Opinion ID: 853470
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Postconviction Court Findings

Text: Prowell contends that a number of factual findings by the postconviction court were clearly erroneous. He notes that the Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law and Judgment on Petition for Post-Conviction Relief issued by the postconviction court on July 7, 1999, are a virtually verbatim copy of the findings proposed by the State on June 21, 1999. [3] The conclusions of law were also as the State proposed, except for the deletion of a conclusion that Prowell had waived various claims by failing to raise the issues on direct appeal. That conclusion was incorrect in light of the then-recent decision in Woods v. State, 701 N.E.2d 1208, 1210 (Ind.1998) (holding that a Sixth Amendment claim of ineffective assistance of trial counsel may be presented for the first time in a petition for postconviction relief). It is not uncommon for a trial court to enter findings that are verbatim reproductions of submissions by the prevailing party. The trial courts of this state are faced with an enormous volume of cases and few have the law clerks and other resources that would be available in a more perfect world to help craft more elegant trial court findings and legal reasoning. We recognize that the need to keep the docket moving is properly a high priority of our trial bench. For this reason, we do not prohibit the practice of adopting a party's proposed findings. But when this occurs, there is an inevitable erosion of the confidence of an appellate court that the findings reflect the considered judgment of the trial court. This is particularly true when the issues in the case turn less on the credibility of witnesses than on the inferences to be drawn from the facts and the legal effect of essentially unchallenged testimony. For the reasons explained below, most of the statements in the findings of fact and conclusions of law are correct if viewed in isolation, but many are presented out of context and, as a result, are significantly misleading. We find some of the critical findings of the postconviction court to be clearly erroneous as that term is used in Trial Rule 52(A).
In preparation for the postconviction relief hearing, Prowell was examined by Dr. Thomas Liffick, a psychiatrist and Medical Director of the Southwestern Indiana Mental Health Center in Evansville, and Dr. Rahn Bailey, a psychiatrist and Director of the Division of Law and Psychiatry at the University of Texas. Based on clinical interviews, collateral source information, and social history records, both Liffick and Bailey diagnosed Prowell as presently suffering, and suffering at the time of the murders, from chronic schizophrenia. [4] At the postconviction relief hearing, Bailey testified that the murders were highly likely to be directly related to the significant influence of the most severe symptoms [of schizophrenia], including paranoia, hallucinations, delusional thought, and cognitive disorganization, and that the nexus between the homicides and Prowell's state of mind met Indiana's statutory criteria for mitigation. [5] When Liffick asked Prowell if he knew the victims, Prowell replied: He thought I was somebody come to visit her; they knew about my mother; everybody knew about it. Everything that goes on is tax free. He let me know he knew who I was. I wasn't the right element by saying two or three words. A lot of things in the system won't be changed. Deformity does exist. There's a lot of scientific crap in it. It was a mental confrontation. I would say insinuation, but I can't really. Liffick agreed with Bailey that it was highly likely that Prowell acted under paranoid delusions at the time of the shootings. Despite their testimony, the postconviction relief court found that Prowell's claims were without merit and denied his petition for postconviction relief.
Referring to Bailey's testimony, the findings of fact state: [W]hile Dr. Dill diagnosed Petitioner as suffering from paranoid personality disorder with schizoid tendencies at sentencing, that diagnosis was the least restrictive, therefore a reasonable diagnosis under the circumstances. Although this sentence may be literally correct, a review of Bailey's testimony on this point makes it clear that it is quite misleading. Bailey testified that there are three possible paranoid diagnoses. The mildest of the three is paranoid personality disorder. Paranoid delusional disorder is more severe and paranoid schizophrenia is the most severe of the three diagnoses. The major difference among the three diagnoses is the duration of the characteristic symptoms. Psychiatrists and psychologists are trained, Bailey testified, to always give the diagnosis of least intensity when there are varying diagnoses that are all consistent. By definition, Bailey testified, you cannot diagnose schizophrenia if the person has not had symptoms for six months or greater. So, no matter how sick they look when you see them, if you don't have access to records . . . that show that he exhibited those kinds of symptoms more than six months ago, you know, you are precluded, based on our training, from diagnosing schizophrenia. Because of the paucity of information provided to Dill before the sentencing hearing, specifically records and access to Prowell's family and friends who could establish the duration of Prowell's symptoms, Bailey testified that Dill could not have reasonably diagnosed paranoid schizophrenia at that time. It was the circumstances that made Dill's diagnosis reasonable under the circumstances. This is a complicated way of saying that Prowell's counsel did not supply Dill with the readily-obtainable facts to establish the duration of Prowell's illness. The failure of Prowell's lawyers to provide their single mental health expert with the depth and volume of information necessary for a correct diagnosis is at the root of Prowell's claim of ineffective assistance of counsel. The findings as to Bailey's testimony regarding Dill's original diagnosis of paranoid personality disorder and Bailey's own diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia are equally flawed. The findings of fact state that, according to Bailey, [t]he two diagnoses are very similar. Again, Bailey did make this statement, but, taken out of context, it stands Bailey's testimony on its head. The finding is predicated on the following exchange, which occurred during the State's cross-examination of Bailey: Q. Would you characterize the paranoid personality disorder in contrast to paranoid schizophrenia, are those two diagnoses more similar or more different from each other? A. I think they are very similar. They are two of the only three paranoid diagnoses in the textbook when you have paranoia, you can follow up under this diagnostic category. The big issue is intensity. Bailey went on to explain that, although both diagnoses share the symptom of paranoia, the difference in intensity is important because it indicates how significantly a person's functionality and thought processes are affected. On re-direct: Q. Would you tell us again whether there is a difference between a thought disorder and a personality disorder and if so, what? A. There is a tremendous difference. Axis I disorders are a big, heavy, primary stuff that you see in psychiatry, so, schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorders, major depression, and bi-polar disorder, anxiety. Those are the big guys. . . . Those are psychiatric patients. Personality disorders are considered very minor in my field. . . . If you spend this kind of time with somebody, read all of his records, talk to all of his collateral sources and then you say personality disorder versus schizophrenia, that is big. You are not splitting hairs. That is a big, again, monumental difference. The findings of fact also mischaracterize Dill's testimony. Although Dill did testify that he considered both paranoid personality disorder and paranoid schizophrenia before making his diagnosis, he also testified that he had to reject paranoid schizophrenia because Prowell did not admit to delusions or hallucinations. The findings of fact state that [i]t was Petitioner's failure to admit to hallucinations that partially prevented Dr. Dill from diagnosing Petitioner with paranoid schizophrenia. This is reasoning straight out of Catch-22. Just as Yossarian's insane determination to stop flying on bombing raids proved his sanity, the State contends that if Prowell suffers from a disorder that causes him to deny its symptoms, he must be sane. The expert testimony cited in support of this view in fact rejects it. The thrust of Dill's testimony is that a competent professional armed with available facts would penetrate Prowell's denials. Dill testified that in his three short interviews with Prowell, he found him to be guarded and unwilling to share much information, a characteristic to be expected of persons suffering from paranoid schizophrenia. He also testified that he would have preferred to interview Prowell for an extended period of time in a clinical setting where he could have built trust with Prowell and conducted various tests. That option was unavailable to him because he was hired by Prowell's counsel on March 30, 1994, and he interviewed Prowell on April 11, 16, and 17, 1994. The last interview was just three days before Dill testified at Prowell's April 20 sentencing hearing. Nor did Prowell's counsel present Dill with any information from collateral sources about Prowell's longstanding delusions or hallucinations. The findings of fact state that Dr. Liffick noted that each of the mental health professionals at the post conviction hearing had diagnosed Petitioner slightly differently and compared it to arguing about a shade of a particular color. This is clearly erroneous to the extent that it implies that Liffick was comparing his own diagnosis of undifferentiated schizophrenia with both Bailey's diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia and Dill's earlier diagnosis of paranoid personality disorder. In fact, Liffick testified only that there was very little difference in a clinical sense between Bailey's diagnosis (paranoid schizophrenia) and his own (undifferentiated schizophrenia). When questioned about the distinction between Dill's diagnosis of paranoid personality disorder, given to the trial court, and the postconviction diagnoses of schizophrenia, Liffick replied: There is a much more significant difference between paranoid personality disorder and schizophrenia than there is between any of the subtypes of schizophrenia, so to say that, at that time, he had a paranoid personality disorder was a misdiagnosis. It actually put him in the wrong category of illness to a very significant degree. The differences I've already said between paranoid schizophrenia and undifferentiated schizophrenia is miniscule in comparison. The postconviction court found that [c]ounsel sought to employ a mental health expert sufficiently in advance of the sentencing hearing. [6] In fact, Dill testified, and the billing records from Vowels confirm, that he was first contacted by Prowell's lawyers on March 30, 1994, three weeks after the date of the original sentencing hearing and three weeks before the postponed sentencing hearing. Due to these time constraints, Dill was unable to interview Prowell under normal conditions or at any length. Nor could he establish a relationship necessary to elicit information or collect the full range of records and information from collateral sources necessary for a proper diagnosis. The finding that Dill was employed sufficiently in advance of the sentencing hearing is clearly erroneous in light of the evidence presented to the postconviction court. The findings of fact make no reference to the postconviction court's assessment of the credibility of Dill, Bailey, or Liffick. It is quite clear from the testimony of all three doctors that paranoid or undifferentiated schizophrenia is substantially different from paranoid personality disorder. In light of this fact, the postconviction court's finding that the evidence presented to the postconviction court was simply more of the same as that presented to the sentencing court is clearly erroneous. The postconviction court's findings and conclusions also stated that: While Petitioner now offers additional (and some of the same) family members and expert witnesses, the substance of their testimony is simply more of the same evidence presented at the sentencing hearing. Save the mere quantity of the witnesses, trial counsel put on substantially the same mitigation case developed and presented by postconviction counsel more than five years after the sentencing hearing. That is to say, trial counsel developed the very contours of the mitigation theory and defense presented by postconviction counsel who was proceeding with the advantage of hindsight and an additional five years time. It cannot be the law that trial counsel will be said to have performed at sentencing in an objectively unreasonable manner whenever subsequent counsel can, with unlimited time and resources, heap on additional or even better evidence to support the mitigation theory. . . . Counsel were not ineffective for relying on the diagnosis at trial which was substantially the same as the evidence presented at the postconviction hearing. Prowell first points out that this paragraph is nearly identical to language in the State's reply brief in State v. Holmes, 728 N.E.2d 164 (Ind.2000), and to the postconviction relief court's findings of fact and conclusions of law in Wrinkles v. State, 690 N.E.2d 1156 (Ind.1997). Although we sympathize with the usefulness of recycling language, it is not appropriate to use form language where those statements are not an accurate reflection of the testimony and evidence. That is the case here. As already noted, the statement that the evidence presented to the postconviction relief court was simply more of the same as that presented to the sentencing court is clearly erroneous. Both Bailey and Liffick testified, in depth, as to the monumental and very significant differences between a diagnosis of paranoid personality disorder and a diagnosis of schizophrenia. Nor can it be said that the evidence was produced with the advantage of hindsight and an additional five years time. Vowels continued to represent Prowell in his direct appeal to this Court and the ineffectiveness of trial counsel at the guilt and sentencing phases was not an issue in that direct appeal, which concluded when rehearing was denied on March 2, 1998. The counsel who represented Prowell in postconviction proceedings entered their appearances on March 31 and October 13, 1998, and the postconviction hearing took place on April 19, 1999. Counsel did not have an additional five years to investigate this case, let alone unlimited time.