July 16, 2014
Link to Supreme Court of Missouri Opinion
On
July 16, 2014, after 20 years and at least three stays of execution, a sharply
divided Missouri Supreme Court issued a brief opinion rejecting John C.
Middleton’s final attempt to evade the death penalty.[i] Following two initially successful but
eventually fruitless attempts to bypass the state’s Supreme Court by imploring
the federal district court for the Eastern District of Missouri to stay his
execution,[ii] on
July 16 Middleton filed a writ of habeas corpus asserting that under the Eight
Amendment he lacked the mental competence which the constitution requires for
an inmate to be executed.[iii] Relying on the United States Supreme Court’s Panetti v. Quarterman[iv]
and Ford v. Wainwright[v] decisions, the majority held that
Middleton had fallen well short of establishing that he was suffering from the
sort of gross psychotic delusions that might have presented a constitutional
bar to his execution.[vi] The dissent, on the other hand, written by
Justice Draper, and concurred in by Justices Stith and Teitelmann, strongly
criticized what it perceived to be the gross violation of Middleton’s right to
due process.[vii] Justice Draper’s dissenting opinion insisted
that the same psychiatric report viewed as inadequate by the majority was a
sufficient predicate for establishing a threshold showing of incompetence. Further, the dissent argued that Middleton
had raised substantial unanswered concerns regarding the constitutionality of
RSMo § 552.060, which governs the procedure for determining whether a condemned
prisoner is competent to be executed.[viii]
I. Facts and
Holding
In
1999, John C. Middleton was convicted by a jury of first degree murder for the
death of his associate, Alfred Pinegar.[ix] Middleton, a dealer in methamphetamines at
the time of the murder in the summer of 1995, had apparently grown increasingly
suspicious of those around him.[x] Based upon these suspicions, Middleton began
to assemble a hit list containing the names of those he believed to be
“snitches.”[xi] On June 25, under the auspices of a fishing
trip, Middleton drove Pinegar to a field where he shot him in the face with a
twelve-gauge shotgun and subsequently dumped Pinegar’s body in a nearby field.[xii] Based upon evidence recovered following the
murder as well as Middleton’s confession to a fellow jail inmate, Middleton was
convicted of Pinegat’s murder.[xiii] During the punishment phase of his trial, the
state presented additional evidence indicating that Middleton had also murdered
two others, Randy Hamilton and Stacey Hodge, as part of his plan.[xiv] The jury subsequently recommended a death
sentence.[xv]
Following
his conviction, Middleton and his lawyers utilized various legal devices in
attempts to attack the penalty imposed by the jury.[xvi] However, although Middleton had successfully
evaded execution for over 20 years, in July of 2014 he finally exhausted the
few remaining legal challenges available to him.[xvii]
Sometime
during the week of July 7, 2014, Middleton filed a motion in the Supreme Court
of Missouri seeking a stay of execution and the appointment of a master to
gather evidence and make findings regarding whether Middleton was competent to
be executed.[xviii] However, the court found the evidence
presented regarding Middleton’s competence to be unpersuasive.[xix] Specifically, the court believed that the
assessment contained in a key piece of evidence presented by Middleton, a
letter dated July 2 from Middleton’s forensic psychiatrist, Dr. Logan, fell
well short “of opining that Middleton is suffering from ‘gross delusions
preventing him from comprehending the meaning and purpose of the punishment to
which he has been sentenced.’”[xx] Specifically,
the court found Dr. Logan’s assessment that:
Over time he
[Middleton] has developed certain beliefs about his charges and the resulting
legal proceedings that are distorted by this paranoia, and may now be
indicative off a psychotic delusional disorder.
I am exploring whether these beliefs now could significantly color his
perception / or related understanding of his execution, to be wanting.[xxi]
Following
rejection of his motion for stay of execution, Middleton proceeded to file two
separate habeas corpus petitions in the federal district court for the Eastern
District of Missouri seeking stay of his execution.[xxii] Middleton was successful on both petitions at
the district level.[xxiii] However, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals
was unpersuaded.[xxiv]
In
the first petition, styled a “second-in-time federal habeas corpus petition and
supplemental petition to first habeas corpus application,” Middleton “raised
four new claims relating to his mental competency to be executed,” which
“alleged that the State of Missouri [did] not provide adequate procedures by
which Middleton could raise a claim that he is mentally incompetent to be
executed under the Eight Amendment in Ford
v. Wainwright[xxv]
and Panetti v. Quarterman[xxvi].”[xxvii] The district court found Middleton’s
arguments persuasive, holding that he had “made ‘a substantial threshold
showing of insanity’ such that the execution should be stayed until he may
receive a hearing on his claim under Ford
that he is not competent to be executed.”[xxviii] However, the 8th Circuit was not
persuaded.[xxix] In vacating the stay of execution issued by
the district court, the 8th Circuit held that “Middleton had not
shown that he exhausted the remedies available in the courts of Missouri,” and
that “the district court abused its discretion by staying Middleton’s execution
for the purpose of holding a hearing on a Ford
claim that was never presented to the Missouri state courts.”[xxx]
The
next day, following the 8th Circuit’s ruling, Middleton returned to
the district court, and moved that court to both stay the federal habeas
petition and hold it in abeyance while he exhausted remedies available in the
Missouri courts, and stay the execution while he exhausted state remedies.[xxxi] Once again, the district court granted the
motion.[xxxii] Based upon federal case law, the district court reasoned that Middleton
“showed a significant possibility of success on the merits because he made a
significant threshold showing that he [was] incompetent to be executed and was
entitled to a hearing on his claim under Ford.”[xxxiii] However, once again, the 8th
Circuit vacated the stay of execution, holding that because (1) “Middleton
[had] not presented his current Ford claim
to the Missouri courts,” and (2) “[a]n application for a writ of habeas corpus
‘shall not be granted’[xxxiv]
unless it appears that the petitioner has exhausted the remedies available in
the courts of the State,” that there was insufficient basis to conclude that
Middleton [had] shown a likelihood of success on a claim that federal law says
‘shall not be granted’ in its current posture.”[xxxv]
It
was not until this procedural posturing had been exhausted that Middleton
brought his habeas petition before the Supreme Court of Missouri.[xxxvi] Once there, the court’s majority opinion made
short shift of Middleton’s arguments.[xxxvii]
As
a threshold issue, the majority was concerned that “Middleton offer[ed] much
the same evidence that the Court considered in denying his motion for a stay of
execution last week.”[xxxviii] Specifically, the Court questioned how the
new sworn statement submitted by Dr. Logan on July 14 in support of the habeas
corpus motion should bear any more weight than the letter of July 2, as Dr.
Logan failed to “state or suggest that he did not have all of this same
information when he wrote his July 2 letter, or explain why he was unable to
state the opinions he now offers . . . .”[xxxix] Thus, the Court was unpersuaded by Dr. Logan’s
assertion that, utilizing the same information he possessed when writing the
July 2 letter, he had now come to conclusions more suited to support
Middleton’s habeas corpus motion.[xl]
The
Court was equally unpersuaded by the substance of Dr. Logan’s observations
contained in the July 14 letter. Here it
held that Dr. Logan’s conclusions failed to establish the “substantial
threshold showing of incompetence” mandated by Panetti and Ford.[xli] In the new letter, Dr. Logan stated that:
With regard to his
scheduled execution, while Mr. Middleton can recite the reason it was imposed,
he in fact believes his conviction was the result of a conspiracy which
included his associates, law enforcement, the courts, prosecutors and his
defense attorneys. Furthermore, he shows
little to no emotional reaction to his impending execution date but instead
believes he will not die while incarcerated but will be cleared on the charges
and return to the community.
In conclusion, it is my
preliminary opinion (preliminary in the sense that additional materials, and
critically, input from MDOC staff directly familiar with Mr. Middleton, may be
available for review and consultation) that Mr. Middleton lacks a rational
understanding of the reason for his execution and is therefore not competent to
be executed due to a diagnosis of delusional disorder, a psychotic mental
illness.[xlii]
As
to Logan’s observations and conclusions, the Court based its finding of
insufficiency on two underlying critiques.[xliii]
First,
as to Dr. Logan’s observation that Middleton now believed he was the victim of
a conspiracy, the Court referenced the fact that “Middleton’s lawyers have
raised a series of claims asserting that Middleton’s trial and appellate
counsel were ineffective and that he [was] an innocent victim of over-zealous
prosecutors and illicit ‘secret deals’ between law enforcement officers and
prosecution witnesses,” to support the Court’s conclusion that it was no
surprise that Middleton now believed these accusations to be true.[xliv] Therefore, the court stressed, Middleton’s
belief as to the veracity of these accusations did not make him delusional in a
way that rendered him incompetent for execution under the Eighth Amendment.[xlv]
Second,
as to Dr. Logan’s assessment that Middleton showed little emotional reaction to
his impending execution and believed that he would eventually be cleared on the
charges and set free, the court reasoned that “[e]ven though Middleton’s
optimism may be misplaced, even illogical, it hardly constitutes proof that he
is delusional under Panetti and Ford.”[xlvi] The Court determined that, specifically in
light of the fact that Middleton had successfully stayed execution for 20
years, his misplaced optimism did not indicate the presence of a psychotic
disorder rendering Middleton incompetent.[xlvii]
In
criticizing the majority opinion, the dissent also focused heavily on Dr.
Logan’s statements in light of the Panetti
and Ford decisions.[xlviii] However, unlike the majority, the dissent
found that this evidence clearly indicated that Middleton had in fact made the
substantial threshold showing of insanity required under the Eighth Amendment
for a stay of execution.[xlix] Further, unlike the majority, the dissent
found that Middleton had made a colorable argument as to the constitutionality
of RSMo § 552.060, which governs the procedure for determining whether a condemned
prisoner is competent to be executed in the state of Missouri.[l] Although the statute does not preclude the
brining of a habeas corpus petition, the dissent believed the statute
contravened the Ford decision by
providing what the dissent believed to be unfettered and unreviewable
discretion to the Director of the Department of Corrections in characterizing a
prisoner’s mental status for purposes of determining competency for execution.[li]
Regarding
the evidence presented as to Middleton’s competency, the dissent looked to the
opinions of other prison inmates and Middleton’s own defense counsel in
addition to Dr. Logan’s conclusions.[lii] However, the dissent focused on Dr. Logan’s
conclusions in arguing that Middleton had made the substantial threshold showing
required for the institution of a Ford hearing.[liii] Specifically, the dissent referenced Dr.
Logan’s finding that Middleton exhibited symptoms of psychosis characterized
by:
Rambling, tangential
speech; rapid switching to irrelevant topics; auditory hallucinations to which
he responds, at times observed by others; suspiciousness and preoccupation with
irrelevant minor details which hinders the efforts of his defense attorneys, a
pervasive distrust of the legal system including the efforts of previous
attorneys on his behalf; and delusional ideas generally persecutory and
grandiose in nature,
to
find that a substantial threshold showing had been made.[liv]
As
to Middleton’s RSMo § 552.060 argument, the dissent believed that Middleton had
raised legitimate constitutional concerns and that the issue should have been
addressed by the Court after appropriate briefing and oral argument.[lv]
In
supporting Middleton’s constitutional argument, the dissent found that the
statute appeared to violate the constitutional mandates of the Ford decision.[lvi] The dissent pointed out that the fact that
“only the DOC director has the capacity to initiate the process relating to a
determination of the sanity of the condemned prisoner” represented a
“fundamental structural flaw in the statute.”
Further, like the unconstitutional regime critiqued by the United States
Supreme Court in Ford, here, the
dissent believed that the “vindication of a constitutional right [was being]
entrusted to the unreviewable discretion of an administrative tribunal.”[lvii] Thus, the dissent argued that the issue
should be heard by the Court, especially in light of the apparent ambiguity
regarding the appropriate means for raising the competency issue in the state
of Missouri.[lviii]
II. Legal Background
A. United
States Supreme Court Precedent: Panetti &
Ford
In
its 1986 Ford v. Wainwright decision the
United States Supreme Court took up the issue of the necessary state procedural
requirements for establishing constitutionally sufficient mental competency of
death row inmates prior to execution when that competency has been called into
question.[lix] In Ford,
no state court had made “a determination after a hearing on the merits of [the]
factual issue [the mental competency of the inmate]” under the federal habeas
corpus statute.[lx] Thus, the Court addressed the
constitutionality of a Florida statute which provided “the exclusive means for
determining sanity,” and which was “conducted wholly within the executive
branch, ex parte.”[lxi] At the time of the state law hearing, Florida
law directed that the Governor, when informed that a death row inmate may be
insane, appoint a psychiatric commission to examine the prisoner, and, upon
receipt of the commission’s report, determine “whether the ‘convicted person
has the mental capacity to understand the nature of the death penalty and the
reasons why it was imposed on him.’”[lxii]
In
rejecting the constitutionality of the Florida procedure, the Court was especially
critical of the “State’s placement of the decision wholly within the executive
branch,” as, “Under this procedure, the person who appoints the experts and
ultimately decides whether the States will be able to carry out the sentence
that it has long sought is the Governor, whose subordinates have been
responsible for initiating every stage off the prosecution . . . .”[lxiii] Thus, the Court held that, “Having been
denied a factfinding procedure ‘adequate to afford a full and fair hearing’ on
the critical issue . . . petitioner
[was] entitled to an evidentiary hearing in the District Court, de novo, on the question of his
competence to be executed.”[lxiv]
In
its 2007 Panetti v. Quarterman opinion,
the Court once again was asked to address the issue of the mental competency of
a death row inmate.[lxv] However, unlike Ford, in Panetti the
Court focused on the requirements of the substantial threshold showing of
incompetence under the Eight Amendment.[lxvi] Although, the Court spent some time analyzing
the state procedures employed in determining an inmate’s competency, in the
context of Middleton, the important
take away from Panetti is the
threshold standard which the opinion enunciated.[lxvii]
In
Panetti, the Court reversed an
opinion by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit which found
an inmate competent for execution in the face of evidence that the inmate had a
“genuine delusion involving his understanding of the reason for his execution
that recast petitioner’s execution as part of spiritual warfare between the
demons and the forces of the darkness and God and the angels and the forces of
light.”[lxviii] There, the District Court had held that the
state court’s procedures for determining competency had been unconstitutional
under Ford, and thus the Fifth
Circuit focused on applying its competency standards to the petitioner.[lxix]
In
reversing the Fifth Circuit’s holding, the Court announced that “the gravamen
of the Eight Amendment incompetence claim is not that an inmate is delusional,
but that the inmate suffers from some ‘mental illness that is the source of gross delusions preventing him from comprehending
the meaning and purpose of the punishment to which he has been sentenced.’”[lxx] Further, the Court held that the “delusions
must be such that ‘they so impair the prisoner’s concept of reality that he
cannot reach a rational understanding of the reason for the execution.’”[lxxi]
In Panetti,
the Court found that these threshold requirements had been met by the
petitioner, and thus the case was remanded for determination under an
appropriate competency standard.[lxxii]
B. RSMo
§ 552.060
In
the state of Missouri, RSMo § 552.060 provides the guidelines for the state
procedure for determining the competency of inmates who have been sentenced to
death.[lxxiii] Further, the statute does appear to leave the
competency determination within the purview of director of the department of
corrections, as it provides that if the director of the Department of
Corrections “has reasonable cause to believe that any inmate then in
confinement in a correctional facility and sentenced to death has a material
disease or defect excluding fitness for execution, he shall immediately notify
the governor who shall forthwith order a stay of execution . . . .”[lxxiv]
However, the statute specifically states
that it is not intended to limit the existing powers of the courts and the
governor in this context, and thus a habeas corpus remedy implicitly remains.[lxxv]
III. Comment
One of the most fascinating aspects of the Missouri
Supreme Court’s sharply decided opinion in the Middleton case is the fact that the justices utilized the exact
same facts and precedent to come out on opposite ends of the jurisprudential
spectrum. With an issue so heavily
polarized by policy concerns, it is hard to imagine that these softer factors
didn’t play some role in the justices’ decisions. As the majority maintained, Dr. Logan’s
report did contain essentially the same findings taken during the same visit
that had been presented during Middleton’s motion during the first week of
July. However, the dissent found Logan’s
sworn statement to be persuasive.
Further, although the majority utilized the Panetti standards to strongly argue in favor of denial of the
habeas petition, the dissent believed that these standards clearly favored
their position.
- David Ferguson
[i] State ex rel. Middleton v.
Russell, 435 S.W. 3d 83, 85 (Mo. 2014) (en banc).
[ii] Id. at 86; see Middleton
v. Roper, No. 14-2667, 2014 WL 3512499 (8th Cir. July 16, 2014).
[iii] Id. at 83.
[iv] 551 U.S. 930 (2007).
[v] 477 U.S. 399 (1986).
[vi] Id. at 84.
[vii] Id. at 87 (Draper, J., dissenting).
[viii] Id. at 88.
[ix] State v. Middleton, 995 S.W.2d
443, 451 (Mo. 1999) (en banc).
[x] Id.
[xi] Id.
[xii] Id.
[xiii] Id.
[xiv] Id.
[xv] Id.
[xvi] State ex rel. Middleton v.
Russell, 435 S.W. 3d 83, 85 (Mo. 2014) (en banc).
[xvii] Id.
[xviii] Id. at 83.
[xix] Id.
[xx] Id. at 84 (citing Panetti v. Quarterman, 551 U.S. 930, 960 (2007)).
[xxi] Id.
[xxii] See Middleton v. Roper, No. 14-2667, 2014 WL 3512499, at *1 (8th
Cir. July 16, 2014).
[xxiii] Id.
[xxiv] Id.
[xxv] 477 U.S. 399 (1986).
[xxvi] 551 U.S. 930 (2007).
[xxvii] Middleton v. Roper, No. 14-2667,
2014 WL 3512499, at *1 (8th Cir. July 16, 2014).
[xxviii] Id. (internal citation omitted).
[xxix] Id.
[xxx] Id. (internal citation omitted).
[xxxi] Id.
[xxxii] Id.
[xxxiii] Id.
[xxxiv] Id. (citing 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b)(1)(A)).
[xxxv] Id.
[xxxvi] State ex rel. Middleton v.
Russell, 435 S.W. 3d 83, 85 (Mo. 2014) (en banc).
[xxxvii] Id. at 86.
[xxxviii] Id. at 84.
[xxxix] Id.
[xl] Id.
[xli] Id.
[xlii] Id.
[xliii] Id. at 84-85.
[xliv] Id. at 84.
[xlv] Id. at 84-85.
[xlvi] Id. at 85.
[xlvii] Id.
[xlviii] Id. at 87-88 (J. Draper III, dissenting).
[xlix] Id.
[l] Id. at 88.
[li] Id. at 89; see also Id. at
n.3 (“I am also troubled by the allegation Middleton has raised that the State
has now changed its position on whether section 552.060 or a writ of habeas
corpus is the appropriate means to raise the competency issue. Middleton alleges the State has asserted
previously that the statue was the appropriate means when answering the same
claim raised by Joseph Franklin in November 2013.”).
[lii] Id. at 87-88.
[liii] Id. at 88.
[liv] Id.
[lv] Id. at 89.
[lvi] Id. at 89 (J. Draper III, dissenting).
[lvii] Id. (quoting Ford v. Wainwright, 477 U.S. 399, 416 (1986)).
[lviii] See supra n.lii.
[lix] Ford v. Wainwright, 477 U.S.
399, 404-405 (1986).
[lx] Id. at 410; see also 28
U.S.C. § 2254(d) (2014) (“An application for writ of habeas corpus on behalf of
a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court shall not be
granted with respect to any claim that was adjudicated on the merits in State
court proceedings unless the adjudication of the claim – (1) 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; or (2) resulted in a decision that was based on an unreasonable
determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State
Court proceeding.”).
[lxi] Ford v. Wainwright, 477 U.S.
399, 412 (1986).
[lxii] Id. (quoting Fla.Stat. § 922.07 (1985 and Supp.1986).
[lxiii] Id.
[lxiv] Id. at 418.
[lxv] Panetti v. Quarterman, 551 U.S.
930, 934-935 (2007).
[lxvi] Id. at 954.
[lxvii] State ex rel. Middleton v.
Russell, 435 S.W. 3d 83, 85 (Mo. 2014) (en banc) (quoting Panetti v.
Quarterman, 551 U.S. 930, 953-954) (2007)).
[lxviii] State ex rel. Middleton v.
Russell, 435 S.W. 3d 83, 85 (Mo. 2014) (en banc) (quoting Panetti v.
Quarterman, 551 U.S. 930, 954) (2007) (citations omitted)).
[lxix] Panetti, 551 U.S. at 942-943.
[lxx] Middleton, 435 S.W. at 85
(citing Panetti v. Quarterman, 551 U.S. 930, at 963 (2007)).
[lxxi] Id. (citing Panetti, 551
U.S. at 958).
[lxxii] Panetti, 551 U.S. at 961-962.
[lxxiii] See
§
522.060, RSMo (2012) (1. No person
condemned to death shall be executed if as a result of mental disease or defect
he lacks capacity to understand the nature and purpose of the punishment about
to be imposed upon him or matters in extenuation, arguments for executive
clemency or reasons why the sentence should not be carried out. 2. If the
director of the department of corrections has reasonable cause to believe that
any inmate then in confinement in a correctional facility and sentenced to
death has a mental disease or defect excluding fitness for execution, he shall
immediately notify the governor who shall forthwith order a stay of execution
of the sentence if there is not sufficient time between such notification and
time of execution for a determination of the mental condition of such person to
be made in accordance with the provisions of this section without such stay.
The director shall also, as soon as reasonably possible, notify the director of
the department of mental health and the prosecuting or circuit attorney of the
county where the defendant was tried, the attorney general and the circuit
court of the county where the correctional facility is located. 3. As soon as reasonably possible, after the
notification prescribed in subsection 2 of this section, the circuit court of
the county shall conduct an inquiry into the mental condition of the offender
after first granting any of the parties entitled to notification an examination
by a physician of their own choosing on proper application made within five
days of such notification. 4. If the court, after such inquiry, certifies to
the governor and to the director that the prisoner does not have a mental
disease or defect of the type referred to in subsection 1 of this section, the
governor shall fix a new date for the execution, if a stay of execution had
previously been made, and shall issue a warrant for the new execution date to
the chief administrative officer of the correctional facility, who shall then
proceed with the execution as ordered. If the court, after such inquiry,
certifies to the governor and to the director that the prisoner has a mental
disease or defect of the type referred to in subsection 1 of this section, the offender
shall not be executed but shall be held in the correctional facility subject to
transfer to a mental hospital and further proceedings under section 552.050 if
the provisions of section 552.050 are applicable. If any offender who has not
been executed because of any certification by the director as herein provided
is thereafter certified by the director as free of a mental disease or defect
of the type referred to in subsection 1 of this section, the governor shall fix
a new date for the execution and shall issue a warrant for the new execution
date to the chief administrative officer of the correctional facility, who
shall then take charge and custody of the offender and proceed with the
execution as ordered in the warrant. 5. Nothing in this chapter shall be
construed to limit the governor or any court in the exercise of any of their
powers in any other manner under the law or Constitution of Missouri.”).
[lxxiv] Id.
[lxxv] Id.
