Court Opinion

ID: 9575661
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:15:44.510741+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:49:40.901745
License: Public Domain

*607SILER, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I have all due respect for my colleagues in this case. As a consequence, I concur with much of the majority opinion, but I dissent on part II.B., where the majority concludes that Johnson did not have effective assistance of counsel at the penalty phase of the trial under Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984).
As the majority states, in order to prevail, Johnson must show both that his representation was constitutionally deficient and that he was prejudiced as a consequence. Id. at 687, 104 S.Ct. 2052. The majority agrees with the district court that he satisfied both prongs. In the post-conviction proceedings, the Ohio Court of Appeals found that Johnson’s representation was not constitutionally deficient. It did not discuss the prejudice prong in full, but found that Johnson was not prejudiced by the failure of counsel to demonstrate that Johnson “did well in structured environments.” State v. Johnson, No. C-000090, 2000 WL 1760225, at *9 (Ohio Ct. App. Dec.1, 2000). As this prejudice prong is much easier to resolve, my dissent primarily discusses that aspect of the case.
The majority says that the standard of review is de novo, because the Ohio Court of Appeals did not rule fully on the prejudice prong. My dissent follows that standard, even though the briefs for both parties and the oral argument indicated that the standard was the unreasonable application of federal law by the Ohio Court of Appeals. Nevertheless, Rompilla v. Beard, 545 U.S. 374, 390, 125 S.Ct. 2456, 162 L.Ed.2d 360 (2005), followed this procedure by reviewing the prejudice prong de novo when the state court did not reach that issue. The majority correctly states that under the prejudice prong of Strickland, we must determine whether Johnson has shown “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. We must also remember that the burden of demonstrating prejudice is upon Johnson. Id. at 693, 104 S.Ct. 2052. The district court concluded that Johnson had shown prejudice in counsel’s performance in one sentence when it said: “There is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s errors, the jury would have concluded that the balance of aggravating and mitigating circumstances did not warrant death.”
In order to determine prejudice, we should compare the mitigation evidence offered at trial and the mitigation evidence that Johnson alleges should have been introduced. Johnson claims that counsel erred by not presenting the following information: (1) Demeatra Johnson’s dysfunctional background, drug and alcohol abuse, physical abuse, criminal record, and the effect it had on her ability to raise Rayshawn; (2) Mirian Faulkner’s dysfunctional background, drug and alcohol abuse and physical abuse, and the effect it had on her ability to raise Demeatra and Ra-yshawn; and (3) Rayshawn Johnson’s dysfunctional background, drug and alcohol abuse, and physical abuse.
The Ohio Court of Appeals found that most of this additional evidence that Johnson desired “was cumulative and could be found in some form either in the testimony or in the documents admitted at the mitigation hearing.” Johnson, 2000 WL 1760225, at *9. It did admit, however, that the fact that Faulkner allegedly physically abused Johnson was not placed into evidence. Johnson’s counsel was trying to show that Rayshawn came from a good background furnished by a loving grandmother, and evidence of abuse by Faulkner would contradict that. Moreover, *608there was much evidence that Faulkner did not abuse Rayshawn. Mattie Bobbs, Faulkner’s niece, said that she never saw Faulkner hit Rayshawn but, instead, treated him like he was her favorite. Wayne Nickels also said that Faulkner did not abuse Rayshawn, but disciplined him for not cleaning up the kitchen or his bedroom or for not doing his homework. Moreover, Rayshawn never told his attorneys that Faulkner was physically abusive to him. Instead, he said that his grandmother was “nice,” “always got me out of trouble,” and was “always on me to do right.”
A lot of the evidence which the majority suggests could have been uncovered by an interview of Demeatra or by an investigation of Faulkner’s history shows mistreatment by Faulkner to Demeatra, not to Rayshawn. The majority also asserts that the defense team did not interview Demea-tra, although that was contradicted by defense counsel Joe Dixon. The majority questions the credibility of Dixon, but the district court did not make a credibility finding on Dixon, and it is not for this court to make factual findings. Obviously, Dixon had a flawed memory on some matters, such as the name of one of the investigators, but we should be ever mindful of the fact that some period of time passed between the trial in 1998 and the habeas corpus proceeding some six years later. If we were to find facts, I would credit the statement of Dixon that he had interviewed Demeatra and she “wasn’t any help.”
The majority also criticizes the use by defense counsel of Dr. Hawkins, a psychiatrist, their mitigation expert. Admittedly, Hawkins’s testimony at times was damaging to Johnson, but if counsel had declined to put Hawkins on the stand, this case might instead be about ineffective assistance of counsel for failure to use him. The majority admits that defense counsel is not obligated to shop for “the ‘best’ experts” who will testify in the most advantageous way possible. See Reynolds v. Bagley, 498 F.3d 549, 557 (6th Cir.2007). It criticizes the defense for putting Hawkins on the stand to contradict the defense theory. However, many times counsel cannot coach expert witnesses into testifying to what they desire. In this case, Hawkins was employed to determine the presence of mental illness and for other mitigating factors for Johnson. He reviewed many records, interviewed Johnson, and had an associate administer psychological tests. Defense counsel cannot put words into a psychiatrist’s mouth, and it would be improper if they had done so. The majority suggests Hawkins’s testimony “could have been prevented if the attorneys had given Hawkins a more complete picture of Johnson’s background.” However, nothing in the record shows that. It is only speculation.
Moreover, Hawkins provided much of the evidence which was cumulative to that which Johnson now desires to place into the record. For instance, he testified that Johnson’s family was “some place between terrible and chaotic.” He testified that Johnson’s mother, Demeatra, was heavily abusing drugs during her pregnancy and Johnson’s birth, that she had never functioned as a mother, and that her presence in Johnson’s life, when it occurred, created problems. He also said that Johnson’s father, a drug abuser, was a nonentity in Johnson’s life. Hawkins also testified that Johnson began using many drugs and alcohol at age twelve or thirteen and was a chronic drug abuser. He said that Johnson’s step-grandfather, Vernon Faulkner, may have had a drinking problem, that right and wrong were not enforced very well in the home, that there was no male role model to speak of, and that petitioner was surrounded by negative peer pressure.
*609The majority also criticizes the fact that the defense put in many documents as evidence during the mitigation phase of trial, without further summarizing them. That is true, but it still does not show that the result of the proceeding would have been different had they summarized them. The majority criticizes the fact that many irrelevant documents were presented to the jury, but no prejudice occurred as a result of that procedure.
This case differs from most other ineffective assistance of counsel cases because here six persons, including trial counsel, conducted a mitigation investigation that took approximately two months. The defense also presented the testimony of Johnson’s foster mother, Norma Berry, Faulkner, and Hawkins, as well as Johnson’s own unsworn statement and various records which were not well organized. This is in contrast to the evidence presented in Wiggins v. Smith, 539 U.S. 510, 515, 123 S.Ct. 2527, 156 L.Ed.2d 471 (2003), where the only mitigating evidence was the age of the defendant and the fact that he had no prior criminal record. Similarly, in Powell v. Collins, 332 F.3d 376, 398-99 (6th Cir.2003), trial counsel spent about two days preparing for mitigation and did not interview any family members or friends of the defendant. Instead, this case is closer to Smith v. Mitchell, 348 F.3d 177, 200 (6th Cir.2003), where we found that virtually all of the mitigating evidence which was allegedly omitted was presented during mitigation. As stated in Hill v. Mitchell, 400 F.3d 308, 319 (6th Cir.2005), “in order to establish prejudice, the new evidence that a habeas petitioner presents must differ in a substantial way— in strength and subject matter — from the evidence actually presented at sentencing.” In that case, the description of the evidence that a prepared mitigation specialist could have presented did not stand “out to the jury in such a way as to change the calculation the jury previously made when weighing the aggravating and mitigating circumstances of the murder.” Id.
We must be highly deferential to the performance of counsel. “It is all too tempting ... to second-guess counsel’s assistance after conviction or adverse sentence, and it is all too easy for a court, examining counsel’s defense after it has proved unsuccessful, to conclude that a particular act or omission of counsel was unreasonable.” Strickland, 466 U.S. at 689, 104 S.Ct. 2052. Moreover, we need to make every effort “to eliminate the distorting effects of hindsight, to reconstruct the circumstances of counsel’s challenged conduct, and to evaluate the conduct from counsel’s perspective at the time.” Id. We should not succumb “to the very temptation that Strickland warned against.” Rompilla v. Beard, 545 U.S. 374, 408, 125 S.Ct. 2456, 162 L.Ed.2d 360 (2005) (Kennedy, J., dissenting). I am not convinced that Johnson has shown 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. Therefore, I would reverse the decision of the district court in granting the writ.