Opinion ID: 78335
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Expert testimony regarding Parker's brain damage and alcohol use

Text: Parker argues that his trial counsel failed to present evidence regarding the full extent and impact of Parker's drug addiction and brain damage. He maintains that the post-conviction testimony of Doctors Breggin, Hriso, and Marson established the availability of substantial mitigating evidence that was neither cumulative nor substantially similar to other evidence. At sentencing, Parker presented three witnesses: Joan Parker (Joan), Parker's mother; Dr. James Crowder, the clinical psychologist; and Charlotte Dean, Parker's eighth grade teacher. Joan testified that Parker was a very active child and suffered a head injury that left him unconscious for about two days when he was two years old. While Parker was in kindergarten and first grade, he was observed intensely shaking and vomiting in response to any kind of pressure, and had a short attention span. Joan took him to a doctor who diagnosed Parker with hyperactivity, put Parker on Ritalin so that he could sit still and listen, and advised her to place Parker in a school atmosphere that would permit him to learn at his own speed. The Ritalin calmed Parker but Joan did not give Parker the prescribed dosage because it interfered with his ability to sleep. When Parker was about 10 to 12 years old, he was taken off Ritalin. About the same time, Parker fell behind his classmates scholastically and began to hang out with some older boys who supplied him with marijuana and alcohol. About six weeks after being removed from Ritalin, Parker began showing severe physical reactions. He did not adjust well to middle school and, despite Joan's pleas, was never placed into special education classes. When Parker was in middle school, he was placed in a six-week drug treatment program because of his parents' concerns about his marijuana and pill use. About four months after leaving the program, however, Parker slipped back into using drugs and alcohol. When Parker was 18, he returned to a drug treatment program. By 23 March 1988, however, Parker was using drugs intravenously. Joan explained that the only violent acts she observed from Parker were directed toward himself or inanimate objects. Dr. Crowder saw Parker for evaluations in 1983 and in 1990 for emotional problems and treatment. He tested Parker using the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory for personality characteristics and mental illness diagnostics, the Wechsler Adult Intelligent scale, and a Wide Range [Academic] Achievement test to measure his scholastic achievements. The tests revealed that Parker had an intelligence quotient of 83, read and performed arithmetic at a seventh grade level, and felt that he was not a very good person and inadequate when compared to other people. Exh. Vol. 9 at 1739-41. Crowder explained that the intelligence and achievement tests indicated that Parker was not good at making decisions or judgments or retaining information for a long period of time, and was better at working with his hands than with words. Crowder noted that the personality inventory indicated that Parker felt a great deal of guilt and remorse for his actions, had trouble controlling his impulses, and was anxious and restless. Id. at 1741-42. Crowder said that he knew of no significant Ritalin withdrawal symptoms. Dean testified that Parker was a quiet, easy going student, but that she never felt that she was able to reach, inspire, or motivate him. She said that he chose to run around with the wrong kind of people, became involved in drugs, and seemed sad and melancholy most of the time. Id. at 1756-57. She commented that he had not matured emotionally, intellectually, or socially after the 7th grade but was never a discipline problem or violent and was accepting of authority. During the post-conviction hearing, Parker's attorneys, H. Thomas Heflin and Gene Hamby, testified. Heflin said that he attempted to explain Parker's drug problem to the jury through Crowder's testimony and by introducing Parker's past medical records. He said that he and Hamby had discussed using Crowder as the expert and that they had also unsuccessfully attempted to contact Dr. Nyland, a neuropsychiatrist or psychologist, who had treated Parker. Heflin did not recall any efforts to find a toxicologist or another psychiatrist, and used Crowder to discuss Parker's drug use because he was the witness we had. Exh. PC Vol. 10 at 46; PC Vol. 11 at 135-36. Heflin did not discuss Crowder's qualifications with him and did not know if Crowder had testified in other criminal proceedings. Hamby recognized that Parker's mental abilities were limited due to his drug problems and head injury but was unaware of what an expert could do to explain those problems to the jury. Exh. PC Vol. 13 at 528-59. Hamby explained that he called Crowder to testify because he was unable to find a psychiatrist who had treated Parker. Hamby did not remember considering hiring a toxicologist for the suppression hearing. Clinical psychologist Glen David King testified for Alabama as an expert witness in clinical psychology and forensic examinations. After reviewing the trial record, including Parker's mental health records, King opined that Parker well understood [and appreciated] the difference between right and wrong at the time of the offense. Exh. PC Vol. 15 at 881-82, 886. He noted that Parker had evidenced his understanding of his actions by engaging in a series of goal-directed behaviors over a fairly lengthy period of time. He observed that Parker's actions included: (1) making a contract for pecuniary gain, (2) driving to the Sennetts' home, (3) committing the murder, and (4) attempting to cover the murder by making it appear as a robbery, all of which evidenced a consciousness of guilt. Id. at 888-89. He believed that the combined effect of Parker's intelligence quotient and mental impairments from long-term poly-substance abuse and intelligence quotient was outweighed by his goal-directed sequence-patterned behaviors in the crime. King commented that individuals who commit crimes as a result of ... serious mental illness or mental defect, usually commit crimes that are random in nature; they will often stay around the crime scene. It is fairly clear to people who observe them that they are operating under some delusion or hallucinatory compulsion, and none of these behaviors have been reported for Mr. Parker. ... When somebody commits a crime under mental illness or mental defect ... usually their behavior is random. It may not make sense to those who observe... from the outside. There doesn't appear to be much of an obvious motive behind it. [T]hey often engage in these kinds of random[,] unusual or peculiar behaviors on regular basis. It's not something that occurs once and doesn't occur again, or it doesn't occur for months at a time. Id. at 889-90. Parker's mitigation strategy was effective. The jury recommended a sentence of life without parole. The trial court, however, overrode the jury recommendation and sentenced Parker to death, finding that the aggravating circumstance of [k]illing a human being, intentionally and deliberately, for money, evidence[d] a total and complete disregard for the value and uniqueness of human life and outweighed the mitigating circumstances. Parker II, 610 So.2d at 1181. It considered the mitigating circumstances of Parker's age, remorse, lack of prior criminal history, and the jury's recommendation, but rejected the mitigating circumstance regarding Parker's drug use. Id. at 1179-81. It found that Parker's capacity ... to appreciate the criminality of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of law was not substantially impaired. Id. at 1180. Although it acknowledged Crowder's testimony regarding the impairments to Parker's judgment caused by his drug use, it recognized evidence of Parker's actual actions during and after Dorlene's murder which demonstrated the lack of his impairment. Id. It noted that evidence of Parker's appreciation for the criminality of his conduct and the possibility of his apprehension included his placing cotton socks over his hands before the murder, throwing away the weapon after the murder, making the scene look like a burglary, throwing away the stereo, and burning his clothes. It found that there was no proof that Parker's drug addiction was based on his childhood medication for hyperactivity and that Parker's childhood problems were appropriately treated. Id. During the post-conviction proceedings, the state judge ruled that the expert testimony regarding Parker's drug addition and brain damage was substantially similar to the testimony offered at sentencing and that the other testimony of Parker's drug use and mental problems was cumulative, repetitive and redundant. Exh. PC Vol. 16, R-60 at 530-32. Based on King's post-conviction hearing testimony, which was consistent with Bryant and Nagi's expert trial testimony, the state judge was not convinced that Parker had any appreciable brain damage relevant to the murder. The state judge concluded that even if all of the expert testimony had been presented at the sentencing hearing, [she] would have still imposed the death penalty. Id. at 518; see also id. at 519 ([Parker] would have received the death penalty even if the [post-conviction] testimony had been presented at sentencing.). The state appellate court noted that Parker failed to show prejudice as a result of his attorneys' failure to call additional expert witnesses because the evidence was cumulative and the experts did not establish that he had a mental defect, disease, or intoxication severe enough to provide a defense for his actions or was incapable of discriminating between right and wrong. To show prejudice, Parker must prove that there is a reasonable probability that the sentencing judge would have arrived at a different conclusion after being presented with the additional evidence and reweighing the aggravating and mitigating circumstances. In Alabama, the trial judge is the ultimate sentencer in capital cases. Ala.Code § 13A-5-47 (1994). In this case, the sentencing judge was the same as the post-conviction judge and clearly stated that the sentence would not have been different even with additional testimony. The district court did not err in finding that the state courts reasonably applied Strickland in rejecting his ineffective assistance of counsel claim.