Opinion ID: 2511886
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: mr. gardner files his federal habeas corpus petition and evidentiary hearings are held

Text: ¶ 16 In January 1997, Mr. Gardner filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the District of Utah. [49] Mr. Gardner prepared his petition with the help of court-appointed experts and investigative services. [50] In his petition, he raised twenty-two challenges to his conviction and sentence. [51] These claims were referred to a magistrate judge for evaluation. [52] ¶ 17 The magistrate judge held evidentiary hearings on certain of Mr. Gardner's issues in September and October 1999. [53] One of the issues argued at the evidentiary hearing was whether Mr. Gardner's trial counsel was ineffective for not having given Dr. Heinbecker adequate time to prepare. [54] In these hearings, Mr. Gardner's court-appointed experts presented mitigation evidenceostensibly evidence Dr. Heinbecker would have found had he been given adequate time to prepare during the penalty phase of the trial. Dr. Linda Gummow, a neuropsychologist, testified that she administered Mr. Gardner twenty-three tests, including the Halstead-Reitan battery, memory tests, concentration tests, tests of sense of touch, motor tests, tactical tests, academic tests, and personality tests. [55] Both she and another of Mr. Gardner's experts, psychiatrist Dr. William Logan, testified that the results of these tests indicated that Mr. Gardner had suffered brain damage, which Dr. Logan characterized as being mild. [56] After speaking with Mr. Gardner about his background, both doctors also opined about the causes of his brain damage. [57] Mr. Gardner's mother drank large amounts of alcohol while she was pregnant with him. [58] She also had syphilis. [59] When Mr. Gardner was fifteen months old, he ingested Purex. [60] When he was four years old, he suffered from meningococcal meningitis. [61] He began huffing gasoline at about age five or six and continued this and other forms of huffing until he was at least eighteen. [62] When he was still young, he played with mercury his stepfather had stolen. [63] Mr. Gardner was using marijuana by age ten, abusing alcohol by age eleven, and also abused hallucinogens, amphetamines, various opiates, barbiturates, and benzodiazepines. [64] He also experienced head trauma as a result of falling while passing out a couple of times and during physical fights, and as a result of a car accident when he was fourteen. [65] The doctors also testified that an early diagnosis of attention deficit disorder, difficulties in school, a tic that surfaced when Mr. Gardner was eight years old, and lagging bone developmentcharacteristic of a child suffering from malnutrition or fetal alcohol syndromeall indicated that Mr. Gardner's brain damage likely happened at an early age. [66] ¶ 18 These experts and Dr. Craig Haney, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, also testified to details about Mr. Gardner's disadvantaged upbringing that might have led to emotional disturbance. [67] For instance, as a baby, Mr. Gardner lived in a home that had been condemned and padlocked by the sanitation department. [68] As a young child, Mr. Gardner's family moved frequently, always living in environmentally deprived areas and substandard housing. [69] Mr. Gardner's parents separated when he was under a year old. [70] There was some evidence that Mr. Gardner's mother beat her children. [71] She also neglected her children and spent a significant amount of time in bars and entertaining different men in her home. [72] There is also evidence that Mr. Gardner's father physically and emotionally abused him. [73] Mr. Gardner was diagnosed with enuresis (i.e., bedwetting), a possible indicator of severe emotional disturbance, at age eight. [74] His doctor at the time thought Mr. Gardner's family was a setup for emotional stress. [75] Mr. Gardner and his brother were sexually abused by a foster parent. [76] As an adolescent, Mr. Gardner lived on the streets and worked as a prostitute. [77] ¶ 19 Dr. Gummow testified that Mr. Gardner's brain damage renders him unable to change his plan once the plan is in action, and instead causes him to persist unwisely toward a goal. [78] She suggested that when Mr. Gardner shot Mr. Burdell, he was functioning on automatic pilot and his rational reasoning process, or choice making process, shut[] off. [79] Dr. Logan added that the physical trauma from Mr. Gardner's gunshot wound, combined with his brain damage[,] was probably the cause of him acting in a very impulsive way when he shot Burdell, and opined that Mr. Burdell's shooting was spontaneous rather than intended. [80] ¶ 20 But Mr. Gardner's experts did not go unchallenged. The prosecutor at Mr. Gardner's trial, Robert Stott, testified that had an expert like Dr. Gummow testified on Mr. Gardner's behalf at his trial, the State would have called its own expert rebuttal witness. [81] So at the evidentiary hearing, the State called Dr. Noel Gardner as an example of how Mr. Gardner's mitigation evidence would have been rebutted at trial. [82] Dr. Gardner interviewed Mr. Gardner at the prison. [83] He said, It was very clear to me that [Mr. Gardner] did not suffer from any major mental illness, and that, as to brain injury, very, very mild elements present, but it certainly was not obvious, even to an experienced observer. [84] Dr. Gardner disagreed with Drs. Gummow and Logan that the results of their testing indicated brain injury. Instead, Dr. Gardner characterized any brain dysfunction as very minimal and testified that Mr. Gardner has antisocial personality disorder. [85] Mr. Gardner told Dr. Gardner that he did not like to kill people unless it was necessary. [86] Dr. Gardner testified that Mr. Gardner could have controlled his behavior when he tried to escape from the courthouse, but, consistent with antisocial personality disorder, ... was unwilling to conform his behavior to limits. [87] ¶ 21 The State then called Dr. Stephen Golding, a forensic clinical psychologist and University of Utah professor. [88] Mr. Gardner had told Dr. Golding that before the day of the shooting and escape attempt, he had heard that the gun waiting for him at the courthouse would be larger than requested, but that Mr. Gardner decided to go ahead with the plan because he was tired of being in prison and wanted to get out and party; and that because he was bored and wanted to party, it was worth the risk. [89] Based on the record and his own testing of and discussion with Mr. Gardner, Dr. Golding concluded that Mr. Gardner is very much the opposite of impulsive because he does what he wants to do when he wants to do it for reasons that he wants. [90] Dr. Golding also testified that Mr. Gardner is by no means... impulsive in the sense of out of control. [91] ¶ 22 Dr. Golding diagnosed Mr. Gardner with antisocial personality disorder in both the personality sense and in the behavioral sense. [92] As an example of this diagnosis, Dr. Golding cited Mr. Gardner's refusal to take responsibility for Mr. Burdell's death; Mr. Gardner instead blamed Officer Hensley, one of his guards, for being a coward and back[ing] away when he saw that [Mr. Gardner] had a gun instead of forcing Mr. Gardner to the ground so that no one would have gotten hurt. [93] Dr. Golding also questioned the reliability of Dr. Gummow's tests as indicators of the kind of brain damage from which she claimed Mr. Gardner suffered, arguing, for instance, that the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test has been found not to be a good indicator of frontal lobe damage. [94] Dr. Golding concluded that although Mr. Gardner may have had genetic vulnerabilities, he was not compelled to do things in the sense that he ha[d] no choice. [95] ¶ 23 Finally, Dr. Jonathon Pincus, a neurologist for the State, further called into question the reliability of Dr. Gummow's test results. [96] He testified that neuroimaging failed to show any damage to Mr. Gardner's frontal lobes. [97] Further, Dr. Pincus testified that Mr. Gardner told him that he constantlyeven nowthinks of escaping from prison. [98]