Court Opinion

ID: 9713287
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 05:12:49.669801+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:17.987238
License: Public Domain

GIVAN, Justice.
In 1980, appellant was convicted in the Vigo Circuit Court of four counts of Murder. The jury recommended the death penalty. The trial judge followed the jury’s recommendation and sentenced appellant to death.
The original conviction was appealed and upheld by this Court. Wallace v. State (1985), Ind., 486 N.E.2d 445, cert. denied, (1986), 478 U.S. 1010, 106 S.Ct. 3311, 92 L.Ed.2d 723. In December of 1986, appellant filed a petition for post-conviction relief, which was denied by the trial court. That judgment was appealed to this Court and affirmed. Wallace v. State (1990), Ind., 553 N.E.2d 456, cert. denied, 500 U.S. 948, 111 S.Ct. 2250, 114 L.Ed.2d 491. In September of 1992, appellant filed a second petition for post-conviction relief, which also was denied by the trial court. This is an appeal from that decision.
The facts are: Appellant was in the process of burglarizing the home of Patrick and Teresa Gilligan when he was surprised by the family returning home. The Gilligans were accompanied by their two children, ages 4 and 5. At the time the victims were discovered, Mrs. Gilligan’s hands were tied behind her back, and the two children were tied together. Each victim had died by gunshots to the head. A more detailed recitation of the facts is found in the original appeal Wallace, supra, 486 N.E.2d at 445.
In that appeal, appellant raised the question of his competency to stand trial. After the appointment of doctors and a hearing, the trial court found originally that appellant was incompetent to stand trial, and he was sent to Logansport State Hospital. Our opinion in the original appeal cites the rather long history of appellant’s conduct upon which the first decisions of incompetency were based. This conduct prevailed over a period of time. However, at a subsequent hearing, it was brought out that several persons who had been around appellant during this period of time had observed him to act mentally incompetent only when the doctors were around and to speak of his conduct as an act to forestall being tried.
After hearing such evidence, the trial court ruled that appellant had been faking and that he in fact was competent to stand trial. Richard Milligan who had participated in several burglaries with appellant testified that he was “the brains” of the operation and that appellant had devised a system of using tape on a window to minimize the sound of breaking glass when they would break the window to gain entry. The original appeal covers approximately fifteen pages covering the issues raised by appellant.
In the second appeal, Wallace, supra, 553 N.E.2d at 456, this Court observed that many of the issues raised in the first post-conviction relief petition were issues which either were or could have been covered in the original appeal but because the State defended each of these issues and the trial court had decided all the issues on the merits, this Court would do likewise. Thus, on many of the issues, appellant received a second adjudication. That opinion covers approximately fifteen pages and covers eighteen issues presented to the Court.
Among those issues was the competency of the original trial counsel and appellate coun*376sel in the first appeal. One of the issues raised was that co-eounsel was ineffective because he did not present a detailed history of appellant’s past including his childhood which should have been presented to the jury as a mitigating factor concerning the death penalty.
At the post-conviction relief hearing, trial counsel testified that such evidence was considered. However, due to appellant’s criminal history and his record as a juvenile offender he felt it would be detrimental to appellant to open the question of appellant’s past history because his criminal conduct and delinquent conduct would overshadow any good that might be derived from the manner in which he had been treated as a child. This Court held that such a decision was a call to be made by trial counsel and did not indicate insufficiency of counsel.
As to appellate counsel, appellant claimed he was ineffective for failing to raise issues which this Court found during the first post-conviction appeal did not constitute reversible error. Thus, counsel was not ineffective for failing to raise the issues.
In the second post-conviction petition, appellant attempted again to raise several of the issues which already had been adjudicated and in addition presented a long litany of his history dating back to the type of person his grandfather was, the type of parents both his father and mother were, and the manner in which he was treated by other persons caring for him. After a brief summary of the content of the petition and the response by the State, the trial court observed that the issues had been adjudicated in this case and that evidence in fact had been presented concerning appellant’s deprived childhood and his psychological condition. After making such findings, the trial court sustained the State’s motion to dismiss.
The issues set forth in appellant’s brief in this appeal clearly demonstrate that the trial judge was correct when he held that the matters attempted to be presented in fact were adjudicated in the prior cases. Appellant does add the additional claim that he was deprived of meaningful assistance of counsel at the original post-conviction relief proceeding. His main thrust is that the deputy public defenders who handled the first post-conviction hearing were not skilled in capital cases and did not spend enough time in researching appellant’s childhood history in order to make a proper presentation to the court.
Although this was a capital case in its inception, the filing of a post-conviction relief petition, even in a capital case, does not require a particular expertise in the trying of a capital case in its inception but rather requires a degree of skill in the manner in which post-conviction relief is presented to the trial court. In this the public defenders demonstrated an acceptable degree of skill as recited by this Court on the first post-conviction appeal.
The main thrust of appellant’s appeal at this time is that his childhood treatment should have been delved into more thoroughly, especially on the presentation of evidence to the jury at the sentencing phase of the trial. It is not the manner in which a child is treated that excuses his later conduct or works as a mitigating factor in pronouncing sentence. Having been mistreated as a child is no license to commit crime. The real question whether it be the ability to form intent to commit a crime or a mental condition which should be considered as a mitigating factor is the mental condition of the defendant at the time the crime is committed.
As we said in Terry v. State (1984), Ind., 465 N.E.2d 1085, the defense of mental incapacity is always available. It would be entirely proper for a physician or layman for that matter to recite their belief that a defendant did not have the ability to form intent at the time of the commission of a crime based on a number of factors including mistreatment, medication, or intoxication. This does not mean that the childhood treatment, the medication, or intoxication are in and of themselves an excuse for committing a crime. It is the inability to form the intent at the time the crime was committed that is the issue before the court notwithstanding the cause therefor.
*377In the case at bar, the issue before the jury and the trial judge as to aggravators and mitigators was appellant’s ability to form the intent to commit the charged crimes. The evidence in this record recites that appellant was the “brains” in a series of burglaries. When Mr. and Mrs. Gilligan surprised him while he was burglarizing their house, he methodically executed them and stated he did this so they could not identify him later. He executed the two small children because he said he did not want them to suffer the trauma of growing up without parents. Following the commission of the crime, he spoke of it in almost a braggadocio manner.
At the time appellant first was declared incompetent to stand trial and the period of time following that while being held in a mental institution, he on several occasions referred to the fact that he was faking and in fact his “act” was only put on when the doctors were present. After hearing extended evidence on this subject, the trial court ruled that he in fact had been faking and that he was competent to stand trial. This Court will not usurp the prerogative of the trial court and reweigh the evidence. Braswell v. State (1990), Ind., 550 N.E.2d 1280.
Appellant’s claim that he was under the influence of alcohol and drugs at the time of the crime is to no avail where it is shown that he had considerable ability to act and react during the commission of the crime. Terry, supra.
The grist of this ease has been ground both by the trial court and this Court beyond reason. We presume that because this is a death penalty ease trial counsel, appellate counsel, and counsel at both post-conviction relief hearings have extended themselves to the utmost and have done so in a competent manner. It would be grossly unfair to brand counsel as ineffective simply because they did not succeed in their endeavors in appellant’s behalf.
The trial court is affirmed. This case is remanded to the trial court for the setting of a date for execution.
SHEPARD, C.J., and DICKSON, J., concur.
DeBRULER, J., concurs in result with separate opinion.
SULLIVAN, J., concurs in result with separate opinion.