Opinion ID: 3065914
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Additional post-trial proceedings

Text: In January 2009, after the Supreme Court denied certiorari, the State of Arizona sought a warrant of execution.5 The Arizona Supreme Court declined to issue a warrant because litigation regarding the constitutionality of Arizona’s lethalinjection protocol was then underway. Cook filed a second PCR petition challenging the lethal-injection protocol, but also asserting that his pretrial counsel was ineffective in failing to investigate mitigating evidence. In December 2009, the trial court denied Cook’s second PCR petition after concluding, among other things, that Cook’s pretrial IAC claim had 5 In February 2009, Cook sought, and we granted, re-appointment of an attorney from the federal defender’s office to represent Cook, along with his CJA attorney, in potential further proceedings. See infra. Specifically, Cook sought re-appointment of the federal defender’s office on the grounds that his CJA attorney had “never litigated a death penalty case through execution,” and that the federal defender’s office would help his CJA attorney: (1) mount a challenge to Arizona’s lethal injection protocol; (2) assert unexhausted claims “based on changes in recent state and federal law”; (3) provide funding for a mental health expert to explore “issues related to competency”; (4) file a second or successive habeas petition based on new constitutional rules of law or a showing of actual innocence; and (5) pursue any due process violations that might occur during clemency proceedings. Cook did not argue that he needed the federal defender’s expertise or resources to conduct an investigation into mitigating circumstances. 8584 COOK v. RYAN been previously litigated and therefore was barred. In September 2010, the Arizona Supreme Court denied Cook’s petition for review, and the State once again sought a warrant of execution. In November 2010, while the State’s warrant request was pending, Cook filed a third PCR petition seeking relief on the ground that newly discovered information likely would have led the original state trial court to impose a sentence other than death. See Ariz. R. Crim. P. 32.1(e), (h) (allowing PCR relief on grounds of newly discovered evidence). Specifically, based on an investigation conducted by his federal defender, Cook presented the declarations of Cook’s mother, sister, and a former group home parent, all of whom knew Cook as a child or adolescent. These declarations documented a long history of physical and sexual abuse by family members, sexual abuse by the group home parent, a gang rape by Cook’s peers in the group home when Cook was fifteen years old, and Cook’s own drug and alcohol abuse. Several of the declarants indicated that no one had contacted them previously.6 In addition, Cook presented the declaration of a psychiatrist who reviewed information from Cook’s trial and the declarations and records described above. The psychiatrist opined that, at the time Cook committed the murders, Cook suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (“PTSD”), “organic mental syndrome, not otherwise specified,” and alcohol and amphetamine intoxication. A letter and a declaration from a clinical psychologist highlighted what the psychologist believed were deficiencies in Cook’s pretrial competency evaluations. Finally, Cook presented the declaration of Eric Larsen, the lead prosecutor at Cook’s trial in 1988. Larsen declared that Cook’s pretrial counsel was at the “low end of the compe- 6 As part of his Rule 60(b)(6) motion, Cook submitted additional declarations containing similar statements. COOK v. RYAN 8585 tency scale” and “did not speak with me about mitigating circumstances.” Larsen also declared that: he reviewed the declarations of Cook’s relatives; “[e]vidence of [Cook’s] brain damage and post-traumatic stress disorder was present at the time that Mr. Cook was arrested and tried for murder”; and “[h]ad I been informed of this mitigating information regarding Mr. Cook’s severely abusive and traumatic childhood and his mental illnesses, I would not have sought the death penalty in this case.”7 In January 2011, the trial court denied Cook’s third PCR petition. State v. Cook, No. CR-9358 (Maricopa Co. Sup. Ct. Jan. 27, 2011).8 The judge—who again was the same judge who presided over Cook’s trial and sentencing—considered Cook’s additional information and explained that it either reflected information the court already knew in 1988 or was irrelevant post-hoc speculation. Thus, the judge still would have imposed the death penalty. The judge also concluded that Cook had not been diligent in securing his PTSD diagnosis. The Arizona Supreme Court then issued a warrant of execution for April 5, 2011. Cook filed a petition for review to that court of the trial court’s denial of his third PCR petition. Among other things, he argued that his lack of diligence in 7 Cook asserted in his Rule 60(b)(6) motion that all of this newly discovered mitigation information could not have been presented in Cook’s 1997 petition for habeas corpus, because it was not until the Federal Public Defender for the District of Arizona was appointed co-counsel for Cook in 2009, with its financial and personnel resources to carry out the necessary investigative and professional investigations and evaluations, that a proper mitigation investigation could be accomplished. It was in the process of preparing for clemency . . . that facts were uncovered to support an application such as is made here. 8 We take judicial notice of this decision. See Holder v. Holder, 305 F.3d 854, 866 (9th Cir. 2002) (taking judicial notice of state judicial opinion). 8586 COOK v. RYAN developing the PTSD diagnosis was the result of his first PCR counsel’s ineffectiveness. The Arizona Supreme Court summarily denied review. Cook filed a petition for certiorari to the United States Supreme Court and sought a stay of execution pending the Court’s resolution of the petition in Martinez. The Court granted a stay pending the resolution of Cook’s certiorari petition. Cook v. Arizona, 131 S. Ct. 1847 (2011).