Opinion ID: 3046001
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Background and Legal Presentation of the Claim

Text: The body of Billie Dean Hamilton, a real estate agent who was Caucasian, was discovered in St. Clair County, Alabama, on January 18, 1988. See Adkins v. State, 600 So. 2d 1054, 1057, 1059, 1060–61 (Ala. Crim. App. 1990) (Adkins I); Ex parte Adkins, 600 So. 2d 1067, 1069 (Ala. 1992) (Adkins II). Right away, Mr. Adkins, also white, was arrested and charged with capital murder for Hamilton’s death. Id. Jury selection began on October 24, 1988. During that process, the state exercised nine of its twenty-four peremptory strikes to remove nine of eleven black 2 Case: 11-12380 Date Filed: 02/27/2013 Page: 3 of 53 veniremembers. Adkins II, 600 So. 2d at 1069. Mr. Adkins struck one of the two remaining black jurors, and ultimately, only one black juror served on the jury. Id. At the time of Mr. Adkins’s trial, the rule in Alabama was that a white defendant, like Mr. Adkins, lacked standing to challenge the state’s exercise of peremptory strikes to remove black jurors from the panel. See, e.g., Owen v. State, 586 So. 2d 958, 959 (Ala. Crim. App. 1990), rev’d sub. nom. Ex parte Owen, 586 So. 2d 963 (Ala. 1991). For this reason, there was neither an objection by the defense nor a proffer of reasons by the prosecutor for striking the nine black jurors. The jury convicted Mr. Adkins of capital murder and sentenced him to death. See Adkins I, 600 So. 2d at 1056. On August 24, 1990, the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed his convictions and sentence on direct appeal. Id. at 1067. Before Mr. Adkins sought review in the Alabama Supreme Court, see Adkins II, 600 So. 2d 1067, the United States Supreme Court delivered its ruling in Powers v. Ohio, holding “that a criminal defendant may object to race-based exclusions of jurors effected through peremptory challenges whether or not the defendant and the excluded juror share the same races.” 499 U.S. 400, 402, 111 S. Ct. 1364, 1366 (1991). Following Powers, Mr. Adkins raised a Batson claim in his petition for writ of certiorari to the Alabama Supreme Court. Adkins II, 600 So. 2d at 1069. The Alabama Supreme Court granted Mr. Adkins’s petition and 3 Case: 11-12380 Date Filed: 02/27/2013 Page: 4 of 53 remanded his case to the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals for further proceedings. Id. (citing Ex parte Bankhead, 585 So. 2d 112, 117 (Ala. 1991), aff’d on remand, 625 So. 2d 1141 (Ala. Crim. App. 1992), rev’d on other grounds, 625 So. 2d 1146 (Ala. 1993)). 1 The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals then remanded Mr. Adkins’s case to the trial court for a Batson hearing on June 12, 1992, with the direction, “[d]ue return should be filed with this court within 90 days from the date of this opinion.” Adkins v. State, 600 So. 2d 1072, 1073 (Ala. Crim. App. 1992) (Adkins III). The return was thus due on September 10, 1992. The state trial court held the Batson hearing on July 29, 1992. During that hearing, the prosecutor proffered reasons for striking each of the nine black jurors, which the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals summarized as follows: Prospective juror number 59 . . . was struck because he came forward and asked that he be excused from serving on the jury. He was 61 years old and had ulcers. Prospective juror number 39 [Billy Morris] . . . was struck because he answered during the voir dire that he knew about the case and because he was also single. 1 In Ex parte Bankhead, the prosecutor peremptorily challenged eight of ten black jurors on the venire in a capital case with a white defendant. 585 So. 2d at 115, 117. Two blacks served on the jury. Id. at 117. After Powers was decided, the Alabama Supreme Court remanded Bankhead’s case for a Batson hearing even though no objection was made at trial. Id. (“Based on Powers, we must now hold that Bankhead, a white, has standing under the Equal Protection Clause to challenge the prosecutor’s allegedly racially motivated use of peremptory challenges.”). 4 Case: 11-12380 Date Filed: 02/27/2013 Page: 5 of 53 Prospective juror number 8 . . . was struck because she stated that she knew about the case. The prosecutor also had information that she was married to or lived with an individual he had prosecuted. Prospective juror number 52 . . . was struck because of his age and because he was single. He also appeared inattentive and seemed disinterested during voir dire. Prospective juror number 36 . . . was struck because she was 53 and single. She was also unemployed and asked to be excused from serving on the jury because she had high blood pressure. Prospective juror number 31 . . . was struck because she was single and because she was known to associate with a former local chief of police who had been forced to resign. Prospective juror number 56 . . . was struck because he was 86 years old and because he indicated that he knew defense counsel. Prospective juror number 14 . . . was struck because she was single and because she worked for the Department of Human Resources (DHR) and the district attorney’s office had frequent dealings with her in her capacity as a DHR employee. Prospective Juror number 60 . . . was struck because her father had a federal conviction for a drug-related crime. Adkins v. State, 639 So. 2d 515, 517 (Ala. Crim. App. 1993) (Adkins IV), withdrawn, Ex parte Adkins, 662 So. 2d 925 (Ala. 1994) (unpublished table decision).2 Also during the Batson hearing, the prosecutor’s notes from the voir dire were admitted into evidence as exhibits. 2 Because our discussion of the Batson issue centers on juror Billy Morris, we identify him by name. 5 Case: 11-12380 Date Filed: 02/27/2013 Page: 6 of 53 On September 9, 1992, several weeks after the Batson hearing, the state trial court issued an order directing the prosecutor to supplement the Batson record by affidavit with an “explanation, if any, as to the District Attorney’s contention that Billy Morris was a single man.” The trial court’s order noted that during voir dire Mr. Morris said he was married. In an affidavit submitted by the prosecutor dated the same day, the prosecutor stated: Mike Campbell and myself were at all times under the impression and understood that Mr. Billy Morris was a single male and he was struck by the state for that reason. We did not learn until long after the trial and upon reading the transcript that Billy Morris was in fact married and his spouse unemployed. The notes which we prepared in preparation for the Batson [h]earing also reflected that Billy Morris was single and no where [sic] in our notes taken during this jury selection process is it noted that Billy Morris was a married man. The next day, without argument or opportunity for cross-examination by Mr. Adkins about the prosecutor’s affidavit, the state trial court entered its order finding “that there was no purposeful racial discrimination in the peremptory strikes exercised by the State as to Billy Morris, or any other black juror struck.” The trial court’s order expressly relied upon the testimony at the Batson hearing and the affidavit submitted by the prosecutor. With respect to Mr. Morris, the state trial court found that he was struck because of the “mistaken” belief that he was single. Invoking the trial court’s own personal experience with the prosecutor in 6 Case: 11-12380 Date Filed: 02/27/2013 Page: 7 of 53 other cases,3 the trial court found the prosecutor’s assertion of mistaken belief as to Mr. Morris’s marital status “to be credible.” Upon the return from remand after the Batson hearing, the Alabama appellate courts again affirmed Mr. Adkins’s convictions and death sentence. See Adkins IV, 639 So. 2d 515;4 Ex parte Adkins, 639 So. 2d 522 (Ala. 1994) (Adkins V). The United States Supreme Court denied certiorari. Adkins v. Alabama, 513 U.S. 851, 115 S. Ct. 151 (1994). Mr. Adkins timely sought postconviction relief in the state court pursuant to Rule 32 of the Alabama Rules of Criminal Procedure. His Rule 32 petition was denied by the state trial court, and the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed. Adkins v. State, 930 So. 2d 524, 550 (Ala. Crim. App. 2001) (Adkins VI). The Alabama Supreme Court denied discretionary review, and the Supreme 3 In support of its finding that the prosecutor was credible, the state trial court’s order stated: This Court having worked with District Attorney Davis on many other cases in the past, finds that he has never intentionally misrepresented any fact to this Court to gain an advantage in a criminal proceeding. He has many times admitted facts which were to the detriment of his cases and accepted the consequences of facts that were against his case. This Court has never found District Attorney Davis to purposefully exclude blacks from juries in cases prosecuted by him. The Court finds his statement as to mistaken belief as to the marital status of jury [sic] Morris to be credible. 4