Opinion ID: 852183
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Investigating and Presenting Mitigating Evidence

Text: Baer asserts that trial counsel's decision not to present any witnesses other than Dr. Cunningham was not a decision based on a reasonable investigation and therefore is not entitled to deference because a reasonable investigation would have helped uncover mitigating evidence. (Appellant's Br. at 70.) Trial counsel Bryan Williams explained the defense team's decision: We had Dr. Cunningham who had spent a substantial amount of time putting together the entire family history, how certain folks were related, incidents, and we thought at the time that he was probably in as good a position as anybody to explain the entire family history, and we thought he was a very good witness so we decided to use him exclusively. (PCR Tr. at 33.) Lead trial counsel Jeffrey Lockwood confirmed this assessment when he testified at the post-conviction hearing: I did not feel that we could rely on any of the family members under all circumstances to be helpful to us. And beyond that, there weren't many other people. And so what we did was we tried to incorporate in Dr. Cunningham's examination all of the things that he uncovered about social history. I mean we did think about [calling other witnesses], but we had ample reason in my opinion to believe that we would not gain ground by calling family members. (PCR Tr. at 73-74.) Our review of the PCR transcripts leads us to the conclusion that there were reasons that an experienced attorney might hesitate to call Baer's family members; it was professionally reasonable not to call additional witnesses. This case is hardly a case where no mitigating evidence was assembled. Trial counsel hired a mitigation consultant, and because of her efforts, counsel knew a great deal about the defendant's background, upbringing, and prior mental health problems. (PCR Tr. at 26, 56-57, 61-62, 71.) Dr. Cunningham conducted interviews with many of Baer's family members and reviewed Baer's records (including school and mental health records) and notes from interviews with many people from Baer's past. (Trial. Tr. at 2253-54, 2264-65.) He testified about many potential mitigators including previous mental health disorders, diagnoses, and institutionalizations (Trial Tr. at 2266, 2311, 2313-24, 2374-82, 2387, 2400-03), Baer's extremely troubled family situation (Trial Tr. at 2284, 2288-93, 2337-45, 2347-72, 2409-2410), Baer's extensive history of substance abuse (Trial Tr. at 2284, 2328-32, 2390-93, 2403-05), and Baer's history of neurological problems (Trial Tr. at 2306-11, 2325-28, 2332-36). We find that Dr. Cunningham's testimony presented an abundance of potential mitigating factors to the jury. As in Woods v. State, 701 N.E.2d 1208, 1226 (1998), Baer's argument is essentially that counsel should have done more. In all post-conviction proceedings, the petitioner will always be able to find some information from his past that was not presented to the jury. Dr. Cunningham's testimony included almost all of the potential mitigators that Baer asserts should have been better presented to the jury. We do not believe the result of Baer's trial would have been different had the witnesses who testified at the PCR hearing been called at trial.
Ineffective assistance of appellate counsel claims generally fall into three basic categories: (1) denial of access to an appeal; (2) waiver of issues; and (3) failure to present issues well. Henley v. State, 881 N.E.2d 639, 644 (Ind.2008) (citing Reed v. State, 856 N.E.2d 1189, 1195 (Ind.2006)). Baer's arguments on these points fall into seven categories.
Baer first argues that appellate counsel Mark Maynard was ineffective because he inadequately presented a claim of prosecutorial misconduct. (Appellant's Br. at 33.) Maynard testified that he intended to present the full range of prosecutorial misconduct claims on appeal. (PCR Tr. at 515.) He did not categorize the types of comments the prosecutor made, listing them instead in chronological order because he felt they were pretty patent on their face as to what sort of misconduct each comment was. (PCR Tr. at 514-15.) On appeal, however, we found that Maynard raised only the prosecutor's statements to the jury that finding Baer GBMI would reduce the chances of him receiving the death penalty. Baer, 866 N.E.2d at 755. [4] There are other contentions about Maynard's presentation of prosecutorial misconduct that we now examine, the question being whether it was so badly done as to violate the Sixth Amendment. Maynard correctly realized that because trial counsel failed to object to virtually all instances of alleged prosecutorial misconduct, an appellate court would review them only for fundamental error. (PCR Tr. at 514); see also Ortiz v. State, 766 N.E.2d 370, 375 (Ind.2002). It is highly unlikely that Baer would have prevailed on any fundamental error claims as respects prosecutorial misconduct on direct appeal. Benson v. State, 762 N.E.2d 748, 755 (Ind.2002) (fundamental error is recognized only when record reveals clearly blatant violation of basic and elementary principles, where the harm or potential for harm cannot be denied, and which violation is so prejudicial to the rights of the defendant as to make fair trial impossible). Getting to specific instances, during voir dire the prosecutor did often conflate the separate concepts of GBMI and insanity by referring to whether Baer could appreciate the wrongfulness of his actions. (first panelTrial Tr. at 236-37, 386-92, 396-98, 407; second panelTrial Tr. at 464, 469-70, 484, 494; third panel-Trial Tr. at 536.) The ability to appreciate the wrongfulness of one's actions is relevant to an insanity defense but not to a GBMI verdict, which requires instead that a psychiatric disorder substantially disturb a person's thinking, feeling, or behavior and impair his ability to function. Compare Ind.Code § 35-36-1-1 with Ind.Code § 35-41-3-6(a). It seems likely that defense counsel consciously chose not to object to the prosecutor's misstatements as part of their general strategy of letting the prosecutor discredit himself. (PCR Tr. at 32.) At PCR, Williams testified that he had known Prosecutor Cummings for years and knew he was capable of overstating his case to the jury. (PCR Tr. at 32.) Trial counsel planned to correctly state the law to the jury when it was their turn, have the judge echo their statement of the law through the jury instructions, and hope the jury would decide from the contrast that the prosecutor was not credible. (PCR Tr. at 32.) Consistent with this approach, defense counsel correctly stated the law in closing argument: Let me repeat this for the hundredth time: We are not saying that Fredrick Michael Baer is insane. I said it to you in jury selection. Mr. Lockwood said it to you. I've said it to you repeatedly.... Mental disease or defect. (Trial Tr. at 2105.) And the court's instructions correctly stated the law and made it clear that they took precedence over arguments by counsel on what the law was. (Trial Tr. at 1126, 1130-31, 2122, 2580.) It was not deficient for Maynard to take a pass on this potential claim. The prosecutor also spoke equivocally about whether the State could execute a defendant found GBMI, telling the jury, The law is not clear in this state on whether we can execute somebody who's guilty but mentally ill. Our Supreme Court has not decided that case yet. (Trial Tr. at 649.) He made this statement even though we upheld a death sentence of a defendant found GBMI in Harris v. State, 499 N.E.2d 723, 725-27 (Ind. 1986) (analyzing only Eighth Amendment and Indiana statutory claims). Baer's appellate ineffective assistance of counsel claim has much in common with his direct appeal claim about the prosecutor's statements and allegations about trial counsel on the same point. Prosecutors and defense counsel alike would have read our opinion in Prowell v. State, 741 N.E.2d 704, 717 (Ind.2001), in which we observed that defendants formally found GBMI normally receive a term of years or life imprisonment. We observed that many shared the view that death was inappropriate for a GBMI defendant. Id. at 718. We set aside Prowell's sentence partly on this basis. These judicial declarations explained why Baer's lawyers, from trial through PCR, have labored to obtain a GBMI conviction, and why the prosecutors have pushed back at each turn. It adequately explains why Maynard did no damage in not complaining about the prosecutor's statement to the jury. [5] On another front, the prosecutor also discussed during voir dire the possibility that the legislature might one day change the law on life without parole and allow Baer to receive parole. (Trial Tr. at 920-21.) The prosecutor nevertheless correctly stated the current law on life without parole, as did trial counsel. (Trial Tr. at 428, 601, 920.) We rejected this claim on direct appeal because defense counsel initiated the discussion, so it was not improper for the prosecutor to respond. Baer, 866 N.E.2d at 760-61. Baer also argues that the State falsely claimed that Baer refused to accept responsibility because Baer attempted to plead GBMI. (Appellant's Br. at 20.) Baer says that his attempted GBMI plea should have been considered a significant mitigating circumstance and that the State essentially turned a potentially mitigating factor into a nonstatutory aggravating factor. (Appellant's Br. at 21-22.) This statement did not deprive Baer of a fair trial. Baer's counsel repeatedly told the jury that Baer committed these crimes and was not disputing his innocence. The jury knew that Baer was not attempting to say that he was innocent. The prosecutor was seeking a guilty verdict and saw Baer's attempt to plead GBMI as an attempt to avoid full responsibility for his crimes. Baer's counsel acknowledged that Baer wanted a GBMI verdict because they thought it was Baer's best chance at avoiding the death penalty. This was part of the rhetorical struggle sensibly waged by both sides. Baer says his appellate lawyer should have cited as grounds for reversal the prosecutor's repeated inquiries to jurors whether they had the strength of character and the courage to impose the death penalty if they thought it was the appropriate sentence. He further asked them if they had the courage of their convictions to stand by that sentence if the trial court polled them after sentencing. Defense counsel's strategy was a mirror image: they attempted to draw out the prospective jurors who were predisposed to vote for the death penalty in order to strike them from the jury pool. The prosecutor's questions merely allowed him the similar opportunity to strike jurors who would not vote for the death penalty even if they thought it was warranted. Trial and appellate counsel both performed reasonably on this point. Baer also says Maynard should have appealed by citing the fact that the prosecutor told the jurors the facts of the crime and then told the jury that these facts warranted death. (Appellants Br. at 24.) Here, too, the defense and the prosecution both found elaborating on the facts useful in the struggle over whether the sentence should be death. Baer's counsel told the jury I'm telling you right now up front, he committed these crimes. He cut the throat of a mother. He cut the throat of her four-year-old daughter. (Trial. Tr. at 641.) When the trial judge questioned the extensive recitation of facts occurring during voir dire, Baer's counsel told the court that he wanted the jury to know the facts as part of a technique called stripping. [6] (Trial Tr. at 875.) Baer's appellate counsel could not be ineffective for not raising this argument on direct appeal because trial counsel made a reasonable professional judgment to allow the jury to hear the facts of the case during voir dire. As for the prosecutor's declaration that the facts warranted death, the prosecutor told the jury during voir dire that the State was seeking justice for the family because they would be without a mother and a child. (Trial Tr. at 378, 405, 480.) During the penalty phase, he told the jury it should sentence Baer to death because that was what the family wanted. (Trial Tr. at 2551.) Inappropriate though these comments may have been, we do not think they rendered Baer's trial fundamentally unfair. The trial court ruled that the prosecutor's statements at voir dire did not constitute victim impact evidence but told the prosecutor not to get that close to the line again. (Trial Tr. at 803-04.) The prosecutor then told the jury he misspoke. This is the sort of rebuke to the prosecutor that defense counsel likely found helpful. Baer next contends that his appellate counsel was ineffective for not arguing that his trial was unfair because the prosecutor disparaged Baer, disparaged his counsel, and disparaged Baer's experts. [7] (Appellant's Br. at 26-28.) Many of the comments directed at Baer and his experts were fair comments on the evidence. The comments directed at Baer's attorney, when read in full, are hardly misconduct. To take a few examples, the prosecutor commented in his closing argument on Baer's demeanor: You've got a better look at him then I do because I am over here, but he seems to be joking around and talking to people in the audience all the time. (Trial Tr. at 2061.) During the penalty phase, the prosecutor quoted trial counsel's opening statement at trial and asked the jury to consider whether Baer's crimes were among the worst of the worst. (Trial Tr. at 2513.) Based on his experience, he thought that they were. (Trial Tr. at 2513.) He conceded that jurors might think the September 11 terrorist attacks or the Oklahoma City bombing were worse but asked that they consider the actual facts of Baer's murders. (Trial Tr. at 2514.) The prosecutor then recounted the facts of the murders in graphic detail. (Trial Tr. at 2514.) [8] During rebuttal, the prosecutor referenced the hardships he himself faced while growing up and the time he spent in jail to argue that Baer was using his own childhood as an excuse that should save him from the death penalty. (Trial Tr. at 2548-50.) He also briefly mentioned the cost while telling the jury that the State was not seeking the death penalty haphazardly. (Trial Tr. at 2551.) Each of these arguments was a response to arguments made by defense counsel. (Trial Tr. at 2540-41, 2525-30.) Baer asserts that these various statements violated his Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights. To the extent that any comments directed at Baer, his counsel, or his experts were misconduct, any impact on the fairness of Baer's trial was minimal. Even if taken in the aggregate, these comments did not affect the outcome of Baer's trial.
Second, Baer argues that Maynard inadequately challenged the appropriateness of Baer's death sentence. (Appellant's Br. at 36-38.) Maynard's brief contained only twenty-one lines of argument on the appropriateness of the death penalty and incorporated other issues in his brief. (PCR Ex. at 19, 21-22.) He did not argue that Baer's mental illness precluded his execution based on recent holdings from the U.S. Supreme Court limiting the application of the death penalty. See, e.g., Kennedy v. Louisiana, 554 U.S. 407, 421-24, 128 S.Ct. 2641, 171 L.Ed.2d 525 (2008) (defendant who raped but did not kill a child); Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551, 568, 125 S.Ct. 1183, 161 L.Ed.2d 1 (2005) (juveniles); Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304, 321, 122 S.Ct. 2242, 153 L.Ed.2d 335 (2002) (mentally retarded). When Indiana law placed capital-sentencing decisions fully in the hands of trial judges, this Court set aside multiple death sentences by exercise of our power to review and revise sentences, sometimes finding death inappropriate in light of the nature of the offense and the character of the offender. Ind. Appellate Rule 7(B); see also Ind. Const. art. VII, § 4. Sentencing is now largely in the hands of juries, and as we observed in Wilkes v. State, 917 N.E.2d 675, 693 (Ind.2009), we have affirmed sentences in cases much like Baer's. Maynard's argument sufficed. As for whether Maynard should have tried to break new ground, the U.S. Supreme Court has never held that the U.S. Constitution precludes executing the mentally ill. See Baird v. State, 831 N.E.2d 109, 115-16 (Ind.2005). In fact, this Court has expressly held that the U.S. Constitution does not, and we have held, with one dissent, that the Indiana Constitution does permit the State to execute the mentally ill. See, e.g., Matheney, 833 N.E.2d at 457 (Article I, Section 16 of the Indiana Constitution); Baird, 831 N.E.2d at 111 (same). These holdings reflect in part the fact that mental illness is a very elastic term. The relative seriousness or mildness of a defendant's illness is well suited to the weighing process that occurs when considering aggravators and mitigators and not well suited to reliable bright lines that would place a defendant as eligible or ineligible.
Third, Baer says Maynard should have challenged the trial court's rejection of his GBMI plea. (Appellant's Br. at 34-36.) He argues that there was a sufficient factual basis for the plea because two court-appointed mental health experts, Dr. Davis and Dr. Lawlor, both thought Baer was mentally ill. (Appellant's Br. at 35-36; Direct Appeal App. at 1491, 1581.) Although both trial counsel believed that the court's rejection of Baer's plea was erroneous, Maynard did not raise this issue on appeal, apparently because he believed that such a plea required the State's agreement, which it did not give. (PCR Tr. at 23, 60, 510.) The instant contention largely rests on two statutes. Indiana Code § 35-36-1-1 considers a person mentally ill if he has a psychiatric disorder which substantially disturbs [the] person's thinking, feeling, or behavior and impairs the person's ability to function. Indiana Code § 35-35-1-3 says, The court shall not enter judgment upon a plea of guilty or guilty but mentally ill at the time of the crime unless it is satisfied from its examination of the defendant or the evidence presented that there is a factual basis for the plea. Baer's argument assumes that once a factual basis for a mental illness exists, a trial court is required to accept a GBMI plea. ( See Appellant's Br. at 35-36.) The statute does not require a court to accept a GBMI plea once there is any factual basis for it; instead, it prohibits a court from accepting a GBMI plea without one. Indeed, we have held that a defendant does not have an absolute right to a guilty plea and that a trial court may refuse to accept one in the exercise of sound judicial discretion. Elsten v. State, 698 N.E.2d 292, 295 (Ind.1998) (discretion not abused in rejecting a GBMI plea when two court-appointed physicians testified that the defendant was not mentally ill and a physician commissioned by the defendant disagreed). Dr. Davis's and Dr. Lawlor's conclusions were not so uncontradicted as Baer claims. (Appellant's Br. at 35-36.) Dr. Davis thought that Baer qualified as mentally ill based on his methamphetamine addiction. (Direct Appeal App. at 1419.) Although Dr. Lawlor agreed, he did not think that his psychiatric illnesses `grossly or demonstratively impair[ed] his perceptions.' (Direct Appeal App. at 1581.) The trial court also had before it a report from Dr. Groff's examination of Baer after he committed an unrelated crime shortly before the murders. (Trial Tr. at 222-23.) Dr. Groff expressly raised the possibility that Baer was malingering. (Direct Appeal App. at 1557-58.) Based on this issue of fact, an appellate court would not have found that the trial court abused its discretion by rejecting Baer's GBMI plea and submitting the GBMI issue to the jury. We do think most appellate lawyers would have raised this contention, and they would have lost. There is not a reasonable probability that the outcome of Baer's appeal would have been different but for Maynard's failure to raise the issue. See Strickland, 466 U.S. at 694, 104 S.Ct. 2052.
Fourth, Baer argues that Maynard was ineffective because he failed to challenge the admission of Baer's knife into evidence. (Appellant's Br. at 38.) The trial court admitted the knife over counsel's objection about relevancy. (Trial Tr. at 1557-58.) Trial counsel later moved to strike the knife at the close of evidence on the grounds that the State had not tied it to the crime, but the trial court denied the motion. (Trial Tr. at 1757.) Maynard's testimony at the PCR hearing suggested that he did not raise the issue on appeal because he thought trial counsel had not objected to it. ( See PCR Tr. at 512-14.) Maynard was correct enough that this was a reason for omitting the issue on appeal, but there was a second reason. There was substantial evidence that the knife was probative of issues the State had the burden of proving at trial, including the identity of the murderer and the manner of the murder. See Ind.Code § 35-42-1-1(1). Both Cory and Jenna Clark died of cuts to their throats that pathologist Dr. Paul Mellen testified were consistent with an intentional killing with a knife. (Trial Tr. at 1672-81.) Police later seized from Baer's apartment a knife Baer said he carried with him every day but was not carrying that day because he knew the police were looking for him. (Trial Tr. at 1421-22.) A serology examination of the sheath to Baer's knife produced a weak positive result for blood. (Trial Tr. at 1561-63.)
Fifth, Baer argues that Maynard was ineffective because he failed to challenge an alleged violation of Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36, 124 S.Ct. 1354, 158 L.Ed.2d 177 (2003). (Appellant's Br. at 38-39.) Under Crawford, testimonial hearsay is not admissible unless the declarant is unavailable and the defendant had a prior opportunity to cross-examine him. Crawford, 541 U.S. at 68, 124 S.Ct. 1354. In this case, Court-appointed physicians Dr. Lawlor and Dr. Davis both testified that Baer was mentally ill. (Trial Tr. at 1908-09, 1929, 1992-93.) The State questioned both doctors using a report Dr. Masbaum had prepared after examining Baer in December 2004 for an unrelated case. (Trial Tr. at 1905-08, 1977-82.) Trial counsel objected both times, first on the grounds that it was outside the scope of defense counsel's own examination, and then on grounds the prosecutor was making a spectacle using a report counsel could not cross-examine. (Trial Tr. at 1905-07, 1980.) Dr. Lawlor had diagnosed Baer with a personality disorder but testified that he thought Baer could appreciate the wrongfulness of his actions at the time of the crimes. (Trial Tr. at 1864, 1871.) He recounted receiving reports about Baer having auditory hallucinations and ADHD as a child. (Trial Tr. at 1869-71.) Dr. Lawlor also gave a detailed account of the crimes as Baer described them to him, although he did not think that the voices Baer claimed to have heard during the murders constituted auditory hallucinations. (Trial Tr. at 1874-86.) In response to defense counsel's questioning, Dr. Lawlor stated that he did not think Baer was malingering, or faking, a mental illness. (Trial Tr. at 1893.) When the State asked Dr. Lawlor about Baer's voices, Dr. Lawlor maintained that Baer's description did not indicate a split personality and that Baer did not mention anything about a voice called Super Beast. (Trial Tr. at 1904-05.) Defense counsel quickly objected on grounds of relevance when the prosecutor asked Dr. Lawlor to review a report from Dr. Masbaum, but the trial court overruled the objection to the extent that the report was relevant to the issue of malingering. (Trial Tr. at 1905-07.) According to Dr. Masbaum's report, Baer once tried to present himself to Masbaum as having a split personality, telling Dr. Masbaum that he was talking to Fred on one day but talking to Michael on another. (Trial Tr. at 1907.) Dr. Lawlor conceded that Baer could have been malingering, to Dr. Masbaum if not to him, and that this information was inconsistent with his diagnosis because typically, the discrete personalities aren't aware of each other's existence. (Trial Tr. at 1908.) Dr. Davis then testified that he considered Baer mentally ill to the level of having a mental disease or defect. (Trial Tr. at 1929.) According to Dr. Davis, Baer admitted committing the murders and described having auditory hallucinations, hearing voices, and having a raging, out-of-control part of himself that came out on the day of the murders. (Trial Tr. at 1922.) Baer had called this raging part of himself Super Beast. (Trial Tr. at 1923.) Dr. Davis also reviewed Baer's childhood experiences with depression, custody issues, hospitalization for suicide attempts, prescription drug use, and illicit drug abuse. (Trial Tr. at 1925-28.) Finally, he discussed the clinical link between drug abuse and psychosis, one that might materialize in some patients but not in others. (Trial Tr. at 1929-37, 1940-43.) In response to the State's questioning, Dr. Davis stated his impression that the phrase Super Beast did not refer to a voice Baer heard but rather to the raging part of him. (Trial Tr. at 1977.) After the prosecutor and Dr. Davis speculated over whether Super Beast originated from a tattoo on Baer's left forearm, the prosecutor asked Davis to read passages from Dr. Masbaum's report suggesting that Baer had heard voices since he was a child that appeared to come from a Winnie the Pooh doll. (Trial Tr. at 1978-80.) After the prosecutor asked Dr. Davis if Baer thought that voices telling him to kill his brother came from the Winnie the Pooh doll, trial counsel objected, Mr. Puckett is having a pretty good time, but I can't cross-examine that report.... He's made fun of my client for claiming that he heard Winnie the Pooh when that's not what the report said, so I'm going to object to this. This is not funny. (Trial Tr. at 1979-80.) Giving Baer the benefit of the doubt as to the form of defense counsel's objections, a defendant has a right to be confronted with witnesses against him in a criminal prosecution. The Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment effectively codified existing common law, which prevented a trial court from admitting testimonial hearsay statements unless the State showed both that the declarant was unavailable to testify and that the defendant had a prior opportunity to cross-examine the declarant. Crawford, 541 U.S. at 53-54, 124 S.Ct. 1354. Although the U.S. Supreme Court did not comprehensively define the breadth of testimonial statements in Crawford, it did describe a core class of testimonial statements that included (1) ex parte in-court testimony such as affidavits, custodial examinations, prior testimony that the defendant was unable to cross-examine, or similar pretrial statements that declarants would reasonably expect to be used prosecutorially; (2) extrajudicial statements contained in formalized testimonial materials, affidavits, depositions, prior testimony, or confessions; and (3) statements made under circumstances that would lead an objective witness to reasonably believe that the statement would be available for later use at a trial. Id. at 51-52, 124 S.Ct. 1354. Regardless of whether the trial court should have admitted this evidence under Crawford, Maynard's decision not to present this issue on appeal did not prejudice Baer because admitting it for this limited purpose constituted harmless error. The jury heard evidence from two experts that Baer was mentally ill to the level required by Ind.Code § 35-36-1-1. (Trial Tr. at 1908-09, 1929, 1992-93.) It heard evidence that Baer suffered from ADHD and depression as a child, that he was hospitalized, that he used prescription drugs, and that he eventually started huffing and abusing illicit drugs. (Trial Tr. at 1925-28.) It heard evidence that chronic drug abuse could damage a person's mental abilities to the point of near-retardation and could exacerbate any preexisting mental illnesses. (Trial Tr. at 1929-37, 1940-43.) It is unlikely that a jury unconvinced by this evidence would have entered a GBMI verdict or recommended a sentence of life if only the State had not cross-examined Dr. Lawlor and Dr. Davis mentioning Dr. Masbaum's report.
Sixth, Baer argues that Maynard should have challenged certain penalty-phase jury instructions. (Appellant's Br. at 39-41.) Because trial counsel failed to raise an objection to these instructions, Maynard was faced with presenting them as fundamental error. Ritchie v. State, 809 N.E.2d 258, 273-74 (Ind.2004). The four instructions Baer references here are the same mentioned on trial counsel ineffective assistance of counsel: omitting reference to intoxication on mitigation; stating that intoxication that appeared in the statutory definition; stated that intoxication was not a defense in a prosecution for any crime; using the instruction on insanity and lay witness testimony; and not declaring that life without parole really did mean life without parole. (Appellant's Br. at 39-41.) Maynard could reasonably decide not to challenge omission of the intoxication phrase. After all, the same jury instruction required the jury to consider the fact that the defendant was under the influence of extreme mental or emotional disturbance and that his capacity to appreciate the criminality of his conduct or to conform it to the law was substantially impaired as a result of mental disease or defect. (PCR App. at 637.) Given the link between ongoing methamphetamine usage and mental illness that repeatedly arose in expert testimony, the jury had an adequate opportunity to hear and act on this evidence even with the omission of or of intoxication from the jury instruction. (Trial Tr. at 1872-73, 1897-1901, 1929-37, 1940-46.) Likewise, Maynard's decision not to challenge the instruction that intoxication was not a defense to commission of any crime did not prejudice Baer's appeal because as we noted above it did nothing to muddy the waters by implying that intoxication could not be a mitigator. (Appellant's Br. at 40.) Maynard's decision not to challenge the court's instructions that a lay witness could express an opinion on sanity and that the jury must weigh both lay and expert testimony to determine whether Baer was insane or mentally ill did not prejudice Baer's appeal. Giving the instructions did not amount to fundamental error. Trial counsel made perfectly clear that they were seeking a GBMI verdict, not raising an insanity defense. (Trial Tr. at 1908-09, 2105.) Finally, Maynard's decision not to challenge the court's failure to instruct that life without parole really did mean life without parole must be viewed against the fact that that sentencing statutes do in fact change over time. The most a trial court could have told the jury was that the present statutes do not permit parole, something the jury obviously already knew. [9]
Finally, Baer argues that Maynard should have requested co-counsel. (Appellant's Br. at 41-42.) He does not cite any authority for the proposition that reasonably effective performance requires co-counsel on appeal. (Appellant's Br. at 41-42.) Baer does point to the testimony of expert witness Monica Foster, a good source, who thought a capital appeal was such an enormous undertaking that no single lawyer could handle one without co-counsel. (Appellant's Br. at 41-42; PCR Tr. at 715-16.) Neither the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct nor the ABA Guidelines for the Appointment and Performance of Defense Counsel in Death Penalty Cases require appellate counsel to associate with co-counsel. We decline to hold that not requesting co-counsel in a capital appeal falls below that standard required by the Sixth Amendment. See Lowrey v. State, 640 N.E.2d 1031, 1041 (Ind.1994). Baer notes that [e]nlisting co-counsel could only have helped Maynard formulate and present all arguably meritorious issues. (Appellant's Br. at 41-42.) Maynard had been practicing law for twenty-seven years and specialized in personal injury and criminal defense. (PCR Tr. at 497.) Given the deferential standard of review Maynard was facing on many issues on appeal and the overwhelming evidence of Baer's guilt, we cannot say that requesting co-counsel would have changed the outcome. See Strickland, 466 U.S. at 694, 104 S.Ct. 2052.
Baer claims that previously undiscovered evidence reveals his longstanding psychosis, undermining confidence in his sentence. (Appellant's Br. at 84-87.) The evidence he cites is PCR testimony by Earl Taylor, a former fellow inmate from the late 1990's, before Baer committed these double murders. (PCR App. at 349.) Taylor testified that most of the time, [Baer] appears to be reasonable, sane, and lucid. Other times, when the voices take over, he is completely the opposite. (PCR App. at 349.) To qualify as newly discovered evidence, the evidence must be discovered since the trial and the defendant must have used due diligence to discover it before trial. Stephenson v. State, 864 N.E.2d 1022, 1050 (Ind.2007). Even if counsel were unaware of witnesses before trial, the statute requires diligence in discovering them and places the burden on Baer to show why the testimony was unavailable at trial. Id. at 1053. To establish that newly discovered evidence undermines the confidence in his sentence, Baer must show a reasonable probability of a different result had the evidence been known at the time of the trial. Id. at 1049. The PCR court disregarded Taylor's testimony because Baer obviously knew of any conversations he might have had with Taylor over a several-year period, and therefore Baer had not shown Taylor was unavailable at trial, an essential showing required by I.C. XX-XX-X-X. (PCR App. at 349.) Rejecting Baer's argument that he could not be expected to participate in his own defense, the PCR court noted that there had never before been any such suggestion about Baer's competence. (PCR App. at 350.) The PCR court pointed to Baer's ability to assist his counsel and his capability of understanding that he might have benefited from telling his trial attorneys his pre-arrest conversations with Taylor. (PCR App. at 350.) He also understood that he might benefit from portraying himself as being incapable of killing Cory and Jenna Clark because, he asserted, he is so `soft and sentimental' that he cries `when a freakin' butterfly gets hit on the windshield.' (PCR App. at 350.) On appeal, Baer reiterates that his mental state precludes the court from holding him responsible for assisting in his defense. (Appellant's Br. at 87.) He also argues, Taylor's testimony concerning Baer's long-standing auditory hallucinations, corroborated at PCR by counselor Ogden and ex-wife Brown, undermines confidence in Baer's death sentence. (Appellant's Br. at 87.) The PCR court was not clearly erroneous in concluding that Baer has not met the burden required for relief on new evidence. While additional evidence about Baer hearing voices during an earlier prison stay would be material, the record at trial presented considerable evidence and evaluation of the voices question. What Taylor has to add does not suggest a reasonable probability of a different result.
The record contains very occasional mention of mental retardation. We thus pause to consider whether there might be any claim under Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304, 122 S.Ct. 2242, 153 L.Ed.2d 335 (2002), though none of his lawyers nor any of the multitude of medical experts have made this an issue. Dr. Richard Lawlor and Dr. Philip Harvey, two of the experts who testified at PCR, tested Baer's IQ. (PCR Tr. at 336; PCR Ex. 15.) Dr. Lawlor tested Baer's IQ in December 2004, and Dr. Harvey tested it in 2008. (Direct Appeal App. at 1581; PCR Ex. 15.) The test result administered by Dr. Lawlor was a borderline score of sixty-nine to seventy-one, and the test administered by Dr. Harvey was in the low eighties. (PCR Tr. at 336; PCR Ex. 15.) As Dr. Harvey acknowledged, Baer had been incarcerated and under psychiatric treatment for several years, so he based his conclusions about Baer's mental state at the time of the crime on the assumption that his cognition in 2008 was at least not likely to be worse than at the time of the crime. (PCR Tr. at 282-84.) This is because [s]ubstance abuse-related disorders improve fairly substantially during periods of abstinence. (PCR Tr. at 282.) Therefore, Baer's cognitive performance data Dr. Harvey collected is quite likely an underestimate of his level of cognitive impairment at the time of the crime. (PCR Tr. at 282.) Dr. Lawlor concluded that the 2004 test results meant Baer would be a person who, with effort and motivation, could pass in school, but it would take a lot of motivation and effort with that level of functioning. And he certainly wouldn't be an honor roll student. (PCR Tr. at 336.) After discussing Dr. Harvey's IQ test results, Dr. Lawlor expressly stated that Baer is not mentally retarded. (PCR Tr. at 336.) Dr. Harvey did not discuss the IQ results in his report at PCR, but he did discuss Baer's cognitive abilities. (PCR Tr. at 272-74.) He found that Baer has a wide range or scatter in his abilities. There are a number of his abilities that I examined that are essentially in the average range of performance. (PCR Tr. at 272.) As an example, Baer's vocabulary scores were above average for someone with his educational attainment and his opportunities. (PCR Tr. at 273.) On the other hand, other aspects of his performance, such as his working memory, were quite impaired. (PCR Tr. at 273.) Further, Dr. Harvey found that Baer's family history is positive for mental retardation, though he did not attribute any significance to this observation. (PCR Tr. at 299.) In Atkins, the U.S. Supreme Court, citing the American Psychiatric Association's definition, noted that mild mental retardation applies to people with an IQ level of fifty or fifty-five to approximately seventy. Atkins, 536 U.S. at 309 n. 3, 122 S.Ct. 2242. In State v. McManus, this Court restated what qualifies as significantly subaverage intellectual functioning under Ind.Code § 35-36-9-2: a person is considered to meet the subaverage intellectual functioning component if the person's full-scale IQ test score is two standard deviations below the mean; i.e., an IQ between 70 and 75 or lower. 868 N.E.2d 778, 785 (Ind.2007) (quoting Woods v. State, 863 N.E.2d 301, 304 (Ind.2007)); see also, Atkins, 536 U.S. at 308 n. 3, 122 S.Ct. 2242. In McManus we concluded that the post-conviction court's finding that the defendant was significantly subaverage was clearly erroneous and not supported by the record. McManus, 868 N.E.2d at 787. McManus presented scores from five IQ tests, all of which indicated scores of seventy or above and three of which indicated scores above the seventy to seventy-five cutoff. Id. at 785-86. The record also included expert testimony that McManus was not within the definition of mental retardation. Id. at 786. Given our holding in McManus and the extensive record in Baer's case, it appears that the Eighth Amendment does not bar application of the death penalty on grounds of retardation.