Court Opinion

ID: 9498003
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 17:05:28.602238+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:58:33.075799
License: Public Domain

TRAXLER, Circuit Judge,
concurring in the judgment:
I do not agree that the performance of Moody’s trial counsel met the requisite *155objective standard of reasonableness, and I am satisfied that the state court’s contrary conclusion was based upon an unreasonable application of Supreme Court precedents. Accordingly, I cannot concur in the majority opinion. However, because I cannot say that, but for the deficient performance of counsel, there is a reasonable probability that the result of the sentencing proceeding would have been different, I concur in the judgment of the majority.
I.
On September 16, 1994, Moody shot Donnie Robbins in the back of the head as Robbins leaned over the hood of an automobile. The next morning, Moody confessed to the murder and directed police to the murder weapon. Four days later, Moody provided officers with a second, more detailed confession, in which he admitted to officers that he had been having an affair with Donnie’s wife Wanda and that Wanda asked him to murder Donnie so that she could collect proceeds from Donnie’s life insurance.
Lead counsel Charles Harp was appointed to represent Moody on January 30, 1995, and Jon Myers was appointed as co-counsel on February 13, 1995. Harp met with Moody for the first time on March 29, 1995. On state post-conviction review, Harp stated that he was aware from the outset that his client “had provided detailed statements confessing to the crime” and “that unless th [e] statements were suppressed, there was a substantial likelihood Mr. Moody would be convicted of first degree murder.” J.A. 275. However, Harp admitted that he “did not make any effort to pursue an independent investigation into Mr. Moody’s family members or background” and “did not at any time pri- or to trial meet with [Moody] to explain to him the importance of his family as potential witnesses during the sentencing phase of his case.” Id.
Attorney Myers met with Moody for the first time on June 14, 1995. Moody told Myers “that he preferred that [his family] not know or be involved in his trial,” J.A. 282, a preference that Myers appears to have honored without further inquiry or protest. Like Harp, Myers also “did not explain to [Moody] in any detail the importance of his family as potential witnesses at that time.” J.A. 283.
On July 4, 1995, nine days before the trial, Myers met with Moody for the second time. Moody told Myers that his father and stepmother had been killed in a violent car accident, but did provide information sufficient for Myers to contact a half-brother, Fred Mayle, who resided in Florida. Myers also noted the existence of two step-brothers and a step-sister who Moody apparently told him “would turn [their] own parents in.” J.A. 290. Myers acknowledged that “Moody provided [him] with information to contact his half-brother, Fred Mayle,” during this second interview, but that he “did not make any effort to pursue an independent investigation into Mr. Moody’s family members and his childhood until July 15, 1995.” J.A. 283.
Harp and Myers met with Moody a final time on Sunday, July 9, 1995, the day before the trial was set to begin. Over the course of the next five days, the state presented the testimony of seven witnesses. Moody’s confessions were accepted into evidence. On Friday, July 14, Moody withdrew his plea of not guilty and entered a plea of guilty to murder in the first degree. The sentencing phase was set to begin on Monday, July 17. Only then did trial counsel begin their “independent investigation into Mr. Moody’s family members and his childhood.” J.A. 283. On Saturday, July 15, Myers contacted Mayle and learned that Moody’s father *156was alive and that numerous other family members lived in the Ohio area. However, Myers still waited until the following day to make any attempt to contact these other family members. Unsurprisingly, Myers stated that:
[b]ecause of the short time frame, I was only able to secure his mother and one half-brother to testify a[t] the sentencing hearing beginning the next day. I was not able to contact many family members to testify or obtain other information because the sentencing phase was beginning the next day.
J.A. 283. The mother and half-brother, however, were ultimately of limited benefit to Moody. Moody’s mother lost custody of Moody when he was approximately five years old and only saw him on a handful of occasions over the next twelve years. The half-brother did not see him at all during this time period.
In 1998, Moody sought post-conviction relief before the state MAR court, asserting inter alia, that trial counsel unreasonably failed to investigate mitigating evidence of his family background and social history and that, had Moody’s jury been provided with the additional testimony that his post-conviction counsel uncovered, there was a reasonable probability that at least one juror would have refused to impose the death sentence. Within a matter of days, Moody’s post-conviction counsel had secured twenty affidavits from family members and school personnel who had frequent contact with Moody during the years after he was removed from his mother’s custody and before he left his father’s home, i.e. from approximately age five to age seventeen. These witnesses attested, in graphic detail, to the constant physical and psychological abuse that was inflicted by Moody’s father and stepmother at home and by his schoolmates during his junior-high and high school years, as well as to their willingness -to testify had they been contacted by trial counsel.
The state MAR court acknowledged that “there was in existence considerable information about [Moody] that might have been uncovered by a more thorough investigative effort,” J.A. 104, and that “trial counsel could have done a better job of gathering and presenting evidence in mitigation (e.g., by making earlier contact with a number of [Moody’s] family members in Ohio),” J.A. 89-90. However, the court found that counsel’s investigation into Moody’s family history and social background was not deficient, in large part because Moody had “withheld information from his trial counsel about his family members and expressed a desire not to have his family members either advised about his trial or involved in his trial,” when Myers interviewed him on June 14, and had “not provide[d] truthful information regarding his family” in that he “falsely reportfed] that his father had been killed in a car accident” when Myers interviewed him on July 4. J.A. 97-98.
II.
In order to establish ineffective assistance of counsel, Moody was required to demonstrate (1) that his “counsel’s representation fell below an objective standard of reasonableness,” measured by the “prevailing professional norms,” Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 688, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984), and (2) “that there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different,” id. at 694, 104 S.Ct. 2052. “Unless a defendant makes both showings, it cannot-be said that the conviction or death sentence resulted from a breakdown in the adversary process that renders the result unreliable.” Id. at 687, 104 S.Ct. 2052.
*157Because Moody’s Sixth Amendment claim was adjudicated on the merits by the North Carolina state court, we are precluded from granting habeas relief unless the state court’s adjudication of the claim “resulted in a decision that was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States” or “resulted in a decision that was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding.” 28 U.S.C.A. § 2254(d) (West Supp.2004); see also Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 412-13, 120 S.Ct. 1495, 146 L.Ed.2d 389 (2000).
A.
I begin with Moody’s claim that his counsel’s representation fell below an objective standard of reasonableness, measured by the prevailing professional norms, because they failed to investigate adequately his family history and social background.
It is well-established that, in death penalty cases, “counsel has a duty to make reasonable investigations or to make a reasonable decision that makes particular investigations unnecessary. In any ineffectiveness case, a particular decision not to investigate must be directly assessed for reasonableness in all the circumstances, applying a heavy measure of deference to counsel’s judgments.” Strickland, 466 U.S. at 691, 104 S.Ct. 2052. “[I]n deciding whether [counsel] exercised reasonable professional judgment,” we “focus on whether the investigation supporting counsel’s decision not to introduce mitigating evidence of [defendant’s] background was itself reasonable.” Wiggins v. Smith, 539 U.S. 510, 522-23, 123 S.Ct. 2527, 156 L.Ed.2d 471 (2003) (internal alteration and quotation marks omitted). A decision not to investigate is “reasonable precisely to the extent that reasonable professional judgments support the limitations on investigation.” Strickland, 466 U.S. at 691, 104 S.Ct. 2052.
In Strickland, the Supreme Court also held that “[t]he reasonableness of counsel’s actions may be determined or substantially influenced by the defendant’s own statements or actions.” Id. Specifically, the Court recognized that:
[counsel's actions are usually based, quite properly, on informed strategic choices made by the defendant and on information supplied by the defendant. In particular, what investigation decisions are reasonable depends critically on such information.... [W]hen a defendant has given counsel reason to believe that pursuing certain investigations would be fruitless or even harmful, counsel’s failure to pursue those investigations may not later be challenged as unreasonable. In short, inquiry into counsel’s conversations with the defendant may be critical to a proper assessment of counsel’s investigation decisions, just as it may be critical to a proper assessment of counsel’s other litigation decisions.

Id.

In Wiggins,' the Court expounded on the obligations of counsel in the context of investigating a capital defendant’s background. There, counsel’s pretrial investigation uncovered evidence of Wiggins’ foster-care background and general misery as a youth, but counsel failed to expand the investigation and did not ultimately present any such evidence in mitigation. The Court held that this was deficient performance because “counsel abandoned their investigation of petitioner’s background after having acquired only rudimentary knowledge of his history from a narrow set of *158sources.” Wiggins, 539 U.S. at 524, 123 S.Ct. 2527. Also, the court noted that:
counsel uncovered no evidence in their investigation to suggest that a mitigation case, in its own right, would have been counterproductive, or that further investigation would have been fruitless; this case is therefore distinguishable from our precedents in which we have found limited investigations into mitigating evidence to be reasonable. See e.g., Strickland, 466 U.S. at 699, 104 S.Ct. 2052 (concluding that counsel could “reasonably surmise ... that character and psychological evidence would be of little help”); Burger v. Kemp, 483 U.S. 776, 794, 107 S.Ct. 3114, 97 L.Ed.2d 638 (1987) (concluding counsel’s limited investigation was reasonable because he interviewed all witnesses brought to his attention, discovering little that was helpful and much that was harmful); Darden v. Wainwright, 477 U.S. 168, 186, 106 S.Ct. 2464, 91 L.Ed.2d 144 (1986) (concluding that counsel engaged in extensive preparation and that the decision to present a mitigation case would have resulted in the jury hearing evidence that petitioner had been convicted of violent crimes and spent much of his life in jail).
Id. at 525,123 S.Ct. 2527.
In this case, I have no difficulty concluding that trial counsel’s limited investigation into mitigating evidence of Moody’s childhood was unreasonable and that the conclusion of the state MAR court to the contrary was an unreasonable application of these governing precedents.
Trial counsel was admittedly aware, from the outset, that his client “had provided detailed statements confessing to the crime” and “that unless th[e] statements were suppressed, there was a substantial likelihood Mr. Moody would be convicted of first degree murder.” J.A. 275. Yet, despite this recognition, trial counsel never explained to Moody the significance of family and social history as mitigating evidence and accepted without further inquiry Moody’s request that his family not be notified of the capital trial. Counsel also failed to contact the single family member identified by Moody or to conduct any other independent investigation until after the guilt phase had concluded — a mere two days before the sentencing proceeding began.
Obviously, it cannot be said that trial counsel made a strategic choice not to investigate or present background information after “fulfilling] them obligation to conduct a thorough investigation of the defendant’s background.” Williams, 529 U.S. at 396, 120 S.Ct. 1495. On the contrary, counsel had planned to advance Moody’s abusive and traumatic childhood as mitigating in nature, but did not get around to contacting any of Moody’s family members who might be able to corroborate that abuse until the eve of the sentencing hearing. And even though Moody told his counsel “that he preferred that [his family] not know or be involved in his trial,” J.A. 282, it cannot be said that Moody made an “informed strategic choice[ ]” regarding such an investigation, Strickland, 466 U.S. at 691, 104 S.Ct. 2052. Moody’s trial counsel admitted that they failed to explain the significance of such an investigation to him at the time. For the same reason, counsel cannot justify their eleventh-hour investigation as a reasonable decision not to investigate based upon “information supplied by the defendant,” id., nor can it be said that they “reasonably surmise[d] from [their] conversations with” Moody that further investigation “would be of little help,” id. at 699, 104 S.Ct. 2052. There is absolutely no indication that Moody gave counsel reason to believe that pursuing an investigation into *159his family history and social background would be fruitless or harmful to the case in mitigation.
In this case, counsel failed to fulfill their obligation to explain to their client the capital process and the importance of mitigating evidence in a penalty phase and failed to fulfill their obligation to conduct a reasonably thorough investigation of Moody’s background. The critical nature of the former obligation simply cannot be divorced from the latter. For these reasons, I cannot endorse the state court’s view that counsel’s investigation into Moody’s childhood was not deficient under Strickland and its progeny because Moody had not been forthcoming about his family members, expressed a desire they not be advised about or involved in the trial, and falsely reported that his father and stepmother were deceased.
In sum, I would hold that the state court’s determination that counsel’s performance was not deficient was an unreasonable one, and conclude de novo that counsel’s investigation into mitigating evidence was plainly deficient. By waiting until the last minute to conduct even the most cursory investigation, Moody lost the benefit of readily-available witnesses who could have offered independent, eyewitness accounts of the physical and mental abuse Moody sustained from the age of five until the age of seventeen. From the outset of the case, counsel knew that the only hope of avoiding a conviction was to successfully exclude Moody’s confessions and “had every reason to develop the most powerful mitigation case possible.” Wiggins, 539 U.S. at 526, 123 S.Ct. 2527. Thus, it is apparent that counsel’s “failure to investigate thoroughly resulted from inattention, not reasoned strategic judgment.” Id. Trial counsel’s investigation into Moody’s childhood abuse, and the resulting failure to present Moody’s family members, schoolmates, and school officials who knew him during these years, was constitutionally deficient, and I am of the view that the state court’s decision to the contrary is an unreasonable application of Supreme Court precedent.
B.
My conclusion that counsel’s representation fell below an objective standard of reasonableness, however, is alone insufficient to support a grant of habeas relief to Moody. Moody was also required to demonstrate that his counsel’s performance prejudiced him; specifically, “that there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s unprofessional errors, the result of the. proceeding would have been different.” Strickland, 466 U.S. at 694, 104 S.Ct. 2052. “When a defendant challenges a death sentence ..., the question is whether there is a reasonable probability that, absent the errors, the sentencer ,.. would have concluded that the balance of aggravating and mitigating circumstances did not warrant death.” Id. at 695, 104 S.Ct. 2052.
In my view, the question of whether counsel’s errors prejudiced Moody is a close one. However, because trial counsel presented some evidence of Moody’s traumatic and abusive childhood (albeit from less than ideal sources), and at least some of the jurors found mitigating circumstances based upon this evidence, I concur in the judgment affirming the denial of habeas relief.
As noted above, due to the eleventh-hour investigation conducted by trial counsel, the only family members to testify were Moody’s mother, Janice Moody, and his half-brother, Carl Jacobs. According to the summary adopted by the state MAR court,
Carl Jacobs testified that he moved into his mother’s household for a few months when he was about 15 and lived there *160with six other children and Patrick’s father, Dick Moody. According to Carl, Patrick was a pre-schooler at that time. He remembered Dick Moody disciplining Patrick by hitting him hard with a thick board. Carl also testified that he saw Dick Moody attempt to break plates on Defendant’s head and that Patrick would scream and cry. Patrick would be ldeked in his room without food for periods lasting up to 18 hours. Asked why his stepfather punished Patrick, Carl testified: “If he didn’t do — if Pat didn’t do what Dick wanted, it could be any reason whatsoever. He really didn’t need a reason to do what he did.... If he was in a bad mood, that’s all it took.” Janice Moody, the defendant’s mother, testified that Dick Moody’s abuse led to her filing for divorce when Patrick was very young: “I asked him to leave my house because he was getting very violent at all times and at the time he told me he didn’t have to leave and he kept getting more abusive and acted real bad to all the kids and I was afraid he would hurt them. So I got a court order to get him out of my house.” Mrs. Moody testified, that she thought that Dick Moody abused Patrick in order to hurt her: “He would take Pat’s food from him and send him to his room. He might not be mad at Pat. He punished Pat because that hurt me.... ” She explained that she and Patrick were both afraid of Dick Moody: “I was afraid for my son because he was only two and I was afraid he might kill him because he being in such a rage and mad at me or something and he would take it out on Patrick.”
S.J.A. 808-09 (internal citations omitted) (alteration in original).
Because Carl Jacobs and Janice Moody had little or no contact with Moody from the time that he was four or five years old until he was seventeen years old, their testimony was of limited benefit. However, Moody himself did offer testimony, largely unrefuted, about his experiences in his father’s home after the age of five. He confirmed that he was placed by the courts with his father, stepmother, and half-siblings at a very young age, and that he rarely saw his mother thereafter. Moody testified that he was not given appropriate clothes, that he was sometimes forced to go three of four days without food, and that he was often locked in a room. He testified that his father hit him constantly, and threw him through a plate glass window on one occasion. He also testified that his father shot him with BB guns, threatened to kill him, shot him in the leg with a bow and arrow, and constantly beat him. He testified that his step-mother also beat him and deprived him of food, and that he was shunned by his stepbrothers and step-sisters.
The jury also heard evidence of Moody’s childhood circumstances during this period via the testimony of Dr. Jerry Noble, who interviewed and evaluated Moody for purposes of presenting mitigating evidence. Dr. Noble “diagnosed [Moody] as suffering from an attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, alcohol dependence, a mixed personality disorder, child abuse syndrome, and psychologically caused physical problems,” and “testified that [Moody] had borderline intellectual functioning with a full scale IQ of 81.” ' State v. Moody, 345 N.C. 563, 481 S.E.2d 629, 632 (1997). Dr. Noble also gleaned corroborating information of childhood abuse from his review of school and mental health reports. He was able to relate to the jury that Moody reported abuse to school officials during these years, and that a neighbor contacted Social Services to report that Moody was bruised and had been locked in his room for a long interval of time. In addition, Dr. Noble testified that Moody’s “half-brother Steve *161confirmed [Moody’s] abuse by [his] father to [a] therapist at the mental health center.” S.J.A. 335. Dr. Noble testified that, according to the report:
Steve is said to have reported his own abuse by [Moody’s] father between ages 7 and 11, including comments that he was often beaten with boards and also that Steven is said to have described Patrick’s father as brutal. The therapist’s notes included information that Mr. Moody’s father kicked out the children from the home by the time that they were around 16 years of age, at least several of the children. The therapist noted that Mr. Moody’s brother ... described Patrick as his father’s scapegoat. On the other hand, that Mr. Moody’s stepmother did not want him, had never wanted him, had taken little responsibility for him and showed little attention to Mr. Moody. That Mr. Moody had’been raised under many restrictions with very few privileges. That Mr. Moody was hyperactive and that he had poor social skills, especially with women.
S.J.A. 336.
Against this mitigating evidence, the state presented evidence, largely uncontra-dicted by Moody, that Moody began an affair with the victim’s wife in July 1994 and, over the course of several weeks in September, conspired with her to kill Donnie and share the life insurance proceeds as a result of that relationship. They discussed numerous plans, including Moody’s suggestion that Donnie could be poisoned with mercury and at least one attempt to hire a hit man who failed to show up. The owner and two residents of the trailer park where Donnie and Wanda lived “testified that Donnie and Wanda argued often and that on at least two occasions these residents had identified mercury in the beer that Donnie was drinking.” Moody, 481 S.E.2d at 632. There was also evidence of a plan for Moody to kill Donnie with a machete that Wanda and Moody had purchased at a nearby store, but Moody fled the area where they had planned the attack when he heard someone shouting nearby. The final plan was carried out. Moody lured the victim to a secluded area under the pretense of buying a used automobile, and shot him in the back of the head “execution-style” with a .32-caliber semiautomatic pistol. Donnie’s life insurance agent testified that Wanda “called her at 5:30 a.m. the morning after the murder to complete the paperwork necessary. for Wanda’s claim for the insurance benefits payable upon Donnie’s death.” Id.
' In addition to the compelling evidence of the extensive planning by Moody and Wanda to murder Donnie for pecuniary gain, the jury heard devastating evidence of Moody’s prior criminal record. Moody had been convicted in Florida of felony burglary, grand theft, carrying a concealed weapon,' attempted first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder. The attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder arose from Moody’s entry into the home of a woman whom he had been hired to kill for $2,500.
At the conclusion of the sentencing phase of the trial, the jury unanimously found the existence of the only two aggravating circumstances submitted to it for consideration: (1) that Moody had been previously convicted of a felony involving the use of violence; and (2) that the murder was committed for pecuniary gain. The trial judge submitted twenty-one mitigating circumstances to the jury for consideration. Twelve jurors found that Moody aided in the apprehension of another capital felon; four jurors found that the murder was committed while Moody was under the influence of mental or emotional *162disturbance; one juror found that Moody acted under the domination of another person; two jurors found that Moody was physically and verbally abused by his father during his formative years; and one juror found that Moody suffered during his childhood and adolescent years as a result of the lack of love and nurturing from his father and step-mother. No juror found any of the remaining fifteen mitigating circumstances. Death was recommended.
Viewing the totality of the evidence before the jury and the mitigating circumstances which were submitted and found, I cannot conclude that there is a reasonable probability that, had trial counsel presented the potential mitigation evidence developed during habeas along with the mitigation evidence presented, that the jury would have returned a life sentence. Accordingly, while I believe the state court’s determination that counsel’s investigation was not deficient was an unreasonable one, I concur in the judgment denying habeas relief because I ultimately cannot say that counsel’s deficient performance prejudiced Moody.