Demetrie Ladon Mayfield v. Jeanne Woodford, Warden

270 F.3d 915 (9th Cir. 2001) DEMETRIE LADON MAYFIELD, PETITIONER-APPELLANT v. JEANNE WOODFORD, WARDEN, RESPONDENT-APPELLEE No. 97-99031 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT Argued and Submitted June 19, 2001 Filed November 7, 2001 [Copyrighted Material Omitted][Copyrighted Material Omitted] Michael M. Crain, Klein & Crain, Santa Monica, California, and Michael T. Shannon, Pasadena, California, for the petitioner-appellant. Garrett Beaumont, Deputy Attorney General, San Diego, California, for the respondent-appellee. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California; Edward Rafeedie, District Judge, Presiding. D.C. No. CV-94-6011-ER Before: Schroeder, Chief Judge, and O'Scannlain, Rymer, Kleinfeld, Hawkins, Silverman, Graber, Gould, Berzon, Tallman, and Rawlinson, Circuit Judges. Richard C. Tallman, Circuit Judge: 1 Demetrie Ladon Mayfield murdered Ora Mae Pope on February 2, 1983, to exact revenge from Ms. Pope and her son, Byron, who had sworn out a complaint against Mayfield for auto theft. He then killed John Moreno to eliminate the only eyewitness to the crime. A San Bernardino County jury convicted Mayfield of two counts…

Demetrie Ladon Mayfield murdered Ora Mae Pope on February 2, 1983, to exact revenge from Ms. Pope and her son, Byron, who had sworn out a complaint against Mayfield for auto theft. He then killed John Moreno to eliminate the only eyewitness to the crime. A San Bernardi-no County jury convicted Mayfield of two counts of first degree murder and found a multiple murder special circumstance to be true. After a separate penalty hearing, *919 the jury recommended that Mayfield be put to death.

Every court that has reviewed this case has upheld the conviction and sentence. The California Supreme Court affirmed Mayfield’s death sentence on direct appeal and, after referring several questions to a superior court judge who served as a referee at an extensive evidentiary hearing, it denied Mayfield’s state habeas corpus petition. People v. Mayfield, 5 Cal.4th 142 , 19 Cal.Rptr.2d 836 , 852 P.2d 331 (1993). The United States Supreme Court denied certiorari. Mayfield v. California, 512 U.S. 1253 , 114 S.Ct. 2780 , 129 L.Ed.2d 892 (1994). Mayfield then filed a federal habe-as corpus petition in the United States District Court for the Central District of California. The district court denied…

join as to the analysis in Part II, Concurring:

I.

I concur in the majority’s opinion and judgment that Mayfield is entitled to a new penalty phase hearing, or else to life imprisonment rather than death, because his counsel gave ineffective assistance in the penalty phase to his dire prejudice. I write separately to stress my views about prejudice at the penalty phase.

II.

It is important to recognize that the jury in the end was considering the fate of a young man barely out of his teens who did not have an extensive record involving major crimes or violence. In my view, there is a reasonable probability that the result would have been different if Mayfield’s counsel had called at least some family members or friends to testify in the penalty phase.

Mayfield is eligible for the death penalty because he was convicted, in a single proceeding, of two counts of first degree murder. See CaLPenal Code § 190.2(a)(3). As pertinent to my analysis, Mayfield contends that his counsel’s failure to present testimony from family members or friends to humanize Mayfield during the penalty phase was prejudicial. The district court rejected this claim, concluding that “had Ames presented the…

join, dissenting:

Defense counsel in this case abandoned his duty of loyalty to his client and thereby created a conflict of interest from which prejudice in the guilt phase of the trial must be presumed. I therefore disagree with Part 11(E) of the majority’s opinion and, accordingly, dissent.

As the Supreme Court of the United States reminded us recently, “there are a few situations in which prejudice may be presumed” in the analysis of an ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim. Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 391 , 120 S.Ct. 1495 , 146 L.Ed.2d 389 (2000). One of those situations is

Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 692 , 104 S.Ct. 2052 , 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984). In that kind of situation, “the process loses its character as a confrontation between adversaries,” and the Sixth Amendment guarantee of the assistance of counsel is violated. United States v. Cronic, 466 U.S. 648, 656-57 , 104 S.Ct. 2039 , 80 L.Ed.2d 657 (1984).

Petitioner, Demetrie Ladon Mayfield, is an African American. His lawyer, S. Donald Ames, harbors deep and utter contempt for African Americans. As one of Ames’ daughters puts it:

Ames’ former secretary states that he “consistently” referred to his…

concurring in part and dissenting in part:

I join Judge Graber’s compelling dissent and write separately to state my agreement with the majority analysis as to error in the sentencing phase. Of course, the normal consequence of the position Judge Graber so eloquently urges would be to give Mr. Mayfield a new trial on all issues, including a new sentencing hearing if a conviction resulted on retrial. I agree ■with both positions because Donald Ames performed in the same inadequate fashion in the guilt and in the sentencing phases. Guilt and sentence were tried seriatim and the performance of Ames, deeply influenced by the conflict of his ill-disguised racism, was consistently inadequate. Ames’s lack of preparation and bumbling presentation helped seal Mayfield’s guilt, his woeful approach to sentencing ensured Mayfield the gallows.

It is a painful truth of the death penalty process that these most serious cases sometimes draw the least adequate trial counsel. 1 I join Judge Graber in concluding that the deeply conflicted counsel Mayfield had at trial was the functional equivalent of no counsel at all, and I also embrace the analysis which shows that the representation at…