Opinion ID: 3043524
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 10

Heading: analysis of smith’s claims

Text: Our first task is to review the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals’ procedural ruling—that Smith failed to meet the pleading requirements of Rule 32.6(b).18 The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals’ Rule 32.6(b) ruling was based on its underlying factual determination that “[t]he only grounds offered in support” of Smith’s claim were his conclusory allegations that he met the three requirements of intellectual disability under Atkins and Perkins. See Smith II, 71 So. 3d at 19. 17 The American Association on Mental Retardation is now known as the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities. 18 The parties agree that we should review the decision of the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals on Smith’s Atkins claim. 30 Case: 14-10721 Date Filed: 08/03/2015 Page: 31 of 39 Here, we do not examine whether the petition was sufficient to meet Alabama’s pleading requirement.19 Rather, our narrow review is only the underlying factual determination about whether Smith’s second amended petition recounted any facts at all or only conclusory allegations. Smith’s second amended Rule 32 petition included at least seven factual grounds that support his Atkins claim: (1) there “was testimony at trial that Mr. Smith functioned intellectually at the bottom 3rd percentile of all adults”; (2) “[s]chool records indicate that Mr. Smith never progressed beyond the 5th grade”; (3) when Smith enrolled in a junior high school in Monroe County, “the county board of education classified Mr. Smith as ‘Educable Mentally Retarded’ (EMR), based on his ‘psychological and educational evaluations, academic history, and other pertinent information’”; (4) “even though he was in EMR classes while in the Monroe County school system, [Smith] either failed or performed at the ‘D’ level in all subjects”; and “testimony at sentencing . . . showed [Smith’s] inability to adapt because” (5) “he often acts out impulsively,” (6) he “lacks the ability to formulate a pre-meditated plan,” and (7) he “acts as a follower in groups” (alterations adopted). These factual allegations relate to the three requirements of intellectual disability under Perkins: significantly subaverage intellectual 19 Under Rule 32.6(b), each claim in a petition for post-conviction relief “must contain a clear and specific statement of the grounds upon which relief is sought, including full disclosure of the factual basis of those grounds.” Ala. R. Crim. P. 32.6(b). “A bare allegation that a constitutional right has been violated and mere conclusions of law shall not be sufficient to warrant any further proceedings.” Id. 31 Case: 14-10721 Date Filed: 08/03/2015 Page: 32 of 39 functioning, significant or substantial deficits in adaptive behavior, and manifestation before age 18. In short, the Alabama appellate court’s factual determination—that the “only grounds” Smith pled were conclusory allegations that he met each of the three requirements—is unsupported by the record and therefore unreasonable.20 See Wiggins, 539 U.S. at 528–29, 123 S. Ct. at 2539; cf. Brumfield, 576 U.S. at ___, 135 S. Ct. at 2276–77 (reviewing under § 2254(d)(2) a state court’s factual determination that the record included “no evidence” of adaptive impairment).21 20 We reach this conclusion based on our review of the state court’s factual determination about what was alleged in Smith’s second amended Rule 32 petition; by contrast, where a state court accurately identifies what allegations were included in a petition and concludes that those allegations failed to meet a pleading requirement, that is a legal conclusion, which is subject to review under § 2254(d)(1). See Brumfield, 576 U.S. at ___ n.3, 135 S. Ct. at 2277 n.3 (“[W]e subject these determinations to review under § 2254(d)(2) instead of § 2254(d)(1) because we are concerned here not with the adequacy of the procedures and standards the state court applied in rejecting [the petitioner’s] Atkins claim, but with the underlying factual conclusions. . . .”). 21 Although not squarely on point, Brumfield is instructive. Following Atkins, the deathsentenced Brumfield amended his state post-conviction petition to raise a mental-retardation claim. 576 U.S. at ___, 135 S. Ct. at 2274. Brumfield alleged that he read at a fourth-grade level and obtained an IQ score of 75. Id. at ___, 135 S. Ct. at 2274–75. The state court dismissed his petition. Id. at ___, 135 S. Ct. at 2275. Later, the district court granted Brumfield’s § 2254 petition, holding, inter alia, the state court’s dismissal was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts. Id. Reversing, the Fifth Circuit held that the state court’s dismissal decision did not rest on an unreasonable determination of the facts. Id. at ___, 135 S. Ct. at 2276. The United States Supreme Court vacated the Fifth Circuit’s opinion and concluded that the state court’s dismissal decision was based on two separate factual determinations that were unreasonable. Id. at ___, 135 S. Ct. at 2276–77. First, the state court unreasonably determined that Brumfield’s evidence of intellectual functioning precluded him from obtaining an Atkins hearing under Louisiana law. Id. at ___, 135 S. Ct. at 2277–79. Contrary to the state court’s decision, Brumfield’s proffered IQ score of 75 “was squarely in the range of potential intellectual disability” after accounting for the standard error of measurement. Id. at ___, 135 S. Ct. at 2278. 32 Case: 14-10721 Date Filed: 08/03/2015 Page: 33 of 39 Thus, the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals’ conclusion that Smith failed to meet Rule 32.6(b) was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(2).
We must also consider the alternative basis the Alabama appellate court used for its affirmance of the dismissal of Smith’s Rule 32 petition: its merits determination that the trial evidence conclusively showed that Smith is not “mentally retarded” and thus his Atkins claim fails. 22 See Crawford, 311 F.3d at 1326. That merits determination was a finding of fact. See Fults v. GDCP Warden, 764 F.3d 1311, 1319 (11th Cir. 2014) (“A determination as to whether a person is mentally retarded is a finding of fact.”). We review the Alabama appellate court’s merits ruling first on Smith’s intellectual functioning and then on Smith’s adaptive behavior. As to Smith’s intellectual functioning, we agree with the State that Alabama law generally does not contain a strict IQ cut-off of 70 to establish intellectual Second, the state court unreasonably concluded that Brumfield “presented no evidence of adaptive impairment.” Id. at ___, 135 S. Ct. at 2277, 2279. The Supreme Court concluded that the state court’s factual determination—that the record failed to raise any question as to Brumfield’s impairment in adaptive skills—was unreasonable because “the evidence in the statecourt record provided substantial grounds to question Brumfield’s adaptive functioning.” Id. at ___, 135 S. Ct. at 2280. 22 In reviewing Smith’s intellectual functioning and adaptive behavior, the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals considered both Smith’s first and second amended Rule 32 petitions and the evidentiary record from Smith’s trial. Accordingly, we do the same. See Pinholster, 563 U.S. at ___, 131 S. Ct. at 1398. 33 Case: 14-10721 Date Filed: 08/03/2015 Page: 34 of 39 disability. See Thomas v. Allen, 607 F.3d 749, 757 (11th Cir. 2010) (“There is no Alabama case law stating that a single IQ raw score, or even multiple IQ raw scores, above 70 automatically defeats an Atkins claim when the totality of the evidence (scores) indicates that a capital offender suffers subaverage intellectual functioning.”). But the problem for the State here is that the trial evidence showed that Smith’s IQ score could be as low as 69 given a standard error of measurement of plus-or-minus three points. There was also other trial evidence of deficits in intellectual functioning, including that Smith (1) did arithmetic at a kindergarten level, which was consistent with an IQ of 45; (2) suffered from dyslexia; (3) failed seventh grade and dropped out of school in the eighth grade;23 (4) struggled to recall learned and acquired information; and (5) was “quite weak in word knowledge and usage.” Despite this trial evidence pointing to significant deficits in Smith’s intellectual functioning, and even though the state trial court had not conducted an evidentiary hearing, the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals held that the record conclusively established Smith was not mentally retarded and could never meet Perkins’s intellectual-functioning requirement. Considering the record evidence before the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals and the fact that Alabama does not 23 In Smith’s second amended Rule 32 petition, he also alleged that school records show he never successfully completed any grade beyond the fifth grade. 34 Case: 14-10721 Date Filed: 08/03/2015 Page: 35 of 39 employ a strict IQ cut-off score of 70, the factual determination that Smith conclusively did not possess significantly subaverage intellectual functioning was an unreasonable determination of the facts. See Burgess v. Comm’r, Alabama Dep’t of Corr., 723 F.3d 1308, 1319 (11th Cir. 2013) (“We hold that the state court’s determination that [the petitioner] is not mentally retarded is an unreasonable determination of fact because it was based upon a combination of erroneous factual findings directly contradicted by the record and a record that was insufficient to support its conclusions.”); cf. Brumfield, 576 U.S. at ___, 135 S. Ct. at 2278 (“To conclude, as the state trial court did, that [the petitioner’s] reported IQ score of 75 somehow demonstrated that he could not possess subaverage intelligence . . . reflected an unreasonable determination of the facts.”). The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals also determined conclusively that Smith did not suffer from significant or substantial deficits in adaptive behavior. See Smith II, 71 So. 3d at 20. This conclusion was similarly based wholly on the Alabama appellate court’s factual determination that there was “no indication” from the trial record “that Smith had significant defects in adaptive behavior.” See id.; cf. Brumfield, 576 U.S. at ___, 135 S. Ct. at 2276–77 (reviewing under § 2254(d)(2) a state court’s factual determination that the record included “no evidence” of adaptive impairment). In other words, there was no record evidence at all of adaptive-behavior impairment. 35 Case: 14-10721 Date Filed: 08/03/2015 Page: 36 of 39 Even assuming that a petitioner must show deficits areas that are identified in both of the clinical definitions in Atkins, the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals’ conclusion that the record provided “no indication” that Smith had significant deficits in adaptive behavior was an objectively unreasonable determination of the facts. See Miller-El, 537 U.S. at 340, 123 S. Ct. at 1041. Indeed, the record affirmatively contradicts this conclusion that there was “no indication” of significant deficits in Smith’s adaptive behavior. There was evidence in the record before the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals that would support a fact finding that Smith had significant limitations in at least two of the adaptive skills identified by both clinical definitions: (1) social/interpersonal skills and (2) self-direction. First, as to social/interpersonal skills, Dr. Chudy concluded that Smith “never learned how to incorporate successfully into [society’s] norms.” Dr. Chudy classified Smith’s “personality functioning” as “dysfunctional,” noted that Smith “scored well below average in skills having to do with social reasoning and learning how to respond effectively in social situations,” and stated that Smith “showed a major deficiency in his ability to predict social sequences of action.” Also relevant to this social-skills inquiry, Dr. Chudy found that Smith’s emotional problems limited his “ability to deal with everyday stresses and demands” and caused him to “withdraw[ ] from others.” Furthermore, Dr. Chudy concluded that 36 Case: 14-10721 Date Filed: 08/03/2015 Page: 37 of 39 Smith “takes little notice of things around him” and “does not think through things.” Second, as to self-direction, Dr. Chudy concluded that Smith “lacks any direction or goal in life.” Dr. Chudy found that Smith’s “indifferent and ineffectual” mindset provided “little basis for [Smith] acting in a consistently sensible manner or learning from experience . . . even when it involves bringing on pain to himself or those closest to him.” Dr. Chudy also concluded that Smith “is often overwhelmed with incomprehensible feelings or impulses that he does not understand” and “possesses extremely limited insight and judgment.” In addition, Smith’s Rule 32 petition alleged that Smith (1) is prone to impulsive behaviors, (2) lacks the ability to formulate premeditated plans, and (3) acts as a follower in groups. Considering all the foregoing, the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals’ finding that there was “no indication that Smith had significant defects in adaptive behavior,” Smith II, 71 So. 3d at 20, is unsupported (and, in fact, contradicted) by the record and therefore unreasonable, see Wiggins, 539 U.S. at 528–29, 123 S. Ct. at 2539; cf. Brumfield, 576 U.S. at ___, 135 S. Ct. at 2279–82 (holding a state court’s “conclusion that the [trial] record failed to raise any question” as to the petitioner’s adaptive behavior was an unreasonable determination of the facts). Accordingly, its merits determination (at the early dismissal stage) as to Smith’s 37 Case: 14-10721 Date Filed: 08/03/2015 Page: 38 of 39 adaptive behavior functioning was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts.
Smith requests that we reverse and remand this case to allow Smith on his own to present an expert witness on his behalf. Smith should be allowed to do that. Smith also included in his prayer for relief a request for discovery and an evidentiary hearing. Neither he nor the State has fully briefed the propriety or usefulness of discovery or of an evidentiary hearing at this stage of the litigation. Accordingly, we do not decide whether the district court should order discovery or an evidentiary hearing, and we leave that issue for the district court to decide in the first instance. However, in considering whether to grant Smith discovery or an evidentiary hearing, the district court should note that Dr. Chudy’s diagnosis of “borderline intellectual functioning” does not ipso facto preclude Smith from attempting to establish that he is intellectually disabled, especially given Dr. Chudy’s testimony about the standard error of measurement applicable to Smith’s IQ score of 72. See Burgess, 723 F.3d at 1313, 1322 (ordering the district court to conduct an evidentiary hearing to determine whether the petitioner, who had been diagnosed as “borderline mentally retarded,” was intellectually disabled under Alabama law). 38 Case: 14-10721 Date Filed: 08/03/2015 Page: 39 of 39