the intoxication defense should be considered within the context of death penalty sentencing. In Indiana, voluntary intoxication can be offered as a defense to any crime. It follows a fortiori from the provision of the death sentence statute defining the aggravating circumstance applicable ... that voluntary intoxication [may be] properly asserted ... as a defense to ... aggravating circumstance[s] ... and as a mitigating circumstance as well. The basic assumption underlying the defense is that drug and alcohol intoxication may be so severe as to prevent a person from forming a criminal intent, yet not so severe as to prevent that person from performing acts required to commit the crime. 584 N.E.2d 1092, 1099-1100 (Ind.1992) (citations omitted), cert. denied, 506 U.S. 853, 113 S.Ct. 155, 121 L.Ed.2d 105 (1992). The intoxication defense is still available to defendants at death penalty sentencing because the State is required to prove its alleged aggravating factors beyond a reasonable doubt before the jury may consider them. See Ind.Code Ann. § 35-50-2-9(a) (West Supp.1998). On the other hand, failure to submit an instruction is not deficient performance if the court would have refused the instruction anyway. Such would have been the case here. Each count of felony murder alleged that Williams killed the victim while committing or attempting to commit the crime of robbery by knowingly or intentionally attempting to take property. (T.R. at 19). The court instructed the jury during the guilt phase that the State was obligated to show that Williams killed the victims while committing or attempting to commit a knowing or intentional taking of money from the victims. (T.R. at 117A.) Hearing this instruction and the court's instruction on intoxication, the jury found Williams guilty of felony murder. This verdict was consistent with the considerable evidence that Williams could communicate, deliberate, and act toward a chosen end during his encounter with the Reases. We conclude that the trial court would have refused an intoxication instruction and that counsel was thus not deficient for failing to tender one.
Williams asserts he was denied his right to effective assistance of counsel because of systemic defects within the Lake County system of providing public defender services for indigent capital defendants. The case of United States v. Cronic, 466 U.S. 648, 104 S.Ct. 2039, 80 L.Ed.2d 657 (1984) provides a narrow exception to the traditional two prong analysis of Strickland generally used to determine whether assistance of counsel was effective. Under Cronic, certain circumstances will negate Strickland 's requirement that a defendant prove both specific errors leading to deficient performance and actual prejudice. Games v. State, 684 N.E.2d 466, 479 (Ind.1997), opinion modified on reh'g, 690 N.E.2d 211 (Ind. 1997). In these cases, the circumstances which allow courts to find ineffective assistance speak for themselves and reference to counsel's actual performance is unnecessary. Cronic, 466 U.S. at 658-59, 104 S.Ct. 2039. Here, by contrast, Williams makes some vague comments about overwhelming caseloads and inadequate training of an assisting attorney for capital cases, then asserts that his counsel's alleged inadequate performance shows the Cronic standard has indeed been met. (Appellant's Br. at 130-32.) The evidence presented by Williams simply does not come close to triggering Cronic 's presumption of prejudice. We reject Williams' claim for reasons similar to those elaborated in Coleman v. State, 703 N.E.2d 1022 (Ind.); Brown v. State, 698 N.E.2d 1132 (Ind.1998), reh'g denied; Roche v. State, 690 N.E.2d 1115 (Ind.1997), reh'g denied.
Because the facts which follow were discovered after Williams' post-conviction procedure was concluded, we rely on the information provided by appellant's brief and on questions which we ordered to be answered by Judge Letsinger on June 13, 1997. Williams apparently filled out a psychological questionnaire [8] to aid the Lake County Probation Department in compiling his pre-sentence investigation report. Our pre-sentence investigation procedure in place at the time required the court to furnish the defendant with the factual contents gathered through that process so that he may have a fair opportunity to controvert any included material. Ind.Code Ann. § 35-38-1-12(b) (West 1986). David Schneider, a trial attorney who worked on Williams' case, provided an affidavit in July 1996 which states, however, that he was not informed at the time of sentencing that Williams had been required to complete the questionnaire. Schneider also states he was not given a copy of the questionnaire as it had been answered by Williams. (Appendix to Appellant's Br. at A-76.) Asked whether Williams' trial counsel or Williams himself received a copy of the questionnaire, Judge Letsinger replied: The questionnaire is an exhibit to the pre-sentence investigation report. Whenever counsel for the defendant received his copy of the pre-sentence, which is usually one (1) or two (2) days before the date of sentencing, he got a copy of the questionnaire. (Appendix to Appellant's Br. at A-79.) [9] Williams claims the court's failure to provide his trial counsel with the contents of this psychological test violated his federal and state due process rights. [10] We have recently confronted the issue of Judge Letsinger's pre-sentence questionnaire in Matheney v. State, 688 N.E.2d 883 (Ind.1997), petition for cert. filed. In Matheney, we reviewed the aggravating and mitigating factors absent the psychological questionnaire to determine whether the death sentence was appropriate. Id. at 909 (citing Lambert v. State, 675 N.E.2d 1060, 1065 (Ind.1996), cert. denied, 520 U.S. 1255, 117 S.Ct. 2417, 138 L.Ed.2d 181 (1997)). Because the circumstances we confront here are procedurally identical, we will engage in the same type of review. The aggravating circumstances charged by the State were that Williams: 1. Intentionally killed John Rease during the commission or attempted commission of a knowing or intentional taking of property... and/or 2. Intentionally killed Henrietta Rease during the commission or attempted commission of a knowing or intentional taking of property ... and/or 3. [Has] been convicted of the murder of John Rease and Henrietta Rease. (T.R. at 167A.) Because all of these aggravating factors relate directly and solely to facts present at the time of the crimes, the psychological questionnaire could not have been used by the judge in considering or weighing these aggravators. The answers given by Williams in that document were completely irrelevant to whether any of the three charged factors existed in fact. We further note, as fully discussed in our opinion on direct appeal, that there was substantial evidence proving all three aggravating factors beyond a reasonable doubt. Rouster, 600 N.E.2d at 1350. The existence of the third aggravating factor is plain: Williams was convicted of killing more than one person, namely John Rease and Henrietta Rease. The evidence also supports the conclusion that Williams intentionally killed the Reases while engaging or attempting to engage in a robbery even considered in light of the requirement that accomplice liability is not enough, that the defendant must be individually culpable for the death of the victim or victims. [11] Townsend v. State, 533 N.E.2d 1215 (Ind. 1989), cert. denied, 494 U.S. 1020, 110 S.Ct. 1327, 108 L.Ed.2d 502 (1990). Here, this intent is proven by facts which show that Williams and Rouster acted as a team in robbing and then killing the Reases. The mitigating factors which were presented by Williams do not overcome the weight of these aggravators. Because the three aggravating factors against Williams were proven by the State beyond a reasonable doubt, and because the mitigating evidence presented by Williams is outweighed by these aggravating factors beyond a reasonable doubt, Williams' sentence stands as it is.
Williams urges that a number of factual errors were made in this Court's decision on direct appeal. The post-conviction court agreed that the direct appeal opinion erroneously stated that Williams was wearing a blue shirt when he was wearing a red one; that several rooms had been ransacked when only one had been; and that watches were found in Williams' pouch when Williams was actually wearing one watch, another watch was in his pouch, and a watch which belonged to one of the victims was found in Teresa Newsome's purse. (P-C.R. at 1337-39.) We regret these errors, but they made no difference in our decision on appeal.
Williams objects to the post-conviction court's exclusion of four experts he sought to present as witnesses: a forensic social worker, a nurse, and two attorneys. The forensic social worker's report and deposition testimony concerned what facts and testimony counsel might have been able to obtain from a mitigation expert. The nurse's report concerned possible consequences of birth complications allegedly reflected in Williams' medical records. The two attorneys were to testify about lawyer performance. Expert opinion is appropriate only when it concerns matters not within the common knowledge or experience of an ordinary person and when it would aid the jury. Byrd v. State, 593 N.E.2d 1183, 1185 (Ind. 1992). Admission of expert testimony is generally assigned to the discretion of the trial court; it is reviewed on appeal only for an abuse of discretion. Id. Here, the post-conviction court did not abuse its discretion in rejecting the testimony of the two attorneys since the magistrate and the judge are necessarily very familiar with ineffective assistance of counsel claims. The State objected to the introduction of the nurse's testimony on grounds that Williams himself had not proven that he personally suffered from any of the potential conditions discussed in the nurse's report. Again, the court did not abuse its discretion in not allowing such testimony. The court sustained the State's objection that the evidence offered by the social worker on behalf of Williams was cumulative. Given the large amount of evidence already available on Williams' difficult childhood, we find this was not an abuse of discretion.