Opinion ID: 23165
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: ineffective assistance claim with respect to evidence of prior assault

Text: 32 During the punishment phase, the State introduced evidence of Tucker's prior conviction for the aggravated assault of his cellmate, Louis Savant. Tucker asserts that the district court neglected to address his claim that counsel rendered ineffective assistance by failing to develop and present available evidence to rebut (or at least mitigate against) the State's characterization of this assault. After reviewing the record, we question whether Tucker adequately apprised the district court of this particular claim until after the State had responded to his amended habeas petition. 9 Under these circumstances, we do not believe Tucker has shown that the district court abused its discretion by essentially denying him the opportunity to add another ground of ineffective assistance of counsel after the State had replied to his amended petition. Cf. Briddle v. Scott, 63 F.3d 364, 379 (5th Cir. 1993) (explaining that decision to grant or deny motion to amend after an answer is reviewed for abuse of discretion). 33 Assuming arguendo that Tucker adequately apprised the district court of this claim, he requests that we remand it for further proceedings. Relying on King v. McCotter, 759 F.2d 517, 518 (5th Cir. 1986), Tucker asserts that in capital cases, the district court must make a ruling on each issue presented to allow the appellate court to conduct a meaningful review. In King, this Court did remand the case with instructions to provide reasons for the denial of each claim presented. See id. Unlike the instant case, in King, the district court had denied relief in a one-sentence order. See id. at 518. Here, the district court denied relief in a thoughtful, 36-page order. We decline Tucker's invitation to remand; instead, we will address the merits of his claim. See Willie v. Maggio, 737 F.2d 1372, 1376-77 (5th Cir. 1984) (addressing all petitioner's claims and denying relief even though the district court had ruled on some but not all the petitioner's claims). 34 Tucker argues that counsel rendered ineffective assistance at the punishment phase because (1) they did not investigate and present evidence to explain his aggravated assault on his cellmate, Louis Savant, and (2) a reasonably competent defense attorney would have developed evidence demonstrating that he acted in self defense. 10 This strategy, Tucker asserts, would have rebutted the State's arguments with respect to future dangerousness. We will assume solely for purposes of this appeal that counsel's performance was deficient with respect to this claim and focus on whether Tucker has shown prejudice. 35 Tucker contends counsel should have presented evidence that he believed the Aryan Brotherhood had a contract on his life and that his cellmate was the hitman. Such evidence would demonstrate that this was not simply an unprovoked attack on an unarmed man. He therefore was prejudiced by counsel's failure to place his assault in proper context. In other words, this would have been mitigating evidence with respect to the jury's determination of his future dangerousness. 36 During his habeas proceedings, Tucker did submit prison records demonstrating he had reported to the authorities that he feared for his life because he knew the identity of certain members of the Aryan Brotherhood. Prior to the assault, there apparently was no evidence that his cellmate was in any way connected to the Aryan Brotherhood. It was only after stabbing Savant that Tucker informed the authorities Savant had attacked him on behalf of the Aryan Brotherhood. 11 The prison records also reveal that Tucker admitted he had a verbal confrontation with Savant prior to the stabbing. In a letter to the prison disciplinary committee, Tucker explained that prior to the verbal dispute he discovered Savant had reported him to the prison authorities for having homemade weapons in their cell. In his letter, Tucker wrote that: 37 I did what I could do to get along with [Savant] until I found out that he had told Lt. Jenkins that I had a shank . . . . The shank was found. I was then told to go back to my cell. I then confronted [Savant] about what he had done and he told me then that he had. We had a verbal [fight] about it and all was forgotten. 38 The next part of the letter is partially illegible but it appears to provide that Tucker was informed that Savant had been hired to kill him. Tucker maintained that Savant attacked him. Tucker got [his] two shanks and proceeded to defend [him]self. According to Tucker: I stab[bed] him [once] in each temple , [once] at the base of the back of the skull, [twice] at the bottom of the throat. I left one in his throat and one in his temple. . . . Additionally, the records indicate that Savant apparently did not have a weapon, 12 and the authorities suspected that Tucker's superficial wounds were self-inflicted. 39 Assuming the jury believed that the brutal assault was motivated by his fear of the Aryan Brotherhood rather than the fact that Savant had informed the prison authorities regarding his shanks in their cell, the evidence arguably does have some mitigating value. Nonetheless, because the newly proffered records contain damaging evidence that allows a jury to infer the attack was precipitated by Savant's report of Tucker's homemade weapons, and the jury heard overwhelming evidence that Tucker had committed two, unrelated armed robberies after killing Humphreys, we are not prepared to conclude that Tucker has shown prejudice at the punishment stage. As such, the state court's decision to reject this claim of ineffective assistance cannot be deemed unreasonable or contrary to federal law.