Richard S. Zeitvogel is on death row in Missouri for murdering Gary Wayne Dew in 1984. Zeitvogel appeals the district court’s denial of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 (1988), and we affirm.
Zeitvogel killed Dew while they were cellmates in the maximum security area of the Missouri State Penitentiary., A prison guard responding to a flashing emergency light over their cell found Dew dead on a mattress on the floor, and Zeitvogel alone with the body in the locked cell. Zeitvogel told the guard, “I killed my cellie.” During Zeitvo-gel’s trial for murdering Dew, the State of Missouri presented evidence that Zeitvogel strangled Dew from behind with a plastic-covered wire, then waited about three hours before activating the emergency light to summon help. Zeitvogel admitted killing Dew, but attempted to show he choked Dew with a sheet in self-defense after Dew attacked him. The jury rejected Zeitvogel’s self-defense theory and convicted Zeitvogel of capital murder.
At the penalty phase of the trial, the State introduced certified copies of Zeitvogel’s earlier convictions for capital murder, rape, armed robbery, assault, and jail break and escape. State witnesses explained Zeitvogel had received the earlier murder and assault convictions for fatally stabbing a fellow inmate and threatening a prison guard. Zeit-vogel presented no mitigating evidence at the penalty phase. His attorney made a plea for mercy and argued Dew had provoked Zeitvo-gel by assaulting him. After finding the presence of three aggravating circumstances, the jury returned a verdict recommending the death penalty. The district court denied Zeitvogel’s posttrial motions and sentenced Zeitvogel to death.
Zeitvogel unsuccessfully challenged his conviction and sentence on direct appeal,
see State v. Zeitvogel,
Zeitvogel mainly contends the State’s failure to disclose certain hospital and prison records containing evidence of Zeitvogel’s low intelligence, learning disabilities, and epilepsy caused by organic brain damage (collectively “mental deficiencies”) violated
Bra
Zeitvogel failed to present and preserve these contentions in state court. Zeitvogel failed to raise Ms
Brady
claim and his guilt-phase ineffective assistance claim in state court proceedings as Missouri law requires. See
LaRette v. Delo,
We need not address the miscarriage of justice exception in tMs case because Zeitvo-gel did not assert actual innocence in Ms habeas petition,
see Charron v. Gammon,
To establish cause, Zeitvogel must show something beyond the control of postconviction counsel, like State interference, actually prevented postconviction counsel from raising the claims and presenting the evidence in state court.
Coleman,
The State’s failure to produce the records does not excuse Zeitvogel’s procedural default. Lack of production by state officials is not cause excusing procedural default if the information the officials failed to pro-
Postconvietion counsel knew the State had hospital and prison records about Zeitvogel. A psychiatrist who examined Zeitvogel before the postconvietion hearing, Dr. A.E. Daniel, told postconvietion counsel that Fulton State Hospital and the Missouri State Penitentiary Hospital had medical records about Zeitvogel from the 1970s and 1980s, and counsel acknowledges in his affidavit that he believed the state hospitals had all Zeitvogel’s psychiatric records. The re-classification analysis is just a standard prison record from Zeitvogel’s prison file, and it is common knowledge that prisons routinely keep records about inmates.
Shaw v. Delo,
Postconvietion counsel could have obtained the state hospital and prison records if he had acted reasonably and diligently, but he made no effort to obtain them. Rather than requesting the records from the hospitals or Zeitvogel’s prison file, postconvietion counsel sent the Missouri Department of Corrections a vague letter asking for “the psychiatric report from [Zeitvogel’s] evaluation at the Missouri State Penitentiary.” In response to counsel’s letter, the State sent counsel one document, an updated psychiatric evaluation of Zeitvogel, conducted to give a current assessment of Zeitvogel’s condition. Post-conviction counsel should have immediately realized the updated evaluation was not one of the state hospital records Dr. Daniel had mentioned, because it was dated after counsel's letter requesting Zeitvogel’s records. Further, the updated evaluation confirmed counsel's belief that the State had other relevant records, because the evaluation referred to reports from earlier examinations of Zeit-vogel. The State did not tell counsel it had no other records on Zeitvogel, but sent the current evaluation with a cover letter stating, “We hope this information will suffice.” Postconvietion counsel took no steps to obtain more records. Zeitvogel’s appointed ha-beas counsel made the effort and obtained them “pretty easily” by filing a simple application for an order authorizing counsel’s access to the records.
If postconvietion counsel had acted reasonably and diligently, he could have raised the
Brady
and guilt-phase ineffective assistance claims, developed and presented the evidence contained in the unprodueed records and expert testimony based on them, and called family members and others acquainted with Zeitvogel in the state postconvietion hearing. In anticipation of the hearing, postconvietion counsel had Zeitvogel examined by Dr. Daniel. Although Dr. Daniel decided Zeitvogel did not have any mental impairment affecting his criminal behavior, Dr. Daniel’s opinion letter also stated Zeitvogel’s history suggested epilepsy and if counsel could confirm Zeit-vogel was epileptic, a neurological examination might be helpful. Postconvietion counsel knew from Zeitvogel’s mother that Zeitvogel had epilepsy, but did not consult a neurologist. Postconvietion counsel could have obtained the unprodueed records mentioned by Dr. Daniel several months before the post-conviction hearing and asked the doctor to re-evaluate Zeitvogel, or could have developed other expert testimony about the significance of the evidence in the records. Instead, postconvietion counsel told the court Dr. Daniel’s opinion was not helpful because the doctor said Zeitvogel’s epilepsy had no effect on ZeitvogePs criminal conduct. Rather than presenting expert testimony about Zeitvogel’s mental health, the postconvietion
In our view, the blame for Zeitvogel’s procedural default falls squarely on Zeitvo-gel’s posteonvietion counsel rather than the State. At the time of the posteonvietion hearing, posteonvietion counsel either had or reasonably could have had a sufficient factual basis to assert the defaulted
Brady
and guilt-phase ineffective assistance claims, and could have presented the additional evidence supporting the penalty-phase ineffective assistance claim.
See McCleskey,
Besides the State’s failure to produce records, Zeitvogel contends the State’s issuance of execution warrants during his posteonvietion proceedings is cause for his default. Posteonvietion counsel obtained several stays of execution for Zeitvogel. Each time the Missouri Supreme Court granted a stay, the court postponed Zeitvo-gel’s execution for about thirty days and issued a new warrant for his execution, as the court commonly does in death penalty eases. Issuance of the warrants furthered the court’s legitimate interest in ensuring Zeitvogel’s posteonvietion proceeding was moving forward and was not being used solely as a delay tactic. Nevertheless, Zeit-vogel contends the warrants interfered with his ability to investigate and present claims at the posteonvietion hearing, because post-conviction counsel was forced to spend a great deal of his time on obtaining stays. Zeitvogel has failed to show the warrants prevented him from raising and presenting any claim in the posteonvietion proceedings, however.
LaRette,
The record does not support Zeitvogel’s assertion that his posteonvietion counsel was too busy handling execution warrants to discover and raise the defaulted claims or develop the additional evidence. It is relatively easy to move for a stay in Missouri. Zeitvo-gel’s posteonvietion counsel merely had to obtain a certificate from the posteonvietion court stating additional time was needed to prepare the case, and then present the certificate to the Missouri Supreme Court, which routinely granted Zeitvogel’s motions for stays. In his brief, Zeitvogel describes two occasions when his counsel had difficulty tracking down a judge to sign the necessary certificate, but the record shows counsel brought the close calls on himself by dashing to the courthouse at the last minute. Post-conviction counsel states in his affidavit, without providing any specifics, that his heavy workload made moving for stays especially burdensome. Even if posteonvietion counsel had limited time to spend on Zeitvo-gel’s case, Zeitvogel’s mother, Dr. Daniel, and the State gave posteonvietion counsel ample information about potential claims and available evidence, but posteonvietion counsel failed to follow through on the information handed to him on a silver platter.
Zeitvogel’s efforts to blame his procedural default on the State fañ as a matter of law. Thus, the district court properly refused to conduct an evidentiary hearing on the issue
Because Zeitvogel’s contentions are aimed at obtaining a federal hearing and supplementing the record from his state postcon-viction hearing, we do not believe Zeitvogel has asked us to review his penalty-phase ineffective assistance claim based solely on the limited evidence Zeitvogel raised during the state postconviction hearing. Instead, Zeit-vogel argues we should consider evidence outside the state postconviction record, and we have held we cannot. Even' if Zeitvogel had asked us to review his penalty-phase ineffective assistance claim based only on the state postconviction record, we would reject the claim because the state postcon-viction record does not show Zeitvogel was prejudiced by trial counsel’s failure to inform the jury about Zeitvogel’s mental deficiencies.
See Strickland v. Washington,
Having disposed of the main thrust of Ze-itvogel’s appeal, we turn to his remaining contentions. At trial, Zeitvogel’s counsel presented the testimony of inmates Chester Bettis and Charles Stevenson to support Ze-itvogel’s claim that he killed Dew in self-defense. Bettis and Stevenson testified Dew and Zeitvogel were fighting in their cell on the day of Dew’s murder and Dew threatened to kill Zeitvogel. Zeitvogel now argues his trial counsel was ineffective for not calling several additional inmates to testify in support of Zeitvogel’s self-defense claim. Zeitvogel raised this ineffective assistance claim during his state postconviction proceedings, but postconviction counsel did not call the additional inmates as witnesses.
To show counsel was ineffective, Zeitvogel must show his attorney’s actions prejudiced him, that is, a reasonable probability that the jury would have reached a different verdict had it heard the additional testimony.
Foster v. Delo,
Zeitvogel next contends the trial court violated due process by requiring Zeit-vogel to remain shackled while in the courtroom. Although Zeitvogel has complained of the shackling in other ways, Zeitvogel did not raise this due process argument in the state or district court, so we need not consider it.
Jones v. Caspari,
Zeitvogel next challenges the penalty-phase jury instructions. Jury instruction eighteen stated Zeitvogel would not be eligible for the death penalty unless the jury found the existence of at least one of three aggravating circumstances, including that Zeitvogel had a substantial history of serious assaultive convictions, and that at the time of Dew’s murder, Zeitvogel had an earlier capital murder conviction. Zeitvogel contends this instruction improperly listed these two separate aggravating circumstances when only one was authorized by the controlling Missouri statute, Mo.Bev.Stat. § 565.012.2 (Supp.1983).
See Zeitvogel,
Instructions eighteen and nineteen both mention Zeitvogel’s earlier murder conviction, and Zeitvogel argues this “duplication” violates the Eighth Amendment. We disagree. Instruction eighteen narrowed the class of capital murderers eligible for the death penalty.
See Zant v. Stephens,
Because instructions eighteen and nineteen were proper, Zeitvogel’s trial counsel was not ineffective for failing to object to them. Further, Zeitvogel never raised this ineffective assistance issue in the Missouri courts. Habeas relief is not warranted in any event because the alleged error did not infect the entire trial and render it fundamentally unfair, nor was the alleged error a fundamental defect resulting in a complete miscarriage of justice.
Baker,
Finally, Zeitvogel contends the Missouri Supreme Court did not adequately review his sentence to ensure its proportionality to sentences imposed on defendants in similar eases, in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. The Missouri Supreme Court reviewed Zeitvogel’s sentence during his direct appeal, however, and addressed and decided the proportionality issue in its opinion.
Zeitvogel,
In conclusion, Zeitvogel’s contentions fail. Because Zeitvogel cannot show cause for his procedural default, Zeitvogel is not entitled to a federal evidentiary hearing on his main claims. Zeitvogel’s remaining contentions are proeedurally barred or meritless. We thus affirm the district court’s denial of Zeit-vogel’s habeas petition.
