Opinion ID: 4535549
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Myths and Misrepresentations

Text: To the extent that the Ohio courts addressed past evidence of Hill’s adaptive deficits, they misconstrued it or tried to offset it with irrelevant facts. Rather than take this evidence seriously, the Ohio Court of Appeals adopted the trial court’s analysis as consistent with its own perception of the record: Public School Records. Hill’s public school records amply demonstrate a history of academic underachievement and behavioral problems. Hill is often described as a lazy, manipulative, and sometimes violent youth. Although there are references to Hill’s being easily led or influenced by others, the trial court noted that much of Hill’s serious misconduct, including two rapes committed prior to Fife’s murder, occurred when he was acting alone. Hill knew how to write and was described by at least one of his special education teachers as “a bright, perceptive boy with high reasoning ability.” Hill’s Trial for the Murder of Raymond Fife. The trial court observed that the record of Hill’s murder trial provided evidence of Hill’s ability concerning self-direction and self-preservation. In particular, the court noted Hill’s initiative in coming to the police in order to misdirect the focus of the investigation by implicating others and Hill’s ability to adapt his alibi to changing circumstances in the course of police interrogation. This last point was also noted by Dr. Olley in his hearing testimony: Hill “stood his ground during that interrogation very, very strongly.    He not only modified his story a little bit when he was faced with evidence that couldn’t possibly have avoided.    That to me is a kind of thinking and planning and integrating complex information that is a higher level than I have seen people with mental retardation able to do.” Death Row Records. At the time of the evidentiary hearing, Hill had been incarcerated on death row for 20 years. From this period of time, the trial court considered audiotaped interviews of Hill by Warren’s Tribune Chronicle reporter Andrew Gray in the year 2000. These interviews were arranged on Hill’s initiative in order to generate publicity for his case. The trial court found Hill’s performance on these tapes demonstrated a high level of functional ability with respect to Hill’s use of language and vocabulary, understanding of legal processes, ability to read and write, and ability to reason independently. The trial court considered the evidence of the various prison officials who testified at the evidentiary hearing. These witnesses consistently testified that Hill was an “average” prisoner with respect to his abilities in comparison with other death row inmates. They testified that Hill interacted with the other inmates, played games, maintained a prison job, kept a record of the money in his commissary account, and obeyed prison rules. Prison officials offered further testimony in their interviews with the expert psychologists. One official opined that Hill began to behave differently after Atkins was decided, and he believed Nos. 99-4317/14-3718 Hill v. Anderson Page 22 that Hill was “playing a game” to make others think he is retarded. Another official reported that Hill’s self-care was “poor but not terrible” and that Hill had to be reminded sometimes about his hygiene. Hill’s Appearances in Court. The trial court stated that it had “many opportunities” to observe Hill over an extended period of time and, as a lay observer, did not perceive anything about Hill’s conduct or demeanor suggesting that he suffers from mental retardation. Hill, 894 N.E.2d at 124–25. We are troubled by these findings. To start with, the Ohio courts’ finding “that Hill ‘underachieved’ academically or in any other adaptive skill as a child is,” as the district court remarked, “squarely contradicted by the record.” Hill, 2014 WL 2890416, at . The district court could not find, and neither can we, “one reference in Hill’s school records by a teacher, school administrator, psychologist, psychiatrist, or anyone else suggesting that Hill was capable of performing at a substantially higher level but chose not to.” Id. (footnote omitted). And as the experts in this case testified, evidence of behavioral problems or a conduct disorder simply does not undermine a simultaneous finding of intellectual disability. See R. 97 [disc 1] (Hammer Test., Atkins Hr’g Tr.) (Page 612); R. 97 [disc 1] (Olley Test., Atkins Hr’g Tr.) (Page 713) (“[I]f he’s having conduct problems in school, that’s neither here nor there to a diagnosis of mental retardation.”); (Page R. 97 [disc 1] (Huntsman Test., Atkins Hr’g Tr.) (Pages 1102–03). The state courts incorrectly discounted the fact that Hill was easily led because he committed crimes on his own. Under then prevailing medical standards, however, Hill’s prior criminal behavior should not be given weight in this analysis. The Ohio courts’ focus on a note drafted by a teacher in a school for intellectually disabled children describing Hill as “‘bright’ and ‘perceptive,’ with ‘high reasoning ability’” was, as the district court put it, “almost cynical in its selective misrepresentation of the facts.” Hill, 2014 WL 2890416, at . In the same report, Hill’s special education teacher noted that Hill, who was thirteen at the time, had the reading skills of a first-grader and the math skills of a third-grader. R. 97 [disc 1] (Suppl. App.) (Page 578). Her proposed goals for Hill were for him to shower regularly, eat and drink in a manner appropriate to school, blend letter sounds to say words altogether out loud, tell time in five-minute intervals, and count change up to $1.00. Id. Nos. 99-4317/14-3718 Hill v. Anderson Page 23 The Ohio courts’ handling of evidence regarding self-care is equally troubling. The Ohio Court of Appeals’s sole reference to Hill’s deficits with regard to self-care was its summary of testimony provided by a prison official “that Hill’s self-care was ‘poor but not terrible’ and that Hill had to be reminded sometimes about his hygiene.” Hill, 894 N.E.2d at 125. Such a statement downplays the record’s extensive chronicling of Hill’s struggles with hygiene, including the fact that an individual education plan established for Hill when he was nearly fourteen years old included an “[a]nnual [g]oal and [o]bjective” of helping Hill “learn to shower when necessary” and to “put soiled clothing in the appropriate place.” R. 97 [disc 1] (Hammer Test., Atkins Hr’g Tr.) (Pages 281, 327). The state trial court also unduly relied on Hill’s “initiative in coming to the police” after Fife’s death, as well as his alleged efforts to misdirect the investigation and fabricate an alibi while under interrogation, as “evidence of Hill’s ability concerning self-direction and self-preservation.” See Hill, 894 N.E.2d at 124. While conceding that there “are references to Hill’s being easily led or influenced by others, the trial court noted that much of Hill’s serious misconduct, including two rapes committed prior to Fife’s murder, occurred when he was acting alone.” Id. But Hill was not even a suspect before he went to the police, and his statements are what aroused their suspicion. Incriminating oneself is hardly self-preservation. And as the district court noted, “‘[s]elf-preservation’ is not [even] among the adaptive skills measured under the clinical definitions of intellectual disability.” Hill, 2014 WL 2890416, at . And “self-direction” covers a host of behaviors—including “initiating activities appropriate to the setting” and “demonstrating appropriate assertiveness and self-advocacy skills”—that are either unrelated or directly contrary to Hill’s decision to make contact with the police. Id. Moreover, contrary to the Ohio courts’ findings, Hill’s “performance” during the police interrogation revealed him to be “childlike, confused, often irrational, and primarily selfdefeating,” and Hill’s attempts to change his story under pressure failed to “skillfully hid[e] his part” in Fife’s death. Id. at . The police even stated that Hill was suggestible, telling him that “Everytime [sic] we suggest something to you, you have a tendency to agree with us.” R. 26 (Trial Tr. at 30) (Page ID #2105). Hill often changed his story or “embellished his statement[s] at the slightest suggestion by the police, even when the information at issue was irrelevant or Nos. 99-4317/14-3718 Hill v. Anderson Page 24 incriminating.” Hill, 2014 WL 2890416, at . These actions were “quite the opposite of adaptive.” Id. at . This is especially true where Hill’s decision to approach the police did not “resolve his problems,” but “succeeded only in immediately drawing the police’s attention to himself.” Id. While purportedly relying on prison accounts, the Ohio courts made no mention of Hill’s prison records. Those records reflect that prison officials always understood Hill to be mentally incapacitated or “slow.” As when he was in school, Hill was considered to be illiterate in prison. He was understood to have a “very limited writing ability,” and he had other inmates write for him. R. 97 [disc 1] (Atkins Hr’g Tr.) (Page 438). Notes written from Hill to prison officials make clear that he had trouble keeping track of his prison account balance. According to fellow inmates, when Hill was given a task, he had to be carefully supervised because he could not remember how to complete the assigned task. At least one prison official reported that Hill was able to perform his job as a porter because the cleaning supplies were sorted by color, so Hill was not required to read the supplies’ instructions. Id. at 363, 1381. Rather than credit the ten intellectual-disability diagnoses that Hill received prior to Atkins even being decided, the court made its own lay judgment that “there is nothing about [Hill’s] general appearance—facial expressions or conduct—suggesting . . . that the Petitioner is mentally retarded.” State v. Hill, No. 85-CR-317, at 76 (Ohio Ct. of Common Pleas Feb. 15, 2006) (unreported) [R. 97 [disc 1] (Suppl. App.) (Page 3474)]. The Ohio Court of Appeals defended that lay judgment on the basis that the experts also believed that Hill failed to exhibit significant adaptive deficiencies. See Hill, 894 N.E.2d at 125–26. Perhaps most disturbing, three psychologists who testified at Hill’s pre-Atkins mitigation hearing concluded that Hill was intellectually disabled and had extremely poor adaptive functioning. On appeal, the Ohio Supreme Court and Court of Appeals found these psychologists’ testimony credible and concluded that Hill was intellectually disabled. See State v. Hill, 595 N.E.2d 884, 901 (Ohio 1992); State v. Hill, Nos. 3720, 2745, 1989 WL 142761, at  6, 32 (Ohio Ct. App. Nov. 27, 1989). It was only after Atkins came down, and Hill was again assessed for intellectual disability in renewed state-court proceedings, that the Ohio courts reversed course. See Hill, 300 F.3d at 682 (remanding this case to the Ohio courts so that Hill Nos. 99-4317/14-3718 Hill v. Anderson Page 25 could exhaust his Atkins claim, while recognizing that the “Ohio courts reviewing his case have [already] concluded that Danny Hill is retarded and voluminous expert testimony supported this conclusion” (citation omitted)).