Case No. 16-6795 | 5th Cir. Decision
A defendant convicted of murder and sentenced to death challenges his sentence, arguing that his lawyer failed to investigate mitigating circumstances like substance abuse and mental illness. Is he entitled to counsel to develop those claims? Congress, through the Criminal Justice Act, provides post-conviction assistance of counsel for capital defendants in federal habeas corpus proceedings. In Ayestas v. Davis, the Court may clarify the scope of the right to counsel by detailing just how plausible a defendant’s claim must be before a defendant is entitled to the assistance of counsel to investigate it.
The question arises from the trial and post-conviction litigation related to the 1995 murder of Santiaga Paneque. A Texas jury convicted Carlos Manuel Ayestas of the murder in 1997 and sentenced him to death. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the following year. Ayestas began habeas proceedings in state court while his appeal was pending, arguing ineffective assistance of trial counsel based on his court-appointed attorney’s failure to secure the presence of his family members, who lived in Honduras, to testify during his sentencing. During the state habeas proceedings, a psychologist diagnosed Ayestas with schizophrenia. In 2008, the court denied Ayestas’s habeas claim.
Ayestas then initiated habeas proceedings in federal court this following year. He claimed ineffective assistance of counsel based on his trial counsel’s failure to investigate his mental health and substance abuse as mitigating factors at sentencing. He moved the court to authorize an investigation pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3599(f) (2012), which, “[u]pon a finding that investigative, expert, or other services are reasonably necessary for the representation,” allows a court to authorize payment to defendant’s counsel for those services. Citing Fifth Circuit case law, the district court denied Ayestas’s § 3599(f) motion, saying Ayestas had not established a “substantial need” for the investigation. The Fifth Circuit affirmed, explaining that the “substantial need” test required the defendant to raise a “viable constitutional claim.”
Ayestas’s appeal targets the Fifth Circuit’s “substantial need” test as an improper statutory construction of § 3599(f). Under that test, Ayestas argues, courts prematurely consider the merits of an underlying claim at the time the motion was filed. By contrast, the plain text of the statute provides for appointment of counsel for any “reasonably necessary” investigations. Under that language, Ayestas argues, a defendant need only raise a possible constitutional claim to enjoy the protection of the statute. Settled judicial interpretations of “reasonably necessary,” as well Congress’s purpose in enacting § 3599(f), also demand that the statute be interpreted to provide court-appointed counsel for any services that a reasonable private attorney allocating scarce resources would use.
Respondent Lorie Davis, the Director of the Correctional Institutions Division of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, argues first that the Court lacks jurisdiction to review the district court’s denial of Ayestas’s § 3599(f) motion because that decision was made pursuant to the court’s administrative powers and not its judicial function. Alternatively, Davis argues that, even if the court has jurisdiction, federal law does not allow Ayestas to raise an ineffective assistance of counsel claim in federal habeas corpus proceedings based on evidence outside the record. Finally, Davis argues that, even if Ayestas’s did not waive his claim below, he is not entitled to counsel for a mitigation investigation because the Fifth Circuit’s “substantial need” test is a proper application of § 3599(f). Even if trial counsel had investigated Ayestas’s claims of mental illness and substance abuse, Davis claims, it was not substantially likely that the investigation would have dissuaded the jury from imposing a death sentence because of the brutality of the murder.
The Court’s ruling on the proper interpretation of § 3599(f) could have significant ramifications for defendants in death penalty cases challenging their convictions on habeas review. The American Civil Liberties Union and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, among others, filed an amicus brief in support Ayestas, while Arizona and fourteen other states filed a brief in support of Davis.