Court Opinion

ID: 9494906
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:49:45.426196+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:41.740413
License: Public Domain

BARKETT, Circuit Judge,
specially concurring in the denial of the petition for rehearing:
Once again I concur in the result with the understanding that this decision does not address the issue of whether Brown can at another time raise a claim under Ford v. Wainwright, 477 U.S. 399, 106 S.Ct. 2595, 91 L.Ed.2d 335 (1986).
Having considered the petition for rehearing, I would now also note that, although I continue to concur in the result, I would place no reliance on the evidence introduced diming the guilt phase of the trial that Brown had two tires changed on his car. Even assuming, as the majority does, that the replacement of the tires tends to show that Brown had a “consciousness of guilt” and that he made “efforts to avoid detection,” this evidence does not undermine the defense’s mitigation case in any way. The prosecution did not make this argument at trial, and more importantly, nothing in the defense’s penalty phase mitigation evidence pertaining to mental illness precludes the possibility that Brown could perform the relatively simple task of having two tires changed on *1328his car, even for the reasons the majority attributes to him. Since this evidence does not tend to contradict anything put forward by the defense, it does not help this Court in deciding whether Brown was prejudiced by his counsel’s failure to impeach testimony from which the jury could infer that he was malingering.
The defense presented expert testimony that Brown was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, describing symptoms consistent with that diagnosis, such as delusions and auditory hallucinations.1 There is no basis in the record for the assumption that a person suffering from paranoid schizophrenia does not have the cognitive ability to have tires changed on a car, and it appears to be medically inaccurate.2 Likewise, there is no testimony anywhere in the trial record to support the assumption that a paranoid schizophrenic who committed a crime would not attempt (however ineffectively) to avoid detection.
The majority now places much emphasis on the testimony that Brown was “out of touch with reality.” In particular, the majority states that “[ejvidence that Brown knew what was going on and engaged in rational behavior to minimize the chances of his apprehension and capture is evidence that he was not out of touch with reality.” But evidence of a modicum of instrumentally rational behavior does not show that the defendant was not delusional. If someone does what “voices of demons and the Lord” are telling him to do, even in an instrumentally rational way, that does not mean he is not out of touch with reality. In my view, the majority’s reasoning is unmindful of the realities of paranoid schizophrenia.
I am also concerned that using the tire changing as an example of evidence of a “consciousness of guilt” and an “attempt to avoid detection” conflates mental illness as mitigation evidence during the penalty phase with insanity as a defense that can defeat culpability during the guilt phase. To be found not guilty by reason of insanity, the defendant must show that he did not have the mental capacity to distinguish between right and wrong. See Ga.Code Ann. § 16-3-3 (2001); Echols v. State, 149 Ga.App. 620, 255 S.E.2d 92 (1979). But when presented as mitigation evidence during the penalty phase of the trial, the mental illness need not have interfered with the defendant’s cognitive capacities to the same extent as that necessary to support a finding of not guilty by reason of insanity. See, e.g., Eddings v. Oklahoma, 455 U.S. 104, 113-15, 102 S.Ct. 869, 71 L.Ed.2d 1 (1982); California v. Brown, 479 U.S. 538, 545, 107 S.Ct. 837, 93 L.Ed.2d 934 (1987) (O’Connor, J., concurring); Zant v. Stephens, 462 U.S. 862, 885, 103 S.Ct. 2733, 77 L.Ed.2d 235 (1983); Middleton v. Dugger, 849 F.2d 491, 495 (11th Cir.1988). The jury could find that Brown’s mental illness did not so impair him as to warrant a finding of not guilty by reason of insanity, but still conclude that the delusions and hallucinations that were the product of his mental illness played enough of a role in his thought *1329processes that a penalty of life imprisonment was more appropriate than death.
However, based on the totality of the evidence that was presented at trial and considering the nature of the impeachment evidence sought to be introduced, I concur with the majority’s conclusion that Brown was not prejudiced (at least as our precedent defines it) by his attorney’s failure to impeach the testimony of White and Tucker.

. The prosecution's expert expressed no opinion on whether Brown was feigning his mental illness, suggesting only that Brown would be better diagnosed as suffering from posthal-lucinogenic perceptual disorder, explaining that individuals who have consumed hallucinogenic substances such as LSD and PCP may have symptoms of severe mental illness (such as delusions and hallucinations) up to several years later.

. According to the standard reference work on mental disorders, “[t]he essential feature of the Paranoid Type of Schizophrenia is the presence of prominent delusions or auditory hallucinations in the context of a relative preservation of cognitive functioning and affect." American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 287 (4th ed.1994) (emphasis added).