Opinion ID: 155680
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Defendant surrendered himself;

Text: 2. Defendant informed the Sheriff of the killing and its details; 3. No law enforcement agency had previous knowledge of the death of Karla Duvall; 4. Defendant exhibited remorse; 5. Defendant cooperated with law enforcement authorities; - 15 - 6. Defendant was under the influence of alcohol or drugs at the time of the incident; 7. The Defendant did not attempt to flee the jurisdiction of the State. Whether these circumstances existed, and whether these circumstances are mitigating, must be decided by you. R. at 176. After the trial judge read the jury instructions, the parties made their closing statements. During his argument, Mr. Prince commented on the mitigating circumstances identified in Instruction No. 8, attempting to persuade the jury to spare Mr. Duvall from the death penalty. Nevertheless, the jury found the existence of both aggravating circumstances and recommended that Mr. Duvall receive the death penalty. Despite Mr. Duvall’s request that Mr. Prince forego the introduction of mitigating evidence at trial, he now complains that Mr. Prince should have introduced such evidence. In particular, Mr. Duvall contends that his attorney should have introduced evidence of: (1) Mr. Duvall’s family history, (2) Mr. Duvall’s alcohol abuse, (3) Mr. Duvall’s recent church activity, (4) Mr. Duvall’s remorse, and (5) the victim’s drug abuse. In reviewing Mr. Duvall’s contentions, we note that “[t]he reasonableness of counsel’s actions may be determined or substantially influenced by the [accused’s] own statements or actions,” Strickland, 466 U.S. at 691, but the ultimate decision to introduce mitigating - 16 - evidence (other than the defendant’s own testimony) is vested in the defendant’s trial counsel, see Brecheen, 41 F.3d at 1368-69. 1. Duvall’s Family History Mr. Duvall first asserts that Mr. Prince should have conducted more extensive interviews with his family members and called several of them to testify about the mitigating aspects of Mr. Duvall’s history. The evidentiary hearing in the court below revealed much about Mr. Duvall’s difficult upbringing and troubled history. The evidentiary hearing indicated that Mr. Duvall was born on May 21, 1951, into a very poor family. The youngest of twelve children, he grew up in a three-bedroom house in the small town of Duncan, Oklahoma. His father died when Duvall was ten years old. His mother provided the sole support for the family. By the time he reached his early teens, Mr. Duvall had developed a problem with alcohol and drugs. Although Mr. Duvall maintained a good disposition when he was sober, he often became violent when he consumed alcohol or drugs. Mr. Duvall dropped out of school after the ninth grade and eventually left home when he was sixteen or seventeen. He worked primarily as a laborer in oil refineries and as a pipe fitter. His alcohol problem and associated behavioral problems continued. - 17 - Following two failed marriages and another long-term relationship, Mr. Duvall became involved with Karla in 1981. When he met Karla, she was using narcotic pain killers. The couple soon began using drugs together. Although their drug use diminished during Karla’s pregnancy, the couple resumed heavy use of narcotic pain killers following the birth of their son in the summer of 1982. In 1985, Mr. Duvall began working part time for Joe Howard at Joe’s Electric. Due to the encouragement of Joe Howard and his wife Wanda, Mr. Duvall began attending church. According to Wanda Howard, Mr. Duvall was trying to overcome his substance abuse problem to create a more stable family environment for his son. Family members and friends indicated that Mr. Duvall wanted Karla to stop using drugs as well. A month or two before she was murdered, Karla obtained a restraining order against Mr. Duvall. Days before her death, Joe Howard overheard Mr. Duvall making calls to local doctors asking them to stop giving Karla drugs. According to Mr. Duvall, on September 15th, the day of Karla’s death, Karla phoned Duvall at work and informed him that she had resumed taking drugs. In conjunction with his continual substance abuse, Mr. Duvall had many encounters with the local law enforcement. Some of these encounters resulted in convictions for violent felonies. For example, in August 1969, Mr. Duvall pled guilty to a charge of assault with a dangerous weapon when he threatened two - 18 - men with a shotgun. In May 1976, Mr. Duvall was convicted of another charge of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon. In July 1984, Mr. Duvall was convicted on two counts of assault with a dangerous weapon after he threatened to kill Karla and two other women with a knife in a convenience store. During the evidentiary hearing, Mr. Prince admitted that he could have called mitigating witnesses during the penalty phase of the trial. He explained, however, that “for everything someone would say good about [Duvall] they would have to say other things that were so negative that it got to the point where we were afraid that the negative outweighed the positive.” Evid. Hear. at 78. Thus, Mr. Prince feared that the testimony of the defense’s own potential witnesses would result in the introduction of evidence on cross-examination such that the overall effect of these witnesses would be more aggravating than mitigating. In addition, he was concerned that the prosecution would call members of Karla’s family to rebut and contradict much of the mitigating testimony that he was able to elicit from others. We hold that Mr. Prince’s decision not to present mitigating evidence involving Duvall’s family history was a reasonable one based on a constitutionally sufficient investigation. Mr. Prince was aware of most of Mr. Duvall’s history prior to the trial, and the record gives us no reason to believe that Prince’s investigation of Duvall’s family history was inadequate. Based on his - 19 - conversations with Mr. Duvall and his family members, Mr. Prince concluded that his client’s interests would not be served by introducing testimony concerning Mr. Duvall’s family history. Mr. Prince’s reluctance to present the above evidence was justifiable. Although grievous, Mr. Duvall’s life history does not automatically mitigate the aggravating circumstances that the jury found present here. As the Supreme Court has stated regarding evidence of a defendant’s life history: On one hand, a jury could react with sympathy over the tragic childhood [the defendant] endured. On the other hand, since [the defendant’s] sanity was not in issue in this case, the prosecution could use this same testimony, after pointing out that petitioner was nevertheless responsible for his acts, to emphasize that it was this same unpredictable propensity for violence which played a prominent role in the death of [the defendant’s] victim. Mitigation, after all, may be in the eye of the beholder. Burger v. Kemp, 483 U.S. 776, 794 (1987) (citations, alterations, and internal quotation marks omitted). See also Davis v. Executive Dir. of Dep’t of Corrections, 100 F.3d 750, 762 (10th Cir. 1996) (“[W]e agree with the district court that a decision to present mitigation testimony from family members was fraught with peril, because [the defendant’s] background contained numerous instances of conduct that [were] more likely to make a jury feel unsympathetic towards him, than sympathetic towards him.”), cert. denied, 117 S. Ct. 1703 (1997); Brewer v. Reynolds, 51 F.3d 1519, 1527 (10th Cir. 1995) (finding that evidence of a defendant’s turbulent and violent upbringing could justify either the - 20 - inference that the defendant was an unfortunate victim of his environment or that the defendant’s crime was the culmination of defendant’s own voluntary violent behavior and irresponsibility). For example, although the State introduced evidence that Mr. Duvall had been convicted of assault with a deadly weapon three times, the jury was unaware of the factual circumstances underlying these convictions. The jury also was unaware of Mr. Duvall’s uncharged violent conduct. Once Mr. Duvall declined to testify during the penalty phase, Mr. Duvall’s family members were the primary remaining source of evidence concerning Duvall’s family history. Mr. Prince knew that each of Mr. Duvall’s family members were aware of his prior convictions and violent tendencies. 2 Testimony on cross-examination concerning the factual circumstances of Mr. Duvall’s prior violent conduct “could have been devastating.” Brewer, 51 F.3d at 1527. This observation is particularly true regarding Duvall’s prior assaults of Karla. Moreover, Mr. Prince was rightly concerned that the district attorney might call members of Karla’s family as rebuttal witnesses to testify about the violent past between Mr. Duvall and Karla. In short, the testimony of Mr. Duvall’s The record indicates that Pearl Duvall did not know about much of Mr. Duvall’s 2 violent history. Mr. Prince explained that “because of his mother’s age, he wasn’t sure whether she remembered very much about the previous episodes and that he felt like the family had probably tried to keep some of that from her.” Evid. Hear. at 98, 14-15. - 21 - family members would have presented the jury with information about his troubled background that could have also adversely affected the jury by introducing damaging facts not otherwise disclosed at trial. Thus, we hold that Mr. Prince’s decision to forego evidence of Mr. Duvall’s family history was a reasonable tactical decision based upon a constitutionally adequate investigation.