Schriro, Dora (Dir., Arizona Dept. of Corrections) v. Landrigan, Jeffrey (05/14/2007)

Questions presented: (1) Did the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals err by holding that the state court unreasonably determined the facts when it found that the defendant "instructed his attorney not to present any mitigating evidence at the sentencing hearing? (2)Did the 9th Circuit err by finding that the state court's analysis of the defendants ineffective assistance of counsel claim was objectively unreasonable under the Supreme Court's 1984 opinion in Strickland v. Washington, notwithstanding the absence of any contrary authority from the Supreme Court in cases in which (a) the defendant waives presentation of mitigation and impedes counsel's attempts to do so, or (b) the evidence the defendant subsequently claims should have been presented is not mitigating?

BY CATHERINE CRANE, MEDILL NEWS SERVICE

Jeffrey Landrigan's lawyer wanted to tell a story at his client's sentencing hearing.

A state court in Arizona had just convicted Landrigan of murder, finding that he had stabbed and strangled a man after escaping from an Oklahoma prison in 1989.

The latest trial punctuated the two terms he had been serving there – one for a 1996 prison stabbing -- and another for a 1982 murder.

These aggravating factors made Landrigan eligible for capital punishment in Arizona.

To avoid the death penalty, his lawyer, Dennis Farrell, needed to present mitigating evidence favoring Landrigan to the court. He began by submitting a sentencing memorandum describing his client's extensive history of drug abuse.

Landrigan's attorney wanted to support the memorandum with testimony from his client's mother and ex-wife. He told the court they would discuss Landrigan's drug addiction, as well as his mother's abuse of drugs and alcohol during her pregnancy.

But Landrigan staunchly opposed putting his family members on the witness stand.

Explaining that he thought their testimony could provide important mitigating evidence, and that he had advised Landrigan many times to reconsider, Farrell admitted to the court that he was at a loss and did not know how to proceed.

The mother and ex-wife would not testify without Landrigan's permission, and, at that time, Farrell had no other witnesses to question about his client's history with drugs.

So the court then asked Landrigan if (a) he told his lawyer not to bring any mitigating circumstances to its attention, (b) he understood what the previous question meant and (c) there were mitigating circumstances the court should know about.

Landrigan answered, "Yeah" to the first two questions and replied, "Not as far as I'm concerned," to the last question.

With the court's permission, Landrigan's attorney next explained what he thought the mother and ex-wife would say in their testimony. He discussed how they would support the expert testimony he wanted to bring to the court on the effects of a person's behavior when his or her mother abused drugs.

He added that before he could have such experts testify about Landrigan's circumstances, however, he needed to provide them with information gathered from the testimony of Landrigan's mother.

But the mother and the ex-wife never testified.

Referring to Landrigan as "an amoral person" having "no scruples and no regard for human life," the trial court sentenced him to death. It concluded that the mitigating factors presented were not enough to downgrade a death penalty sentence.

After the Arizona Supreme Court upheld the decision in 1993, Landrigan then filed for post-conviction relief.

Because his lawyer had failed to present mitigating evidence at his sentencing, Landrigan argued, he had not received effective counsel. He wanted the court to grant him an evidentiary hearing to explore this claim.

But both the state court and the Arizona Supreme Court rejected Landrigan's request.

He then filed a habeas corpus petition in federal district court in October 1996, claiming that he had received ineffective counsel. Landrigan argued that if his lawyer had told him about the theory of a biological predisposition toward violence in his family, he would have allowed evidence supporting that theory to be presented at trial.

The district court agreed with the state courts, concluding that Landrigan's case did not pass the U.S. Supreme Court's Strickland v. Washington (1984) test for ineffective counsel. The court found that Landrigan failed to prove that the evidence his lawyer did not present would have, if presented, lead to a different sentence than the one he received.

A three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals also sided with the lower court rulings. Because Strickland found that a defendant's statements or actions can be used to determine the reasonableness of his lawyer's actions, it ruled, Landrigan had not received ineffective counsel.

The case was granted a rehearing before the full 9th Circuit. In March 2006, a 9-2 majority reversed the decision and granted Landrigan an evidentiary hearing.

Citing the U.S. Supreme Court case in Williams v. Taylor (2000), the panel decided that the evidence Landrigan wanted to present was "the very sort of mitigating evidence that might well have influenced the [judge's] appraisal of [Landrigan's] moral culpability."

The court also used the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 to conclude that the district court's finding was "an abuse of discretion."

AEDPA states that federal courts can grant habeas corpus relief on claims state courts have already passed on.

But they can only do so if a state court's ruling "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."

In other words, the en banc panel for the 9th Circuit ruled that the lower court incorrectly applied Strickland when it ruled against Landrigan.

The State of Arizona then petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to review the 9th Circuit's interpretation of Strickland and AEDPA. The certiorari petition cited rulings on ineffective counsel from 10th and 11th circuits that conflicted with the 9th Circuit's latest decision.

On Sept. 26, 2006, the Court agreed to hear the case.

Karen Daniel of Northwestern University's Center on Wrongful Convictions said the Court's ruling could have widespread implications, especially on federal habeas corpus litigation.

"If a state appellate court's interpretation of trial court proceedings is a ‘finding of fact' that is entitled to deference under AEDPA, then almost any state court decision can be insulated in this fashion from federal habeas review," Daniel said.

But Kent Cattani, a capital punishment litigator for the Arizona Attorney General's office, said that without this deference, there would be no finality in these cases. He added that a ruling against the state of Arizona would allow defendants to manipulate the system by raising endless last-minute objections.

"Landrigan knew what his family was going to present," Cattani said. "He knew his own history. He knew if drugs had some bearing on his conduct at the time of the crime. He's the one who could have presented that [at his trial]."

The Arizona Attorney General's certiorari petition also emphasized that Landrigan showed no remorse and engaged in disruptive behavior during his trial. So the evidence he wanted to present, it argued, most likely would not have mitigated his sentence anyway.

Yet Dale Baich, a lawyer now representing Landrigan, said that the evidence could have helped Landrigan receive a life sentence if the lawyer had properly developed it during trial. He said that testimony from someone familiar with Landrigan's drug history was crucial to his lessening his sentence.

Baich added that the lawyer simply did not know what he was doing and that it is "not incumbent upon the defendant facing death to come up with the arguments and reasons why [his] sentence should be mitigated."

On May 14, 2007, a divided Supreme Court reversed the 9th Circuit's decision, finding that the appeals court should have deferred to lower court rulings against Landrigan.

"The District Court was well within its discretion to determine that, even with the benefit of an evidentiary hearing, Landrigan could not develop a factual record that would entitle him to habeas relief," Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in the majority opinion. Conservative colleagues Chief Justice John Roberts, and Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito joined him, while Anthony Kennedy once again provided the crucial fifth vote.

The majority decision reinforces the plain meaning of the AEDPA, said Kent Scheidegger, legal director of the Sacramento, Calif.-based Criminal Justice Legal Foundation.

"The Court correctly interpreted the purpose of the act, which is to reduce delay," he said. "In cases like this one -- where the state court has already found the facts -- litigation should not be dragged out by deciding the same facts over again."

Scheidegger said he was surprised the dissent received four votes, noting: "This case was pretty cut and dry. The 9th Circuit clearly erred."

But Justice John Paul Stevens, who was joined by colleagues David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, made his displeasure with the outcome apparent, rebuking the majority for an "increasingly familiar effort to guard the floodgates of litigation." The small number of appeals that do receive these evidentiary hearings, Stevens argued, "makes it abundantly clear that doing justice does not always cause the heavens to fall."

Stevens went on to decry the majority's conclusion that "Landrigan's mitigation evidence was weak," contending: "Without the benefit of an evidentiary hearing, this is pure guesswork. The Court's decision rests on a parsimonious appraisal of a capital defendant's constitutional right to have the sentencing decision reflect meaningful consideration of all relevant mitigating evidence."