Opinion ID: 206338
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: Assessing the Evidence

Text: In order to show prejudice, Williams must establish that there is a reasonable probability that but for Panarella's deficient performance, one juror would have voted for life imprisonment rather than the death penalty. Bond, 539 F.3d at 289. Even if he successfully makes such a showing, however, Williams must then demonstrate that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's contrary holding was unreasonable. See Harrington, ___ U.S. ___, 131 S.Ct. at 786 (stating that even a strong case for relief does not mean the state court's contrary conclusion was unreasonable). Overcoming this hurdle is no simple undertaking; as the Supreme Court has recently stressed, the standards created by Strickland and § 2254(d) are both `highly deferential,' and when the two apply in tandem, review is `doubly' so. Id. at 788 (quoting Knowles v. Mirzayance, ___ U.S. ___, 129 S.Ct. 1411, 1420, 173 L.Ed.2d 251 (2009)). In reviewing Williams' mitigation evidence, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court held that Panarella's failure to present this information at the penalty phase did not prejudice Williams' defense. [30] On federal habeas review, the District Court concluded that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's decision was not an unreasonable application of Strickland. We agree. The mitigation evidence elicited by Williams on collateral review is no doubt sympathetic. It portrays a much more complicated and troubled individual than the one depicted during the trial's penalty phase. But the evidence is not unequivocally mitigating. Some of the evidence is even contradictory. Had Williams offered Drs. Kessel, Fleming, and Kaufman at the penalty phase, the Commonwealth could have countered with an abundance of evidence suggesting that Williams was not mentally ill and that he did not suffer psychological impairment. After all, Williams was examined by at least three professionals in and around the time of Norwood's murder; not one thought him seriously mentally impaired. Dr. Zanni stated that Williams' [i]nsight and judgment are not impaired; Dr. Heller reported that Williams show[ed] no evidence of mental impairment and was [w]ithout psychosis. According to Dr. Camiel, Williams' symptoms of psychosis were recent and they appeared after Norwood was murdered and Williams was incarcerated. Not one of these doctors thought Williams was suffering from psychosis on or around the time of the offense; indeed, the record is devoid of contemporaneous evidence of psychological impairment. This final point is critical, for it distinguishes the instant matter from decisions such Thomas v. Horn, 570 F.3d 105 (3d Cir.2009), where evidence that the petitioner was mentally ill at the time of the offense was clear and undisputed. See id. at 126 (stating that the Commonwealth does not dispute that even the most cursory search would have yielded evidence of Thomas' long history of mental illness). The conflicting nature of the mental health testimony is, in fact, reminiscent of our recent decision in Lewis v. Horn, 581 F.3d 92 (3d Cir.2009). There, we found that evidence purporting to show that petitioner was mentally ill and brain damaged was in large part contradictory. Id. at 112. Evaluations conducted contemporaneous to petitioner's crime revealed a mentally competent young man, while those performed in anticipation of the PCRA proceeding portrayed an individual riddled with psychological difficulty. Id. at 112-13. The contradictory nature of the evidence undercut the effectiveness of Lewis' mitigation testimony, and precluded us from overturning the state courts' determination that Lewis was mentally competent at the time of the offense. Williams' mental health evidence is similarly undercut in the instant matter. Furthermore, even the testimony offered by Williams' mental health experts was not uniformly sympathetic. Drs. Kessel and Fleming spoke of Williams' inner rage, especially with respect to males who behaved sexually toward him. Dr. Fleming explained that Williams suppressed this rage until it exploded. She described him as extremely impulsive, and opined that Williams gave less consideration to the consequences of his actions than a normal person would. Dr. Kaufman echoed this sentiment, testifying that Williams redirected his inner pain onto others without regard to the consequences. Such evidence is not necessarily mitigating, even if all three doctors rationalized this conduct by linking it to Williams' post-traumatic stress disorder. Their explanation was obviously insufficient for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which found that the mitigating evidence offered by Drs. Kessel, Fleming, and Kaufman was neutralized by Williams' predilection to direct[ ] his hurt onto other people and ... to respond to stressful situations in a manner without regard to the consequences. Williams II, 863 A.2d at 520 (quoting PCRA decision and adopting its findings). The Court therefore rejected the collective opinion that Williams was acting under extreme mental disturbance at the time of the offense and that his capacity to appreciate the criminality of his conduct or to conform it to the requirements of the law was substantially impaired. Given the conflicting evidence of psychological damage, we cannot say that this finding was an unreasonable determination of facts under § 2254(d)(2). The testimony concerning Williams' home life is also in tension with itself. On the one hand, several witnesses appeared at the PCRA hearing to describe years of physical beatings and sexual molestation. Their narrative was one of serious, long-term abuse. On the other hand, ten to fifteen witnesses took the stand at Williams' certification proceeding and provided a much different characterization. According to this account, provided six months prior to the Norwood murder, Williams' family and friends were loving, supportive, stable, and certainly not abusive. Some of this anti-mitigation evidence was offered by the very witnesses who later described Williams' home life in a negative light. Williams himself described his upbringing in positive terms. He told Dr. Heller (three months before he murdered Norwood) that his family relationships are close and meaningful. He never acknowledged any physical or sexual abuse in or around the time of the murder. Williams' only statements to the contrary were elicited ten years after his conviction, in preparation for PCRA review. The contradictory nature of the abuse testimony seriously dilutes its mitigating effect. [31] See Lewis, 581 F.3d at 112-13 (remarking that petitioner never acknowledged physical abuse and suggesting that his failure to do so was anti-mitigation evidence). In addition to the evidence set forth above, we cannot lose sight of the aggravating factors present in this case, which were significant and afforded considerable weight by the state court. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court highlighted the manner in which Williams planned and carried out the killing, as well as his subsequent attempts to cover up the murder by burning the body. Williams II, 863 A.2d at 520. On top of this, Williams had a significant history of violent felony convictions, id. at 521 n. 12; this was not his first murder, id. For the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, the brutal facts of the murder, combined with Williams' criminal history, strongly counseled against a finding of prejudice. In Woodford v. Visciotti, 537 U.S. 19, 123 S.Ct. 357, 154 L.Ed.2d 279 (2002), the United States Supreme Court considered a petition that was in some respects similar to that presented in the instant matter. Visciotti shot and murdered one victim and seriously maimed a second before he was arrested and later convicted of first degree murder. On collateral review in the state courts, Visciotti argued that he received ineffective assistance of counsel during the trial's penalty phase because his attorney failed to present evidence that Visciotti grew up in a dysfunctional family in which he suffered continual psychological abuse. Id. at 26, 123 S.Ct. 357 (internal quotations omitted). This troubled past, in turn, purportedly led to myriad psychological difficulties in Visciotti's adult life. Id. The state supreme court rejected Visciotti's petition, concluding that the circumstances of the crime (a cold-blooded execution-style killing of one victim and attempted execution-style killing of another, both during the course of a preplanned armed robbery) coupled with the aggravating evidence of prior offenses (the knifing of one man, and the stabbing of a pregnant woman as she lay in bed trying to protect her unborn baby) was devastating. Id. (describing state supreme court decision). These aggravating factors were so severe, the state supreme court concluded, that they completely overwhelmed the evidence proffered in mitigation. Therefore, trial counsel's failure to present the mitigating evidence in the first instance was not prejudicial. Id. On federal habeas review, the Ninth Circuit granted the writ, but the Supreme Court reversed. According to the Supreme Court, AEDPA endows the state courts with primary responsibility for weighing aggravating and mitigating factors in a prejudice inquiry. Id. at 27, 123 S.Ct. 357. Furthermore, it was not objectively unreasonable for the state supreme court to attribute significant weight to the aggravating circumstances in a situation such as thisthe crime was particularly heinous and, more importantly, Visciotti had a pronounced history of violent felony convictions. By downplaying the weight of the aggravating factors, the Ninth Circuit had inappropriately substituted its own judgment for that of the state supreme court. Id. at 26-27, 123 S.Ct. 357. Woodford makes clear that such second-guessing is unwarranted on federal habeas review. Woodford 's reasoning is particularly apt here. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court found that Williams' brutal crimes and record of violent convictions overwhelmed the evidence proffered in mitigation. The Court took especial note that this was not [Williams'] first murder conviction, Williams II, 863 A.2d at 521 n. 12, and it specifically adopted the reasoning of the PCRA court, which found that the aggravating evidence outweighed the mitigating testimony offered by Williams' mental health experts, see id. at 520. In other words, the state supreme court concluded that given the nature of the aggravating circumstances, Williams could not meet his burden of demonstrating there was a reasonable probability [that] the presentation of [mitigating] evidence would have resulted in a life sentence instead of the death penalty. Id. at 521 n. 12. In light of the totality of the reconstituted recordthe nature of the offense and Williams' history as a convicted murderer, as well as the equivocal nature of the mitigation evidencewe cannot say that this determination was unreasonable. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court's decision is further bolstered by the fact that the jury did not find Williams' youth to be a circumstance that mitigated the severity of the offense. If ever a capital defendant qualified for the mitigating circumstance set forth in 42 Pa. Cons.Stat. § 9711(e)(4), Terrance Williams did. He was four months past his eighteenth birthday. According to Williams' brief, he is one of the youngest men ever placed on Pennsylvania's death row. Williams' trial counsel built his closing argument around his client's youth and begged the jury to find that age was a mitigating factor. But to no avail. The jury's rejection of this mitigation argument is telling; it strongly suggests that the jurors' collective evaluation of Williams' character would have led them to reject other, less clear-cut mitigating evidence. See, e.g., Wiggins, 539 U.S. at 535, 123 S.Ct. 2527 (indicating that characteristics which reflect the defendant's moral culpability are relevant at the penalty phase); see also Jermyn, 266 F.3d at 310 (explaining that at the penalty phase, jury appraises defendant's moral culpability). This is but another factor that points away from a finding of prejudice. In sum, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court found that Williams was not prejudiced by Panarella's failure to present the mitigating evidence set forth in postconviction proceedings. This determination was not an unreasonable application of Strickland. In reaching our conclusion, we are mindful of the Supreme Court's recent admonition that even a strong case for relief does not mean the state court's contrary conclusion was unreasonable. Harrington, ___ U.S. ___, 131 S.Ct. at 786. That `fairminded jurists could disagree' on the correctness of the state court's decision, is, by itself, a sufficient basis for rejecting federal habeas relief. Id. (quoting Yarborough, 541 U.S. at 664, 124 S.Ct. 2140). The reconstituted record consists of conflicting mental health evaluations, contradictory depictions of Williams' home life, and unequivocal evidence regarding the brutality of the crime and Williams' history of violent offense conduct. Strickland was not unreasonably applied on this record. Habeas relief is therefore unwarranted.
In 1986, a Pennsylvania jury convicted Terrance Williams of first degree murder and recommended a sentence of death. Williams' conviction was upheld by the state courts on direct appeal, and his attempts to obtain collateral relief were likewise unavailing. On federal habeas review, the District Court denied Williams' petition for relief. Today we affirm that judgment for the reasons set forth above. In so doing, we are mindful of the gravity of our decision. We are bound, however, to respect the lawful decisions of the state courts. Thus, twenty-five years after the jury returned its verdict, we deny Williams' request for habeas relief.