Court Opinion

ID: 9488265
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:40:54.977262+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:52:47.526350
License: Public Domain

HEANEY, Senior Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
In my view, the district court erred in denying Oxford the opportunity to assert his claims with respect to the ineffectiveness of his counsel at the penalty phase of his trial. *749Essentially these claims are embodied in claim numbers 2, 3, 5, and 8 as set forth in footnote 3 of the majority opinion. I would remand this case to the district court with directions to remand to the state court to rehear the penalty phase of this case and permit Oxford’s current counsel to introduce any mitigating evidence he feels appropriate. Accordingly, I dissent.
At trial Oxford’s counsel introduced evidence of Oxford’s troubled childhood and his mental and physical history. At the penalty phase, however, he offered only one witness, Oxford’s wife, who testified very briefly about Oxford’s good relationship with their children and about episodes in which Oxford behaved strangely. Counsel did not call to the stand any of the psychiatrists who had examined or treated Oxford. In the penalty phase of a trial, “the jury is entitled to receive as much information as possible in order to make an informed decision as to punishment.” State v. Leisure, 749 S.W.2d 366, 379 (Mo.1988) (citations omitted), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 113 S.Ct. 343, 121 L.Ed.2d 259 (1992). The concept of individualized sentencing in capital eases requires that the senteneer possess “the fullest information possible concerning the defendant’s life and characteristics” as well as the circumstances of the particular offense. Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U.S. 586, 602-04, 98 S.Ct. 2954, 2963-65, 57 L.Ed.2d 973 (1978) (internal quotations and citations omitted).
As was its right, the prosecution offered very graphic and powerful testimony from the victims and relatives of victims of Oxford’s previous crimes. The prosecution presented to the jury the worst of Oxford’s behavior. It was incumbent upon defense counsel to focus on those aspects of Oxford’s background and mental impairments which could be offered in mitigation. Even though some, though not all, of such evidence would duplicate testimony given during the guilt phase of the trial, counsel had a responsibility to offer it in the penalty phase, where the focus is on determining whether life or death is the appropriate sentence for this particular defendant.
Oxford’s mother attests that Oxford was an unwanted child. She attempted to self-abort the pregnancy several times. After Oxford’s birth, she had no maternal feelings of love or affection and considered him an unwanted responsibility, yet she also refused to allow him to be adopted by others who offered to raise him. Oxford’s father was distant and unaffectionate. The only adult relative who gave positive attention to Oxford was an uncle, who committed suicide when Oxford was about seven years old.
At age seventeen months Oxford was hospitalized with pneumonia and received three blood transfusions to his head. After he came home from the hospital he was nervous and irritable, he could not sit still, and his body often twitched, even while he was sleeping. From his earliest days in kindergarten Oxford was disruptive, and no discipline from parents or teachers was effective. By second grade, medication was prescribed, but it made his condition worse. A change in medication caused an opposite reaction, and Oxford became a “zombie” who cried often and would sit and do nothing for long periods of time. His mother then began to alternate having him on and off the drug. He also had two concussions before the age of ten. Oxford’s paternal grandmother was in and out of mental institutions for most of her life, and she was treated with electric shock therapy on at least one occasion.
Around age ten Oxford began sniffing glue. By his teenage years he was taking other drugs such as speed and Valium. Around age thirteen Oxford began therapy with a psychiatrist. He was in therapy for about two years and was placed in a facility for about one and a half years while still undergoing therapy with the psychiatrist. Oxford also was placed in two other facilities during his teenage years. There was never any lasting change in his family circumstances or behavior. A psychiatrist who examined Oxford in 1987 and 1988 and testified at the guilt phase of the trial offered the opinion that Oxford was mentally ill, probably suffering from schizophrenia. The psychiatrist observed some of the same symptoms reported by Oxford’s family members throughout his childhood and adulthood and by his childhood therapist.
*750I recognize that Oxford does not make a claim of actual innocence to bring him technically within the miscarriage of justice standard. In my view, however, his claim that presentation to the jury of all the mitigating evidence would have provided a basis for avoiding the death penalty should fall into the same category.