Court Opinion

ID: 9490095
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 13:32:35.598184+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:53:53.646919
License: Public Domain

WOLLMAN, Circuit Judge.
Charles Laverne Singleton appeals from the district court’s1 order dismissing his petition for writ of habeas corpus.2 We affirm.
Singleton was sentenced to death in 1979 by the Circuit Court of Ashley County, Arkansas, for capital murder arising out of the death of a storekeeper whom Singleton stabbed during the course of a robbery.3 The sentence and conviction were affirmed by the Supreme Court of Arkansas. Singleton v. State, 274 Ark. 126, 623 S.W.2d 180 (1981), cert. denied, 456 U.S. 938, 102 S.Ct. 1996, 72 L.Ed.2d 458 (1982). Singleton’s petition to proceed pursuant to Rule 37 of the Arkansas Rules of Criminal Procedure was denied without written opinion in 1982.
Singleton then filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas. In Singleton v. Lockhart, 653 F.Supp. 1114 (E.D.Ark.1986), the district court vacated the death penalty on the basis of the prohibition against double counting announced by this court in Collins v. Lockhart, 754 F.2d 258 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 474 U.S. 1013, 106 *873S.Ct. 546, 88 L.Ed.2d 475 (1985). The district court dismissed Singleton’s contentions regarding the guilt phase of his trial and deferred the other issues relating to the penalty phase and the death sentence.
Both Singleton and the State appealed from the district court’s ruling. Following oral argument in this court but before our decision, the United States Supreme Court decided Lowenfield v. Phelps, 484 U.S. 231, 108 S.Ct. 546, 98 L.Ed.2d 568 (1988). After supplemental briefing and reargument, we held, based upon our contemporaneously filed opinion in Perry v. Lockhart, 871 F.2d 1384 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 493 U.S. 959, 110 S.Ct. 378, 107 L.Ed.2d 363 (1989), that Low-enfield had implicitly overruled Collins. Accordingly, we reversed the district court’s ruling setting aside the death sentence and ordered that the sentence be reinstated. We affirmed the district court’s denial of Singleton’s guilt phase contentions. Singleton v. Lockhart, 871 F.2d 1395 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 493 U.S. 874, 110 S.Ct. 207, 107 L.Ed.2d 160 (1989).
On remand, the district court took up the matter of Singleton’s remaining contentions. On July 12, 1990, the district court denied those claims and dismissed the petition. Singleton v. Lockhart (E.D.Ark.PB-C-82-165). On appeal, we affirmed the dismissal. Singleton v. Lockhart, 962 F.2d 1315 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 506 U.S. 964, 113 S.Ct. 435,121 L.Ed.2d 355 (1992).
In December of 1992, Singleton filed an action in the Circuit Court of Jefferson County, Arkansas, alleging that he was incompetent to be executed and that he had not been afforded the procedural guarantees outlined in Ford v. Wainwright, 477 U.S. 399, 106 S.Ct. 2595, 91 L.Ed.2d 335 (1986).
While the state court action was pending, the United States Supreme Court granted certiorari in Tennessee v. Middlebrooks, 507 U.S. 1028, 113 S.Ct. 1840, 123 L.Ed.2d 466 (1993), a ease that would again have presented the issue of double counting in capital sentencing cases. Shortly thereafter, an execution date was set for Singleton.
Singleton then filed the present petition, alleging both the double counting and the Ford v. Wainwright claims. In view of the pending state court action and what it assumed would be a forthcoming decision in Tennessee v. Middlebrooks, the district court held the petition in abeyance while the state court litigation proceeded. In Singleton v. Ended, 316 Ark. 133, 870 S.W.2d 742, cert. denied sub nom. Singleton v. Norris, 513 U.S. 960, 115 S.Ct. 419, 130 L.Ed.2d 334 (1994), the Supreme Court of Arkansas rejected Singleton’s Ford v. Wainwright claims. Thereafter, the district court held two hearings on Singleton’s present petition. The first, held on May 17, 1995, related to Singleton’s competency to be executed. The second, relating to Singleton’s claim of actual innocence, was held on July 24,1995.
The district court found that Singleton, who was voluntarily taking antipsychotic medication, was competent. The district court, noting that the Supreme Court had dismissed as improvidently granted the writ of certiorari in Tennessee v. Middlebrooks, see 510 U.S. 124, 114 S.Ct. 651, 126 L.Ed.2d 555 (1993), rejected Singleton’s double counting and actual innocence claims. It is from the denial of his claim of unconstitutional double counting that Singleton now appeals. Although he raises the possibility that he may in the future have a claim of incompetency, Singleton concedes that he currently has no support for such a claim in view of his voluntary ingestion of antipsychotic medication. .Singleton does not appeal from the denial of his claim of actual innocence.
Singleton asks that we reconsider our decision in Perry that Lowenfield v. Phelps implicitly overruled our earlier double counting holding in Collins v. Lockhart. He contends that the Arkansas capital murder statute does not provide the narrowing function mandated by the Constitution. We as a panel are not at liberty to overrule the established law of the circuit, however, see, e.g., Snell v. Lockhart, 14 F.3d 1289, 1305 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 513 U.S. 960, 115 S.Ct. 419, 130 L.Ed.2d 334 (1994), and thus Perry must stand as our court’s interpretation of the Arkansas capital murder statute. See Wainwright v. Lockhart, 80 F.3d 1226, 1231 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, - U.S. -, 117 S.Ct. 395, 136 L.Ed.2d 310 .(1996), petition *874for cert. filed, No. 96-7351 (U.S. Jan. 7, 1997); Ruiz v. Norris, 71 F.3d 1404, 1408 (8th Cir.1995), cert. denied, - U.S. -, 117 S.Ct. 384, 136 L.Ed.2d 301 (1996); Snell v. Lockhart, 14 F.3d at 1305.
Following the submission of this appeal, the Supreme Court of Arkansas filed its opinion in Brown v. State, 325 Ark. 504, 929 S.W.2d .l46 (1996), which holds that second-degree murder is not a lesser included offense of capital felony murder. We granted Singleton’s- motion that the parties be permitted to file supplemental briefs on the question of the impact of the holding in Brown on the narrowing function of the Arkansas capital murder statute.
In Wainwright v. Norris, No. 94-3525EA (8th Cir. Jan. 2,1997) (order), and in Ruiz v. Norris, 104 F.3d 163 (8th Cir.1997), petition for cert. filed, No. 97-7352 (Jan. 7, 1997), we held that Brown does not read out of section 5-10-101(a) the narrowing element that the killing be done “under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life.” Wainwright, order at 2; Ruiz, 104 F.3d at 165-66. Because we see no material differences between the circumstances of Singleton’s conviction and those in Wainwright and Ruiz, we reject Singleton’s contention that Brown eviscerates the basis of our holding in Perry that the Arkansas capital felony murder statute adequately narrows the class of death-eligible murderers.
As indicated above, Singleton makes no claim that he is currently incompetent to be executed. Accordingly, the district court’s ruling on that stands unchallenged and is thus affirmed. Our ruling on this issue does not foreclose Singleton from raising a future claim of incompetence based upon conditions different from those that led to the district court’s ruling in the present case, subject, of course, to whatever procedural objections the State may raise to such a claim.
The order dismissing the petition for writ of habeas corpus is affirmed.

. The Honorable Garnett Thomas Eisele, United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Arkansas.

. In view of our holding on the merits of Singleton’s appeal, we need not decide whether, as the State contends, the recently enacted Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, Pub.L. 104-132, 110 Stat. 1214, bars our consideration of Singleton’s current petition.

.Singleton was convicted under Arlc.Stát.Ann. § 41-1501. That section has been codified as Ark.Code Ann. § 5-10-101(a) (Supp.1995).