Opinion ID: 1061016
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Post-Conviction Action

Text: Thereafter, Goad filed this post-conviction action in 1987 [2] , alleging numerous grounds for relief. He asserted that he had been denied the effective assistance of counsel at the sentencing phase of his trial due to counsel's failures to introduce mitigation evidence about his post-traumatic stress disorder, his prior drug abuse and treatment, and his prior head injury. A post-conviction evidentiary hearing was held in 1993. Both of Goad's trial attorneys, John Pellegrin and John Wesley Jones, testified at the post-conviction hearing. Pellegrin said that he had been licensed to practice law in October of 1980, a little more than three years before his appointment to this case. Although he had tried numerous criminal cases, this was his first death penalty case. Jones testified that he began to practice law in 1971. He had tried approximately twelve first-degree murder cases, but, like Pellegrin, this was his first capital case. Pellegrin testified that he learned of Dr. Ray prior to trial from the Public Defender's Office in Davidson County, which was representing Goad on separate charges. After speaking with Ray, Pellegrin discussed the evaluation by the Veterans Administration with Goad, and he reviewed materials on posttraumatic stress syndrome that he had received at a death penalty seminar. Pellegrin, however, did not subpoena Dr. Ray and did nothing else to assure Ray's attendance at trial. Shortly before trial, Pellegrin once again called Ray's office only to discover that the doctor was out of town for two weeks and would not return until the time the sentencing hearing began. Again, no subpoena was issued. At the beginning of the sentencing hearing, Pellegrin spoke with Dr. Ray for a third time. Ray, however, informed Pellegrin that he was very busy and couldn't make it to court. When Pellegrin asked if Ray could make an offer of proof maybe the next day, Ray replied that he could not. [3] According to Pellegrin, it was only after trial that he discovered that Dr. Ray was not the person who had evaluated the petitioner. [4] Likewise, it was after trial that Pellegrin said he received a copy of a report that had been prepared on November 22, 1983, by Dr. Pieper. Pellegrin conceded that he never subpoenaed Ray for the sentencing hearing. Co-counsel Jones testified that the defense had received a copy of Dr. Pieper's evaluation before trial, but said he did not attempt to speak with Dr. Pieper because Pellegrin was responsible for the sentencing portion of the trial. [5] Jones testified that the defense had intended to call Dr. Ray as a witness at the sentencing hearing to testify about the results of the evaluation, and had planned to introduce the evaluation as a business record through Dr. Ray's testimony, since they believed he was the supervising psychiatrist. Jones conceded that the defense did not subpoena Ray for the trial. After the trial court summarily ruled Dr. Ray's testimony inadmissible, the defense did not attempt to call any other witness to testify about post-traumatic stress disorder. In addition, both Pellegrin and Jones admitted that they did not issue a subpoena for either Ray or Pieper to testify at the hearing on remand. Pellegrin explained that he did not issue a subpoena on remand because Dr. Ray simply did not recall talking with him, and that he did not have Dr. Pieper subpoenaed for the remand hearing because he believed the issue was more narrowly defined on remand. Dr. Sam Pieper's report detailing his evaluation of Goad, which apparently was conducted to establish a service-related disability for the Veterans Administration, was introduced at the post-conviction hearing. It recounted several traumatic episodes related by the petitioner: He reports several combat incidents which were stressful to him. He and his company had to do night patrol about once every three months which meant going outside their perimeter and standing night watch every night for a week. They came under fire several times. He participated in several fire fights during the day when his outfit would be attacked while stringing telephone lines. Two incidents stand out. One day an enemy bullet hit his spike causing him to fall from [a] pole. He refused to climb again. Instead, a friend climbed the pole [and] was hit by a bullet. His friend reached out for a wire, caught a high voltage wire and was burned in a puff of smoke. He came off the pole like a kite flying into the ground. His fingers were left burned onto the wire. In another fire fight he and his buddies were pinned down for 15-20 minutes by enemy fire. He heard a rifle shot, thought he felt mud being splattered on his face. When the fighting was over he discovered his friend had been shot through the head and it was his buddy's brains he had on his face. ... . Mr. Goad and his first wife began going together in the 9th grade in high school and continued to go together while he was stationed in Germany. On his leave between posts in Germany and Viet Nam he returned home and was married. After he had been in Viet Nam about two or three months he received a letter from his mother saying that his wife had moved out and was running around with another man. This made Mr. Goad very angry. He began to have an affair with a Vietnamese girl. One night when he was at her home they suddenly got word that the Viet Cong was coming. He hid in a small cellar under the kitchen table. The Viet Cong came in and questioned his girlfriend and her mother. They laid his girlfriend's mother on the kitchen table and tortured her, killing her by eviscerating her. They then lay his girlfriend on the table and eviscerated her. He was very frightened and felt very helpless. Although there was an escape route from the cellar via a tunnel he was afraid to use it. The report, which Jones described as a two-edged sword, also contained potentially prejudicial information about the petitioner, such as his pride in using drugs, his frequenting prostitutes, and his violent reaction to his wife's infidelity. Nonetheless, it concluded with Dr. Pieper's impressions: This veteran does exhibit the symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder. While some of the precipitating stress does appear to be combat related, by far the most striking and stressful events relate to his behavior in response to his wife's reported infidelity. He exhibits some characteristics of antisocial personality disorder, of avoidant personality disorder, and borderline personality disorder but does not clearly meet the criteria for any one personality disorder, so the diagnosis of Mixed Personality Disorder is made. He is considered to be competent for VA purposes. Dr. Robert Begtrup, a psychiatrist, also testified at the post-conviction hearing. He related his experience and his familiarity with post-traumatic stress symptoms. Although he never personally evaluated or tested Goad, Begtrup reviewed Pieper's report and concluded that it contained catastrophic events. Begtrup said that nothing in the report contradicted a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder, but that independent verification of the events would be helpful. As noted, Goad also claimed that his counsel were ineffective because they failed to investigate his drug abuse, his participation in a substance abuse treatment program while at DeBerry Correctional Institute, and his prior head injury. Pellegrin and Jones testified that they had not sought to obtain records about Goad's prison experience because it couldn't have curried much favor with the jury. Counsel admitted that they did not request Goad's medical records, and that they were unaware of a gunshot wound he had received about thirteen years before trial. A review of the medical records established that the shotgun wound to the left side of Goad's head did not penetrate his skull. The wound, which was sustained in 1971, required only outpatient treatment. After considering the evidence, the trial court found that trial counsel's performance was neither deficient nor prejudicial and denied Goad's petition for post-conviction relief. The Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed. We granted Goad a limited [6] appeal to consider whether the evidence preponderates against the lower courts' findings. For the reasons articulated below, we reverse.