Ransom v. Cockrell ( 2003 )

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT
_______________________
No. 02-10620
_______________________
CEDRIC LAMONT RANSOM,
Petitioner-Appellant,
versus
JANIE COCKRELL,
Respondent-Appellee.
_________________________________________________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of Texas
Civil Docket #00-CV-242
_________________________________________________________________
March 5, 2003
Before JONES, SMITH, and EMILIO M. GARZA, Circuit Judges.
EDITH H. JONES, Circuit Judge:*
Cedric Lamont Ransom (Ransom) was convicted of capital
murder and sentenced to death for murdering Herbert Primm during a
robbery in December 1991. Ransom seeks a certificate of
appealability (COA) on sixteen claims to challenge the district
court’s denial of his 28 U.S.C. § 2254 petition for habeas corpus
relief. We deny a COA on all of these claims.
*
Pursuant to 5TH CIR. R. 47.5, the Court has determined that this
opinion should not be published and is not precedent except under the limited
circumstances set forth in 5TH CIR. R. 47.5.4.
I. BACKGROUND
In December 1991, Ransom and three co-defendants robbed
Herbert Primm, a part-time licensed gun dealer. During the
robbery, Ransom fatally shot Primm in the head. A jury convicted
Ransom of capital murder, and he was sentenced to death. The Texas
Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed Ransom’s conviction but vacated
his sentence and remanded for a new sentencing hearing due to error
during jury selection. Ransom v. State, 920 S.W.2d 288, 298 (Tex.
Crim. App. 1996) (op. on reh’g). On retrial of punishment, Ransom
was again sentenced to death. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals
affirmed the death sentence on direct appeal and denied Ransom
habeas relief.
In March 2000, Ransom filed a federal petition for writ
of habeas corpus raising sixteen claims. The district court denied
the petition and subsequent application for COA. Ransom asks this
Court to grant a COA for each of the sixteen claims raised before
the district court; each requested COA is denied.
II. DISCUSSION
Ransom’s 28 U.S.C. § 2254 habeas petition, filed in March
2000, is subject to the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty
Act of 1996 (AEDPA). See Penry v. Johnson, 532 U.S. 782, 792, 121
S. Ct. 1910, 1918, 150 L. Ed. 2d 9, 22 (2001). Under AEDPA, Ransom
must obtain a COA before he can appeal the district court’s denial
of habeas relief. 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(1); Slack v. McDaniel, 529
U.S. 473, 478, 120 S. Ct. 1595, 1600, 146 L. Ed. 2d 542, 551
(2000).
2
To obtain a COA for any of his claims, Ransom must make
a “substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right.”
28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(2); Slack, 529 U.S. at 483, 120 S. Ct. at 1603,
146 L. Ed. 2d at 554. When a district court has rejected a
constitutional claim on the merits, a COA will be granted only if
Ransom “demonstrate[s] that reasonable jurists would find the
district court’s assessment of the constitutional claims debatable
or wrong.” Slack, 529 U.S. at 484, 120 S. Ct. at 1604, 146 L. Ed.
2d at 555; see also Miller-El v. Cockrell, 537 U.S.___, 2003 U.S.
LEXIS 1734, at *30 (U.S. Feb. 25, 2003). When the denial of relief
is based on procedural grounds, Slack provides a two-prong test for
determining whether a COA should issue: the applicant must show (1)
that “jurists of reason would find it debatable whether the
petition states a valid claim of the denial of a constitutional
right” and (2) that “jurists of reason would find it debatable
whether the district court was correct in its procedural ruling.”
Id. Each prong of the test is part of a threshold inquiry, and a
court may dispose of the application by resolving the issue whose
answer is more apparent from the record and arguments. Id. at 485.
“The recognition that the Court will not pass upon a constitutional
question although properly presented by the record, if there is
also present some other ground upon which the case may be disposed
of, allows and encourages the court to first resolve procedural
issues.” Id. (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).
3
A. Procedurally defaulted claims
Exhaustion of state remedies is a prerequisite to federal
habeas relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2254.1 The district court
determined that twelve2 of the sixteen claims in Ransom’s federal
habeas petition are procedurally defaulted because they were not
exhausted on the state level.3 In the habeas context, this court
1
28 U.S.C. § 2254 provides in pertinent part:
(b)(1) An application for a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of a
person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court shall
not be granted unless it appears that--
(A) the applicant has exhausted the remedies available in the
courts of the State; or
(B) (i) there is an absence of available State corrective
process; or
(ii) circumstances exist that render such process
ineffective to protect the rights of the applicant.
2
A portion of one of the twelve claims was exhausted. In a single claim,
Ransom argues that his due process rights guaranteed by the Fifth and Fourteenth
Amendments were violated because the state trial court allowed victim-impact
testimony from the victim’s wife, certain photographs of the victim, and
photographs of two victims from extraneous offenses to be admitted. Like the
district court, we conclude that Ransom did not exhaust the portion of this claim
relating to admission of the photographs but that he did exhaust with regard to
admission of the victim’s wife’s testimony. Ransom’s entire argument regarding
the exhausted portion of the claim, however, consists of only one paragraph
without citations to authority in support of his position. We therefore consider
the issue inadequately briefed and abandoned. See Woods v. Cockrell, 307 F.3d
353, 357 (5th Cir. 2002).
3
The twelve procedurally defaulted claims, in the order addressed by his
COA application in this court, are that Ransom’s due process rights guaranteed
by the Fifth and Fourteenth amendments were violated because (1) evidence
regarding an extraneous assault was admitted during the guilt/innocence phase of
the trial; (2) evidence regarding an extraneous burglary was admitted during the
guilt/innocence phase of the trial; (3) co-defendant Isaac Johnson was allowed
to testify even though the State did not comply with a pretrial discovery order
requiring the disclosure of all leniency agreements with witnesses; (4) defense
counsel was not permitted to ask two veniremembers, Roose and Campbell, certain
questions about sentencing and parole eligibility; (5) the district court denied
Ransom’s motion for change of venue; (6) the district court denied Ransom’s
challenges for cause to two veniremembers, Davidson and Wieman, at retrial of the
punishment phase; (7) certain photographs of the victim and photographs of two
victims from extraneous offenses were admitted; (8) the district court allowed
into evidence the unsigned statement of a juvenile as well as testimony regarding
the statement; (9) the district court granted the State’s challenge for cause to
veniremember Linda Hobbs because of her views on the death penalty; (10) the
district court instructed the jury on the law of parties; (11) the district court
4
reviews questions of law, such as the exhaustion of state remedies,
de novo, Wilder v. Cockrell, 274 F.3d 255, 259 (5th Cir. 2001), and
can affirm the district court’s judgment on any ground supported by
the record, Emery v. Johnson, 139 F.3d 191, 195 (5th Cir. 1997).
“The exhaustion requirement is satisfied when the
substance of the federal habeas claim has been fairly presented to
the highest state court.” Whitehead v. Johnson, 157 F.3d 384, 387
(5th Cir. 1998) (per curiam). “[W]here petitioner advances in
federal court an argument based on a legal theory distinct from
that relied upon in the state court, he fails to satisfy the
exhaustion requirement.” Vela v. Estelle, 708 F.2d 954, 958 n.5
(5th Cir. 1983). “[F]ederal constitutional claims must have been
presented to and considered by the state courts in a federal
constitutional framework before resort can be made to federal
courts.” Yohey v. Collins, 985 F.2d 222, 226 (5th Cir. 1993). “It
is not enough that all the facts necessary to support the federal
claim were before the state courts, or that a somewhat similar
state-law claim was made.” Anderson v. Harless, 459 U.S. 4, 6, 103
S. Ct. 276, 277, 74 L. Ed. 2d 3, 7 (1982) (per curiam) (internal
citation omitted). If a habeas petitioner fails to exhaust state
remedies and the court to which the petitioner would present his
claims to meet the exhaustion requirement would now find the claims
procedurally barred, there is procedural default for purposes of
did not define the term “probability” to the jury as it is used in the first
special issue answered by a jury during the punishment phase of Texas capital
murder trials; (12) the district court overruled Ransom’s request that the jury
be instructed on his parole eligibility if he were given a life sentence.
5
federal habeas. Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U.S. 722, 735 n.1, 111 S.
Ct. 2546, 2557 n.1, 115 L. Ed. 2d 640, 659 n.1 (1991).
Although Ransom presented the factual bases for the
twelve claims listed in footnote 3 to the Texas Court of Criminal
Appeals in either his first or second direct appeal, he did not
argue that his federal constitutional rights had been violated by
the alleged errors. If Ransom filed a successive state habeas
petition on these claims now, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals
would find the claims barred by Article 11.071 § 5(a) of the Texas
Code of Criminal Procedure.4 Ransom’s twelve claims are therefore
procedurally defaulted for purposes of federal habeas, and, since
4
TEX. CODE CRIM. PROC. ANN. art. 11.071 § 5(a) provides:
Sec. 5. (a) If a subsequent application for a writ of habeas corpus
is filed after filing an initial application, a court may not
consider the merits of or grant relief based on the subsequent
application unless the application contains sufficient specific
facts establishing that:
(1) the current claims and issues have not been and could not
have been presented previously in a timely initial application or in
a previously considered application filed under this article or
Article 11.07 because the factual or legal basis for the claim was
unavailable on the date the applicant filed the previous
application;
(2) by a preponderance of the evidence, but for a violation of
the United States Constitution no rational juror could have found
the applicant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt; or
(3) by clear and convincing evidence, but for a violation of the
United States Constitution no rational juror would have answered in
the state's favor one or more of the special issues that were
submitted to the jury in the applicant's trial under Article 37.071
or 37.0711.
Ransom does not contend that there is cause or prejudice for him failing to
present his federal claims in state court.
6
reasonable jurists could not debate the correctness of this
procedural ruling, we deny a COA on each of the twelve claims.5
B. Properly Exhausted Claims
We now turn to the claims that Ransom exhausted in state
court.
Denial of a new trial on guilt/innocence
Ransom argues that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals
violated his due process rights guaranteed by the Fifth and
Fourteenth Amendments by denying him a new trial on guilt/innocence
and by reversing only the punishment portion of his trial after
finding jury selection error.6 Ransom contends that his conviction
as well as his sentence should have been reversed because the voir
dire error is a structural defect not subject to harmless error
analysis. The district court properly recognized that the issue is
not whether the error is harmless but whether the error affected
the guilt/innocence stage of the trial.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals based its decision
not to reverse the guilt/innocence phase of Ransom’s trial on two
Supreme Court cases and several Texas state cases. In Witherspoon
5
The district court ruled that four of these claims, numbers 4, 9, 11 and
12 on the list in fn. 3 supra, were moot because they arose from the penalty
phase of the first trial, and Ransom won a retrial of his penalty, rendering it
unnecessary for the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to rule on those issues in
the first appeal. We agree with this alternative ruling as well.
6
The State conceded that the Texas trial court committed reversible error
by granting the State’s challenge for cause against venireman Harold Freeman
based on his statement that “it would take more than the evidence supporting the
defendant’s guilt for capital murder to persuade him beyond a reasonable doubt
that the defendant was a continuing danger to society.” Ransom v. State, 920
S.W.2d 288, 291-92 (Tex. Crim. App. 1994). Initially the Texas Court of Criminal
Appeals reversed Ransom’s conviction and remanded for a new trial, but on
rehearing the Court affirmed Ransom’s conviction, vacated his sentence, and
remanded for a new sentencing hearing.
7
v. Illinois, 391 U.S. 510, 518, 88 S. Ct. 1770, 1775, 20 L. Ed. 2d
776 (1968), the Supreme Court held that the excusal for cause of a
venireman based on conscientious scruples about the death penalty
would invalidate a death sentence but would not necessarily affect
a capital murder conviction. In Bumper v. North Carolina, 391 U.S.
543, 545, 88 S. Ct. 1788, 1790, 20 L. Ed. 2d 797 (1968), the
Supreme Court held that Witherspoon error did not require reversal
of a defendant’s conviction where the defendant had been given a
life sentence instead of the death penalty. In both cases, the
Supreme Court concluded that unless a defendant presents evidence
that voir dire error necessarily produced biased jurors with
respect to guilt, the defendant’s conviction will not be affected.
Witherspoon, 391 U.S. at 517-18, 88 S. Ct. at 1774-75, 20 L. Ed. 2d
at 782-83; Bumper, 391 U.S. at 545, 88 S. Ct. at 1790, 20 L. Ed. 2d
at 800-01. Because Ransom has not presented any evidence that the
voir dire error in his case resulted in a jury biased with respect
to guilt, his claim is without merit; he has not made a substantial
showing of the denial of a constitutional right. We therefore deny
his request for a COA on this claim.
Exclusion of testimony at resentencing
Ransom argues that his due process rights guaranteed by
the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments were violated when the state
trial court prohibited Ransom from introducing the testimony of
Assistant Attorney General Alan Levy that if Ransom were given a
life sentence, the State would try Ransom for the attempted murder
of prosecutor Bob Gill and would seek a consecutive maximum
8
sentence of twenty years. Ransom contends that this evidence was
relevant to the issue of future dangerousness because it would have
shown that if the jury gave him a life sentence, he would have been
confined for the rest of his life in a secure prison environment.
The district court properly recognized that the
admissibility of evidence at capital sentencing is an issue left to
the States, subject to certain federal requirements. Ramdass v.
Angelone, 530 U.S. 156, 169, 120 S. Ct. 2113, 2121-22, 147 L. Ed.
2d 125, 138 (2000). The court denied habeas relief because the
state courts rejected the evidence on state law grounds and Ransom
did not cite to, and the district court could not find, any
precedent holding that federal due process requires the admission
of this type of evidence during the punishment phase of a capital
murder trial. Because reasonable jurists would not find the
district court’s resolution of this claim debatable, Ransom is not
entitled to a COA on this claim.
Constitutionality of the Texas death penalty statute
Ransom next argues that the Texas death penalty statute
is unconstitutional on its face and as applied, violating the
Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments, because it precludes
appellate review of relevant mitigating factors, leaving capital
juries with unfettered discretion to assess the death penalty.7
7
With respect to this claim and Ransom’s next claim, the state’s argument
on procedural bar was rejected by the district court, and the state has not
questioned that ruling on appeal. We therefore reach the merits of the claims.
9
First, because Ransom has not challenged the sufficiency
of the evidence in his case, he lacks standing to challenge the
constitutionality of the Texas death penalty statute on the ground
that appellate courts do not conduct a sufficiency review of the
mitigation special issue. “[T]he irreducible constitutional
minimum of standing contains three elements. First, the plaintiff
must have suffered an injury in fact[.] . . . Second, there must
be a causal connection between the injury and the conduct
complained of. . . . Third, it must be likely . . . that the injury
will be redressed by a favorable decision.” Lujan v. Defenders of
Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560-61, 112 S. Ct. 2130, 2136, 119 L. Ed.
2d 351, 364 (1992) (internal quotation marks and citations
omitted). Because Ransom has not sought any form of sufficiency
review by the Texas or federal courts, he has not been denied the
review which he claims is constitutionally deficient. He therefore
has not suffered an injury in fact, nor has he shown that his
alleged injury could be redressed by a favorable decision.
Nevertheless, even if Ransom had standing to bring this
claim, it is without merit. “In providing for individualized
sentencing, it must be recognized that the States may adopt capital
sentencing processes that rely upon the jury, in its sound
judgment, to exercise wide discretion.” Tuilaepa v. California,
512 U.S. 967, 974, 114 S. Ct. 2630, 2636, 129 L. Ed. 2d 750, 761
(1994). As long as the class of criminal defendants subject to
capital punishment is narrowed, it is constitutionally permissible
to allow a jury, rather than an appellate court, to recommend mercy
10
based on mitigating evidence. Penry v. Lynaugh, 492 U.S. 302,
327, 109 S. Ct. 2934, 2951, 106 L. Ed. 2d 256, 283 (1989); see also
McCleskey v. Kemp, 481 U.S. 279, 306, 107 S. Ct. 1756, 1775, 95 L.
Ed. 2d 262, 288 (1987) (petitioner not entitled to proportionality
review of the death sentence); Pulley v. Harris, 465 U.S. 37, 50-
51, 104 S. Ct. 871, 879, 79 L. Ed. 2d 29, 40-41 (1984) (same);
Hughes v. Johnson, 191 F.3d 607, 622 (5th Cir. 1999) (same).
Furthermore, this Court has held that even though Texas appellate
courts do not review jury verdicts under the mitigation special
issue, meaningful appellate review is afforded through review of
the future dangerousness special issue. Beazley v. Johnson, 242
F.3d 248, 261 (5th Cir. 2001) (citing McFarland v. State, 928 S.W.2d
482, 498 (Tex. Crim. App. 1996)). Because reasonable jurists would
not find the district court’s assessment of the constitutionality
of Texas’s death penalty statute debatable or wrong under Supreme
Court precedent or precedent from this circuit, we deny a COA on
the claim.
Denial of motion for mistrial
Ransom contends that his due process rights guaranteed by
the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments were violated because the state
trial court did not take action in response to his motion for
mistrial and because a biased juror served on his jury. Ransom’s
motion for mistrial alleged that during a break at trial, Ransom’s
half-brother, Tyrone Calloway, offered to help juror Richard
Harding pull paper towels out of the dispenser in the men’s
11
restroom. Harding allegedly told Calloway that he did not “need
any damn help from no nigger.”
Contrary to Ransom’s allegation, the trial court did
respond to Ransom’s motion for mistrial. Without objection, the
trial court held the motion in abeyance until the end of trial,
then held a hearing at which Harding and Calloway testified. The
trial court found that the incident did not occur and that there
was no evidence of actual bias or proof that Ransom was denied a
trial by a fair and impartial jury.
The Supreme Court “has long held that the remedy for
allegations of juror partiality is a hearing in which the defendant
has the opportunity to prove actual bias.” Smith v. Phillips, 455
U.S. 209, 215, 102 S. Ct. 940, 945, 71 L. Ed. 2d 78, 85 (1982).
Ransom was afforded a hearing at which he failed to prove actual
bias, and he has not presented clear and convincing evidence that
the state trial court’s findings were incorrect. Because
reasonable jurists would not debate the district court’s resolution
of this claim, we deny Ransom’s request for a COA.
III. CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, we deny Ransom’s request for
a COA on his twelve procedurally defaulted claims. We also deny a
COA on each of Ransom’s remaining claims because he has failed to
make a substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right.
COA DENIED.
12