Opinion ID: 2782886
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: penalty phase evidence

Text: Following the penalty phase, the jury recommended a death sentence for Everett by a unanimous vote. Because Everett argues that his trial counsel, Smith, rendered ineffective assistance regarding mitigating evidence, we outline the steps that Smith took to investigate, develop, and present mitigating evidence. A. Pre-Trial Investigation of Mitigating Factors 18 Case: 14-11857 Date Filed: 02/27/2015 Page: 19 of 87 Upon his appointment, Smith immediately recognized that Everett’s case involved the possibility of the death penalty. Accordingly, from the beginning of his appointment in March 2002, Smith prepared for both the guilt and penalty phases of trial. 1. Meetings with Everett Smith and his investigator, Earnest Jordan, met with Everett in jail several times leading up to the trial, including at least once a month between March and June of 2002. Smith and Everett also corresponded “quite often.” In March 2002, investigator Jordan met with Everett and obtained basic biographical information and the names and contact information of Everett’s immediate family members. Everett advised Jordan that he had a drug problem and had been using drugs since around the age of thirteen, beginning with “weed and beer.” At age fifteen, Everett started experimenting with acid and methamphetamine. At sixteen, he learned how to cook and manufacture methamphetamine. In April 2002, attorney Smith met with Everett in an attempt to obtain more background information. Smith learned that, although Everett made it only to the tenth grade, Everett never was in “any special ed classes or emotionally handicapped classes.” Everett had an “unremarkable” childhood and had split his time growing up between Fort Payne, Alabama and Sylvania, Georgia. Everett 19 Case: 14-11857 Date Filed: 02/27/2015 Page: 20 of 87 attended church “for awhile” in the past, and he provided Smith a name of a church leader who possibly could serve as a character witness. However, Everett “could not come up with any other names of teachers or community leaders who might be helpful.” Everett reiterated his history of drug use since his early teen years, and also stated that he used amphetamines every day while in Panama City during the twoweek period in October and November 2002 leading up to the murder. Everett claimed that an acquaintance from Fort Payne, Joe Garrett, was around him when he was on drugs and might be able to testify at to Everett’s behavioral changes when using drugs heavily. During Smith’s April 2002 meeting, Everett claimed that Farmer and Bubba were present at Bailey’s house when she was killed. Everett stated that Bubba was acquainted with Bailey and that he, Bubba, and Farmer went to her house to steal money for drugs. The three men entered through the back door, and Everett was rifling through Bailey’s purse when she emerged from her bedroom. During his meeting with Smith, Everett admitted to striking and raping Bailey but claimed that she was alive when he left the house with Bubba and Farmer still inside. Everett suggested that Bubba and Farmer must have killed Bailey after he left, and he claimed that Farmer was a suspect in another rape–homicide in Fort Payne. 20 Case: 14-11857 Date Filed: 02/27/2015 Page: 21 of 87 In May 2002, defense counsel Smith spoke over the phone with one of Everett’s sisters, Vicki Godby, who stated that she was not sure whether it would help or hurt Everett if she testified at his penalty hearing. Godby said that she had some anger about the way that Everett had acted in the past and that, if he indeed were guilty of the charges, the death penalty might be appropriate for him. That same month, investigator Jordan met with Everett. During the meeting, Everett told another version of the events leading up to Bailey’s death, claiming that Bailey came by mistake to the hotel room where he and Farmer were making drugs, which caused him to believe that Bailey was a federal agent. Everett also claimed that he later saw Bailey again while he was out jogging in her neighborhood. Everett then cut off his meeting with Jordan, stating that Jordan would have to return later to finish the conversation. In June 2002, investigator Jordan and Everett met again. During the meeting, Jordan encouraged Everett to think of anyone else who might be helpful to the case, and Everett provided the names of a few people who might have information concerning Farmer. Subsequently, Everett’s story about how Bailey was killed further evolved, and by trial time, Everett was telling Smith that Bailey was a double agent who was herself involved in drugs. 2. Development of Mitigation Evidence 21 Case: 14-11857 Date Filed: 02/27/2015 Page: 22 of 87 Defense counsel Smith’s initial mitigation strategy was to rely on Everett’s father, Sidney Everett (“Sidney”), to secure mitigation witnesses, as Sidney had a lot of contacts in northern Alabama where Everett had been living at the time of his crimes and where he grew up in part. Sidney pledged to “twist arms” or do “whatever he had to . . . to get witnesses . . . to testify and say good things about Mr. Everett.” Moreover, Smith found that Sidney “had a realistic appraisal of what was going on” with the case, while Everett’s mother was in denial of her son’s guilt and lived in a different state than her son. Unfortunately, however, Sidney passed away before trial. After Sidney’s death, Smith and Jordan traveled to Alabama in October 2002 in an attempt to find mitigation witnesses. One of Everett’s sisters was supposed to take off work that day to help Smith and Jordan track down potential witnesses. However, Everett’s sister instead went to work that day, leaving them to “run[] around on [their] own” to find potential witnesses until she got off work. Despite this, Smith and Jordan were able to interview Everett’s high school principal and his guidance counselor; Everett’s friend Joe Garrett; Everett’s sister Cindy Grider and her husband; and family friend Joe Scott. The guidance counselor did not remember Everett. The principal, Mr. Tally, remembered Everett but “characterized him as a truant who did not like to attend school.” Nevertheless, Mr. Tally did not consider Everett to have been a discipline 22 Case: 14-11857 Date Filed: 02/27/2015 Page: 23 of 87 problem. Smith and Jordan also obtained Everett’s school records, including his report cards. Everett’s report cards showed a range of grades, from A’s to F’s, and the records indicated a history of absenteeism, particularly in high school. Smith and Jordan also found and interviewed Joe Garrett, the friend who Everett said could testify about Everett’s behavior while on drugs. Garrett stated that he and Everett were very close growing up and he never knew Everett to be a violent individual. Garrett claimed that Everett had had “quite a few girlfriends,” none of whom Garrett thought would be good mitigation witnesses because Everett “tended to use his girlfriends and throw them away.” Specifically, Everett would borrow money or cars from his girlfriends and “not return items to these girls.” Cindy Grider, Everett’s sister, told Smith and Jordan that she would try to come up with the names of additional people with whom they could meet. Joe Scott had been a friend of Sidney’s. However, “Scott did not have any kind words to say about Paul Everett . . . [and] also seemed to be rather critical of [Sidney].” Scott did not express any interest in serving as a mitigation witness for Everett. Overall, Smith and Jordan kept running into “dead ends” in their mitigation investigation and could not find “much redeeming about [Everett],” who “wasn’t a Boy Scout, . . . wasn’t an athlete, . . . wasn’t a scholar, . . . didn’t go to church,” and “never had a job.” Some of Everett’s own sisters wanted nothing to do with 23 Case: 14-11857 Date Filed: 02/27/2015 Page: 24 of 87 him. The sisters who would speak in support of him could say only that they loved their brother, were close to him, and never saw him do anything violent. After the trip to Alabama, Smith and Jordan did not feel that there would be any more mitigation evidence forthcoming. As to Everett’s changing stories concerning Bailey’s murder and his attempts to implicate Farmer and Bubba, defense counsel Smith attempted to verify Everett’s claims but hit another dead end. Specifically, Smith located and interviewed Jared Farmer, who claimed that he and Everett were not together on the day of the murder. Smith also verified that Bubba was a real person. Smith, however, learned that Bubba was in a cast at the time of the murder because he had been in an accident where he was trampled by a horse. Ultimately, because Everett (between his arrest and his trial) had come up with so many versions of his story of how Bailey died, Smith did not know what Everett would testify to if called to the stand. Smith knew that Everett “would have been crucified on cross examination.” Finally, as to Everett’s claim that he was “tripping on acid” at the time of the crime, Smith could find no evidence to corroborate this claim. Smith asked Farmer about Everett’s alleged drug use, but Farmer “denied any knowledge of drug use” and said that he had no idea what Everett was doing the day of the murder. Additionally, Everett’s story—that he committed the crime only because he was “tripping on acid”—did not fit with the evidence that he left his motel room that 24 Case: 14-11857 Date Filed: 02/27/2015 Page: 25 of 87 evening armed with a fish bat and looking specifically for money. Indeed, Smith read a statement from the bail bondsman which stated that the bail bondsman had detained Everett “without any kind of incident” shortly after the murder. Smith viewed this as inconsistent with Everett’s story that he was in a violent, druginduced state the evening of the murder. Therefore, although Smith had no doubt that Everett was “messing around with drugs” while in Panama City, it appeared to amount simply to “recreational drug use.” 3. Mental Health Expert Defense counsel Smith could tell from his interactions with Everett that Everett was not “mentally retarded . . . [and] didn’t appear[] to be mentally ill,” and Everett did not have any history of mental illness, psychological problems, or “drug abuse problems.” 6 Nevertheless, as a “CYA” measure, Smith had Dr. Jill Rowan conduct a psychological evaluation of Everett to ensure that he was mentally competent, could testify if he had to, and had a realistic understanding of how the legal system works. On July 23, 2002, at Smith’s request, Dr. Rowan conducted a forty-fiveminute evaluation of Everett, who was twenty-three years old at that time. In her 6 Although defense counsel Smith testified at the state post-conviction evidentiary hearing that he did not recall Everett having any “drug abuse problems,” he also stated that he did not recall many of the specifics of his mitigation investigation and that he “would defer to whatever is in [his] files.” Smith’s notes documenting his meetings with Everett clearly indicate that he was aware of Everett’s history of drug use. 25 Case: 14-11857 Date Filed: 02/27/2015 Page: 26 of 87 report, Dr. Rowan indicated that Everett advised that he had seven older sisters and had split his time growing up with his mother and father depending on his mood. Everett dropped out of school in the tenth grade, after which he obtained his GED. He had a history of drug use, beginning at age fifteen, including LSD, methamphetamine, marijuana, and pills. Dr. Rowan further reported that Everett was cooperative, had good attention span and concentration, and had clear and coherent thinking, and that she found it “easy to follow his presentation.” Everett exhibited a grandiosity and overconfidence that were likely a combination of immaturity, denial, and personality. Everett referred to Smith by Smith’s first name, thought “he ought to be in charge of his case,” and indicated that he planned to attend law school if found not guilty. Given the severity of the case, Dr. Rowan concluded that Everett had not fully arrived at a realistic understanding of his situation. Everett told Dr. Rowan that he spent his time in jail reading novels, law books, and the paperwork in his case. Everett was able to speak conversantly about, and demonstrated an understanding of, the charges against him, the possible penalties, his actions on the day of the murder, the legal process generally, and the specifics of his case. Dr. Rowan concluded that “[t]here was nothing in his presentation that indicated a full Competence evaluation ought to be done.” And 26 Case: 14-11857 Date Filed: 02/27/2015 Page: 27 of 87 “Everett demonstrated no signs of mental retardation or of a major illness. His grandiosity [was] not of psychotic proportions.” Counsel Smith concluded that Dr. Rowan’s assessment of Everett corroborated his belief that that there was no reason to question Everett’s mental competency, and so he did not request “any greater psychological work up,” which he believed “would probably be detrimental to [Everett].” Specifically, Everett struck Smith as having “pretty classic” “antisocial personality disorder,” and Smith feared having any personality tests administered. Everett just seemed very “carefree” about the case, with unrealistic expectations about how he would not be convicted and would go on to attend law school. B. The State’s Penalty Phase Evidence The State opened the penalty-phase hearing with a victim impact statement by Greathouse, Bailey’s stepfather who raised her since the age of three. In his statement, Greathouse described Bailey’s intelligence, hard-working nature, and love of her family, and the impact of Bailey’s death on him, Bailey’s mother, and the rest of their family. 7 7 The state trial court instructed the jury to rely, in the jury’s sentencing recommendation, only on the evidence of the aggravating and mitigating circumstances, and not to consider Greathouse’s victim impact statement in its sentencing recommendation. Rather, the victim impact statement was intended only to help the jury “determine the victim’s uniqueness as an individual human being and the result and loss to the community members by the victim’s death.” 27 Case: 14-11857 Date Filed: 02/27/2015 Page: 28 of 87 The State presented evidence that Everett was under a sentence of imprisonment for the Alabama conviction of possession of a forged instrument when he killed Bailey, which could serve as an aggravating circumstance for purposes of the death penalty. The State also relied on the guilt-phase evidence to argue that it had shown two other aggravating circumstances, namely that Everett committed the murder during the course of a sexual battery and that the murder was particularly heinous, atrocious, or cruel. C. Presentation of Mitigation Evidence Before the Jury During the penalty phase of Everett’s trial, Smith presented two witnesses: Everett’s mother, Glenda Everett (“Glenda”), and one of Everett’s sisters, Cindy Grider, who both testified generally as to Everett’s loving and non-violent nature. 1. Glenda Everett Glenda testified that Everett was born to her and Sidney in Fort Payne, Alabama in 1979. Everett had seven older sisters, all of whom loved him and spent a lot of time with him growing up. As a child, Everett was fun-loving, loved to play with others, loved to be with his friends and family, and loved people in general. At some point, Glenda and Sidney started having problems and divorced, after which Glenda moved her kids, including Everett, to the part of Georgia where she was from. 28 Case: 14-11857 Date Filed: 02/27/2015 Page: 29 of 87 Glenda and Sidney subsequently decided to try to work things out for the sake of the family and remarried, and Glenda returned to Alabama with the kids. The marriage, however, fell apart again, and Glenda and her children moved back to Georgia. Everett missed his father so much that at some point Glenda allowed him to move back to Alabama to live with his father. Glenda also testified that “[i]t was never easy on Paul coming from a broken home” and that he had a hard time accepting that he came from a broken home. Everett loved his father, but his father had “problems,” “was an alcoholic,” and “at times would say things to [Everett] that no child needed to know.” Glenda believed that her son turned to drugs to block out some of the bad memories of his father. She first noticed that Everett had a drug problem when he was around eighteen or nineteen years old, and she encouraged him for years to get into treatment for his drug problem. In the months leading up to the murder, Glenda noticed that Everett “was not completely himself” because of his drug use. She tried to talk to him “about his problem and he just couldn’t seem to get it altogether. He wanted to; he tried more than one try at a time, he just couldn’t seem to get control of everything.” Glenda noticed some personality changes in Everett since he started using drugs, but “not to the extent that [she] thought he would ever be capable of doing something like this.” Glenda “very seldom saw 29 Case: 14-11857 Date Filed: 02/27/2015 Page: 30 of 87 [Everett] drink alcohol,” but she knew that he “[s]ometimes . . . would drink a little alcohol.” On the other hand, Glenda also testified that, as an adult, Everett was “a very loving and caring person. That’s always the way he has always been. He has never been a violent person of this nature of any kind.” Glenda opined that for Everett to have done “something as horrendous as this is, there would have to be drugs involved. He’s a very loving, caring person in other cases.” For example, Everett’s nieces and nephews loved their “Uncle Paul” because he would play and cuddle with them. 2. Cindy Grider Grider, one of Everett’s sisters, testified that she and Everett were “very close,” and she saw or heard from him almost every day when he was living in northern Alabama. Everett was wonderful with her kids, would babysit them, and would play with them, and they missed their “Uncle Paul.” Everett always was “wonderful” with his entire family and with other people in general. Like his “very caring” father, Everett would “give somebody the shirt off of his back.” Grider further testified that the reaction in Everett’s hometown to his arrest was “[s]hock”—no one could believe that “the Paul that they knew” was capable of the crimes for which he was arrested. They all kept asking Grider “who was he with [at the time], because there’s no way.” Grider believed that, “[w]ithout some 30 Case: 14-11857 Date Filed: 02/27/2015 Page: 31 of 87 influence from somewhere . . . , [Everett] could have never done this.” Grider had never known Everett to be violent, not even during times that the family knew “something was wrong” with him. Grider, however, was aware that Everett was involved in drugs, as were the people he spent time with, including Farmer and Farmer’s family. She tried “plenty of times” to get Everett to go to counseling or seek help for his drug use, but he would only “say what [she] wanted to hear” in response. 3. Smith’s Closing Argument In closing, defense counsel Smith largely focused on the argument that the State had not proven the existence of any aggravating circumstance. Specifically, Smith asserted: (1) Everett was not under a sentence of imprisonment at the time of the murder because he was not actually in prison when he committed the crimes; (2) the murder was not particularly heinous, atrocious, or cruel because it was not committed with an utter indifference to Bailey’s suffering or a torturous design; and (3) the murder was not committed during the commission of a sexual battery because Everett already had inflicted Bailey’s fatal injuries when he raped her. Smith also argued that Everett was a “young kid” who had made a senseless, tragic, and indefensible decision but who was not worthy of the death penalty. D. Penalty Trial Before the Sentencing Court 31 Case: 14-11857 Date Filed: 02/27/2015 Page: 32 of 87 After the jury recommended a death sentence, the state trial court held a Spencer8 hearing. The State did not introduce any evidence or call any witnesses. Everett called his mother Glenda and investigator Jordan to testify. Glenda testified that, although Everett was twenty-two years old at the time of his crimes, his maturity level did not match his chronological age. Everett always acted young for his age and never really supported himself or lived on his own. Jordan testified that he reviewed the jail records from Everett’s pre-trial incarceration and found no indication that any disciplinary action was ever taken against Everett. Everett declined to offer a statement to the court. The state trial court sentenced Everett to death for Bailey’s murder. The court found the existence of three statutory aggravating factors, specifically that the murder: (1) was committed while Everett was under a sentence of imprisonment for a previous felony conviction, Fla. Stat. § 921.141(5)(a); (2) was committed while Everett was engaged in the commission of a sexual battery or a burglary, id. § 921.141(5)(d); and (3) was especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel, id. § 921.141(5)(d). The court found four statutory mitigating factors but accorded them little to very little weight: (1) Everett’s age, id. § 921.141(6)(g); (2) the crime 8 Spencer v. State, 615 So. 2d 688, 690-91 (Fla. 1993) (providing that, after a jury has recommended a sentence but before the trial court imposes a sentence, the court should hold a hearing to afford all parties an opportunity to be heard, allow the presentation of additional evidence, and allow both sides to comment on or rebut information in any presentence or medical report). 32 Case: 14-11857 Date Filed: 02/27/2015 Page: 33 of 87 was committed while under the influence of some type of substance, id. § 921.141(6)(b);9 (3) lack of significant history of prior criminal activity, id. § 921.141(6)(a); and (4) Everett’s family background and his drug use, id. § 921.141(6)(h). As to Everett’s family background, the trial court noted his father’s alcoholism and his parents’ divorce, remarriage, and second divorce. The court found that Everett’s upbringing, while not “ordinary,” was not a “deprived one.” The court also found non-statutory mitigating factors, each of which received very little weight: (1) Everett’s remorse, as expressed in his November 27 confession; (2) Everett’s good conduct in custody; (3) the alternative punishment of life imprisonment without parole; and (4) Everett’s confession. Finding that the aggravating circumstances outweighed the mitigating circumstances, the trial court imposed a sentence of death.