Eggers v. State of Alabama

Filing 134

MEMORANDUM OPINION. Signed by Judge L Scott Coogler on 11/25/2015. (KAM, )

FILED
2015 Nov-25 PM 01:22
U.S. DISTRICT COURT
N.D. OF ALABAMA

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ALABAMA
SOUTHERN DIVISION
MICHAEL WAYNE EGGERS,
Petitioner,
vs.
STATE OF ALABAMA,
Respondent.

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2:13-cv-1460-LSC

MEMORANDUM OF OPINION
This is a petition for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254
filed by Petitioner Michael Wayne Eggers (“Eggers”), a death row inmate at
Donaldson Correctional Facility in Bessemer, Alabama. Eggers challenges the
validity of his 2002 conviction for capital murder and sentence of death in the
Circuit Court of Walker County, Alabama. Upon thorough consideration of the
entire record and the briefs submitted by the parties, the Court finds that Eggers’s
petition for habeas relief is due to be denied.
I.

FACTS OF THE CRIME
In its opinion on direct appeal affirming Eggers’s conviction and death

sentence, the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals (hereinafter, the “ACCA”),
stated the facts of the crime as follows:
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The evidence adduced at trial indicated the following. Bennie
Francis Murray (“Francis”) and her husband, Frank, owned and
operated a concession business that traveled around the southeast
with a carnival. Francis hired Eggers to work concessions; he traveled
with the carnival until September 2000, when the carnival arrived in
Jasper, where Eggers met a woman. When the carnival left Jasper,
Eggers stayed behind and found a job, but apparently lost the job at
some point and was unable to find another one. On December 26,
2000, Eggers telephoned Francis, who, along with her husband, lived
in Talladega when they were not traveling with the carnival, and asked
for a job. Francis explained that the carnival would not begin traveling
again until mid-March and that the Murrays’ “bunkhouse,” a trailer
that had been converted into rooms for their employees, would not be
available until mid-February. (R. 416.) On December 28, 2000, Eggers
telephoned Francis again. He told Francis that he and his 15–year–old
son were at the bus station in Birmingham, and asked Francis to come
pick them up. Francis picked up Eggers and his son and brought them
back to Talladega, where she tried to help Eggers find a temporary job,
but was unable to do so. On December 30, 2000, Eggers asked Francis
to take him and his son back to Jasper; she agreed.
According to Eggers’s statements to police, on their way to
Jasper, Eggers asked Francis to take him to his car, which was outside
Jasper; he had driven it off the road in inclement weather the week
before Christmas and had gotten stuck in a ditch. Francis agreed and,
after dropping off Eggers’s son at Eggers’s apartment in Jasper,
Francis and Eggers left in search of Eggers’s car. After driving for
some time in a rural area of Walker County, Francis stopped her
pickup truck on the side of the road and indicated that she was
unwilling to go any further and was going to turn around. Eggers then
asked her if she was “joining everyone else on the fuck Mike
bandwagon.” (C. 404.) At that point, Eggers said, Francis
“backhanded” him and he “let go . . . [and] just started hitting her.”
(C. 404.) Eggers beat Francis with his fists until she was unconscious,
at which point he pushed her as far against the driver’s side door of
the pickup truck as he could, and drove down a nearby dirt road.
When Francis started to regain consciousness—“[s]he was making
noises and stuff like that” (C. 406)—Eggers stopped the truck and
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pushed her out of the cab of the truck onto the road. Eggers got out of
the truck and started cursing at Francis and kicked her several times in
the head with the steel-toed boots he was wearing. Eggers then got
back in the truck, drove toward the end of the road and turned around,
but decided to stop where he had left Francis because he wanted to
make sure she was dead and “wasn’t going to stay out there
suffering.” (C. 406.) When Eggers stopped, Francis was starting to
regain consciousness so he kicked her again and choked her with his
hands “to make sure she was dead.” (R. 406.) Eggers again said that
he “didn’t want to leave her out there suffering.” (C. 406.) Eggers
then dragged Francis into nearby woods where she could not be seen
from the road and, because he believed she was still alive at that point,
he put a tree limb on her throat and stood on it in an effort to kill her.
Eggers then took Francis’s truck to a car wash and washed Francis’s
blood out of the cab of the truck.FN1 He also went through Francis’s
purse, which was in the truck, and found cash and a debit card. Eggers
said that the killing was not premeditated, but was spontaneous.
FN1. Eggers said that when he hit Francis “blood just . . .
went everywhere” and that there was blood all over the
cab of the truck as a result of the attack. (C. 409.)
Following the murder, Eggers picked up his son in Francis’s
pickup truck and the two drove to Campbellsville, Kentucky, where
Eggers’s son stayed with a friend. While in Campbellsville, Eggers met
a man named Scott Mason, and the two went to the Caesar’s
Riverboat Casino, docked at New Albany, Indiana, on January 1, 2001.
According to Mason, Eggers insisted that they take the red Nissan
pickup truck Mason was driving, and they used Francis’s debit card to
obtain $300 for use at the casino.FN2 On their way back to
Campbellsville, while they were driving through Bardstown,
Kentucky, the police stopped them. After determining that the red
Nissan was stolen, the police searched the vehicle and found
marijuana in the ashtray. Both Mason and Eggers were arrested.
Francis’s debit card was found under the passenger seat of the truck a
few days later. Eggers posted bond the next day and took a cab back to
Campbellsville, where he stayed for a couple of days. Eggers left
Campbellsville on January 4, 2001, drove to Bowling Green,
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Kentucky, where he left Francis’s truck at a truck stop near the
interstate, and then hitchhiked to Kissimmee, Florida, where he was
eventually arrested and admitted to law enforcement that he had
murdered Francis.
FN2. Mason testified that Eggers gave him a debit card
with the name “Francis Murray” on it, along with the
personal identification number necessary to use the card,
and asked him to get the money from the automatic teller
machine. According to Mason, when he asked about the
name on the card, Eggers said that the card belonged to
one of his relatives who had given it to him to help him
out. The State introduced into evidence bank records
indicating that a withdrawal was made from Francis’s
account at an automatic teller machine located in New
Albany, Indiana, on January 1, 2001.
Following his arrest in Florida, Eggers waived extradition; he
was brought back to Alabama and took law-enforcement officers to the
area where he had left Francis’s body. Francis was found in the woods
with a tree limb, approximately four feet long and two inches in
diameter, over her neck. Dr. Stephen Pustilnik, who in 2001 was a
medical examiner for the State of Alabama and who performed the
autopsy on Francis, testified that Francis died from multiple bluntforce trauma and strangulation. Dr. Pustilnik stated that Francis had
been “beaten very severely” (R. 778); that she had multiple facial
fractures and a “tremendous amount” of swelling of her face (R. 778);
that she had trauma to both sides of her head; and that she had
hemorrhaging in her scalp and in her brain. Dr. Pustilnik also testified
that Francis’s hyoid bone, thyroid bone, and two laryngeal bones in
her neck were fractured and had a small amount of hemorrhaging.
Based on the amount of swelling in the face and hemorrhaging in the
head, Dr. Pustilnik concluded that the blows to the face and head
occurred first during the attack and that the injuries to the neck, which
had little hemorrhaging, occurred toward the end of the attack. Dr.
Pustilnik testified that the injuries to Francis’s face would have been
very painful but were not fatal, and that Francis lived for at least
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several minutes, but probably less than 20 minutes, after those injuries
were inflicted.
Eggers’s defense at trial was that the crime he committed was
not capital murder. Although Eggers pleaded not guilty and not guilty
by reason of mental disease or defect, and although the jury was
charged on the defense of insanity, Eggers never claimed, or presented
evidence indicating, that he did not kill Francis or that he was insane
at the time of the crime. Rather, Eggers claimed that he suffered from
intermittent explosive disorder and personality disorder, that the
initial attack on Francis in the truck was the result of blind rage
precipitated by Francis slapping him, and that, therefore, the
kidnapping and robbery were mere afterthoughts unrelated to
Francis’s murder.
Eggers v. State, 914 So. 2d 883, 888-90 (Ala. Crim. App. 2004).
II.

PROCEDURAL HISTORY
A.

Trial and Direct Appeal

After a suppression hearing failed to convince the judge that Eggers’s three
confessions to law enforcement were inadmissible, Eggers’s trial began on August
20, 2002. On the fourth day of trial, Eggers’s appointed counsel had him evaluated
by a psychologist in an effort to prove the defense that he was not guilty by reason
of insanity. The insanity defense failed, and the jury convicted Eggers of two
counts of capital murder in connection with the murder of Bennie Francis Murray. 1

1

The murder was made capital because it was committed during the course of a kidnaping,
see Ala. Code § 13A-5-40(a)(1) (1975), and because it was committed during the course of a
robbery, see id. § 13A-5-40(a)(2).
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The jury recommended a death sentence by an 11-1 margin. The trial court
accepted the jury’s recommendation, thus sentencing Eggers to death.
Eggers appealed, through different appointed counsel, and the ACCA
initially affirmed the conviction and sentence on October 1, 2004. Eggers v. State,
CR-02-0170, 2004 WL 2200853 (Ala. Crim. App. Oct. 1, 2004). Following
Eggers’s application for rehearing, the ACCA withdrew its October 1 opinion and
substituted another on November 24, 2004, also affirming the conviction and
sentence. Eggers, 914 So. 2d 883. The ACCA overruled a second application for
rehearing. The Alabama Supreme Court initially granted Eggers’s petition for a
writ of certiorari, but later quashed the petition. The ACCA issued its certificate of
judgment on May 20, 2005. Eggers subsequently filed two petitions for certiorari to
the United States Supreme Court—a pro se petition and an attorney-authored
one—which were both denied on January 17, 2006. Eggers v. Alabama, 546 U.S.
1140 (2006).
B.

State Post Conviction Proceedings

Eggers timely filed a pro se petition pursuant to Rule 32 of the Alabama Rules
of Criminal Procedure in the Circuit Court of Walker County, Alabama, on April
20, 2006. The State had some difficulty deciphering it and moved the circuit court
to appoint counsel to represent Eggers in his Rule 32 proceedings. The circuit court
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conducted a hearing concerning that motion. During the hearing, Eggers stated that
he desired to proceed without appointed counsel. Accordingly, the circuit court
denied the State’s motion to appoint counsel. Eggers amended the petition five
times and also filed several procedural and discovery motions. In many of those
pleadings, Eggers asserted that his capital crime was the result of a conspiracy
against him by the San Bernardino County, California, Sheriff’s Department, the
Federal Bureau of Investigation, and elements of organized crime. On August 23,
2007, Eggers filed his final amended Rule 32 petition in which he set forth 98 “legal
claims.” On several occasions throughout the Rule 32 proceedings, Eggers also
petitioned the ACCA or the Alabama Supreme Court for a writ of mandamus. All
of those petitions were dismissed or denied. On October 1, 2010, the State moved
the circuit court to dismiss Eggers’s Rule 32 petition on grounds that the claims
raised therein were either precluded or without merit. On October 4, 2010, the
circuit court issued a lengthy dismissal order, opining that Eggers’s claims lacked
merit, lacked specificity, or were procedurally defaulted.
Eggers appealed the circuit court’s dismissal order on November 8, 2010.
On appeal, the ACCA appointed counsel to represent Eggers. Some months later,
appointed counsel moved to withdraw, citing conflicts with Eggers. Eggers also
sent pleadings to the ACCA, saying that he had “discharged” appellate counsel
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because, in part, counsel could not sign Eggers’s “attorney/client objective
agreement” to litigate the appeal the way Eggers wanted. When the ACCA denied
the motion to withdraw, Eggers’s appointed counsel filed a “no merits” brief,
citing Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738, 87 S. Ct. 1396 (1967). The ACCA twice
issued orders to Eggers directing him to file a pleading stating each and every issue
he wanted considered by the court on appeal. Although Eggers filed numerous pro
se pleadings, he failed to comply. After a third order, Eggers filed, on November 4,
2011, a document that was 102 pages long and listed 1,581 “issues,” each in the
form of a question. Attached as an appendix to that document was a pro se brief,
which stated 10 “issues.” For example, Eggers asked the following questions in his
list of pro se issues: “Was Eggers the focus of an investigation by the United States
& the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department in 1985?” (Issue 2); “Was
Eggers & his family pursued by thousands of conspirators across the United States
from California to Texas in January of 1987?” (Issue 73); “Did Eggers previously
live in motels while hiding from the Mexican Mafia in Campbellsville, KY,
Gallatin, TN, & Fresno, CA, earning $1200.00 each week plus $350.00 per diem?”
(Issue 187). The ACCA ultimately affirmed the circuit court’s dismissal of
Eggers’s Rule 32 petition on April 20, 2012, writing that it had reviewed the entire

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list of Eggers’s pro se issues and concluded that the issues had no merit and that it
had further reviewed the entire record and found no issue warranting an appeal.
On July 5, 2012, Eggers filed his petition for writ of certiorari to the Alabama
Supreme Court. The Court denied the writ on September 20, 2013.
C.

Federal Habeas Proceedings

Eggers had already filed a pro se habeas petition pursuant to § 2254 in federal
court on July 6, 2006. That action was styled Eggers v. Alabama, 6:06-cv-1315-LSCHGD. This Court stayed that action on November 6, 2006, because Eggers had not
exhausted his state post-conviction remedies at that time. On February 24, 2012,
this Court dismissed that action without prejudice with leave to re-file because
state post-conviction proceedings had still not concluded.
On August 5, 2013, Eggers initiated the present action by filing a pro se
federal habeas petition pursuant to § 2254 and seeking the appointment of counsel.
(Docs. 1 & 3.) At that time, the Alabama Supreme Court had not yet denied
Eggers’s petition for a writ of certiorari from the denial of Rule 32 post-conviction
relief. On September 25, 2013, Eggers notified the Court that the Alabama
Supreme Court had recently denied his petition for a writ of certiorari, asked the
Court to move forward with his federal habeas proceeding, and again requested the
appointment of counsel. (Doc. 11.) The Court referred the appointment of counsel
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to a magistrate judge, who requested that experienced death-penalty litigation
attorneys Alan Freedman and Steven Sears speak with Eggers about the possibility
of representing him. However, after meeting with the attorneys, Eggers filed a
notice with the Court complaining about the attorneys’ strategy and advice. (Doc.
21.) The magistrate judge issued an order advising Eggers that while he was
entitled to the appointment of counsel, he was not entitled to the counsel of his
choosing. (Doc. 22.) The magistrate judge subsequently appointed attorneys with
the Middle District of Alabama Federal Defender Program, Inc. to represent
Eggers. (Doc. 27.) The Court then entered an order setting out deadlines governing
the filing of the amended petition, briefs, and the state court record. (Doc. 41.)
Appointed counsel met with Eggers and filed an amended petition on his
behalf. (Doc. 52.) However, in keeping with his long-standing complaints, Eggers
filed several motions expressing disagreement with counsel’s litigation strategy and
seeking to have “successor counsel” appointed. The Court denied those motions.
The Court advised Eggers that it would not release counsel from representation but
would allow Eggers to file a document stating which grounds, if any, in the
attorney-authored amended petition he wished to assert and alleging with
specificity any additional grounds for relief he wished to raise that counsel did not
raise in the amended petition. (Doc. 43.) Eggers did so, in a document styled
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“Motion to Appoint Successor Counsel or Motion to Proceed Pro Se.” (Doc. 60.)
The Court required the State to respond not only to the attorney-authored
amended petition but also to Eggers’s amended petition, which it did. (See Doc.
77.) In the meantime, Eggers’s counsel also filed a motion asking the Court to
declare Eggers incompetent to proceed in this action or in the alternative, to
conduct a competency hearing, arguing that Eggers’s numerous pro se filings raised
questions about his ability to make rational decisions about his case. In the Court’s
ruling on that motion, it noted that if a death penalty petitioner whose competency
is in question wishes to dismiss his § 2254 petition in its entirety, the Court must
first ensure that the petitioner is competent to make that decision, see Lonchar v.
Zant, 978 F.2d 637, 640 (11th Cir. 1992). However, the Court denied the motion
because Eggers had filed documents indicating that he did not wish to abandon his
federal habeas petition but instead wished to proceed pro se or with different
counsel. (Doc. 46.) Eggers’s counsel also filed a reply brief on the merits of his
claims (doc. 107), a motion for discovery (doc. 108), a motion for an evidentiary
hearing (doc. 109), and a motion to supplement the record (doc. 110). Eggers’s
motion to supplement the record (doc. 110) is hereby GRANTED. For the reasons
stated further in this opinion, Eggers’s motions for discovery and for an evidentiary
hearing are due to be denied.
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III.

STANDARDS OF FEDERAL HABEAS REVIEW
This action is governed by 28 U.S.C. § 2254, as amended by the Anti-

Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (“AEDPA”). See Guzman v.
Sec’y, Dep’t of Corr., 663 F.3d 1336, 1345 (11th Cir. 2011). Pursuant to § 2254(a), a
federal district court is prohibited from entertaining a petition for writ of habeas
corpus “in behalf of a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court”
unless the petition alleges “he is in custody in violation of the Constitution or laws
or treaties of the United States.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(a). In other words, this Court’s
review of habeas claims is limited to federal constitutional questions. Claims
pertaining solely to “an alleged defect in a [state] collateral proceeding” or to a
“state’s interpretation of its own laws or rules” do not provide a basis for federal
habeas corpus relief under § 2254. Alston v. Dep’t of Corr., Fla., 610 F.3d 1318,
1325-26 (11th Cir. 2010) (quotation marks and citations omitted).
A.

Exhaustion of State Remedies and Procedural Default

Under § 2254(b) and (c), a federal court must limit its grant of habeas
applications to cases where an applicant has exhausted all state remedies. Cullen v.
Pinholster, 131 S. Ct. 1388, 1398 (2011). This means that “‘[s]tate prisoners must
give the state courts one full opportunity to resolve any constitutional issues by
invoking one complete round of the State’s established appellate review process,’
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including review by the state’s last court of last resort, even if review in that court
is discretionary.” Pruitt v. Jones, 348 F.3d 1355, 1358-59 (11th Cir. 2003) (quoting
O’Sullivan v. Boerckel, 526 U.S. 838, 845, 119 S. Ct. 1728, 1732-33 (1999)). The
purpose of this requirement is to ensure that state courts are afforded the first
opportunity to correct federal questions affecting the validity of state court
convictions. See Snowden v. Singletary, 135 F.3d 732, 735 (11th Cir. 1998); see also
Smith v. Newsome, 876 F.2d 1461, 1463 (11th Cir. 1989) (“Federal courts are not
forums in which to relitigate state trials.”) (citation omitted)). Moreover, “to
exhaust state remedies fully the petitioner must make the state court aware that the
claims asserted present federal constitutional issues. ‘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.’” Snowden, 135 F.3d at 735 (quoting
Anderson v. Harless, 459 U.S. 4, 5-6, 103 S. Ct. 276, 277 (1982)).
“[A]n issue is exhausted if ‘the reasonable reader would understand the
claim’s particular legal basis and specific factual foundation’ to be the same as it
was presented in state court.” Pope v. Sec’y for Dep’t of Corr., 680 F.3d 1271, 1286
(11th Cir. 2012) (quoting Kelley v. Sec’y for Dep’t of Corr., 377 F.3d 1317, 1344–45
(11th Cir. 2004)) (brackets in original omitted). If a petitioner fails to raise his
federal claim to the state court at the time and in the manner dictated by the state’s
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procedural rules, the state court can decide the claim is not entitled to a review on
the merits, i.e., “the petitioner will have procedurally defaulted on that claim.”
Mason v. Allen, 605 F.3d 1114, 1119 (11th Cir. 2010). Moreover, a “state court’s
rejection of a petitioner’s constitutional claim on state procedural grounds will
generally preclude any subsequent federal habeas review of that claim.” Ward v.
Hall, 592 F.3d 1144, 1156 (11th Cir. 2010) (quoting Judd v. Haley, 250 F.3d 1308,
1313 (11th Cir. 2001)). “Where there has been one reasoned state judgment
rejecting a federal claim, later unexplained orders upholding that judgment or
rejecting the same claim rest upon the same ground.” Ylst v. Nunnemaker, 501 U.S.
797, 803, 111 S. Ct. 2590, 2594 (1991). Yet as the Eleventh Circuit has noted, a
claim will only be procedurally defaulted in the following circumstance:
[A] state court’s rejection of a federal constitutional claim on
procedural grounds may only preclude federal review if the state
procedural ruling rests upon “adequate and independent” state
grounds. Marek v. Singletary, 62 F.3d 1295, 1301 (11th Cir. 1995)
(citation omitted).
We have “established a three-part test to enable us to determine when
a state court’s procedural ruling constitutes an independent and
adequate state rule of decision.” Judd, 250 F.3d at 1313. “First, the
last state court rendering a judgment in the case must clearly and
expressly state that it is relying on state procedural rules to resolve the
federal claim without reaching the merits of that claim.” Id. Second,
the state court’s decision must rest entirely on state law grounds and
not be intertwined with an interpretation of federal law. See id. Third,
the state procedural rule must be adequate, i.e., firmly established and
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regularly followed and not applied “in an arbitrary or unprecedented
fashion.” Id.
Ward, 592 F.3d at 1156–57 (footnote omitted).
There are also instances where the doctrines of procedural default and
exhaustion intertwine. For instance, if a petitioner’s federal claim is unexhausted, a
district court will traditionally dismiss it without prejudice or stay the cause of
action to allow the petitioner to first avail himself of his state remedies. See Rose v.
Lundy, 455 U.S. 509, 519-20, 102 S. Ct. 1198, 1204 (1982). But “if it is clear from
state law that any future attempts at exhaustion [in state court] would be futile”
under the state’s own procedural rules, a court can simply find that the claim is
“procedurally defaulted, even absent a state court determination to that effect.”
Bailey v. Nagle, 172 F.3d 1299, 1305 (11th Cir. 1999) (citation omitted).
B.

Overcoming Procedural Default

“[A]n adequate and independent finding of procedural default will bar
federal habeas review of the federal claim, unless the habeas petitioner can show
cause for the default and prejudice attributable thereto, or demonstrate that failure
to consider the federal claim will result in a fundamental miscarriage of justice.”
Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U.S. 722, 749–50, 111 S. Ct. 2546, 2564-65 (1991)
(citations and internal quotation marks omitted).

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The “cause and prejudice” exception is framed in the conjunctive, and a
petitioner must prove both cause and prejudice. Id. at 750, 111 S. Ct. at 2565. To
show cause, a petitioner must prove that “some objective factor external to the
defense impeded counsel’s efforts” to raise the claim previously. Murray v.
Carrier, 477 U.S. 478, 488, 106 S. Ct. 2639, 2645 (1986). Examples of such
objective factors include:
. . . interference by officials that makes compliance with the State’s
procedural rule impracticable, and a showing that the factual or legal
basis for a claim was not reasonably available to counsel. In addition,
constitutionally ineffective assistance of counsel . . . is cause. Attorney
error short of ineffective assistance of counsel, however, does not
constitute cause and will not excuse a procedural default.
McCleskey v. Zant, 499 U.S. 467, 494, 111 S. Ct. 1454, 1470 (1991) (internal
quotation marks, brackets, and citations omitted). As for prejudice, a habeas
petitioner must show “not merely that the errors . . . created a possibility of
prejudice, but that they worked to his actual and substantial disadvantage, infecting
his entire trial with error of constitutional dimensions.” United States v. Frady, 456
U.S. 152, 170, 102 S. Ct. 1584, 1596 (1982) (emphasis in original).
Finally, a petitioner may also escape a procedural default bar if he “can
demonstrate a sufficient probability that [the court’s] failure to review his federal
claim will result in a fundamental miscarriage of justice.” Edwards v. Carpenter, 529
U.S. 446, 451, 120 S. Ct. 1587, 1591 (2000). To make such a showing, a petitioner
16

must establish that either: (1) “a constitutional violation has probably resulted in
the conviction of one who is actually innocent,” Smith v. Murray, 477 U.S. 527,
537, 106 S. Ct. 2661, 2668 (1986) (quoting Carrier, 477 U.S. at 496, 106 S. Ct. at
2650), or (2) the petitioner shows “by clear and convincing evidence that but for a
constitutional error, no reasonable juror would have found the petitioner eligible
for the death penalty.” Schlup v. Delo, 513 U.S. 298, 323, 115 S. Ct. 851, 865 (1995)
(emphasis in original) (quoting Sawyer v. Whitley, 505 U.S. 333, 336, 112 S. Ct.
2514, 2517 (1992)).
C.

AEDPA Review of State Court Decisions Under § 2254(d) and (e)

When a constitutional claim upon which a petitioner seeks relief under §
2254 is not procedurally defaulted but has instead been adjudicated on the merits in
state courts, this Court is still restricted in its ability to grant relief on those claims
by § 2254(d). The AEDPA “imposes a highly deferential standard for evaluating
state-court rulings” and “demands that state-court decisions be given the benefit
of the doubt.” Guzman, 663 F.3d at 1345 (internal quotation marks and citation
omitted). To grant habeas relief on a claim, this Court must not only find that the
constitutional claims are meritorious, but also that the state court’s resolution of
those claims:

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(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.
28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1)-(2); see also Boyd v. Allen, 592 F.3d 1274, 1292 (11th Cir.
2010) (quoting § 2254(d)). The burden of showing that an issue falls within §
2254(d)(1) or (d)(2) is upon the petitioner. See Woodford v. Visciotti, 537 U.S. 19,
25, 123 S. Ct. 357, 360 (2002). Section 2254(d)(1)’s “contrary to” and
“unreasonable application of” clauses have independent meanings. See Alderman v.
Terry, 468 F.3d 775, 791 (11th Cir. 2006) (“[T]he ‘contrary to’ and ‘unreasonable
application’ clauses are interpreted as independent statutory modes of analysis.”)
(citation omitted). A state court’s decision is contrary to “clearly established
precedents [of the Supreme Court of the United States] if it applies a rule that
contradicts the governing law set forth in [the Court’s] cases, or if it confronts a set
of facts that is materially indistinguishable from a decision of th[e] Court but
reaches a different result.” Brown v. Payton, 544 U.S. 133, 141, 125 S. Ct. 1432, 1438
(2005) (citation omitted). On the other hand, to determine whether a state court’s
decision is an “unreasonable application” of clearly established federal law, the
Supreme Court has stated:
18

The pivotal question is whether the state court’s application of the
[relevant constitutional] standard was unreasonable . . . For purposes
of § 2254(d)(1), an unreasonable application of federal law is different
from an incorrect application of federal law. A state court must be
granted a deference and latitude that are not in operation when the
case involves review under the [relevant constitutional] standard itself.
A state court’s determination that a claim lacks merits precludes
federal habeas relief so long as fairminded jurists could disagree on the
correctness of the state court’s decision. And as the [Supreme Court]
has explained, evaluating whether a rule application was unreasonable
requires considering the rule’s specificity. The more general the rule,
the more leeway courts have in reaching outcomes in case-by-case
determinations.
Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 131 S. Ct. 770, 785-86 (2011) (citation and
quotation marks omitted) (emphasis in original); see also Schriro v. Landrigan, 550
U.S. 465, 473, 127 S. Ct. 1933, 1939 (2007) (“The question under AEDPA is not
whether a federal court believes the state court’s determination was incorrect but
whether that determination was unreasonable—a substantially higher threshold.”);
Guzman, 663 F.3d at 1346 (“Ultimately, before a federal court may grant habeas
relief under § 2254(d), ‘a state prisoner must show that the state court’s ruling on
the claim being presented in federal court was so lacking in justification that there
was an error well understood and comprehended in existing law beyond any
possibility for fairminded disagreement.’”) (quoting Harrington, 131 S. Ct. at 78687). As the Supreme Court has stated, “If this standard is difficult to meet, that is
because it was meant to be. As amended by AEDPA, § 2254(d) stops short of
19

imposing a complete bar on federal-court relitigation of claims already rejected in
state proceedings.” Harrington, 562 U.S. at 102, 131 S. Ct. at 786.
Moreover, a state court’s factual determination is entitled to a presumption
of correctness under § 2254(e)(1)). And commensurate with the deference
accorded to a state court’s factual findings, “the petitioner must rebut ‘the
presumption of correctness [of a state court’s factual findings] by clear and
convincing evidence.’” Ward, 592 F.3d at 1155-56 (alterations in original) (quoting
§ 2254(e)(1)).
D.

The Burden of Proof and Heightened Pleading Requirements for
Habeas Petitions

Additionally, because habeas corpus review is limited to review of errors of
constitutional dimension, a habeas corpus petition “must meet [the] heightened
pleading requirements [of] 28 U.S.C. § 2254 Rule 2(c).” McFarland v. Scott, 512
U.S. 849, 856, 114 S. Ct. 2568, 2572 (1994) (citation omitted). “[T]he petition
must ‘specify all the grounds for relief available to the petitioner’ and ‘state the
facts supporting each ground.’” Mayle v. Felix, 545 U.S. 644, 655, 125 S. Ct. 2562,
2570 (2005) (quoting Rule 2(c) of the Rules Governing § 2254 Cases in the U.S.
District Courts). The burden of proof is on the habeas petitioner “to establish his
right to habeas relief and he must prove all facts necessary to show a constitutional
violation.” Blankenship v. Hall, 542 F.3d 1253, 1270 (11th Cir. 2008) (citation
20

omitted); see also Smith v. Wainwright, 777 F.2d 609, 616 (11th Cir. 1985) (holding
that a general allegation of ineffective assistance of counsel is insufficient; a petition
must allege specific errors in counsel’s performance and facts showing prejudice).
E.

The General Standard for Ineffective Assistance of Counsel
Claims

In Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S. Ct. 2052 (1984), the
Supreme Court established the following two-pronged standard for judging, under
the Sixth Amendment, the effectiveness of attorneys who represent criminal
defendants at trial or on direct appeal:
A convicted defendant’s claim that counsel’s assistance was so
defective as to require reversal of a conviction or death sentence has
two components. First, the defendant must show that counsel’s
performance was deficient. This requires showing that counsel made
errors so serious that counsel was not functioning as the “counsel”
guaranteed the defendant by the Sixth Amendment. Second, the
defendant must show that the deficient performance prejudiced the
defense. This requires showing that counsel’s errors were so serious
as to deprive the defendant of a fair trial, a trial whose result is reliable.
Unless a defendant makes both showings, it cannot be said that the
conviction or death sentence resulted from a breakdown in the
adversary process that renders the result unreliable.
Id. at 687, 104 S. Ct. at 2064 .
Because Strickland’s preceding two-part test is clearly framed in the
conjunctive, a petitioner bears the burden of proving both “deficient performance”
and “prejudice” by “a preponderance of competent evidence.” Chandler v. United
21

States, 218 F.3d 1305, 1313 (11th Cir. 2000) (en banc); see also Holladay v. Haley,
209 F.3d 1243, 1248 (11th Cir. 2000) (“Because both parts of the test must be
satisfied in order to show a violation of the Sixth Amendment, the court need not
address the performance prong if the defendant cannot meet the prejudice prong, [
] or vice versa.”). Further, when assessing ineffective assistance of counsel claims:
[I]t is important to keep in mind that in addition to the deference to
counsel’s performance mandated by Strickland, the AEDPA adds
another layer of deference—this one to a State court’s decision—
when we are considering whether to grant federal habeas relief from a
State court’s decision. Thus, [a petitioner] not only has to satisfy the
elements of the Strickland standard, but he must also show that the
State court applied Strickland to the facts of his case in an objectively
unreasonable manner.
Williams v. Allen, 598 F.3d 778, 789 (11th Cir. 2010) (brackets in original omitted)
(citations and quotation marks omitted) (emphasis in original).
In order to establish deficient performance, a habeas petitioner “must show
that counsel’s representation fell below an objective standard of reasonableness.”
Strickland, 466 U.S. at 688, 104 S. Ct. at 2064. That reasonableness is judged
against “prevailing professional norms.” Id., 104 S. Ct. at 2065. Moreover, under
Strickland, lower federal courts must be “highly deferential” in their scrutiny of
counsel’s performance. Id. at 689, 104 S. Ct. at 2065. As the Strickland Court
outlined:

22

Judicial scrutiny of counsel’s performance must be highly deferential.
It is all too tempting for a defendant to second-guess counsel’s
assistance after conviction or adverse sentence, and it is all too easy for
a court, examining counsel’s defense after it has proved unsuccessful,
to conclude that a particular act or omission of counsel was
unreasonable. A fair assessment of attorney performance requires that
every effort be made to eliminate the distorting effects of hindsight, to
reconstruct the circumstances of counsel’s challenged conduct, and to
evaluate the conduct from counsel’s perspective at the time. Because
of the difficulties inherent in making the evaluation, a court must
indulge a strong presumption that counsel’s conduct falls within the
wide range of reasonable professional assistance; that is, the defendant
must overcome the presumption that, under the circumstances, the
challenged action might be considered sound trial strategy. There are
countless ways to provide effective assistance in any given case. Even
the best criminal defense attorneys would not defend a particular
client in the same way.
Id., 104 S. Ct. at 2065 (citations and quotation marks omitted).
Simply put, a habeas petitioner “must establish that no competent counsel
would have taken the action that his counsel did take” to overcome the
presumption that counsel’s conduct fell within the wide range of reasonable
professional assistance. Chandler, 218 F.3d at 1315. The reasonableness of
counsel’s performance is judged from the perspective of the attorney, at the time of
the alleged error, and in light of all the circumstances. See, e.g., Newland v. Hall,
527 F.3d 1162, 1184 (11th Cir. 2008) (“We review counsel’s performance ‘from
counsel’s perspective at the time,’ to avoid ‘the distorting effects of hindsight.’”)
(quoting Strickland, 466 U.S. at 689, 104 S. Ct. at 2065).
23

To satisfy the prejudice prong, a habeas petition “must show that there is a
reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s unprofessional errors, the result of the
proceeding would have been different. A reasonable probability is a probability
sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome.” Strickland, 466 U.S. at 694,
104 S. Ct. at 2068. Stated differently, “[a] finding of prejudice requires proof of
unprofessional errors so egregious that the trial was rendered unfair and the verdict
rendered suspect.” Johnson v. Alabama, 256 F.3d 1156, 1177 (11th Cir. 2001)
(citations and quotation marks omitted). Further, the fact that counsel’s “errors
had some conceivable effect on the outcome of the proceeding” is insufficient to
show prejudice. Strickland, 466 U.S. at 693, 104 S. Ct. at 2067. Therefore, “when a
petitioner challenges a death sentence, ‘the question is whether there is a
reasonable probability that, absent the errors, the sentencer . . . would have
concluded that the balance of aggravating and mitigating circumstances did not
warrant death.’” Stewart v. Sec’y, Dep’t of Corr., 476 F.3d 1193, 1209 (11th Cir.
2007) (quoting Strickland, 466 U.S. at 695, 104 S. Ct. at 2069).
Because Strickland and § 2254(d) both mandate standards that are “‘highly
deferential’”, “when the two apply in tandem, review is ‘doubly’ so.” Harrington,
131 S. Ct. at 788 (citations omitted). The inquiry is not then “whether counsel’s
actions were reasonable,” but is instead “whether there is any reasonable argument
24

that counsel satisfied Strickland’s deferential standard.” Id. The court must
determine “whether the state court’s application of the Strickland standard was
unreasonable. This is different from asking whether defense counsel’s performance
fell below Strickland’s standard.” Id. at 785. This “[d]ouble deference is doubly
difficult for a petitioner to overcome, and it will be a rare case in which an
ineffective assistance of counsel claim that was denied on the merits in state court
is found to merit relief in a federal habeas proceeding.” Evans v. Sec’y, Fla. Dep’t of
Corr., 699 F.3d 1249, 1268 (11th Cir. 2012).
Finally, “[s]tate court findings of historical facts made in the course of
evaluating an ineffectiveness claim are subject to a presumption of correctness
under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d).” Thompson v. Haley, 255 F.3d 1292, 1297 (11th Cir.
2001).
IV.

EGGERS’S ATTORNEY-AUTHORED GROUNDS FOR RELIEF
1.

The claim that Eggers was tried while mentally incompetent in
violation of Dusky v. United States, 362 U.S. 402, 80 S. Ct. 788
(1960), and the request that this Court order an evidentiary
hearing to determine whether Eggers was competent at trial

Eggers presented this claim for the first time in his pro se amended Rule 32
petition, asserting in Claim 20 that he was “incompetent to stand trial.” [C.R. Vol.

25

15 at 133]. 2 The circuit court interpreted Eggers’s claim a bit differently:
characterizing it as contending that “the trial court erroneously determined that he
was competent to stand trial.” [C.R. Vol. 22 at 80-82.] The circuit court dismissed
Eggers’s claim pursuant to Rule 32.2(a)(2) of the Alabama Rules of Criminal
Procedure because it was raised and addressed at trial, among other reasons. The
court found that it was raised and addressed at trial because Eggers’s defense
counsel filed a motion for an independent mental evaluation which was granted by
the trial court, and that during trial, a psychologist, Dr. Alan Shealy, testified
concerning the mental evaluation he conducted of Eggers.
A defendant may make a procedural due process competency claim by
alleging that the trial court failed to hold a competency hearing after his mental
competence was put at issue. Pate v. Robinson, 383 U.S. 375, 385, 86 S. Ct. 836, 842
(1966). On the other hand, a defendant may make a substantive due process
competency claim by alleging that he was, in fact, tried and convicted while
mentally incompetent, regardless of what the court did or did not do at the time.
Dusky, 362 U.S. at 402, 80 S. Ct. at 788. The circuit court’s treatment of Eggers’s

2

References to the state court record are designated “C.R.” The Court will strive to list
any page number associated with the court records by reference to the numbers located on the
document, if those numbers are the most readily discoverable for purposes of expedient
examination of that part of the record.
26

claim indicates that it characterized it as a Pate procedural competency claim rather
than a substantive competency claim under Dusky.
However, it ultimately does not matter whether Eggers presented his Dusky
claim to the state courts before raising it in a federal habeas proceeding, because he
need not have. See Lawrence v. Sec’y, Fla. Dept. of Corrs., 700 F.3d 464, 481 (11th
Cir. 2012) (stating that “[w]e have both pre–and post-AEDPA precedent . . .
holding that substantive competency claims generally cannot be procedurally
defaulted” and citing cases). Accordingly, this Court must and will review Eggers’s
Dusky claim on its merits “without any § 2254(d)(1) deference, because there is no
state court decision on the merits to which [the Court] may defer.” Id. (internal
quotation marks omitted).
The trial of an incompetent defendant violates his substantive due process
rights under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments. Dusky, 362 U.S. at 402, 80 S.
Ct. at 788. The Supreme Court set forth a two-part standard for determining legal
competency to stand trial: “whether [a defendant] has sufficient present ability to
consult with his lawyer with a reasonable degree of rational understanding—and
whether he has a rational as well as factual understanding of the proceedings
against him.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). “[N]ot every manifestation of
mental illness demonstrates incompetence to stand trial; rather, the evidence must
27

indicate a present inability to assist counsel or understand the charges.” Medina v.
Singletary, 59 F.3d 1095, 1107 (11th Cir. 1995) (quotation marks omitted).
Eggers “is entitled to no presumption of incompetency and must
demonstrate his . . . incompetency by a preponderance of the evidence.” Lawrence,
700 F.3d at 481 (quoting James v. Singletary, 957 F.2d 1562, 1571 (11th Cir. 1992)).
In order to be entitled to an evidentiary hearing on a substantive competency claim,
which Eggers seeks here, Eggers must present “‘clear and convincing evidence’
that creates a ‘real, substantial, and legitimate doubt’ as to his competence.” Id.
(quoting James, 957 F.2d at 1573). “[T]he standard of proof is high. The facts must
‘positively, unequivocally, and clearly generate’ the legitimate doubt.” Card v.
Singletary, 981 F.2d 481, 484 (11th Cir. 1992) (quoting Adams v. Wainwright, 764
F.2d 1356, 1360 (11th Cir. 1985)).
Eggers alleges that the requisite “doubt” is created by evidence that he
suffered from paranoid schizophrenia at the time of his trial. In support, he proffers
a detailed chronology of events tracing back to when he was seventeen years old
that he says are indicative of his history of mental illness. He also offers a
retrospective psychological evaluation conducted by a mental health professional
who was hired by Eggers’s counsel in this proceeding to evaluate him. Additionally,
he refers to his behavior in the months leading up to trial, during trial, and at
28

sentencing, and he identifies what he says are deficiencies in the trial experts’
mental health evaluations which declared him competent.
Addressing each category of evidence in turn, the Court starts with the
chronology of life events set out in Eggers’s amended petition. Without restating
them all here, suffice it to say that Eggers has at times in his life exhibited paranoid
behavior, which appears to have originated from his earliest interactions with law
enforcement agents when he was living in California in 1985. When Eggers was
seventeen, law enforcement agents forced him and his then-girlfriend, Nikkii
Garrison (Eggers), to work as confidential drug informants in San Bernardino
County, California. According to Nikkii’s declaration, which Eggers’s counsel filed
as an exhibit to Eggers’s amended petition (see doc. 52 ex. A), law enforcement was
interested in information that Nikkii could offer about her step-father, Ed
Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald was a notorious figure in San Bernardino County, known for
his connection to the Monks Motorcycle Club and its criminal activities, including
drug-dealing, weapons offenses and murder. As a result of information Nikkii
provided, Fitzgerald and others were arrested. Later, Eggers became convinced
that Fitzgerald and others knew that he was a confidential informant, and he made
regular complaints to the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department and the California
Highway Patrol about being retaliated against by the Mexican Mafia and the Monks
29

Motorcycle Club. Eggers often imagined he saw people watching or following him,
and he heard threats intended for him during otherwise innocuous conversations.
He told people, including Nikkii, who later became his wife, that the Monks had
attempted to kill him several times. Then, in 1987, Eggers was hospitalized in a
psychiatric ward in Thomason General Hospital in El Paso, Texas, on an
emergency seven-day hold. The hospitalization was the culmination of a
methamphetamine-fueled cross country road trip Eggers embarked on with Nikkii,
their infant son, and David, Eggers’s elder brother, who suffers from schizophrenia
and is currently hospitalized in California. During the trip, police responded to a
complaint involving the brothers. When police arrived, Eggers and David reported
to police that “they were being followed by unknown subjects.” The officers noted
that “both subjects did not appear to be mentally stable.” While hospitalized,
Eggers “began seeing conspirators voluntarily commit themselves into [the] ward
for purposes of intimidating [him],” and reported to Nikkii that mental health care
providers were in cahoots with conspirators who were trying to kill him. Nikkii
stated that in the years following and leading up to his commission of the murder of
Mrs. Murray, Eggers continued to see and hear things that others did not.
Eggers has also submitted the opinion of Dr. Kenneth Benedict, Ph.D, a
neuropsychologist who evaluated Eggers in May and August 2014 for these
30

proceedings at the request of Eggers’s counsel, which states that Eggers has long
suffered from chronic schizophrenia, marked by symptoms such as delusions,
hallucinations, and negative symptoms. (See doc. 52 ex. B). Dr. Benedict also stated
that Eggers’s schizophrenia was not drug induced, and that even if drugs
contributed to the particular psychotic break in 1987, they would not have
continued to be the cause of his continuing psychosis.
However, despite Eggers’s history of paranoid behavior and Dr. Benedict’s
diagnosis, the Court finds that Eggers has still not met the heavy burden of
providing facts that “positively, unequivocally, and clearly generate the legitimate
doubt” that he was incompetent at his trial. Card, 981 F.2d at 484. This is because
a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia alone is not enough to create doubt as to
whether a defendant was competent to stand trial. In Lawrence v. Secretary, Florida
Department of Corrections, the Eleventh Circuit looked to a previous decision to so
hold, as follows:
In addressing de novo the merits of a substantive competency claim,
the panel in Wright determined that a diagnosis of chronic
schizophrenia, on its own, was “not enough to create a real,
substantial, and legitimate doubt as to whether [the petitioner] was
competent to stand trial.” Id. at 1259. The panel in Wright reiterated
the law of this Circuit that “‘[n]ot every manifestation of mental
illness demonstrates incompetence to stand trial; rather, the evidence
must indicate a present inability to assist counsel or understand the
charges.’” Id. (quoting Medina, 59 F.3d at 1107 (emphasis added));
accord Medina, 59 F.3d at 1107 (“[N]either low intelligence, mental
31

deficiency, nor bizarre, volatile, and irrational behavior can be equated
with mental incompetence to stand trial.”). Thus, while the district
court in this case recognized that “credible medical evidence was
presented that Petitioner probably suffers from schizophrenia,” its
conclusion that “this diagnosis alone is not enough to convince this
court that Petitioner was incompetent at the time that he entered his
plea” was fully consonant with our precedent and was supported by
the record as a whole. In short, there is no basis on this record to
conclude that the district court’s finding that Lawrence was
competent was clearly erroneous. Thus, Lawrence is not entitled to
relief on the merits of his substantive competency claim.
700 F.3d at 482.
In Wright v. Secretary for Department of Corrections, referred to in Lawrence,
the Eleventh Circuit had held that “[t]he fact that [the petitioner] suffers from
chronic schizophrenia the effects of which have come and gone over the years is
not enough to create a real, substantial, and legitimate doubt as to whether he was
competent to stand trial.” 278 F.3d 1245, 1259 (11th Cir. 2002). The court found
relevant, but not dispositive, the fact that the petitioner had been deemed
incompetent to stand trial seven and eight months after his trial, as well as
seventeen years prior to his trial. Id. However, the court stated that such instances
did not counter the best evidence of what his mental condition was at the time of
trial, i.e., the evidence of his behavior around that time, including how he related to
and communicated with others then. Id. Because there was unrebutted evidence in
Wright that the petitioner behaved in a “perfectly normal fashion” leading up to
32

trial and during trial, the court held that his substantive competency claim failed on
the merits. Id.
Thus, Dr. Benedict’s opinion that Eggers is a paranoid schizophrenic is not
sufficient to create a “real, substantial, and legitimate doubt” as to Eggers’s
competence to stand trial in 2002. Dr. Benedict’s opinion is also less than
persuasive because his evaluation was not made contemporaneous to trial:
Although such after-the-fact evidence is relevant to competency
determinations, “[t]he critical question is whether the evidence relied
upon for determining a defendant’s competence at an earlier time of
trial was evidence derived from knowledge contemporaneous to trial.”
Bowers v. Battles, 568 F.2d 1, 4 (6th Cir. 1977) (internal quotation
marks omitted). Psychiatric opinions offered years after a habeas
petitioner’s trial are therefore not nearly as relevant as those issued at
the time of trial. Harries v. Bell, 417 F.3d 631, 636 (6th Cir. 2005).
Black v. Bell, 664 F.3d 81, 102 (6th Cir. 2011). In determining whether a legitimate
doubt as to competency exists, this Court will look instead to evaluations
performed at the time of trial, as well as Eggers’s behavior during trial in 2002. See
Wright, 278 F.3d at 1259.
As Eggers concedes, he was evaluated for competency to stand trial prior to
his trial and during his trial. The relevant facts are as follows. Eggers’s trial counsel
entered an insanity plea at his arraignment. During a June 5, 2002, pretrial hearing,
his counsel made an oral motion that he be examined for competency. The trial
court indicated that it would have a “regular mental health person” make a
33

“preliminary” evaluation by the Department of Mental Health and Mental
Retardation in Walker County. [C.R. Vol. 4 at 65.] The court then indicated that if
the results of the preliminary evaluation suggested that a more comprehensive
evaluation at the Taylor Hardin Secure Medical Facility in Tuscaloosa, Alabama,
was necessary, it would then order the further evaluation. Though the record is
silent as the results of that pre-trial evaluation, Eggers admitted that it occurred: he
stated that a competency evaluation was performed by an employee of the Walker
County Department of Mental Health at the Walker County Jail. The fact that
Eggers was not sent to Taylor Hardin and allowed to be tried suggests that no
suspicion of incompetence was raised.
Trial began on August 19, 2002. Counsel reaffirmed Eggers’s insanity plea to
the jury. The record reflects that, during the lunch recess on the fourth day of the
trial proceedings, Eggers’s counsel requested that he be evaluated over the
upcoming weekend to determine his mental state at the time of the crime as well as
his ability to comprehend the nature of the charges against him and rationally to aid
in the conduct of his defense. The trial court granted the request and also ordered
that Eggers undergo a separate mental health examination by a psychologist or
psychiatrist under contract with or employed by the Alabama Department of
Health and Mental Retardation to determine his mental state at the time of the
34

alleged offense. As such, Eggers was evaluated over the weekend recess by Dr.
Alan Shealy, a clinical and forensic psychologist. In response to that evaluation, the
State had Eggers evaluated on Monday, August 26, 2002, after the trial had
recessed for the day, by James F. Hooper, director of psychiatric services at Taylor
Hardin Secure Medical Facility. The State rested its case-in-chief on Tuesday,
August 27, 2002, and the defense presented the testimony of Dr. Shealy that day.
The following day, the defense rested, and the State then presented the testimony
of Dr. Hooper in rebuttal. During direct and cross-examination of both Dr. Shealy
and Dr. Hooper, the jury was made aware that Dr. Shealy had evaluated Eggers
over the weekend recess and that Dr. Hooper had evaluated Eggers on Monday
evening.
Dr. Shealy’s and Dr. Hooper’s testimony bore out the following facts. In
preparation to evaluate Eggers, Dr. Shealy read the victim’s autopsy report, the
police record, and listened to the tape of Eggers’s confession. Dr. Shealy
interviewed Eggers for about six and one half hours, and he also spoke with
Eggers’s half brother and sister by phone. Dr. Shealy knew about Eggers’s “history
of one episode of psychotic delusional paranoid [sic] at age twenty, lasting for
weeks to a few months, most likely a result of significant amphetamine abuse
combined with a predisposition to mental disorder.” He knew that David Eggers,
35

his brother, was currently institutionalized for schizophrenia. Through Eggers’s
brother and sister, Dr. Shealy was also informed of instances of terrible violence
perpetrated on Eggers by his father during childhood, and he knew that Eggers had
one episode of rage related violence in the ninth grade. Dr. Shealy conducted two
psychological tests on Eggers—an abbreviated IQ test (Wechsler Scale) and the
Minnesota Multi-Phase Personality Inventory-II (“MMPI”). Eggers is of average
verbal intelligence as indicated by a pro rated verbal IQ of 97. Eggers’s valid profile
on the MMPI suggested that Eggers was “psychotic with a paranoid schizophrenia
or paranoid psychosis,” and that Eggers “ha[d] some thought disorder,” which
caused him to interpret events incorrectly. However, it was Dr. Shealy’s
conclusion that Eggers was neither psychotic nor seriously mentally ill. Rather, Dr.
Shealy believed Eggers had paranoid personality disorder and intermittent
explosive disorder. As Dr. Shealy described them, neither disorder was severe,
exculpatory or mitigating. While Dr. Shealy opined that Eggers initially struck Mrs.
Murray during an un-premeditated episode of uncontrollable rage, he stated that
Eggers’s later violent acts in ensuring that Mrs. Murray was dead were deliberate.
Importantly to this claim, Dr. Shealy testified that Eggers was “clearly competent
to stand trial.” [C.R. Vol. 9 at 1177.]

36

As noted, Dr. Hooper evaluated Eggers after Dr. Shealy did. In preparation,
Dr. Hooper reviewed Eggers’s statement, the victim’s autopsy, crime scene
photographs, and Dr. Shealy’s report. Dr. Hooper also interviewed Eggers, but he
did not perform any tests, like Dr. Shealy did. Dr. Hooper also found that Eggers
was neither mentally ill nor incompetent. Instead, Dr. Hooper believed that Eggers
had a personality disorder “with both antisocial and borderline traits.” Dr. Hooper
found no evidence that Eggers met diagnostic criteria for intermittent explosive
disorder, as Dr. Shealy found. Dr. Hooper also opined that Eggers’s valid profile on
the MMPI, which “suggested a diagnosis of paranoia or paranoid schizophrenia,”
was not “definitive.”
Dr. Shealy and Dr. Hooper’s contemporaneous evaluations are powerful
evidence that Eggers was in fact competent to stand trial during his trial. Eggers
contends that because his defense counsel did not call on Dr. Shealy to evaluate
him until a week into trial, his opinion was hastily assembled. But Dr. Shealy
testified that the “only thing” he might have added to his evaluation were
additional third party observations of Eggers’s past behavior to corroborate what
the brother and sister said, and he stated, “I wouldn’t have spent many more hours
than this in any other evaluation.” [C.R. Vol. 9 at 1166.]

37

When the competence of a defendant is called into question, the defendant is
entitled, “at a minimum, . . . [to] access to a competent psychiatrist who will
conduct an appropriate examination . . . .” Ake v. Oklahoma, 470 U.S. 68, 83, 105 S.
Ct. 1087, 1096 (1985). This is simply not a case in which no inquiry was ever made
into whether Eggers was competent to stand trial. Unlike the petitioner in Wright,
who was actually found incompetent to stand trial seventeen years before his trial
and seven and eight months after his trial, the unrefuted expert testimony given at
Eggers’s trial was that he was “clearly” competent to be tried. Dr. Benedict’s
evaluation, conducted over ten years later, does little to cast doubt on those
evaluations.
Nor does Eggers’s behavior during trial suffice to leave doubt in the Court’s
mind as to his competency. Eggers points to several instances leading up to and
during trial where he says he behaved bizarrely, but a review of the entire trial
record reveals that these are discrete instances that are few and far between. First,
Eggers states that Walker County Jail records show that he reported racing
thoughts, sleeplessness, and anxiety to jail mental health providers in the months
before trial, and that he was prescribed Elavil, an anti-depressant, and Klonopin, an
anti-anxiety medication, which he was taking during trial. However, “[t]he fact that

38

a defendant has been treated with anti-psychotic drugs does not per se render him
incompetent to stand trial.” Medina, 59 F.3d at 1107.3
Moreover, only indicia of arguably paranoid behavior that Eggers can point
to during his trial occurred during a mid-trial hearing about whether his minor son,
Michael Jr., should be brought from Nevada to testify in Eggers’s defense. Eggers
asserted that he did not want his son involved, even though his counsel advised him
to agree, and the following colloquy occurred:
The Court:

We were talking about getting your son here and
we’ve got everything to go tomorrow and I’m told
that you do not want him here to testify, is that
right?

The Defendant:

Yes, sir, that’s correct. You know, I still feel like
he’s a minor and his life has already been messed
up enough through all of this.

The Court:

Okay. I have appointed him a lawyer and the
juvenile people are going after him, he’s not gonna
be –

The Defendant:

Excuse me?

The Court:

The Juvenile Court people are going after him.
And he has a lawyer appointed as a guardian and
she will not let him say anything out of line and I
guarantee you that.

3

And no claim is made that the dosage given to Eggers adversely affected his ability to
consult with his lawyer and to have a rational understanding of the proceedings against him. Cf.
Fallada v. Duggar, 819 F.2d 1564, 1569 (11th Cir. 1987).
39

The Defendant:

Well, you know, I’ve actually had a lot of concerns
in that also.

The Court:

Uh-huh.

The Defendant:

You know, my father was murdered in my
viewpoint back in December 30th. And, you know,
just – you never know when something like this is
gonna end. Next year, they’ll do someone else.
Year after that –

The Court:

That’s living on this planet.

The Defendant:

Yeah.

[C.R. Vol. 6 at 541-42.] Eggers’s defense counsel later explained that exactly one
year after the death of Mrs. Murray, Eggers’s father died either from an attack or
from suicide. Eggers told his counsel that he felt the timing indicated a revenge
killing for his crime, and indicated his belief that the unknown person who he
believed killed his father would harm his son if he testified. Apart from this one
isolated statement, the Court has reviewed the entire trial record and it reveals no
evidence of paranoid thinking on Eggers’s part. To the contrary, Eggers responded
appropriately to the court’s and both counsels’ questions and behaved
appropriately during much of the trial. For instance, although Eggers chose not to
testify during his case in chief, during the suppression hearing on the first morning
of trial, Eggers testified coherently and rationally on his own behalf. [C.R. Vol. 5 at
342-69.]
40

Nor do the several instances of “bizarre” behavior Eggers mentions during
his penalty phase serve to raise any red flags as to his competence. Eggers read a
self-authored statement during the penalty phase in which he expressed remorse
for the murder and asked the jury to sentence him to death. [C.R. Vol. 11 at 14861488.] His statement described his lack of belief in the judicial system, likened his
proceedings to “a side show of a circus, where lawyers and officers specialize in the
art of deception,” and further stated, “Just like sawing a person in half, I climb into
the box and the District Attorney dazzles you with deception.” [C.R. Vol. 11 at
1486.] While parts of the statement were strange, Eggers was asked on cross
examination about what he meant, during which time he explained that “if you say
something and you word it incorrectly its used against you . . . they choose later to
just pick the things that you say apart and use those things against you . . . .” [C.R.
Vol. 11 at 1495.] Eggers’s disillusionment with the judicial process is hardly
surprising given he was on trial for murder. And while he stated at one point that he
thought law enforcement had manipulated him, when asked whether it was law
enforcement’s fault that he was in the position he was in, he replied, “On the
contrary, sir, I believe I stated there plainly and evidently that it’s nobody’s fault
but my own. I do not blame the law enforcement officers and I stated I do not blame
you.” [C.R. Vol. 11 at 1496.] Such statements do not evince any kind of psychosis,
41

but rather, they indicate Eggers’s understanding of the charges and proceedings
against him.
In support of his claim, Eggers also points to the following exchange on cross
examination during the penalty phase:
Prosecutor:

You kicked her with those steel toed boots
intending to kill her, didn’t you?

Eggers:

Why do we have to ask these questions again?
Have they not already been asked and answered?
Has the jury already not come back with a verdict?
Sir Charles, you are the Great Knight, you’re the
White Knight, you have slain the dragon.

[C.R. Vol. 11 at 1508.] Again, the context of Eggers’s statement belies the
suggestion that it was made in the midst of a psychotic delusion, as Eggers would
have the Court believe. Eggers called the prosecutor the “Great Knight” after a
heated exchange wherein Eggers repeatedly asserted that the prosecutor was asking
questions that he had already answered and accused the prosecutor of
“grandstanding.” [Id.] Eggers’s response is indicative of anger and sarcasm rather
than delusional thinking.
Finally, without explaining how it is relative to his competence to stand trial,
Eggers points out that after the jury recommended a death sentence by an 11-1
verdict, he asked the judge about expediting the delay for judicial sentencing:
The Court:

. . . Yes, sir.
42

The Defendant:

We was just looking at waiving the time.

The Court:

Uh-huh.

The Defendant:

As far as instead of having a hearing or the
sentencing date –

The Court: Okay. The law requires that I have a report done and that
I set a sentencing hearing and I’m afraid I’m stuck
with that.
Are ya’ll familiar with any waiver on that?
Ms. Umstead:

No, sir. I don’t believe it can be waived, but he’s
wanting to know if we could expedite. I think thirty
days is the minimum, it has to be thirty days after
the –

The Court:

We’ll get it done as soon as we can.

[C.R. Vol. 11 at 1561-62.] Even assuming Eggers wanted the trial judge to render an
immediate death sentence, such a fact is simply not the clear and convincing
evidence necessary to generate doubt as to his competence at the time. While the
foregoing instances demonstrate that Eggers misbehaved at times during his trial,
they do not mean that Eggers had a problem understanding the charges against him
or communicating with his counsel. Accord Medina, 59 F.3d at 1107 (“[N]either low
intelligence, mental deficiency, nor bizarre, volatile, and irrational behavior can be
equated with mental incompetence to stand trial.”) (emphasis added). Certainly,

43

Eggers demonstrated his understanding of the proceedings against him, as he
repeatedly expressed remorse for murdering Mrs. Murray at the penalty phase.
In sum, the evidence Eggers offers fails to meet the high standard required
for an evidentiary hearing on the post-conviction claim of incompetence in that it
does not “positively, unequivocally, and clearly” generate doubt as to Eggers’s
competence to stand trial. Card, 981 F.2d at 484. The anecdotal evidence of
Eggers’s struggles in his past, including one short-lived involuntary hospitalization
many years before the murder and trial, do little to counter the expert opinions
during trial which found him competent to be tried. And while credible medical
evidence has been presented that Eggers probably suffers from schizophrenia, not
only does a diagnosis alone not suffice, but this particular diagnosis reflects upon
his mental state years after trial, which is not necessarily indicative, much less
dispositive, of his competency at trial. Indeed, Eggers’s behavior leading up to and
during his trial, i.e., “the best evidence of what his mental condition was at the only
time that counts,” Wright, 278 F.3d at 1259, was largely rational and certainly does
not indicate that he did not understand the charges or was unable to aid in his
defense. Eggers is not entitled to an evidentiary hearing, and his substantive
competency claim is without merit.
2.

The claim that, based on indicia of Eggers’s mental incompetence
during the trial, the trial court should have sua sponte held a
44

competency hearing, and its failure to do so violated Pate v.
Robinson, 383 U.S. 375, 86 S. Ct. 836 (1966)
Eggers presented this claim for the first time as Claims 24-30 in his pro se
amended Rule 32 petition. [C.R. Vol. 15 at 147-49.]4 The circuit court ruled that
these claims were procedurally barred under Ala. R. Crim P. 32.2(a)(3) and
32.2(a)(5) because they could have been but were not raised at trial or direct appeal
and in the alternative, they did not satisfy the specificity and full factual pleading
requirements of Ala. R. Crim. P. 32.3 and 32.6(b). As to the lack of specificity, the
court noted that Eggers “provides only bare allegations without any specific factual
allegations to support the claims.” [C.R. Vol. 22 at 30.] The ACCA summarily
affirmed the trial court’s ruling without analysis.
By ruling in the alternative that this claim failed under Ala. R. Crim. P. 32.3
and 32.6(b), the circuit court, which entered the last reasoned decision, 5 issued a

4

Specifically, Eggers alleged that the trial court violated his constitutional rights in denying
him a competency evaluation (claim 24); failing to provide a judicial finding as to competence
(claim 25); failing to provide the defense with adequate time to move for a competency hearing
(claim 26); failing to provide the defense with adequate time to move for a jury trial on
competency (claim 27); failing to provide Eggers with a Walker County psychiatrist’s
competency report (claim 28); failing to determine the issue of sanity before trial (claim 29); and
failing to assure that mental health experts received necessary evidence (claim 30). He also
incorporated by reference some facts contained in Claim 20, which comprised Eggers’s allegation
that he was not “mentally competent to stand trial,” into these claims. [C.R. Vol. 15 at 147,
incorporating by reference pages 132-45.]

See Ylst, 501 U.S. at 804, 111 S. Ct. at 2594 (“Where there has been one reasoned state
judgment rejecting a federal claim, later unexplained orders upholding that judgment or rejecting
the same claim rest upon the same ground.”).
5

45

ruling on the merits of the claims. See Ward, 592 F.3d at 1156–57 (holding that
there is no default unless “the last state court rendering a judgment in the case []
clearly and expressly state[s] that it is relying on state procedural rules to resolve
the federal claim without reaching the merits of that claim”); Borden v. Allen, 646
F.3d 785, 812-13 (11th Cir. 2011) (“A ruling by an Alabama court under Rule
32.6(b) is also a ruling on the merits. Here, the Alabama Court of Criminal
Appeals, in disposing of claims in the Amended Petition under Rule 32.6(b)
necessarily considered the sufficiency of such claims, focusing in on the factors for
determining whether the petition presented a case sufficient to warrant relief under
Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S. Ct. 2052, 80 L. Ed.2d 674 (1984).”).
Thus, this Court must conduct the deferential merits review under § 2254(d), in
which this Court’s only question is whether the state court’s decision “was
contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal
law,” or whether it “resulted in a decision that was based on an unreasonable
determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented.”
The clearly established federal law on this issue, as determined by the
Supreme Court, is set out in Pate v. Robinson, 383 U.S. 375, 86 S. Ct. 836 (1966) and
Drope v. Missouri, 420 U.S. 162, 95 S. Ct. 896 (1975). “Under Drope and Pate the
standard for determining whether a trial court violates the Due Process Clause by
46

failing to conduct an inquiry into a defendant’s competency to stand trial, where no
inquiry is requested, is whether the objective facts known to the trial court at the
time create a bona fide doubt as to mental competency.” Wright, 278 F.3d at 1256
(citing Drope, 420 U.S. at 180, 95 S. Ct. at 908; Pate, 383 U.S. at 385, 86 S. Ct. at
842 (“Where the evidence raises a ‘bona fide doubt’ as to a defendant’s
competence to stand trial, the [trial] judge on his own motion must impanel a jury
and conduct a sanity hearing . . . .”). And the standard for mental competency to
stand trial is the Dusky standard: “whether [a defendant] has sufficient present
ability to consult with his lawyer with a reasonable degree of rational
understanding—and whether he has a rational as well as factual understanding of
the proceedings against him.” 362 U.S. at 402, 80 S. Ct. at 789 (internal quotation
marks omitted). “Relevant information may include evidence of a defendant’s
irrational behavior, demeanor at trial, or prior medical opinion; but ‘[t]here are, of
course, no fixed or immutable signs which invariably indicate the need for further
inquiry to determine fitness to proceed.’” Watts v. Singletary, 87 F.3d 1282, 1287
(11th Cir. 1996) (citing Drope, 420 U.S. at 180, 95 S. Ct. at 908). It bears repeating
that this Court’s analysis of this claim is circumscribed by § 2254(d):
In determining whether the state court’s decision is an unreasonable
application of the law set out in those three Supreme Court decisions
[Pate, Drope, and Dusky], we need not decide whether we would have
reached the same result as the state court if we had been deciding the
47

issue in the first instance. Instead, we decide only whether the state
court’s decision of the issue is objectively unreasonable. See Williams
v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 411, 120 S. Ct. 1495, 1522, 146 L.Ed.2d 389
(2000) (“Under § 2254(d)(1)’s ‘unreasonable application’ clause,
then, a federal habeas court may not issue the writ simply because that
court concludes in its independent judgment that the relevant statecourt decision applied clearly established federal law erroneously or
incorrectly. Rather, that application must also be unreasonable.”);
Brown v. Head, 272 F.3d 1308, (11th Cir. 2001) (“It is the objective
reasonableness, not the correctness per se, of the state court decision
that we are to decide.”).
Wright, 278 F.3d at 1256.
The state court decision rejecting Eggers’s procedural due process claim is
not contrary to Pate or Drope as there was nothing that occurred that should have
instilled doubt in the trial judge’s mind as to Eggers’s competency. The facts
known to the trial judge before the trial were that Eggers entered an insanity plea at
his arraignment; that he has a “history of mental illness,” came from a family that
has a history of mental illness, and that he allegedly was “suffering from mental
illness” when he was questioned by police (these facts were set forth by Eggers’s
defense counsel in the motion to suppress Eggers’s confessions to police); that
Eggers had previously been institutionalized in January 1987 in El Paso, Texas, for
what were either mental issues or drug-related issues; and that his brother David
was currently institutionalized in a California mental health facility. This
information is exactly why the trial judge ordered a mental evaluation of Eggers
48

prior to trial. The initial evaluation was to determine whether further testing would
be needed at Taylor-Hardin secure medical facility:
THE COURT:

Well, I’m going to have a regular Mental Health
person, it might be a Master’s Degree, it may not
even be a Master’s Degree go and make a –

MS. UMSTEAD: An initial evaluation.
THE COURT:

--- preliminary --- yeah. And if they tell me, yes, he
needs to be evaluated by Taylor Hardin, he’ll go to
Taylor Hardin.

[C.R. Vol. 4 at 65.] That initial evaluation took place, according to Eggers, but
there is no record that it produced any suspicion of incompetence. To the contrary,
during trial, the trial judge heard both defense and State mental health experts who
agreed, based on evaluations of Eggers, that he was “clearly” competent to stand
trial. It is also important to note that competence to stand trial raises different
issues from an insanity defense, see Drope, 420 U.S. at 175–76, 95 S. Ct. at 905-06,
so that the mere fact that an insanity defense is presented does not mean the
defendant is incompetent to stand trial.
Moreover, Eggers did not exhibit the type of bizarre behavior during trial
that should have raised doubt. Eggers again refers the Court to his request mid-trial
that his son not testify for fear that he would be retaliated against, as evidence that
should have put the trial judge on notice that Eggers was incompetent to stand trial.
49

However, there is no indication that the trial judge knew at the time that Eggers
believed that his father’s death was a revenge killing for his own crime. Eggers
provides his defense counsel’s response to a complaint he made against her before
the Alabama State Bar Disciplinary Committee in 2006 in which she stated that
Eggers believed as much. (Doc. 20-14 at 1 (“One year from the death of Mr. Eggers
victim, Mr. Eggers father died either from an attack or from suicide. Mr. Eggers felt
the timing indicated a revenge killing for his crime.”)). 6 There is no evidence the
trial court had this information before it at the time of the trial. But even if the
judge knew, such an isolated fact is not enough to create a bona fide doubt as to
Eggers’s competency.
Eggers also argues that the statement he read asking the jury to sentence him
to death and his exchange with the prosecutor during the penalty phase, as well as
his request to waive the delay for judicial sentencing so that the judge could render
an immediate sentence, were all red flags that should have alerted the trial court as
to his incompetency. For the reasons stated in the previous section, those discrete
instances of misbehavior or oddity during trial and sentencing are simply not
sufficient for an incompetency claim. But cf. Drope, 420 U.S. at 180, 95 S. Ct. at
908 (defendant’s attack on his wife the Sunday before his trial for assisting in her
6

Eggers submitted counsel’s response to his disciplinary complaint as part of a “universal
reference appendix” in support of his claims.
50

rape and his self-inflicted gunshot wound during trial were bizarre behaviors that
should have triggered a sua sponte competency inquiry by the trial judge). The
record reveals that Eggers exhibited a sane demeanor during the trial, responding
appropriately to questions and even testifying rationally on his behalf during the
suppression hearing. See id. (a sane demeanor may alone obviate the need for the
court to inquire into a defendant’s competence). The Eleventh Circuit has noted
that the competency determination requires a case by case assessment, “because it
looks to the capacity of a particular defendant to play a fact-specific role at trial . . .
.” Watts, 87 F.3d at 1289. “Not surprisingly, then, the numerous opinions
addressing defendants’ competency from this and other circuits fail to establish a
rigid standard of competency that could be applied uniformly across cases. Nor do
cases presenting superficially similar facts necessarily dictate the same conclusions
as to competency.” Id. Nonetheless, Eggers displayed none of the aberrant
behavior displayed by some defendants in cases where competency was found to be
lacking:
For example, in Whitehead v. Wainwright, 609 F.2d 223 (5th
Cir. 1980), the court affirmed the district court’s conclusion that the
habeas petitioner, Whitehead, had been incompetent to stand trial.
Whitehead had been agitated and nervous during the first day and the
morning of the second day of his two-day murder trial, attempting to
discharge his attorney several times and to take part in the crossexamination of witnesses. He was then given an antihistamine and two
prescription tranquilizers (two doses of each within two hours). As a
51

result, during the afternoon of the second day of trial Whitehead
“seemed drunk, sleepy, staggering, and glassy-eyed.” He fell asleep in
court, his speech was slurred, and later he could not remember making
statements attributed to him in the transcript. See Whitehead v.
Wainwright, 447 F. Supp. 898, 899-901 (M.D. Fla. 1978) (reciting
facts).
Id. at 1289.
In sum, the Court is convinced that the trial judge afforded all the process
due to make reasonably sure that Eggers was competent to stand trial. Clinical
evaluation of Eggers in a formal Pate hearing simply was not necessary for the trial
judge to make the functional determination that Eggers was competent. The state
court’s rejection of Eggers’s procedural due process claim implicitly reflects a
conclusion that all of the facts considered together were not sufficient to raise a
bona fide doubt as to whether Eggers, at the time of his trial in August 2002, had
“sufficient present ability to consult with his lawyer with a reasonable degree of
rational understanding—and whether he [had] a rational as well as factual
understanding of the proceedings against him.” Dusky, 362 U.S. at 402, 80 S. Ct.
at 789 (internal quotation marks omitted). Because that conclusion is not
unreasonable, habeas relief is not warranted on this claim.
3.

The claim that appellate counsel rendered ineffective assistance in
litigating ineffective assistance of trial counsel claims on appeal, in
violation of Eggers’s Sixth Amendment rights

52

Eggers claims that his appointed appellate counsel rendered ineffective
assistance for two reasons. First, he argues that appellate counsel was
constitutionally ineffective by failing to raise the ineffective assistance of trial
counsel claims that Eggers now presents as claims 7 and 8 of his federal habeas
petition, addressed infra. Grounds 7 and 8 contend that trial counsel rendered
ineffective assistance with regard to the motion to suppress Eggers’s statement to
law enforcement and by conducting an inadequate investigation. Second, Eggers
claims that appellate counsel was ineffective for failing to adequately argue and
prove those instances of ineffectiveness of trial counsel that counsel did raise on
appeal. The ineffective assistance of trial counsel claim that appellate counsel did
raise on direct appeal consisted of four subsidiary claims: 1) the claim that trial
counsel failed to properly present evidence of Eggers’s mental state at the time of
the crime; 2) the claim that trial counsel was constitutionally ineffective in pursuing
the motion to suppress Eggers’s statements to law enforcement; 3) the claim that
trial counsel was constitutionally ineffective for failing to object to the introduction
of certain autopsy photographs; and 4) the claim that trial counsel was
constitutionally ineffective for failing to prevent the introduction of improper
character evidence.

53

Eggers contends that this claim is exhausted because it was raised as claim 98
in his pro se amended Rule 32 petition. However, a plain reading of Eggers’s claim
98 shows that it was not:
Appellate counsel was ineffective, failing to marshall [sic] the facts of
the issues presented on appeal with an incompetent defendant,
providing issues prepared from a record & trial transcript analysis that
was otherwise based on distorted & disputed facts from the States
unlawful withholding of relevant critical records in the possession of
the State of Alabama & the Federal Government that were favorable
to the defense in violation of Brady, & discovery rules of the Alabama
Rules of Criminal Procedure, violating the Defendants rights &
constituting an assistance to [sic] counsel, due process, & equal
protection violation under the 6th, & 14th Amendments to the U.S.
Constitution.
[C.R. Vol. 15 at 178]. While this claim raises a bare claim of ineffectiveness and
seems to reference Brady violations, it does not assert that appellate counsel
rendered ineffective assistance by failing to raise Eggers’s habeas grounds 7 and 8
on direct appeal. Nor does it assert that appellate counsel rendered ineffective
assistance by failing to “more effectively” argue the ineffective assistance of trial
counsel claims raised on direct appeal. Consequently, this claim is procedurally
defaulted from this Court’s review because Eggers did not fairly present it as a
federal claim in state court. A federal habeas petitioner is required “to present the
state courts with the same claim he urges upon the federal courts.” Picard v.
Connor, 404 U.S. 270, 276, 92 S. Ct. 509, 512 (1971). Regarding exhaustion, the
54

Eleventh Circuit has stated, “While we do not require a verbatim restatement of
the claims brought in state court, we do require that a petitioner presented his
claims to the state court “such that a reasonable reader would understand each
claim’s particular legal basis and specific factual foundation.” McNair v. Campbell,
416 F.3d 1291, 1302 (11th Cir. 2005) (citations omitted.) “In other words, the
ground relied upon must be presented face-up and squarely; the federal question
must be plainly defined.” Hunt v. Comm’r, Alabama Dep’t of Corr., 666 F.3d 708,
731 (11th Cir. 2012) (internal quotation marks omitted). Because he did not present
this specific claim as a federal claim in state court, he did not give the state courts a
fair opportunity to decide it. Dismissal of his habeas petition to allow Eggers to
present this claim fairly as a federal claim in state court now would be futile because
he would be barred from raising it in state court under Rule 32.2(c) of the Alabama
Rules of Criminal Procedure (statute of limitations bar) and Rule 32.2(b) of the
Alabama Rules of Criminal Procedure (successive petition bar). Thus, because any
state remedy with respect to this claim is procedurally barred by the state
procedural rules noted above, Eggers’s claim is procedurally defaulted from habeas
review, unless some exception applies.
Eggers makes three arguments as to why his failure to exhaust state remedies
should be excused and this Court should consider his claim on the merits, but all
55

fail. First, Eggers contends that since he was a pro se litigant during Rule 32
proceedings and incompetent during direct appeal when the alleged default
occurred, that this Court should declare his Rule 32 proceedings “presentation . . .
enough to satisfy the jurisdictional requirements of § 2254” and interpret this
claim liberally. [Reply brief, doc. 107 at 33 (citing McBride v. Estelle, 507 F.2d 903,
904 (5th Cir. 1975).] Thus, according to Eggers, the Court could conduct the
deferential analysis of the Rule 32 court’s opinion on this claim pursuant to §
2254(d). However, the case Eggers relies upon for this argument, McBride, is
clearly distinguishable. In that case, the Fifth Circuit ruled that a petitioner’s filing
of a supplemental pro se brief in addition to the opening brief filed by his counsel
was sufficient to satisfy the requirement that the petitioner present the same
constitutional claims to the state courts as to the federal courts. 507 F.2d at 904. In
stark contrast to here, the petitioner in McBride clearly articulated the same claim
to the state courts as to the federal courts, albeit in a later-filed supplemental brief.
See id. Eggers simply did not present the instant claim to the state courts. His status
as a pro se litigant during Rule 32 proceedings does not excuse him from complying
with procedural rules and exhausting all claims. Moreover, Eggers has not
explained how the fact that he was allegedly incompetent during direct appeal has
any bearing on his failure to exhaust state remedies during his Rule 32 proceedings.
56

Presumably he argues that had he not been incompetent during direct appeal, he
would not have agreed with his counsel’s strategy in determining which claims to
raise and in what manner to raise them, and there thus would not have been the
later need to challenge his appellate counsel’s performance in post-conviction
proceedings.
Assuming this is even an appropriate method of demonstrating cause and
prejudice for failure to raise a Rule 32 claim, Eggers’s claim that he was
incompetent during the time that his direct appeal was proceeding lacks merit. As
an initial matter, there is very little case law on the issue of the proper standard for
assessing competence on direct appeal, especially when the defendant has counsel
working on his behalf. The Eighth Circuit has stated, “Under certain narrowly
limited circumstances, a petitioner might be able to show that, at the time of a
previous filing, he had been suffering from a mental disorder so severe that it was
impossible for him to understand the papers filed on his behalf or to make rational
decisions about what claims to include in them.” Garrett v. Groose, 99 F.3d 283,
285 (8th Cir. 1996). However, that court went on to reiterate that “a conclusive
showing of incompetence is required before mental illness can constitute cause.”
Id. (internal alteration and quotation marks omitted). The Seventh Circuit has
stated that the test for appellate or post-conviction competency should be identical
57

to the competency-to-stand-trial standard, i.e., “the test should be whether the
defendant (petitioner, appellant, etc.) is competent to play whatever role in relation
to his case is necessary to enable it to be adequately presented.” Holmes v. Buss,
506 F.3d 576, 580 (7th Cir. 2007). That court further noted that “the presence or
absence of counsel is a detail. If the petitioner doesn’t have counsel, the issue is his
competence to proceed without assistance of counsel. If he does have counsel, the
issue is his competence to provide such assistance to counsel as is necessary to
enable the claim [ ] to be prosecuted adequately by his counsel.” Id. at 578.
Additionally, although the procedural posture was not direct appeal, in deciding
whether a petitioner was competent to proceed with his federal habeas claim, the
Eleventh Circuit determined that the applicable standard was the Dusky standard:
whether the petitioner has both “sufficient present ability to consult with his
lawyer with a reasonable degree of rational understanding” and “a rational as well
as factual understanding of the proceedings against him.” Ferguson v. Sec’y for
Dep’t of Corr., 580 F.3d 1183, 1221 (11th Cir. 2009) (quoting Moore v. Campbell, 344
F.3d 1313, 1321 (11th Cir. 2003)). Given that direct appeal is one type of postconviction proceeding, the Court will assume for purposes of this opinion that the
applicable standard for determining an appellant’s competency during direct
appeal is likewise the Dusky standard.
58

Applying the foregoing standards to the facts at hand, Eggers has not shown
that any alleged mental issues he suffered during direct appeal undermined his
ability to understand the proceedings against him. Eggers points out that by the
time of his direct appeal, he was in prison at Holman Correctional Facility, where
he claimed that he was victimized by the Mexican Mafia, who had infiltrated the
prison, in retaliation for his confidential informant work in 1985. He cut his wrists,
experienced paranoid delusions, and reported hearing voices. Prison health
providers diagnosed him with psychosis and paranoid schizophrenia, but later
questioned that diagnosis. From October 2002 to May 2004, the prison treated
Eggers with medications including Risperdal, Vistaril, Klonopin, and Prozac. As
previously noted, however, neither a particular diagnosis nor the fact that an
individual is prescribed particular medications is a per se indicator of incompetence
to proceed in litigation. See Lawrence, 700 F.3d at 482; Medina, 59 F.3d at 1107.
Rather, the dispositive inquiry is whether the individual can aid his counsel in
litigating his case and understand the nature of his proceedings. To this end, Eggers
states that in September 2003, during the pendency of his direct appeal, he filed a
pro se letter to the clerk of the appellate court abandoning his appeals:
My name is Michael Eggers and I am writing in regards to my case
that is before you at this time. I am guilty as sin[.] I killed Mrs. Murray
in cold-blooded murder. I confess to this and ask you to honor the
verdict and judgment from the people of Walker County, Alabama.
59

I am waiving all future appeals and ask you to carry out “JUSTICE”
as swiftly as possible. Please do not hesitate to deny any of the
arguments given in my brief.
This is the only evidence set forth by Eggers in support of his claim that he was
incompetent during the time that his appointed direct appeal lawyer was litigating
his claims before the ACCA. This one filing does not convince the Court that
Eggers was incapable of understanding his direct appeal proceedings. Eggers’s
“confession” was not new: he had never disclaimed the fact that he murdered Mrs.
Murray. Nor did he abandon his appeal after submitting this letter. Rather, he
continued to litigate his appeal to the United States Supreme Court. 7 In

sum,

insofar as Eggers’s competence during direct appeal is even relevant to his failure
to raise an ineffective assistance of appellate counsel claim during Rule 32
proceedings, Eggers has not shown that any mental issues he suffered during direct

7

Eggers offers forth some other filings that he made while his appeal was on certiorari
review before the United States Supreme Court, in support of his claim that he was incompetent
during that time. For instance, he quarreled with the performance of his lawyers on certiorari
review, who by that time were volunteer attorneys from Chicago, seeking to have them removed
and replaced with new counsel. However, this obviously occurred after his direct appeal lawyer
had decided which claims to raise before the ACCA. As such, the Court fails to see the relevance
of these instances to Eggers instant theory, which is, after all, that had Eggers been competent
while his direct appeal lawyer was filing his briefs, he would not have allowed him to waive
certain ineffective assistance of trial counsel claims. See Wright, 278 F.3d at 1259 (noting that the
best indicator of a defendant’s competence at trial is his actions and behavior during that time,
not some time afterwards).
60

appeal rendered him incapable of providing the level of input to his lawyers
necessary to mount an adequate appeal.
Second, Eggers contends that he was also mentally incompetent during his
pro se Rule 32 proceedings, a fact that he says establishes cause to excuse his
procedural default such that this Court can decide his claim on the merits under a
de novo standard. The Eleventh Circuit has assumed that “a pro se habeas petitioner
who lacked the mental capacity to understand the nature and object of habeas
proceedings and to present his case for habeas relief in a rational manner would
have cause for omitting a claim in such proceedings.” Smith, 876 F.2d at 1465 (but
rejecting the petitioner’s claim that his illiteracy and lack of ability to understand
the state habeas proceedings constituted such a mental incapacity sufficient to
constitute cause for his failure to exhaust state remedies). Other circuit courts have
similarly held that mental illness during state habeas proceedings could conceivably
constitute cause to overcome procedural default. See, e.g., Holt v. Bowersox, 191
F.3d 970, 974 (8th Cir. 1999) (“Our cases establish that, in order for mental illness
to constitute cause and prejudice to excuse procedural default, there must be a
conclusive showing that mental illness interfered with a petitioner’s ability to
appreciate his or her position and make rational decisions regarding his or her case
at the time during which he or she should have pursued post-conviction relief.”).
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Thus, assuming that a petitioner’s mental incapacity would constitute cause
to excuse the procedural default of claims during Rule 32 proceedings, there is still
no cause present here, as the record establishes that Eggers was able to appreciate
his position during Rule 32 proceedings and make rational decisions regarding his
case at the time. Eggers again points out that in the two years prior to his filing his
Rule 32 petition, records from his incarceration at Holman Correctional Facility
reflect several occasions on which he indicated that he was hearing voices, seeing
things that were not there, and cut himself. During that time, prison mental health
providers diagnosed him with paranoid schizophrenia and prescribed various
psychoactive medications, including Klonopin and Prozac. Despite these
difficulties, however, Eggers was able to file a timely pro se Rule 32 petition at the
conclusion of his direct appeal, and he then filed numerous other pleadings with
the court. Though the pleadings were voluminous and at times rambling, the many
(98) constitutional claims Eggers intended to raise were each delineated and
supported by facts that Eggers found relevant to each claim. Further, upon the
State’s request that the court appoint Eggers counsel because his Rule 32 pleadings
were “difficult to discern,” the court held a hearing for the purpose of determining
whether Eggers was qualified to represent himself, where Eggers and an Assistant
Attorney General appeared. During the hearing, Eggers made clear his
62

understanding that Rule 32 proceedings involved “a collateral rule issue, where
I’m challenging the constitutionality, first of all, of the conviction along with the
other issues in my petition.” [C.R. Vol. 18 at 24.] And while he explained to the
judge at the hearing, as he did in his pleadings, that his paranoia arose from his 1985
work as a confidential informant in California and that his mistrust of courtappointed counsel arose from his paranoid belief that the court, his attorneys, the
FBI and the prosecutor had been involved in a conspiracy against him during trial,
Eggers was also able to articulate the constitutional claims he wished to present in
his petition, such as Brady and ineffective assistance of counsel claims. Eggers now
argues that he was confused during the hearing, but the transcript reveals that he
stated his desire to proceed without counsel, and he did not demonstrate confusion
about the possibility that self-representation could lead to the default of future
claims. As the State’s counsel explained:
Mr. Nunnelly:

You need to be aware that in declining a lawyer
now, that if you fail to raise claims, you may not be
able to raise them in the future.

The Defendant:

[sic] Right. I understand that.

[C.R. Vol. 18 at 33.] Taking Eggers’s comments in context, he was not exhibiting
confusion about the Rule 32 proceedings or about the possibility of default. Rather,
he was being cautious to avoid the possibility that he was waiving the right to an
63

attorney at a potential re-trial. [See C.R. Vol. 18 at 37-38.] As he explained, his
desire for future counsel was “not in a Rule 32 proceeding, you’re absolutely right.
That right there is going to be if there’s a trial.” [Id. at 38.] To the extent that
Eggers alleges that he suffered any mental health issues during this time, they did
not rise to the level that would constitute cause for the procedural defaults at issue
in this matter, as they don’t appear to have interfered with his ability to understand
the nature and object of his Rule 32 proceedings and litigate his claims. See Smith,
876 F.2d at 1465. Indeed, the Fourth Circuit has noted that a petitioner’s mental
illness must have actually caused the procedural default for it to constitute cause:
We require nothing more than a showing that his mental illness
actually caused his procedural defaults. It is not enough for a
petitioner to show that there existed at the time of his procedural
defaults certain conditions external to the defense; the petitioner must
show that those external conditions actually “impeded [his] efforts to
comply” with procedural requirements and thus caused his default.
Murray, 477 U.S. at 488. Farabee has presented no evidence
establishing, for instance, that his mental illness interfered with his
ability to appreciate his litigation position or to make rational decisions
concerning the litigation during the entirety of the relevant time
periods, see Holt v. Bowersox, 191 F.3d 970, 974 (8th Cir. 1999), so that
he was unable to consult with counsel, file pleadings, or otherwise
comply with state procedural requirements, see Malone v. Vasquez, 138
F.3d 711, 719 (8th Cir. 1998); see also Smith v. Newsome, 876 F.2d 1461,
1465 (11th Cir. 1989) (assuming that “a pro se habeas petitioner who
lacked the mental capacity to understand the nature and object of
habeas proceedings and to present his case for habeas relief in a
rational manner” could establish cause to excuse a procedural
default). In the absence of such evidence, and considering the fact that
Farabee was able, despite his mental illness, to comply with certain
64

procedural requirements in habeas litigation, we cannot say that the
district court erred when it ruled that Farabee had not demonstrated
cause to excuse his several procedural defaults.
Farabee v. Johnson, 129 F. App’x 799, 804 (4th Cir. 2005) (unpublished per curiam
decision). Eggers was able to litigate his Rule 32 proceedings to conclusion, despite
evidence that he suffered from intermittent episodes of paranoia during the
relevant time period. While Eggers’s apparent belief that a conspiracy existed
against him by the Monks Motorcycle Club and Mexican Mafia certainly made its
appearance in his Rule 32 filings, it was because Eggers clearly found these facts
relevant to certain of his constitutional claims, such as the claims that the State
withheld certain exculpatory evidence from the defense and that his counsel failed
to uncover certain evidence in support of his defense. Notably, several of these
same claims are raised by Eggers’s counsel in the instant federal motion.
Third, Eggers contends that even if mental incompetence does not establish
cause for post-conviction default, the state court’s failure to appoint Rule 32
counsel for him does (even though he stated that he wished to proceed without
counsel during the aforementioned hearing during Rule 32 proceedings). Eggers
relies on the Supreme Court’s decision in Martinez v. Ryan, 132 S. Ct. 1309 (2012),
which he interprets to mean that the fact that he had no post-conviction counsel to
raise this particular ineffective-assistance-of-appellate-counsel claim in his Rule 32
65

petition constitutes cause and prejudice to excuse the default of this claim. By way
of background, the Eleventh Circuit has explained the Martinez decision as follows:
Under the procedural default doctrine, if a state prisoner
“defaulted his federal claims in state court pursuant to an independent
and adequate state procedural rule, federal habeas review of the claims
is barred unless the prisoner can demonstrate cause for the default and
actual prejudice as a result of the alleged violation of federal law . . . .”
FN27 Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U.S. 722, 750, 111 S. Ct. 2546, 2565,
115 L. Ed. 2d 640 (1991). In general, lack of an attorney and attorney
error in state post-conviction proceedings do not establish cause to
excuse a procedural default. Id. at 757, 111 S. Ct. at 2568.
FN27. The procedural default doctrine is a judge-made
creation of the Supreme Court. See McQuiggin v. Perkins,
569 U.S. ––––, ––––, 133 S. Ct. 1924, 1937, 185 L. Ed. 2d
1019 (2013) (Scalia, J. dissenting); see also Dretke v. Haley,
541 U.S. 386, 392, 124 S. Ct. 1847, 1851, 158 L. Ed. 2d
659 (2004). “The rules for when a prisoner may establish
cause to excuse a procedural default are elaborated in the
exercise of the Court’s discretion.” Martinez, 132 S. Ct.
at 1318 (2012).
In Martinez, the Supreme Court announced a narrow, equitable,
and non-constitutional exception to Coleman’s holding (that
ineffective assistance of collateral counsel cannot serve as cause to
excuse a procedural default) in the limited circumstances where (1) a
state requires a prisoner to raise ineffective-trial-counsel claims at an
initial-review collateral proceeding; (2) the prisoner failed properly to
raise ineffective-trial-counsel claims in his state initial-review
collateral proceeding; (3) the prisoner did not have collateral counsel
or his counsel was ineffective; and (4) failing to excuse the prisoner’s
procedural default would cause the prisoner to lose a “substantial”
ineffective-trial-counsel claim. See Arthur [v. Thomas], 739 F.3d [611,]
629 (11th Cir. 2014) (citing Martinez, 132 S. Ct. at 1318). In such a
case, the Supreme Court explained that there may be “cause” to
excuse the procedural default of the ineffective-trial-counsel claim.
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Martinez, 132 S. Ct. at 1319. Subsequently, the U.S. Supreme Court
extended Martinez’s rule to cases where state law technically permits
ineffective-trial-counsel claims on direct appeal but state procedures
make it “virtually impossible” to actually raise ineffective-trialcounsel claims on direct appeal. See Trevino [v. Thaler], 133 S. Ct.
[1911,] 1915, 1918–21 [2013].
Lambrix v. Sec’y, Fla. Dep’t of Corr., 756 F.3d 1246, 1259-60 (11th Cir. 2014).
Eggers’s reliance on Martinez in this context is misplaced, because Martinez
specifically addressed claims of ineffective assistance of trial counsel which were
not raised in the initial post-conviction proceeding, not claims of ineffective
assistance of appellate counsel. Indeed, the Supreme Court has repeatedly
emphasized the narrowness of Martinez’s holding. See Martinez, 132 S. Ct. at 1320
(“The rule of Coleman governs in all but the limited circumstances recognized
here. The holding in this case does not concern attorney errors in other kinds of
proceedings . . . .”); Trevino, 133 S. Ct. at 1921 (applying Martinez’s “narrow
exception” to Coleman’s general rule). To the extent Eggers suggests that his
ineffective assistance of appellate counsel claim should also be considered under
Martinez, this Court declines to do so. The Eleventh Circuit has not published an
opinion on this issue, but the majority of the other circuits to have considered the
issue have rejected a habeas petitioner’s proposal to extend Martinez in the way
that Eggers suggests here. See Reed v. Stephens, 739 F.3d 753, 778 n.16 (5th Cir.
2014); In re Sepulvado, 707 F.3d 550, 554 & n.8 (5th Cir. 2013) (noting that
67

Martinez, by its terms, applies only to ineffective-assistance-of-trial-counsel
claims); Hodges v. Colson, 727 F.3d 517, 531 (6th Cir. 2013) (“Under Martinez’s
unambiguous holding our previous understanding of Coleman in this regard is still
the law—ineffective assistance of post-conviction counsel cannot supply cause for
procedural default of a claim of ineffective assistance of appellate counsel.”); Banks
v. Workman, 692 F.3d 1133, 1148 (10th Cir. 2012) (“Martinez applies only to a
prisoner’s procedural default of a claim of ineffective assistance at trial, not to
claims of deficient performance by appellate counsel.”) (internal quotation marks
and emphasis omitted); but see Ha Van Nguyen v. Curry, 736 F.3d 1287, 1296 (9th
Cir. 2013) (holding that Martinez extends to Sixth Amendment ineffectiveassistance-of-appellate-counsel claims). In sum, the fact that Eggers had no Rule 32
counsel to present this ineffective assistance of appellate counsel claim cannot
serve as cause for the default.
The Court having found the absence of any circumstances that would
constitute cause and prejudice for the procedural default of Eggers’s ineffective
assistance of appellate counsel claim, and Eggers having made no argument that a
miscarriage of justice would result should the Court refuse to consider the claim on
its merits, the claim is procedurally defaulted and will not be considered by this
Court.
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4.

The claim that Eggers was mentally incompetent during Rule 32
proceedings

As Eggers admits, this is not a claim for relief based on an independent
constitutional violation. Rather, Eggers offers his alleged incompetence during Rule
32 proceedings to establish that cause exists to enable this Court to entertain any
claims that would otherwise be procedurally defaulted due to Eggers’s failure to
raise them during those proceedings. Because the Court has already addressed this
claim and determined that Eggers has not established that any mental issues he
suffered from during Rule 32 proceedings caused his procedural defaults, see
section IV. 3, supra, the Court will not reiterate the analysis here. Relief is not
warranted on this claim.
5.

The claim that trial counsel was constitutionally ineffective in
litigating Eggers’s insanity defense by waiting until mid-trial to
retain an expert whose testimony did not establish that Eggers was
insane at the time he committed the murder

Eggers presented this claim on direct appeal, and the ACCA denied it on the
merits, writing:
Eggers contends that his trial counsel were ineffective for not
requesting a psychological examination until after the trial began.
Eggers maintains that trial counsel’s failure to request a psychological
examination before trial left counsel unprepared to present the defense
that the kidnapping and robbery were mere afterthoughts because
during voir dire, opening statements, and cross-examination of the
State’s witnesses counsel could not focus on his mental state. Eggers
claims that, knowing that his psychological examination occurred over
69

the weekend recess halfway through the trial, the jury did not “give
any credibility to the psychological evidence ‘created’ over the
weekend.” (Eggers’s brief at p. 36.) According to Eggers, had trial
counsel obtained the psychological evaluation before trial and properly
prepared and presented that evidence to the jury, the jury would have
found that the kidnapping and robbery were mere afterthoughts and
would have found him guilty of intentional murder instead of capital
murder.
The record reflects that, during the lunch recess on the fourth
day of the trial proceedings, Thursday, August 22, 2002, Eggers’s
counsel requested that he be evaluated over the weekend to determine
his mental state at the time of the crime.FN9 The trial court granted
the request, and Eggers was evaluated over the weekend recess by
Allen Shealy, a clinical and forensic psychologist. In response to that
evaluation, the State had Eggers evaluated on Monday, August 26,
2002, after the trial had recessed for the day, by James F. Hooper,
director of psychiatric services at Taylor Hardin Secure Medical
Facility. The State rested its case-in-chief on Tuesday, August 27,
2002, and the defense presented the testimony of Dr. Shealy that day.
The following day, the defense rested, and the State then presented
the testimony of Dr. Hooper in rebuttal. During direct and crossexamination of both Dr. Shealy and Dr. Hooper, the jury was made
aware that Dr. Shealy had evaluated Eggers over the weekend recess
and that Dr. Hooper had evaluated Eggers Monday evening.
FN9. We note that, at a pretrial hearing on June 5, 2002,
over two months before the trial began on August 19,
2002, Eggers’s counsel requested that Eggers be
evaluated. The trial court granted counsel’s oral request
and ordered what the court termed a “preliminary”
evaluation by the Department of Mental Health and
Mental Retardation in Walker County. (R. 65.) The court
then indicated that if the results of the preliminary
evaluation suggested that a more comprehensive
evaluation at the Taylor Hardin Secure Medical Facility
was necessary, it would then order the further evaluation.
Neither counsel nor the court indicated at that time
70

whether the evaluation was to determine Eggers’s
competency to stand trial and/or to determine Eggers’s
mental state at the time of the crime, and the record does
not indicate whether a preliminary evaluation was ever
performed, or, if so, what the results were. However, it
appears from counsel’s assertions later during the trial
that the purpose of this preliminary evaluation was to
determine Eggers’s competency to stand trial, not to
determine his mental state at the time of the crime.
Eggers’s argument is nothing more than bare allegations and
speculation. Eggers does not identify what he believes his counsel
could have said or done during voir dire, during opening statements,
or during cross-examination of the State’s witnesses had counsel had
the psychological evaluation performed before trial that would have
influenced the jury in any way. In addition, it is nothing but pure
speculation on Eggers’s part that the jury did not believe Dr. Shealy’s
testimony because his evaluation was performed during the trial,
FN10 but would have believed Dr. Shealy’s testimony had the
evaluation been done before trial. Therefore, Eggers failed to satisfy
his burden of proof under Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104
S. Ct. 2052, 80 L. Ed. 2d 674 (1984).
FN10. Based on the facts, the jury could have believed
Dr. Shealy’s testimony and still found Eggers guilty of
capital murder. Although Dr. Shealy testified that
Eggers’s initial attack on Francis in the truck was the
product of uncontrollable rage, he said that that rage
episode ended when Francis became unconscious, and
that Eggers’s actions after that—driving Francis to a
secluded dirt road, kicking and strangling Francis to make
sure she was dead, dragging Francis into the woods where
she could not be seen from the road, and taking Francis’s
truck—were not the product of uncontrollable rage. As
noted in Part II of this opinion, if the underlying felonies
and the murder were part of a continuous chain of events,
the murder is a capital one. The jury could have believed
Dr. Shealy’s testimony that the initial attack was the
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product of uncontrollable rage and still found that the
kidnapping, robbery, and murder were part of one
continuous chain of events.
Eggers, 914 So. 2d at 912-13.
Because this claim was “adjudicated on the merits in state court
proceedings,” Eggers cannot obtain relief on this claim unless he can show that the
denial of relief on this claim in state court “(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.” See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d).
The clearly established federal law on this point is Strickland. It appears that
the state court did not address the deficient performance prong but rested its denial
of this claim on Eggers’s failure to satisfy the prejudice prong—that but for
counsel’s performance, there is a reasonable probability the result of the
proceeding would have been different. See Strickland, 466 U.S. at 694, 104 S. Ct.
2052. This Court need not address the question of deficient performance because it
cannot say that the state court’s adjudication of Strickland’s prejudice prong was
unreasonable. This is because Eggers has not shown how, had Dr. Shealy been
retained prior to trial rather than during trial, he would have given different
72

testimony that would have prompted the jury to conclude that the death sentence
was not warranted. See Strickland, 466 U.S. at 695, 104 S. Ct. at 2068 (“When a
defendant challenges a death sentence . . ., the question is whether there is a
reasonable probability that, absent the errors, the sentencer . . . would have
concluded that the balance of aggravating and mitigating circumstances did not
warrant death.”). While the prosecutor emphasized at closing that Dr. Shealy was
retained at the “eleventh hour” [C.R. Vol. 10 at 1394], and Dr. Shealy did concede
that had he had more time, he might have procured additional third party
observations of Eggers’s past behavior to corroborate what the brother and sister
said, Dr. Shealy also told the jury that he would not have spent many more hours
than he spent on Eggers in any other evaluation. [C.R. Vol. 9 at 1166.] Eggers has
not explained specifically what his counsel would have said differently during voir
dire or opening statements, had they had Dr. Shealy’s evaluation before them prior
to trial, that would have made any difference. Presumably they could have argued
during opening statements that Eggers’s paranoid schizophrenia prevented him
from forming the intent to murder. But the jury would have then heard from Dr.
Shealy and Dr. Hooper during trial, who presented opinions that although Eggers
suffered from paranoid personality disorder and intermittent explosive disorder, he
was not seriously mentally ill when he murdered Mrs. Murray. Indeed, although
73

Dr. Shealy testified that Eggers was in the midst of an uncontrollable rage when he
levied the first blows against Mrs. Murray, he admitted on cross examination that
Eggers’s later acts in ensuring that she was dead, such as driving her body to
another location and stepping on a tree branch placed on her neck until she stopped
breathing, were not conducted during an uncontrollable rage-like state. Because
this Court’s analysis must be conducted through the lens of § 2254(d), its task is
merely to determine whether the ACCA’s application of the Strickland standard
was reasonable. See Evans, 699 F.3d at 1268 (“The question is not how the district
court [ ] would rule if presented with the issue for the first time and not whether
[the Court] think[s] the state court decision is correct, but whether its decision is
contrary to or an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law.”). It
was a reasonable application of Strickland for the ACCA to conclude as it did.
Because the Court finds that the state court’s conclusion that Eggers was not
prejudiced by his counsel’s failure to retain a mental health expert until mid-trial, it
need not address the deficient performance prong, and habeas relief is not
warranted on this claim.
Importantly, to the extent Eggers now argues that counsel was also
ineffective for other reasons: for allowing Dr. Shealy to testify unhelpfully that
Eggers was “not that mentally ill” [C.R. Vol. 9 at 1214]; for not collecting the
74

records from Eggers’s involuntary commitment in El Paso, Texas to provide to Dr.
Shealy (although in other portions of Eggers’s petition he contends that the State
unlawfully withheld those records from his counsel); and for not knowing that it
was the defendant’s burden to prove his insanity under Alabama law, Eggers never
made these arguments before the state courts. Claims premised on these facts are
thus procedurally defaulted. A federal habeas petitioner is required “to present the
state courts with the same claim he urges upon the federal courts.” Picard, 404
U.S. at 276, 92 S. Ct. at 512; see also McNair, 416 F.3d at 1302 (“While we do not
require a verbatim restatement of the claims brought in state court, we do require
that a petitioner presented his claims to the state court “such that a reasonable
reader would understand each claim’s particular legal basis and specific factual
foundation.”) Because he did not present these specific claims as federal claims in
state court, he did not give the state courts a fair opportunity to decide them.
Dismissal of his habeas petition to allow Eggers to present these claims fairly as a
federal claim in state court now would be futile because he would be barred from
raising them in state court under Rule 32.2(c) of the Alabama Rules of Criminal
Procedure (statute of limitations bar) and Rule 32.2(b) of the Alabama Rules of
Criminal Procedure (successive petition bar). Thus, because any state remedy with
respect to these claims is procedurally barred by the state procedural rules noted
75

above, claims premised on these facts are procedurally defaulted from habeas
review.
6.

The claim that trial counsel was constitutionally ineffective in
litigating Eggers’s incompetence to stand trial

Along with his claim of trial court error for not sua sponte holding a
competency hearing, see section IV. 2 of this opinion, supra, Eggers also alleges that
his trial counsel rendered ineffective assistance by failing to request a competency
evaluation. Eggers raised this claim for the first time in his amended Rule 32
petition as claims 63, 65-70, 73-74, 77, and 80-83. The circuit court styled the claim
“Eggers’s Claim that Trial Counsel was Ineffective for Failing to Take Steps to
Have Eggers Declared Incompetent to Stand Trial And/Or Prepare a Mitigation
Case Based on his Mental Health.” [C.R. Vol. 22 at 39.] The circuit court, which
issued the last reasoned decision,8 denied the claim because it was insufficiently
pleaded, because it was contradicted by the record, because it failed to state a
material issue of law or fact, and as procedurally barred because it was presented
and rejected on direct appeal. [C.R. Vol. 22 at 39-43.] With regard to the denial as
insufficiently pleaded, the circuit court ruled as follows:
Collectively, all of these allegations attack trial counsel for
failing to demonstrate that Eggers was incompetent to stand trial
and/or for failing to convince the jury that Eggers’s mental health was
8

See Ylst, 501 U.S. at 804, 111 S. Ct. at 2594.
76

a mitigating factor sufficient to alter the sentencing determination.
However, the amended petition provides only the barest basis for
evaluating any of these claims. At bottom, the amended petition fails
to state any facts—known or unknown to trial counsel—that were not
presented to the court and would have ultimately changed the opinion
of any expert, the competency determination of the trial court, or the
outcome of the sentencing determination. Eggers, therefore, has failed
to plead with sufficient specificity to support a finding of deficient
performance or prejudice.
Many of the specific allegations also suffer other pleading
defects. Eggers does not plead facts demonstrating that he was entitled
to pretrial institutionalization or funds for independent evaluations,
and therefore cannot show that the motions would have been granted.
He also fails to allege with specificity what information a background
investigation or earlier evaluations FN4 would have been likely to
generate, or to state how much information would have been
presented to the court. The amended petition similarly fails to disclose
what unknown facts trial counsel would have learned from postevaluation conversations with Eggers. Eggers also fails to plead facts
which, if true, would demonstrate that trial counsel performed
deficiently given counsel’s unsuccessful efforts to have Eggers
declared incompetent and in light of contrary expert’s opinions.
Eggers has failed to plead sufficient facts that, even if true, would
prove deficient performance or prejudice under Strickland. See Ala. R.
Crim. P. 32.3, 32.6(b). Therefore, these claims are dismissed. Ala. R.
Crim. P. 32.7(d).
FN. 4 The trial court did eventually grant Eggers’s
request for funds to be evaluated by Dr. Shealy, and
therefore the issue is whether earlier evaluation would
have produced a different result.
Eggers’s claims concerning his competence are also dismissed
because they are also largely contradicted by the record. Indeed, Dr.
Shealy, the defense expert, testified before the jury that his own
investigation indicated that Eggers’s account of his life history was
“largely” accurate, except that Eggers had understated the degree of
77

childhood abuse he had suffered. (R. 1139.) Shealy also testified that
he had interviewed Eggers’s brother, who had confirmed that Eggers
spent time in a mental facility in El Paso. (R. 1141.)
Furthermore, these claims are dismissed because Eggers has
failed to state a material issue of law or fact. Ala. R. Crim. P. 32.7(d).
Eggers has failed to plead any facts that, if proven true, would
establish that he was indeed incompetent. Instead, Eggers’s bare
allegations consist of nothing but pure speculation. By failing to plead
facts which if true would actually establish that he was incompetent,
Eggers has failed to plead a claim upon which relief can be granted and
these claims are dismissed. Ala. R. Crim. P. 32.7(d).
[C.R. Vol. 22 at 40-42.]
A Rule 32 dismissal for lack of specificity is a merits ruling in this circuit. See
Borden, 646 F.3d at 812-13. As such, this Court conducts the deferential AEDPA
review of the state court’s decision pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d), and Eggers
cannot obtain relief on this claim unless he can show that the denial of relief on this
claim in state court “(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.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d).
The clearly established federal law on this point is again Strickland as it
interacts with Dusky, Pate and Drope, supra. A defendant is legally incompetent to
stand trial if he lacks “sufficient present ability to consult with his lawyer with a
78

reasonable degree of rational understanding—and . . . a rational as well as factual
understanding of the proceedings against him.” Dusky, 362 U.S. at 402, 80 S. Ct.
at 788 (internal quotation marks omitted). Due Process requires the trial court to
inquire sua sponte as to the defendant’s competence in every case in which there is a
reason to doubt the defendant’s competence to stand trial. Drope, 420 U.S. at 173,
95 S. Ct. 896; Pate, 383 U.S. at 385, 86 S. Ct. 836 (stating that failure to hold
competency hearing violated due process where state statute required trial court to
order hearing where there was “reason to doubt” defendant’s competency, and the
evidence was sufficient to put the trial court on notice of potential problem). It
follows from Strickland and its progeny that defense counsel has a duty to
investigate a defendant’s competency to stand trial, and could be found to be
ineffective either by failing to make a reasonable investigation or by failing to make
a reasonable decision that such investigation was unnecessary. See Futch v. Duggar,
847 F.2d 1483, 1487 (11th Cir. 1989) (in a pre-AEDPA case, holding that an
evidentiary hearing was required when counsel knew that a prison psychologist
evaluated petitioner and declared him incompetent but failed to obtain the
evaluation or interview the psychologist, because if these allegations were true,
petitioner had met his burden of showing that his counsel was ineffective and a
reasonable probability that a psychological evaluation would have revealed he was
79

incompetent to stand trial); Jermyn v. Horn, 266 F.3d 257, 283-84 (3d Cir. 2001)
(“[C]ounsel’s failure to request the trial court to order a hearing or evaluation on
the issue of the defendant’s competency [] could violate the defendant’s right to
effective assistance of counsel provided there are sufficient indicia of incompetence
to give objectively reasonable counsel reason to doubt the defendant’s competency,
and there is a reasonable probability that the defendant would have been found
incompetent to stand trial had the issue been raised and fully considered.”)
(internal citation omitted). Indeed, “[b]ecause legal competency is primarily a
function of defendant’s role in assisting counsel in conducting the defense, the
defendant’s attorney is in the best position to determine whether the defendant’s
competency is suspect.” Watts, 87 F.3d at 1288.
The state court decision rejecting Eggers’s claim is not an objectively
unreasonable application of this precedent. First, as the state court noted, Eggers
has not demonstrated deficient performance. Eggers’s counsel knew that Eggers
had been institutionalized in January 1987 in El Paso, Texas on what could have
been mental issues or drug-related issues, that his brother was currently
institutionalized in a California mental health facility, and that he had a history of
paranoid tendencies that led him to distrust his attorneys and believe the
prosecution was part of an ongoing government-led conspiracy against him. But
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rather than ignore this information, defense counsel asked the trial judge to order a
mental evaluation of Eggers several months prior to trial. As previously noted,
results from this evaluation are not in the record, but Eggers concedes that it
happened. Counsel then obtained the testimony of Dr. Shealy, who testified that
there was no doubt that Eggers was competent to stand trial. [C.R. Vol. 9 at 1177
(“Q. . . . Now, I note in your report also that you say he is clearly competent to
stand trial. A. Yes. Q. There’s no issue about that? A. Right.”).] This is simply not
a case where counsel ignored red flags and conducted no investigation, so the Rule
32 court’s decision, based on the record before it, that counsel’s performance was
not deficient, was not unreasonable.
Eggers likewise fails to show resulting prejudice. “In order to demonstrate
prejudice from counsel’s failure to investigate his competency, [a] petitioner has to
show that there exists ‘at least a reasonable probability that a psychological
evaluation would have revealed that he was incompetent to stand trial.’” Futch,
874 F.2d at 1487 (quoting Alexander v. Dugger 841 F.2d 371, 375 (11th Cir. 1988)).
As discussed in sections IV. 1 and 2, supra, Eggers was evaluated by two mental
health experts, Dr. Shealy and Dr. Hooper, and found competent to proceed by
both. Not only that, but Eggers’s conduct during trial did not raise red flags. Eggers
has not presented evidence establishing that, if counsel had moved for a
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competency hearing, the state trial court judge would have granted the motion and
would have found Eggers incompetent to proceed. See Pate, 383 U.S. at 385–86, 86
S. Ct. at 842 (a trial judge must conduct a sua sponte sanity hearing only when the
defendant’s conduct and the evidence raises a “bona fide doubt” regarding the
defendant’s competence to stand trial). Since Eggers has failed to establish both
deficient performance and prejudice resulting from trial counsel’s failure to move
for a competency hearing, the state court’s decision was not an unreasonable
application of Strickand or Pate, and that fact precludes habeas relief on this claim.
7.

The claim that trial counsel was constitutionally ineffective in
failing to investigate and argue in support of Eggers’s motion to
suppress his confessions that he was mentally ill when he
confessed, thus making them involuntary

Eggers presented this ground for the first time in his amended Rule 32
petition as claims 43-47. The circuit court, which issued the last reasoned decision,
denied the claim as insufficiently specific under Ala. R. Crim. P. 32.3 and 32.6(b);
because it failed to state a claim; because it failed to state a material issue of law or
fact under Ala. R. Crim. P. 32.7(d); and because it was procedurally barred under
Ala. R. Crim. P. 32.2(a)(4) as it had already been raised and addressed on direct
appeal. [C.R. Vol. 22 at 88-92.] With regard to the denial for insufficient pleading,
the circuit court wrote:

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Eggers’s claims are nothing but bare allegations. Eggers utterly fails to
plead what specific records or reports should have been ‘marshaled’
by his defense counsel. Nor does Eggers plead the names of the
witnesses who should have been interviewed or called by his counsel
during the suppression hearing. Moreover, Eggers fails to specifically
plead what information these unnamed witnesses possessed that
would have been relevant to his arrest or interrogation during the
suppression hearing.
Additionally, these claims are insufficiently pleaded because
Eggers has entirely failed to plead facts which, if true, would establish
prejudice under Strickland. Eggers has utterly failed to plead any facts
concerning what evidence his trial counsel would have presented
during the suppression hearing had his counsel compiled the records
and talked with the witnesses Eggers contends should have been
acquired and interviewed. Eggers has completely failed to plead facts
which, if true, would establish that the outcome of his trial would have
been different had his counsel conducted the investigation of his arrest
and interrogation in the way Eggers suggests.
This claim is also dismissed because it fails to state a material
issue of law or fact. Ala. R. Crim. P. 32.7(d). . . . [T]he Court of
Criminal Appeals provided a detailed analysis concerning Eggers’s
statements to law enforcement and found that his statements were
given voluntarily. [Eggers, 904 So. 2d] at 897-906. Eggers has failed to
plead what additional, specific facts his counsel could have presented
that, if true, would call that court’s holding into question.
Accordingly, this claim is dismissed pursuant to Ala. R. Crim. P.
32.7(d) for failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted.
[C.R. Vol. 16 at 33.]
A Rule 32 dismissal for lack of specificity is a merits ruling in this circuit.
Borden, 646 F.3d at 812-13. As such, this Court conducts the deferential AEDPA
review of the state court’s decision pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d), and Eggers
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cannot obtain relief on this claim unless he can show that the denial of relief on this
claim in state court “(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.” See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d).
The facts that are relevant to this claim are as follows. After being arrested in
Florida on January 9, 2001, Eggers waived his Fifth Amendment rights, and
between January 10 and 11 he repeatedly confessed to having killed Mrs. Murray
and led police to her remains. Eggers’s counsel later filed a motion to suppress his
confessions. The motion asserted that Eggers was not advised of his constitutional
rights immediately prior to making the statements, that Eggers did not knowingly,
intelligently, or voluntarily waive his rights, and that Eggers’s statements were
involuntary because they were the product of his mental illness, inexperience with
law enforcement, and threats and promises made by law enforcement officials.
Counsel later filed a brief that again asserted the involuntariness of the confessions,
but in which counsel did not mention Eggers’s mental illness as a basis for
suppression. The trial judge held the suppression hearing late in the afternoon on
the first day of trial, August 20, 2002, after the jury had been struck, and continued
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it the next morning, before opening statements began. Counsel did not present any
evidence of Eggers’s mental illness at the suppression hearing. However, the court
did hear from law enforcement agents to whom Eggers confessed, the sheriff, a jail
administrator, and Eggers himself. [C.R. Vol. 5 at 289-381.] The court orally denied
the motion to suppress at the hearing.
Eggers now argues that counsel’s failure to argue that his mental illness
rendered his confessions involuntary was ineffective assistance, and he contends
that he was prejudiced because, had the trial judge had evidence of his mental
illness before him, his confessions would have been suppressed, and he would not
have been found guilty of capital murder. The clearly established Supreme Court
law on this point is Strickland and its progeny as related to counsel’s litigation of
motions to suppress. “To obtain relief where an ineffective assistance claim is
based on trial counsel’s failure to file a timely motion to suppress, a petitioner must
prove (1) that counsel’s representation fell below an objective standard of
reasonableness, (2) that the Fourth Amendment claim is meritorious, and (3) that
there is a reasonable probability that the verdict would have been different absent
the excludable evidence.” Zakrzewski v. McDonough, 455 F.3d 1254, 1260 (11th Cir.
2006) (citing Kimmelman v. Morrison, 477 U.S. 365, 375, 106 S. Ct. 2574, 2582-83
(1986)). Thus, the petitioner’s underlying Fourth Amendment claim is one
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element of his Sixth Amendment ineffectiveness claim. Kimmelman, 477 U.S. at
375, 106 S. Ct. at 2583. A confession to police is inadmissible unless “‘it is made
freely, voluntarily, and without compulsion or inducement of any sort.’” Haynes v.
Washington, 373 U.S. 503, 513, 83 S. Ct. 1336, 1343 (1963) (quoting Wilson v. United
States, 162 U.S. 613, 623, 16 S. Ct. 895, 899 (1896)). A defendant’s mental state is
relevant to the voluntariness inquiry. Columbe v. Connecticut, 367 U.S. 568, 602, 81
S. Ct. 1860, 1879 (1961).
For reasons explained below, it was reasonable for the circuit court to
conclude that Eggers was not prejudiced by his counsel’s failure to argue that he
was mentally ill during his confessions because it is highly unlikely that the trial
court would have granted Eggers’s motion to suppress had counsel put forth the
evidence that Eggers proffers. Eggers argued that his counsel should have raised at
the suppression hearing the fact that he had been experiencing paranoia since 1985,
that he had been institutionalized in 1987 in El Paso, Texas, following a psychotic
episode, that he had a family history of mental illness, and that his brother was
currently institutionalized for paranoid schizophrenia. The court is confident that
this evidence, had the trial judge had it before him, would not have caused him to
grant the motion to suppress. The standard in Alabama governing the admissibility
of a confession given by a person who contends he was suffering from a mental
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impairment when he gave his statement is whether the defendant could understand
his Miranda 9 rights such that he could knowingly and intelligently waive them. See
Hines v. State, 384 So. 2d 1171, 1180 (Ala. Crim. App. 1980). Evidence that a
defendant suffered from a mental impairment at the time of a confession is but one
of many circumstances considered in making the determination whether the
confession was knowingly and intelligently given. See id. Under this standard, there
is no reasonable probability that, but for Eggers’s counsel’s failure to offer the
evidence at issue, the court would have suppressed Eggers’s confession. This is
because the facts before the trial court concerning Eggers’s confessions, including
the actual written and verbal confessions themselves, as well as the testimony given
by officers and Eggers at the suppression hearing, do not support a finding in
Eggers’s favor under this standard. After being arrested, Eggers voluntarily came
forward with his desire to make a statement, waived his Miranda rights, and
repeatedly confessed over a period of several days. One confession was written, and
two were verbal, of which one was recorded and one was not. Eggers also
voluntarily offered to show law enforcement Mrs. Murray’s body. In its opinion on
direct appeal, the ACCA provided great detail on what the testimony from the
suppression hearing showed regarding Eggers’s arrest and confessions:

9

Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S. Ct. 1602 (1966).
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As noted above, Agent Maldonado testified that when Eggers
first came out of the tent, he initially identified himself as Clay, but
that based on the description of Eggers they had received, he and the
other law-enforcement officers believed that “Clay” was, in fact,
Eggers, and Eggers subsequently admitted who he was and told the
officers that his wallet, with all of his identification, was in the tent.
Eggers was then arrested and transported to the Osceola County
Sheriff’s Department by a sheriff’s deputy. Agent Maldonado testified
that he could not remember which deputy transported Eggers to the
sheriff’s department and no one from the Osceola County Sheriff’s
Department testified at the suppression hearing or at trial; however,
Agent Maldonado testified at the suppression hearing that he was
never informed that Eggers had made any kind of statement while
being transported to the Sheriff’s Department, but that Eggers had
been transported “from the tent city to the Sheriff’s Office with no
statement.” (R. 326.)
Once at the sheriff’s department, Agent Maldonado said, he
advised Eggers of his Miranda rights, Eggers indicated that he wanted
to make a statement, and Eggers then signed a waiver-of-rights form.
Agent Maldonado testified that he then advised Eggers that he was
being arrested on a warrant for unlawful flight to avoid prosecution
and that Eggers “asked me if I wanted to know where the body was.”
(R. 457.) Eggers then orally confessed to murdering Francis, provided
details about the murder, and agreed to take law-enforcement officers
to the location of Francis’s body. While Agent Maldonado was writing
his notes about Eggers’s oral confession, he asked Eggers if he would
be willing to make a written statement and Eggers agreed. Eggers then
handwrote a short statement, again admitting to murdering Francis.
The following morning, January 10, 2001, Eggers was brought before a
Florida circuit judge and waived extradition.
Agent Maldonado testified that, although he and the other lawenforcement officers had their guns drawn when they entered the tent
city, they did not put their guns to Eggers’s head or otherwise
threaten Eggers when they arrested him. Agent Maldonado also
testified that Eggers never asked for a lawyer at any time in his
presence; that he never promised Eggers any reward for making a
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statement; that he never threatened Eggers to get him to make a
statement; and that he did not tell Eggers that it would be better for
him if he made a statement or worse for him if he did not make a
statement. Agent Maldonado specifically denied threatening to get
Eggers’s son, girlfriend, or father involved in the situation if Eggers
did not make a statement.
In contrast, Eggers testified at the suppression hearing that
when he was discovered in the tent city and initially asked what his
name was, he did not give a false name, but asked for a lawyer. Eggers
said that the officers ignored his request for a lawyer and asked him
what his name was again, and that he then identified himself and told
the officers that his identification was in his wallet in the tent. While
being transported to the Osceola County Sheriff’s Department,
Eggers said, he again requested a lawyer, and was told by the deputy
that he “would have to take that up as soon as we got to the Sheriff’s
Office.” (R. 347.) Eggers testified that when he arrived at the sheriff’s
department, Agent Maldonado did not advise him of his Miranda
rights, but threatened him. According to Eggers, Agent Maldonado
told him that he “had to answer some questions” and then said that if
he did not answer the questions, he (Agent Maldonado) would get
Eggers’s girlfriend, father, and son involved. (R. 350.) Eggers said that
it was only after Agent Maldonado threatened to involve his father and
his son that he agreed to make a statement, and that only after he
agreed to make a statement did Agent Maldonado advise him of his
Miranda rights and did he sign the waiver-of-rights form. Eggers also
testified that he waived extradition because he “had no choice,” the
“FBI was taking [my rights] away from me.” (R. 354.)
After Eggers waived extradition, Joe Brzezinski, an investigator
with the Alabama Bureau of Investigation, as well as other Alabama
law-enforcement officers, flew to Kissimmee and transported Eggers
back to Alabama. Upon arrival at the Walker County Airport in Jasper,
Eggers took law-enforcement officers to the location of Francis’s
body. Inv. Brzezinski testified that when they got into the vehicles, he
advised Eggers of his Miranda rights and asked Eggers if he was willing
to continue cooperating, to which Eggers replied “that’s what we’re
here for.” (R. 293.) Eggers then led law-enforcement officers to the
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location of Francis’s body, during which time he again admitted to
murdering Francis and explained the events surrounding the murder.
Inv. Brzezinski stated that Eggers was not coerced or threatened; that
Eggers was not promised anything for his cooperation; and that Eggers
was never told that it would be better for him if he cooperated. After
Francis’s body was located, Eggers was taken to the Walker County
jail.
The following day, on January 11, 2001, Inv. Brzezinski went to
the Walker County jail and spoke with Eggers again. Inv. Brzezinski
testified that, before speaking with Eggers, he advised Eggers of his
Miranda rights; that Eggers indicated that he understood those rights;
and that Eggers signed a waiver-of-rights form. Eggers then gave a
third statement, again admitting to the murder of Francis and detailing
the circumstances of that murder; that statement was audio taped.
Inv. Brzezinski testified that Eggers was not threatened into making
the statement; that Eggers was not promised anything for making the
statement; and that no one told Eggers that it would be better for him
to make the statement.
Eggers admitted at the suppression hearing that Inv. Brzezinski
advised him of his Miranda rights before he took Inv. Brzezinski to
where Francis’s body was located and again before he gave his third
statement to Inv. Brzezinski at the Walker County jail the next day,
and that he was not threatened or coerced into making either of those
statements. Eggers also admitted that he signed a waiver-of-rights
form before he gave his third statement at the jail.
Eggers, 914 So. 2d at 896-98.
The trial court had the benefit of Eggers’s testimony at the suppression
hearing. Although Eggers disputed the testimony of law enforcement in several
respects at the suppression hearing, he never indicated that he had a mental
impairment that hindered the voluntariness of his confession. More importantly,
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both Eggers’s written and verbal (taped) confessions are lucid and organized. [C.R.
Vol. 2 at 392-93 (Eggers’s written statement); Vol. 2-3 at 396-454 (Eggers’s
recorded verbal statement)]. Eggers calmly explained what he did to law
enforcement, never making any statements about delusions, paranoia, or seeing or
hearing things that weren’t there. In those statements, he never once indicated that
he was incapable of understanding the charges against him and making informed
decisions. He simply did not exhibit any bizarre behavior during his confessions
that would indicate that he was suffering from a mental impairment at the time.
Thus, given the totality of the circumstances surrounding Eggers’s confessions, if
counsel had also argued that Eggers was suffering from some kind of psychotic
episode when he made those statements, that evidence would have been a mere
part of the analysis, and the Court is certain that it would not have changed the
judge’s conclusion that the motion to suppress was due to be denied. Because the
motion to suppress wouldn’t have been granted, there is no reasonable probability
that the outcome of the proceeding would have been different. Because there was
no prejudice stemming from counsel’s failure to argue that Eggers’s mental illness
rendered his confessions involuntary, the circuit court was certainly not
unreasonable in so concluding, and habeas relief is not warranted on this claim.10

10

Eggers also argues that counsel’s performance was deficient because it was not the sort of
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8.

The claims that 1) trial counsel was constitutionally ineffective in
failing to investigate for the guilt phase of the trial by failing to
identify witnesses and records with information about Eggers’s
mental illness that would have either supported a lesser included
offense or have shown that he lacked the intent to commit capital
murder, and 2) trial counsel was constitutionally ineffective in
failing to conduct an adequate investigation in preparation for the
penalty phase of the trial

Eggers claims that he presented this ground for the first time in his amended
Rule 32 petition as claims 20, 48-50, 62, 91, and 95, but a plain reading of the claims
shows that this particular claim was not presented. Claim 20 alleged that Eggers
was incompetent to stand trial, and trial counsel was ineffective for not conducting
a competency evaluation prior to trial; claims 48-50 alleged that trial counsel failed
to seek various records, such as criminal and medical records; claim 62 alleged that
trial counsel failed to discover various facts about Eggers’s background; claim 91
alleged that trial counsel failed to obtain a valid competency evaluation and provide
“strategic” decision that Strickland insulates from scrutiny because it was made in the absence of
a reasonable investigation into Eggers’s history of mental illness. See Strickland, 466 U.S. at 69091, 104 S. Ct. at 2066 (“[S]trategic choices made after less than complete investigation are
reasonable precisely to the extent that reasonable professional judgments support the limits on
investigation.”). However, because the Court finds that the circuit court’s determination that
Eggers was not prejudiced by counsel’s failure to litigate his mental illness in support of the
motion to suppress was not contrary to clearly established federal law, it need not address the
deficient performance prong of Strickland. Indeed, while the circuit court may have indicated
that it was holding that counsel’s performance was not deficient when it wrote that Eggers did
not explain with specificity what counsel should have done to litigate the motion as Eggers
wished, the court did not explicitly make a ruling that counsel’s performance was not deficient.
In any event, even if Eggers successfully persuaded a court that counsel’s performance fell below
an objective standard of reasonableness, for the reasons explained above, he has shown no
prejudice flowing from it.
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experts with necessary information and data; and claim 95 alleged that trial counsel
failed to provide various facts to the experts. [C.R. Vol. 15 at 132-180.] The claims
presented in Rule 32 proceedings made no specific mention of counsel being
ineffective for not investigating evidence that Eggers lacked the specific intent to
commit murder for the guilt phase. And, as Eggers concedes, they said nothing
about counsel’s ineffectiveness in failing to investigate for the penalty phase of the
trial. Consequently, this claim is procedurally defaulted from this Court’s review
because Eggers did not fairly present it as a federal claim in state court. See Picard,
404 U.S. at 276, 92 S. Ct. at 512 (a federal habeas petitioner is required “to present
the state courts with the same claim he urges upon the federal courts”). Because he
did not present this specific claim as a federal claim in state court, he did not give
the state courts a fair opportunity to decide it. Dismissal of his habeas petition to
allow Eggers to present this claim fairly as a federal claim in state court now would
be futile because he would be barred from raising it in state court under Rule
32.2(c) of the Alabama Rules of Criminal Procedure (statute of limitations bar) and
Rule 32.2(b) of the Alabama Rules of Criminal Procedure (successive petition bar).
Thus, because any state remedy with respect to this claim is procedurally barred by
the state procedural rules noted above, Eggers’s claim is procedurally defaulted
from habeas review, unless some exception applies.
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As he has with other claims, Eggers again argues that two sorts of cause are
present to excuse the procedural default of this claim: his alleged mental illness
during Rule 32 proceedings and his allegation that the state courts forced him to
proceed as a pro se litigant during those proceedings. As already described in
section IV. 3 of this opinion, supra, Eggers was not suffering from a mental illness
that prohibited him from understanding the nature and object of his Rule 32
proceedings, so Eggers’s first argument for “cause” fails.
With regard to Eggers’s second argument for “cause,” he again relies on
Martinez v. Ryan, 132 S. Ct. 1309. As explained previously, in Martinez, the
Supreme Court announced a “narrow exception” to Coleman’s procedural default
rule in the limited circumstances where (1) a state requires a prisoner to raise
ineffective-trial-counsel claims at the initial-review stage of a state collateral
proceeding and precludes those claims during direct appeal; (2) the prisoner did
not comply with state rules and failed to properly raise ineffective-trial-counsel
claims in his state initial-review collateral proceeding; (3) the prisoner did not have
counsel (or his appointed counsel was ineffective by not raising ineffective-trialcounsel claims) in that initial-review collateral proceeding; and (4) failing to excuse
the prisoner’s procedural default would cause the prisoner to lose a “substantial”
ineffective-trial-counsel claim. 132 S. Ct. at 1318 (defining a substantial claim as one
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with “some merit”). The Martinez Court said that the rule it was announcing
effectively “permits a State to elect between appointing counsel in initial-review
collateral proceedings or not asserting a procedural default and raising a defense on
the merits in federal habeas proceedings.” 132 S. Ct. at 1320. Subsequently, in
Trevino v. Thaler, the Supreme Court extended Martinez, holding that where a
State in theory grants permission to raise a claim of ineffective assistance of trial
counsel on direct appeal but that State’s “procedural framework, by reason of its
design and operation, makes it highly unlikely in a typical case that a defendant will
have a meaningful opportunity to raise a claim of ineffective assistance of trial
counsel on direct appeal, [the] holding of Martinez applies[.]” 133 S. Ct. at 1921.
Applying the foregoing principles to the present case, Eggers’s procedural
default occurred during the initial collateral review proceeding when he failed to
raise this specific ineffective assistance of trial counsel issue at the state level.
Eggers was not represented by counsel during the initial collateral proceeding.
Thus, the reasoning of Martinez, acknowledging that “as an equitable matter, that a
collateral proceeding, if undertaken with no counsel or ineffective counsel, may not
have been sufficient to ensure that proper consideration was given to a substantial

95

claim,” appears at first blush to apply here. Martinez, 132 S. Ct. at 1318. 11 However,
there are several problems with the application of Martinez and Trevino to Eggers’s
case. First, on the State’s motion—not Eggers’s—the Rule 32 court conducted a
hearing specifically to determine whether it should appoint counsel for Eggers
during Rule 32 proceedings, at which time Eggers refused counsel, and the court
ultimately concluded it would not force counsel on Eggers. See section IV. 3, supra.
This is not a case where Eggers requested counsel for his collateral appeal and was
denied by the state court. Second, Eggers could have raised this ineffective
assistance of trial counsel claim on direct appeal. Alabama does not bar a defendant
from raising ineffective assistance of counsel claims on direct appeal, and in this
case Eggers was represented on appeal by a different lawyer than his trial counsel.
Indeed, his direct appeal counsel did raise some ineffective assistance of trial
counsel claims on appeal, just not this specific claim. 12 On the other hand, it could
be said that raising an ineffective assistance of trial counsel claim in full is
impracticable at the direct appeal stage, because it requires counsel to conduct a
full scale investigation with approval of discovery for records, which often takes
Recall that Martinez did not apply when Eggers sought to utilize it to establish cause and
prejudice for his failure to raise an ineffective assistance of appellate counsel claim during Rule 32
proceedings, as discussed in section IV. 3, supra. The difference is that here, Eggers seeks to
utilize it to establish cause for failure to raise an ineffective assistance of trial counsel claim.
12
In ground three of the amended petition, discussed in section IV. 3 of this opinion, supra,
Eggers alleged that direct appeal counsel was ineffective for failing to raise this particular claim
on direct appeal.
11

96

longer than the time afforded direct appeal briefs to be submitted. Ultimately, the
Court need not determine whether Eggers’s specific circumstances come within
the purview of Martinez and Trevino, because even assuming they did, the Court
would still have to find Eggers’s substantive ineffective assistance of trial counsel
claim to have “some merit.” See Martinez, 132 S. Ct. at 1318 (“To overcome the
default, a prisoner must also demonstrate that the underlying ineffectiveassistance-of-trial-counsel claim is a substantial one, which is to say that the
prisoner must demonstrate that the claim has some merit.”). Here, for the reasons
explained below, the claim is without merit, so Eggers cannot demonstrate the
requisite prejudice under Martinez to entitle him to relief.
It is well established with regard to ineffective assistance claims that defense
counsel has “a duty to make reasonable investigations” of potential mitigating
evidence or “to make a reasonable decision that makes particular investigations
unnecessary.” Wiggins v. Smith, 539 U.S. 510, 521, 123 S. Ct. 2527, 2535 (2003)
(quoting Strickland, 466 U.S. at 691, 104 S. Ct. at 2066). In any ineffectiveness
case, an attorney’s “decision not to investigate must be directly assessed for
reasonableness in all the circumstances, applying a heavy measure of deference to
counsel’s judgments.” Id. at 521-22, 123 S. Ct. at 2535 (quoting Strickland, 466
U.S. at 691, 104 S. Ct. at 2066). However, counsel’s duty to investigate “does not
97

necessarily require counsel to investigate every evidentiary lead.” Williams v. Allen,
542 F.3d 1326, 1337 (11th Cir.2008). “Under Strickland, strategic choices made
after less than complete investigation are reasonable precisely to the extent that
reasonable professional judgments support the limitations on investigation.” Id.
(quotation marks and citations omitted). Compare Strickland, 466 U.S. at 699, 104
S. Ct. at 2070 (stating that counsel’s “decision not to seek more character or
psychological evidence than was already in hand was . . . reasonable”), with Porter
v. McCollum, 558 U.S. 30, 39-40, 130 S. Ct. 447, 453 (2009) (noting that counsel
“failed to uncover and present any evidence of Porter’s mental health or mental
impairment, his family background, or his military service,” and “[t]he decision
not to investigate did not reflect reasonable professional judgment”).
Eggers’s first contention on this claim is that trial counsel failed to
investigate certain witnesses and records for the guilt phase, and he faults counsel
for only presenting Dr. Shealy’s testimony to establish that Eggers lacked specific
intent to commit capital murder. Eggers claims that had counsel thoroughly
investigated for the guilt phase of his trial, they would have found that his mental
illness began to manifest itself in early adulthood, sixteen years before the crime;
that he often experienced visual hallucinations that people were watching or
following him; that he told his wife that the Monks Motorcycle Club were
98

attempting to kill him; and that he was involuntarily committed in a psychiatric
hospital for several days in El Paso, Texas, in 1987. Eggers also contends that had
they investigated further, counsel would have learned that some of his family
members had a history of mental illness: 1) his brother David has paranoid
schizophrenia and was hospitalized in California; 2) Eggers’s maternal
grandmother had a “nervous breakdown,” talked to the refrigerator, believing that
it was communicating with her, once stopped a policeman to ask him whether he
could talk through his police radio, confiding to him that she also heard people
talking over her radio and that she was able to read people’s minds, and once pulled
a disabled woman from her wheelchair because she thought she was a Russian spy;
3) Eggers’s great aunt Eva also had a nervous breakdown and was a hoarder and a
recluse and wouldn’t let anyone in her home, threw rocks at children, wrapped her
feet in rags and wore them like shoes, and was once committed to a state mental
hospital for two weeks; 4) Eggers’s mother suffered from depression, for which she
takes Valium, and 5) his other brother Carl suffers from paranoia, although not to
the extent suffered by his brothers.
The Court cannot say that defense counsel’s failure to investigate and put on
this evidence failed to satisfy professional norms because all of the evidence is
either repetitive or largely cumulative of evidence that was already before the jury.
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As previously noted, before trial, at defense counsel’s request, the trial court had a
mental health evaluation conducted of Eggers. Then at trial, counsel raised an
insanity defense, and had Eggers evaluated by Dr. Shealy, who provided a thorough
report after spending over six hours with Eggers, speaking with his brother and
sister by phone, and conducting various tests. Dr. Shealy testified that Eggers
suffers from intermittent explosive disorder and paranoid personality disorder, was
briefly hospitalized in 1987, most likely the result of significant amphetamine abuse
combined with a predisposition to mental disorder, and that his brother suffers
from paranoid schizophrenia and is currently institutionalized. Thus the jury
already knew all of this information. The rest of the items of “new” evidence
Eggers says counsel should have uncovered pertain to the sufferings of his family
members, and not to him directly. While such evidence might indeed indicate that
Eggers had a genetic predisposition to paranoid behavior, counsel already
presented to the jury that Eggers exhibited such behavior, through the testimony of
Dr. Shealy. The duty to conduct a substantial investigation simply does not
demand that counsel uncover every shred of evidence in support of a defense. Trial
counsel is of course limited by time and financial resources. See Rogers v. Zant, 13
F.3d 384, 387 (11th Cir. 1994) (“Strickland indicates clearly that the ineffectiveness
question turns on whether the decision not to make a particular investigation was
100

reasonable. This correct approach toward investigation reflects the reality that
lawyers do not enjoy the benefits of endless time, energy or financial resources.”)
(internal citation omitted); Atkins v. Singletary, 965 F.2d 952, 959-60 (11th Cir.
1992) (“At some point, a trial lawyer has done enough. . . . A lawyer can almost
always do something more in every case.”). With Dr. Shealy’s testimony “in
hand,” which revealed that Eggers had a predisposition to paranoid behavior and a
brother currently institutionalized, the Court cannot say that defense counsel was
objectively unreasonable in not investigating all of Eggers’s other family members
to determine whether each one had a history of mental illness.
Eggers also contends that counsel was ineffective for allowing Dr. Shealy to
testify during the guilt phase, because, he claims, Dr. Shealy’s testimony
undermined rather than supported the defense’s theory that Eggers was not guilty
by reason of insanity because he was incapable of forming the intent to murder. In
support, Eggers points out that while Dr. Shealy testified that Eggers levied the
first blows against Mrs. Murray during an explosive rage episode during which he
did not understand the nature of his actions, the psychologist admitted on cross
examination that when Eggers subsequently drove her body to another location,
kicked her, and put a tree limb on her neck and stood on it to make sure she was
dead, he intended to kill her and was no longer in an explosive rage:
101

Q.

And its obvious from his statement and from your interview
that, in fact, he wanted to make sure she was dead, didn’t he?

A.

Yes.

Q.

And you testified on the intent for the defense he intended to
kill her on that cemetery road, didn’t he?

A.

He intended yes, he intended for her to be dead.

[C.R. Vol. 9 at 1209.] Eggers’s argument is essentially that, had counsel properly
investigated by discovering what Dr. Shealy was going to say in preparation for
trial, they would not have called him as an expert witness. According to Eggers,
counsel’s decision to call Dr. Shealy is thus not the type of strategic decision that
Strickland insulates from scrutiny, because it was based on a less-than-complete
investigation.
Eggers cites Combs v. Coyle, 205 F.3d 269 (6th Cir. 2000), in support of his
claim that it is per se deficient performance for defense counsel to elicit evidence
that disproves his own case. In Combs, the defendant pursued at the guilt phase the
theory that “he was too intoxicated from alcohol and drugs to form the requisite
intent to kill [the victims].” Id. at 273. The defendant’s only expert witness, a
psychologist, testified on cross-examination that while the defendant was
intoxicated, he nevertheless acted with intent and purpose. Id. This was
understandably damaging to his defense. The Sixth Circuit held that counsel’s
102

performance was deficient because counsel had presented the psychologist’s
testimony without undertaking a full investigation. Id. at 288. The court stated,
“Regardless of whether Combs’s counsel should have known or instead actually
knew [the expert’s] opinion regarding Combs’s intent, however, counsel’s decision
to put him on the stand was objectively unreasonable.” Id. The court did not
discuss the investigation or preparation undertaken by the defendant’s counsel;
neither did it discuss any preparation of the expert witness.
Combs is not binding on this Court and distinguishable in any event. First,
the expert witness’s testimony in Combs was particularly damaging because
defense’s sole strategy was showing that intoxication prevented the defendant from
forming the requisite intent. Id. at 273. “[The expert witness’s] testimony directly
contradicted the sole defense theory that Combs lacked the requisite intent to
commit murder.” Id. at 288. In other words, Combs’s counsel called the expert
witness for one purpose and the witness failed them. Id. In contrast here, Eggers
defense counsel repeatedly told the jury that Dr. Shealy’s testimony was not only
offered to show that Eggers was guilty of a “heat of passion” type slaying, but it
was also offered to explain to the jury how Eggers “got to the point” that he
committed this crime. [C.R. Vol. 10 at 1372, 1380.] Indeed, Dr. Shealy testified that
Eggers had been a victim of verbal and physical abuse from his alcoholic father
103

during his childhood, that he had one prior episode of rage-related violence during
the ninth grade, that he had abused drugs and alcohol in his past, that he suffered
from paranoid personality disorder and intermittent rage disorder, that his brother
has been mentally ill since childhood, and that he has a perception of himself as a
victim of others who have betrayed or persecuted him and had a lifelong history of
emotionally marginal relationships. It was Dr. Shealy’s opinion that this
combination of factors led Eggers to act in an episode of rage that was out of
proportion with the circumstances. Indeed, the bulk of Dr. Shealy’s testimony was
helpful to the defense.
Second, it should be noted that Dr. Shealy’s written report, which the record
indicates counsel reviewed before he testified, stated that there was no
premeditated aspect to Eggers’s offense, which was consistent with Eggers’s
counsel’s defense theory. It is thus difficult to conclude that counsel should be
faulted for Dr. Shealy’s surprise testimony to the contrary on cross-examination.
Indeed, Dr. Shealy opined in his report:
Because of the explosive rage episodes causing the victim’s death, it is
questionable as to whether the defendant understood the nature of his
actions during the rage episode. He clearly knew immediately before
and after the rage episode that his behavior was wrongful. As the
precipitating cause of the rage was the mental disorder described as
Intermittent Explosive Disorder, there is no support for the premise of
premeditated intent.
104

[C.R. Vol. 3 at 494 (emphasis added).] The record before this Court indicates that
Eggers’s counsel had reviewed Dr. Shealy’s report prior to him giving his
testimony. Although Eggers’s failure to raise this particular claim during Rule 32
proceedings prevented the possibility of there being an evidentiary hearing on this
claim wherein counsel perhaps would have testified about her investigation of Dr.
Shealy, in a signed declaration that she submitted in 2006 in response to a
complaint of misconduct Eggers filed against her with the Alabama State Bar
Disciplinary Commission, she wrote:
From my experience as a defense attorney, my contacts with Mr.
Eggers, and my knowledge of the facts of the case I knew that we did
not have a defense that met the standard of insanity in Alabama. . . . It
was my opinion that a mental evaluation of Mr. Eggers was [sic] not be
helpful and might even be harmful. Nevertheless, he continued to
insist and so, erring on the side of caution, I had him evaluated by Dr.
Alan Shealy, as well respected forensic psychologist. Dr. Shealy’s
examination showed that Mr. Eggers had been a victim of abuse in his
childhood, had abuse [sic] drugs and alcohol in his past, and suffered
from an intermittent rage disorder. This confirmed what I expected;
Mrs. Eggers had some mental issues, but nothing that would rise to an
insanity defense. The information was presented at trial in hopes of
providing information to the jury that might bolster our assertion that
Mr. Eggers was guilty of a “heat of passion” type slaying but not a
capital murder.

105

[Doc. 20-13 at 25; 20-14 at 1.]13 Counsel’s statement above suffices to convince this
Court that she conducted an adequate investigation of Dr. Shealy before putting
him on the stand. In this way, this case is similar to Hamilton v. Workman, 217 F.
App’x 805 (10th Cir. 2007) (order denying certificate of appealability). There, the
Tenth Circuit found no ineffective assistance of counsel where counsel called an
expert witness who, to counsel’s surprise, gave a forensic opinion regarding a blood
splatter that contradicted one of the defense’s theories. Id. at 809. When counsel
elected to call the expert as a witness, he had no knowledge that the expert’s
testimony would be inconsistent with defense’s theory, despite having conducted
an adequate inquiry. Id. at 810. In finding no deficient performance, the court
adopted the analysis of the magistrate judge below, as follows:
The undersigned cannot conclude that utilizing a witness after asking
the pertinent questions, conducting the necessary investigation, and
receiving answers consistent with the theory of defense fell below an
objective standard of reasonableness. . . . Because counsel’s actions
were not objectively unreasonable, Petitioner has failed to establish
that the application of Strickland by the Oklahoma Court of Criminal
Appeals was unreasonable. . . .
Id. The Tenth Circuit’s conclusion comports with Strickland’s instruction to
courts on how to address ineffective assistance of counsel claims in hindsight.
13

Counsel’s response to Eggers’s disciplinary complaint is not a part of the State court
record but was submitted to the Court by Eggers as part of a “universal reference appendix” in
support of his claims.
106

Strickland, 466 U.S. at 689, 104 S. Ct. at 2065 (instructing courts to avoid secondguessing counsel’s performance after it has proved unsuccessful and instead
attempt to reconstruct the circumstances of counsel’s challenged conduct,
evaluating the conduct from counsel’s perspective at the time). As in Hamilton,
because Eggers’s counsel conducted an adequate investigation of Dr. Shealy and
his report appeared to be consistent with the theory of the defense that Eggers’s
murder was not premediated, counsel’s decision to use that witness cannot be
considered deficient performance, despite Dr. Shealy’s admission on crossexamination. See Strickland, 466 U.S. at 690, 104 S. Ct. at 2066 (“[S]trategic
choices made after thorough investigation of law and facts relevant to plausible
options are virtually unchallengeable.”); Hoxsie v. Kerby, 108 F.3d 1239, 1246 (10th
Cir. 1997) (stating that in the context of choosing to call a witness, “[f]or counsel’s
[decision] to rise to the level of constitutional ineffectiveness, the decision . . . must
have been completely unreasonable, not merely wrong, so that it bears no
relationship to a possible defense strategy”) (internal quotation marks omitted).
Bearing in mind that this Court’s scrutiny of Eggers’s counsel’s performance must
be highly deferential, it concludes that counsel’s performance was not
unconstitutionally deficient. The Court need not address the prejudice prong, and
thus concludes that the ineffective assistance claim lacks the merit necessary to
107

enable Eggers to use the rule in Martinez as a vehicle for establishing cause and
prejudice to excuse the procedural default of this claim.
The second part of this claim is Eggers’s contention that his counsel failed to
investigate and present certain mitigating evidence at sentencing, which prejudiced
him. The background facts related to Eggers’s sentencing are as follows. The State
put on one witness: Mrs. Murray’s husband, who gave a victim impact statement,
describing how the death of his wife impacted him and his family members. Then,
for mitigation purposes, Eggers’s counsel asked jurors to recall certain aspects of
Dr. Shealy’s guilt-phase testimony about Eggers’s chaotic upbringing. Dr. Shealy
had testified that Eggers’s father was “very violent, he would come home drunk
and would beat the hell out of all of [them],” that his father once beat Eggers “fifty
lashes with a leather belt,” that his father burned the couch with cigarettes and
threw an aquarium, and that their father had once tried to run their mother over
with the car. [C.R. Vol. 9 at 1140.] He had also testified that he had been told “that
the whole family had mental problems from the abuse because it was so severe,”
but that David Eggers was especially impacted because he had paranoid
schizophrenia. [Id.] Further, he had stated that he had been told that Eggers “had
always seemed strange, couldn’t deal with people, was always scared that people he
had ‘narc’d on,’ . . . were trying to kill him, and that [Eggers] had gone to or been
108

sent to a mental hospital.” [Id. at 1141.] And from his testing, Dr. Shealy had
concluded that Eggers had paranoid personality disorder and intermittent explosive
disorder. Dr. Shealy’s report was admitted into evidence for the jury to consider
during sentencing.
Eggers then testified at his sentencing. He told the jury that he was born in
1967; that his father was in the military; he grew up in California; that his wife had
divorced him while he awaited trial; and he had four children that he loved and
took care of but that he was no longer a good role model for them. He testified that
Dr. Shealy’s testimony about his father’s abuse during his childhood was mostly
accurate, but despite his defense counsel’s attempts to get him to elaborate on his
traumatic upbringing, he declined to do so. Then Eggers, against the advice of his
counsel, read a statement that he wrote in which he expressed remorse for his
crime and asked the jury to sentence him to death. On cross examination, the
prosecutor elicited information from Eggers such as that he had a gambling
addiction, that he assaulted his eldest son in Fresno, California, that he had
involved his eldest son in a flight from this crime, and that he had beaten the victim
to death even after she befriended him and tried to help him. On redirect, Eggers
testified that he had never been convicted of a serious crime.

109

Eggers’s counsel then called Jean Parvin, a pen pal of Eggers’s while he was
in jail awaiting trial. She testified that Eggers was honest with her about the crime
and had sent her hand-made drawings and artwork from jail. The final mitigation
witness was the Sheriff of Walker County, who testified that Eggers had not been
violent in jail, although he admitted on cross examination that it had been reported
to him that Eggers was involved in an uprising at the jail where some property was
damaged.
At the close of the evidence, the jury was instructed that they were to
determine if any of the following aggravating circumstances existed: the fact that
the murder was committed during the course of a robbery, committed during the
course of a kidnaping, and that it was especially heinous atrocious and cruel. They
were instructed that if they found one or more aggravating circumstance to exist, to
weigh those against mitigating circumstances such as that Eggers had no significant
history of prior criminal activity, that the capital felony was committed while he
was under the influence of extreme emotional or mental distress, or any others it
found to exist. The jury returned a recommendation of the death sentence by an 111 vote.
Eggers now argues for the first time in any proceeding that his counsel’s
failure to unearth and set forth the following details about Eggers’s background at
110

sentencing was deficient performance. Eggers’s mother quit school before finishing
the eighth grade, left home because her parents were abusing her, got married at
thirteen years old, had her first child at fourteen, and was beaten by her first
husband. Eggers’s father (Eggers’s mother’s second husband) drank heavily and
beat his wife, causing her to repeatedly leave home with the children only to return
to him later; he once tried to run over his wife with their car; he once tried to race
another car during a game of chicken with his children in the car; he beat his
children unmercifully; he often beat Eggers with a belt; once when Eggers damaged
the furniture he refused to let Eggers sit on the furniture; and he acted in a sexually
inappropriate manner with Eggers’s sister such that she left the house at an early
age. After Eggers’s mother and father divorced, his mother became depressed and
had her mentally-ill mother living with the family, the family was impoverished,
and his mother dated men who mistreated her. She ended up marrying a third
husband when Eggers was fourteen years old, and she and the husband both
became alcoholics, fighting excessively. Her third husband also assaulted Eggers
and fought with all of the children, and Eggers began cutting his wrists with a
butcher knife out of stress. Eggers’s brother David had attention deficient and
hyperactivity disorder at eleven years old, had problems in school, was often beaten
by gangs in school, and he was in and out of mental institutions as an adolescent
111

before finally being committed permanently for paranoid psychosis. Eggers was
involved in the beatings and fights that his brother David got into. Eggers himself
earned failing grades in school, did not graduate, was victimized by gang violence in
his neighborhood, and was suspended, charged with assault, put on two years of
probation, and made to pay restitution when he broke another student’s nose in the
ninth grade. Eggers left home at fifteen and moved in with a thirty-year-old man
who made one attempt to sexually assault him; but he also continued to work with
the man at his auto center. Eggers later lived in a vacant house for a couple of
weeks as a teenager, and this is when he first met Nikkii, his future wife. He had his
first child with Nikkii at seventeen. As an adult Eggers tried to be a good husband
and father to his four children, coaching his children’s sports teams, but he also had
trouble holding down jobs, drank heavily and developed a gambling addiction, and
suffered from paranoia. He frequently saw things that Nikkii didn’t and tried to
convince her that she also saw them, such as if he saw a helicopter flying over their
house, he thought that it had been sent specifically to watch him, and he often
arrived first at his construction jobs and left last, searching the job site for
conspirators. After believing that Nikkii was having an affair, Eggers abruptly
moved from California to Nevada and then Georgia, taking his three young sons
with him. He left his two youngest sons to be raised by his sister there. He then
112

bounced around Kentucky and Tennessee, working various jobs. On March 14,
2000, he was arrested in Fresno, for repeatedly striking his son, Michael Jr., in the
face. The State ultimately released Michael, Jr. to his father’s custody and they
continued living together. By late 2000, he was working in the Omelet Shoppe, in
Jasper, Alabama as a cook but was eventually fired for not showing up to work.
“In assessing the reasonableness of an attorney’s investigation, . . . a court
must consider not only the quantum of evidence already known to counsel, but also
whether the known evidence would lead a reasonable attorney to investigate
further.” Wiggins, 539 U.S. at 527, 123 S. Ct. at 2538. Of course, “a complete
failure to investigate may constitute deficient performance of counsel.” Parker v.
Sec’y for Dep’t of Corr., 331 F.3d 764, 787 (11th Cir. 2003); see also Housel v. Head,
238 F.3d 1289, 1294 (11th Cir. 2001) (explaining that “a failure to investigate can
be deficient performance in a capital case when counsel totally fails to inquire into
the defendant’s past or present behavior or life history”). That said, “no absolute
duty exists to investigate particular facts or a certain line of defense.” Chandler, 218
F.3d at 1318. Instead, a court’s assessment of an attorney’s investigation hinges on
whether that investigation—or the decision to limit it—was reasonable. Strickland,
466 U.S. at 691, 104 S. Ct. at 2066. Finally, “[a] decision to limit investigation is
‘accorded a strong presumption of reasonableness,’” Mills v. Singletary, 63 F.3d
113

999, 1021 (11th Cir. 1995) (internal quotation marks omitted), and “to be effective a
lawyer is not required to ‘pursue every path until it bears fruit or until all hope
withers.’” Williams v. Head, 185 F.3d 1223, 1237 (11th Cir. 1999) (quoting Foster v.
Dugger, 823 F.2d 402, 405 (11th Cir.1987)).
With regard to assessing prejudice flowing from counsel’s performance,
courts are required to “evaluate the totality of the available mitigation evidence—
both that adduced at trial, and the evidence adduced in the habeas proceeding—in
re-weighing it against the evidence in aggravation.” Williams, 529 U.S. at 397-98,
120 S. Ct. at 1515. “That same standard applies—and will necessarily require a
court to ‘speculate’ as to the effect of the new evidence—regardless of how much
or how little mitigation evidence was presented during the initial penalty phase.”
Sears v. Upton, 561 U.S. 945, 955, 130 S. Ct. 3259, 3266-67 (2010). Again, where a
petitioner challenges a death sentence, “the question is whether there is a
reasonable probability that, absent the errors, the sentencer . . . would have
concluded that the balance of aggravating and mitigating circumstances did not
warrant death.” Strickland, 466 U.S. at 695, 104 S. Ct. at 2069.
Applying these standards here, Eggers’s counsel already knew from their
investigations (and the jury already heard) that Eggers had a predisposition for and
exhibited paranoid behavior, had a brother currently institutionalized for paranoid
114

behavior, had a hard upbringing including a physically abusive father and an
incident of assault when he was in the ninth grade, and had briefly been
hospitalized for paranoid delusions in 1987. Eggers’s counsel’s failure to uncover
these “new” details about his life was not unreasonable, because most of these
facts would have done nothing more than simply amplify the themes about
Eggers’s life and background that were already raised at trial and sentencing. For
example, while the jury and judge did not hear the story about Eggers’s father
beating him for damaging the furniture, they knew (from what Eggers’s brother
told Dr. Shealy) that Eggers’s father would come home drunk and beat “the hell”
out of all of the children, that he beat Eggers fifty lashes with a leather belt, that he
would burn the coach with cigarettes, that he once threw an aquarium through the
window, that his children were “scared to death” of him, and that he tried to run
Egger’s mother over with the car. [C.R. Vol. 9 at 1140.] Similarly, while the judge
and jury did not hear that Eggers frequently saw things that Nikkii didn’t and tried
to convince her that she also saw them, such as if he saw a helicopter flying over the
house, he thought that it had been sent specifically to watch him, and he often
arrived first at his construction jobs and left last, searching the job site for
conspirators, they already knew, from Dr. Shealy’s testimony, that Eggers “was
always scared that people he had ‘narc’d on’ . . . were trying to kill him.” [C.R.
115

Vol. 9 at 1141.] In similar cases the Eleventh Circuit has found no prejudicial effect
flowing from the fact that such cumulative evidence was not presented at
sentencing. See Marquard v. Sec’y for Dep’t of Corr., 429 F.3d 1278, 1308 (11th Cir.
2005) (“There is no reason to believe that added details about Marquard’s
troubled childhood and substance abuse—which the sentencing court clearly
recognized in imposing a death sentence—would have had any effect on the
sentence.”); Robinson v. Moore, 300 F.3d 1320, 1347 (11th Cir. 2002) (“While the
additional mitigation witnesses procured by Robinson’s [post-conviction] counsel
could have presented the resentencing jury and trial judge with more details, or
different examples, of these aspects of Robinson’s life, these aspects of his life were
nonetheless known to the resentencing jury and trial judge.”); Grayson v.
Thompson, 257 F.3d 1194, 1227-28 (11th Cir. 2001) (“Although the graphic picture
of Grayson’s home life painted at the state habeas proceedings was not presented at
trial, the judge did not wholly disregard Grayson’s unfortunate background in
sentencing him to death. In light of the horrendous nature of this crime, we find no
reasonable probability that the sentence would have been different if the judge and
jury had possessed detailed information regarding Grayson’s history.”). And to the
extent there are some “new” facts that were not presented at sentencing, such as
that Eggers’s step father also beat him, that his own father’s physical abuse
116

continued into Eggers’s adolescence, that he was once fondled by an older man
with whom he was living, and that he cut his own wrists with a knife due to stress at
home, they either continue the themes already presented in mitigation or simply
don’t rise to the level of evidence that would ultimately affected the aggravators
and mitigators found by the jury and judge.
Eggers points out that in affirming the jury’s recommendation to impose the
death sentence of 11-1, the judge concluded that there were two statutory
aggravating factors warranted by the conviction (murder during robbery and
kidnaping) and two mitigating factors—Eggers’s remorse, which was a nonstatutory mitigating factor, and lack of prior criminal history, a statutory mitigating
factor. The judge did not consider Eggers’s mental illness or emotional disturbance
during the commission of the crime to be a mitigating factor. [C.R. Vol. 3 at 545.]
However, this does not mean that, had the jury and judge had these additional
anecdotes from Eggers’s life before them, they would have found the existence of
any additional mitigating factors, much less that they would have then found the
mitigating factors to outweigh the aggravating ones. First of all, none of the
anecdotes

detailed

above

establish

any

additional

statutory

mitigating

circumstances not already found by the judge. Under Alabama law, the statutory
mitigating circumstances are: (1) the defendant has no significant history of prior
117

criminal activity; (2) the capital offense was committed while the defendant was
under the influence of extreme mental or emotional disturbance; (3) the victim was
a participant in the defendant’s conduct or consented to it; (4) the defendant was
an accomplice in the capital offense committed by another person and his
participation was relatively minor; (5) the defendant acted under extreme duress or
under the substantial domination of another person; (6) the capacity of the
defendant to appreciate the criminality of his conduct or to conform his conduct to
the requirements of law was substantially impaired; and (7) the age of the
defendant at the time of the crime. Ala. Code § 13A-5-51 (1975). None of the
evidence concerning Eggers’s background conclusively establishes that he
committed the crime while he was under the influence of an extreme mental or
emotional disturbance. Moreover, the trial testimony detailed a gruesome murder
involving a robbery and kidnaping. Eggers beat the victim until she was
unconscious and then drove her down a road, eventually pushing her out of the
truck onto the road. He stated in his confession that she was not dead at the time he
pushed her out of the truck and that she made some noises while in the road. He
then choked her and kicked her with steel toed boots and dragged her off the road
into a wooded area where she was not visible from the road and left her, but not
before stomping on a four-foot-long tree branch placed on her neck to ensure that
118

she had stopped breathing. The victim died from multiple blunt-force trauma and
strangulation, and the coroner’s testimony established that the initial injuries to her
face would have been very painful but were not fatal, and that she remained alive
and suffering for several minutes after those injuries were inflicted.

After

murdering the victim, Eggers then used her bank card to withdraw hundreds of
dollars for his use at a casino. This is not a case where the weight of the aggravating
circumstances or the evidence supporting them was weak. There is no reasonable
probability that the murder would have been mitigated to any appreciable extent
had counsel uncovered this additional anecdotal evidence regarding Eggers’s
unfortunate upbringing. It can also not be ignored that Eggers asked the jury to
sentence him to death at his sentencing, against his counsel’s advice.
The Court’s conclusion that Eggers was not prejudiced by his counsel’s
failure to put on this additional evidence at sentencing is also bolstered by the fact
that all of the evidence presented at sentencing, plus the new evidence Eggers now
presents, does not reveal the kind of abuse or deprivation inherent in other cases
where Strickland prejudice actually has been found:
[F]or example, in Wiggins, the medical, school, and social services
records presented at the post-conviction proceedings revealed that the
defendant suffered severe physical and sexual abuse at the hands of his
alcoholic mother and various foster parents throughout his childhood,
teenage years, and even into early adulthood. 539 U.S. at 516, 123 S.
Ct. 2527. Wiggins’ mother, a “chronic alcoholic,” frequently left
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Wiggins and his siblings home alone for days at a time, which forced
them to “beg for food and to eat paint chips and garbage.” Id. The
mother routinely beat the children for breaking into the kitchen, which
she often kept locked. Id. Wiggins’s mother had sex with men while
her children slept in the same bed. Id. And on one occasion, notably,
Wiggins’ mother forced the petitioner’s hand against a hot stove
burner, which resulted in an injury that required hospitalization. Id.
Moreover, at the age of six, Wiggins was placed in foster care where
he was physically abused by his first and second foster mothers, and
his second foster father repeatedly molested and raped him. Id. To
escape the abuse Wiggins ran away from a foster home at age sixteen
but was returned to one where he was raped again and repeatedly by
the foster mother’s sons. Id. After leaving the foster care system,
Wiggins entered a Job Corps program where he once again was
sexually abused, this time by his supervisor. Id.
In Williams v. Taylor, juvenile records presented at the post-conviction
proceedings indicated that the petitioner’s home had excrement and
urine on the floor; “[t]he children were all dirty and none of them had
on under-pants”; the parents were intoxicated; and at one point
“[t]he children had to be put in Winslow Hospital, as four of them, by
that time, were definitely under the influence of whiskey.” 529 U.S. at
395 n. 19, 120 S. Ct. 1495 (quoting the record). In addition, social
services records revealed that Williams’ parents were “imprisoned for
the criminal neglect of Williams and his siblings, that Williams had
been severely and repeatedly beaten by his father, that he had been
committed to the custody of the social services bureau for two years
during his parents’ incarceration (including one stint in an abusive
foster home), and then, after his parents were released from prison,
had been returned to his parents’ custody.” Id. at 395, 120 S. Ct. 1495
(footnote omitted). There also was evidence that Williams was
borderline mentally retarded, had suffered repeated head injuries, and
“might have mental impairments organic in origin.” Id. at 370-71, 120
S. Ct. 1495.

120

Boyd, 592 F.3d at 1299-300. In Boyd, the Eleventh Circuit found that the case
before it did not contain the kinds of circumstances present in Wiggins and
Williams, thus precluding a finding of Strickland prejudice for the attorney’s failure
to raise the additional evidence at sentencing. The same is true here. For example,
as compared with those other cases, the record here contains one instance of
attempted sexual misconduct against Eggers, but is otherwise devoid of evidence
that he was repeatedly sexually abused or raped by parental figures, or anyone else.
In short, although Eggers’s background was undeniably harsh, it does not rise to
the level at which prejudice has been found. See, e.g., Grayson, 257 F.3d at 1209,
1230 n. 20 (noting that “the mitigating evidence available in [Williams] was far
more compelling than the evidence presented on behalf of Grayson in his state
habeas proceedings” that, among other things, his family life had been “violent and
chaotic”); Windom v. Secy, Dept. of Corrs., 578 F.3d 1227, 1251 (11th Cir. 2009)
(holding that a brain-damaged and mentally ill petitioner who had suffered a
difficult and impoverished upbringing, during which he was physically abused by
his father and bullied by his classmates, did not compare to the “‘powerful
mitigating narrative’ told by the gruesome circumstances of Wiggins’
background”). In sum, given the strength of the State’s case against Eggers and the
nature of the crime itself, there is no reasonable probability that the jury would
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have recommended, or that the judge would have imposed, a non-death sentence
even if they had been confronted with the mitigating evidence Eggers asserts his
counsel should have discovered and introduced. As such, this portion of Eggers’s
ineffective assistance of trial counsel claim similarly lacks the merit necessary to
enable him to use the rule in Martinez as a vehicle for establishing cause and
prejudice to overcome his failure to raise the claim during Rule 32 proceedings.
Habeas relief is not warranted on this claim.
9.

The claim that the State withheld evidence related to Eggers’s
January 1987 arrest and subsequent 7-day involuntary
commitment in a mental hospital in El Paso, Texas, in violation of
Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S. Ct. 1194 (1963)

Eggers raised this claim for the first time in his amended Rule 32 petition as
claims 1-6. The circuit court, which entered the last reasoned decision, denied the
claims as procedurally barred under Ala. R. Crim. P. 32.2(a)(3) and (5) because
Eggers did not raise them in his motion for new trial or on direct appeal. However,
the circuit court also denied the claims as insufficiently pleaded under Ala. R.
Crim. P. 32.3 and 32.6(b) and as meritless on their face, writing:
. . . Eggers has filed to specifically allege facts in his petition, even if
true, that would constitute a Brady violation. Eggers has failed to
allege what, if any, specific exculpatory information was contained in
the El Paso Police Department or the Thomason General Hospital
records. Indeed, he fails to even plead facts demonstrating that any
such records were possessed by the State and not turned over to trial
counsel.
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Finally, this claim is meritless on its face. Eggers has failed to
plead how his El Paso Police Department records or hospital records
would exculpate him for a murder that occurred in 2000 in Alabama.
Furthermore, this evidence simply is not Brady evidence because it
was within the knowledge of and available to Eggers. Eggers was and is
aware of his own criminal history, and nothing prevented him from
independently seeking and receiving evidence of his prior criminal
activity, to the extent such evidence would have aided his defense.
Accordingly, this claim is dismissed pursuant to Ala. R. Crim. P.32.
7(d) for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.
[C.R. Vol. 22, Rule 32 Order at 9-10.]
A Rule 32 dismissal for lack of specificity is a merits ruling in this circuit.
Borden, 646 F.3d at 812-13. As such, this Court conducts the deferential AEDPA
review of the state court’s decision pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d), and Eggers
cannot obtain relief on this claim unless he can show that the denial of relief on this
claim in state court “(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.” See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d).
The circuit court’s decision was not contrary to or an unreasonable
application of Brady or based on an unreasonable determination of the facts before
it. As explained by the Eleventh Circuit:
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A Brady violation has three components: “[1] The evidence at issue
must be favorable to the accused, either because it is exculpatory, or
because it is impeaching; [2] that evidence must have been suppressed
by the State, either willfully or inadvertently; and [3] prejudice must
have ensued.” Strickler v. Greene, 527 U.S. 263, 281–82, 119 S. Ct.
1936, 144 L. Ed. 2d 286 (1999). Evidence is not considered to have
been suppressed if “the evidence itself . . . proves that [the petitioner]
was aware of the existence of that evidence before trial.” Felker v.
Thomas, 52 F.3d 907, 910 (11th Cir. 1995). The prejudice or materiality
requirement is satisfied if “there is a reasonable probability that, had
the evidence been disclosed to the defense, the result of the
proceeding would have been different.” United States v. Bagley, 473
U.S. 667, 682, 105 S. Ct. 3375, 87 L. Ed. 2d 481 (1985); see also Kyles v.
Whitley, 514 U.S. 419, 433, 115 S. Ct. 1555, 131 L. Ed. 2d 490 (1995).
Materiality is determined by asking whether the government’s
evidentiary suppression undermines confidence in the guilty verdict.
See Kyles, 514 U.S. at 434, 436–37 & n. 10, 115 S. Ct. 1555.
Boyd v. Comm’r, Ala. Dept. of Corrs., 697 F.3d 1320, 1334-35 (11th Cir. 2012). In its
opinion denying relief, the circuit court directly applied the second prong of the
Brady analysis, finding that there was no suppression by the State because Eggers
was aware of his own criminal history and hospitalization in 1987 and nothing
prevented him from obtaining such records in aid of his defense. For purposes of a
Brady claim, the State is under no duty to disclose information already known by
the defendant or material that is available or accessible through the exercise of
reasonable diligence. See Maharaj v. Sec., Dep’t of Corr., 432 F.3d 1292, 1315 (11th
Cir. 2006) (“Our case law is clear that ‘[w]here defendants, prior to trial, had
within their knowledge the information by which they could have ascertained the
124

alleged Brady material, there is no suppression by the government.’”) (quoting
United States v. Griggs, 713 F.2d 672, 674 (11th Cir. 1983)); accord LeCroy v. Sec.,
Fla. Dept. of Corrs., 421 F.3d 1237, 1268 (11th Cir. 2005) (noting that there was no
Brady violation because the defendant could have obtained the information had he
used “reasonable diligence”).
There is no doubt that Eggers knew about and could have obtained these
records himself. At the June 5, 2002, pre-trial hearing, Eggers and his own counsel
disclosed that he had been institutionalized in El Paso, Texas, sixteen years prior.
The prosecutor stated that the State would look for the records from El Paso.
Eggers agreed to sign a waiver to release the records to the State. Eggers now
argues that because the prosecutor stated that he would look for the records, the
State undertook an affirmative duty to obtain them, somehow absolving Eggers of
the duty to marshal evidence in his own defense. But Eggers has not provided the
Court with clearly established Federal law providing that such circumstances
amount to a Brady violation. The case relied upon by Eggers, Banks v. Dretke, 540
U.S. 668, 124 S. Ct. 1256 (2004), concerned materially different facts. There, the
prosecutors failed to disclose that a key witness was a paid police informant, and
stood by as that witness affirmatively testified to the contrary. Id. at 694, 124 S. Ct.
at 1274. The Court rejected the State’s argument that the defendant could have
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more diligently pursued the police officer involved, and in doing so might have
discovered the witness’s status. Id. at 695, 124 S. Ct. at 1274-75. The Court
summarized the State’s argument as one where “‘the prosecution can lie and
conceal and the prisoner still has the burden to . . . discover the evidence.’” Id. at
696, 124 S. Ct. at 1275 (citing the oral argument transcript) (alteration in original).
In contrast here, Eggers has still not presented any evidence that the prosecution
ever physically possessed these records, much less kept them from the defense; the
prosecution merely stated that they would look for them. The prosecution made no
false or misleading statements regarding what that evidence might show or where it
might be found. Moreover, Eggers knew about the evidence. 14 When the defendant
has “equal access” to the evidence, disclosure is not required.
The circuit court was also reasonable in its conclusion that the evidence was
not exculpatory or favorable to Eggers, another prong of the Brady analysis. In
describing why the records were not exculpatory, the circuit court observed that
Eggers did not plead how his El Paso Police Department records or Thomason
General Hospital records from 1987 would exculpate him for a murder that
occurred in 2000 in Alabama. Eggers argues that they presumably would have
corroborated a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia, which would have made the
14

Indeed, in her 2006 response to Eggers’s disciplinary complaint, his counsel stated that
she learned about the hospitalization from Eggers’s family members, contacted authorities
regarding records of the incident, but could not locate them. [Doc. 20-13 at 25.]
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insanity defense a viable option. However, Eggers offers nothing more than an
assumption that they would have corroborated a more dire diagnosis than what
Drs. Shealy and Hooper reached. The records could have, on the other hand,
shown nothing more than methamphetamine abuse on Eggers’s part, a fact that
would not have been exculpatory at all.
Finally, the circuit court was not unreasonable in its conclusion that the
evidence was not material, or prejudicial.
In deciding whether evidence was material for the purposes of a Brady
violation, the question is not whether the conviction was “more
likely” because the evidence was introduced or even whether the
evidence “might have changed the outcome of the trial.” Strickler,
527 U.S. at 289, 119 S. Ct. at 1952. Rather, Petitioner “must convince
us that ‘there is a reasonable probability’ that the result of the trial
would have been different if the suppressed documents had been
disclosed to the defense.” Id. “The word “reasonable” “is important.
The question is not whether the defendant would more likely than not
have received a different verdict with the evidence, but whether in its
absence he received a fair trial, understood as a trial resulting in a
verdict worthy of confidence.” Kyles, 514 U.S. at 434, 115 S. Ct. at
1566
Maharaj, 432 F.3d at 1316. For the same reasons already given, the Court cannot
say that there is a reasonable probability that the outcome of the trial would have
been different if these records had been disclosed to the defense. Indeed, the jury
was already aware of the hospitalization because Dr. Shealy had been told that
Eggers was briefly hospitalized in 1987 and testified as much at trial. He assumed
127

that the hospitalization was “most likely the result of significant amphetamine
abuse combined with a predisposition to mental disorder.” [C.R. Vol. 3 at 494.]
Eggers now argues that the records were material because they would have made
the insanity defense a viable option, but such an assumption is wholly conclusory
and devoid of any basis in fact, since Eggers does nothing more than guess that the
records would have indicated that he suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. The
Court will not find prejudicial effect when the record is devoid of evidence as to
what specific exculpatory information the allegedly suppressed evidence contained.
For the foregoing reasons, the circuit court’s application of Brady was not an
unreasonable application or contrary to clearly established Federal law.
10.

The claim that the State violated Giglio v. United States, 405 U.S.
150, 92 S. Ct. 763 (1972), by causing Dr. Shealy, the defense
expert, and Dr. Hooper, the State’s expert, to present false
testimony that Eggers was not insane due to the State’s failure to
disclose the 1987 El Paso hospitalization and arrest records to
these experts

Eggers raised this claim for the first time in his amended Rule 32 petition as
claims 22-23 and 35. Claims 22 and 23 argued that the State withheld favorable
evidence from expert witnesses. Claim 35 argued that the State made untruthful
statements to the jury about Eggers’s competency. The circuit court, which
entered the last reasoned decision, ruled that the claims were procedurally barred
under Ala. R. Crim. P. 32.2(a)(3) and (5) because they were not raised at trial or on
128

direct appeal and that they were not sufficiently specific under Ala. R. Crim. P. 32.3
and 32.6(b) because “Eggers does not specifically plead what evidence was
withheld and which should have been provided to the expert witnesses.” [C.R. Vol.
22 at 26, 27.]
A Rule 32 dismissal for lack of specificity is a merits ruling in this circuit.
Borden, 646 F.3d at 812-13. As such, this Court conducts the deferential AEDPA
review of the state court’s decision pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d), and Eggers
cannot obtain relief on this claim unless he can show that the denial of relief on this
claim in state court “(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.” See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d).
The clearly established Federal law is contained in Giglio v. United States. As
explained by the Eleventh Circuit:
“Giglio error, a species of Brady error, occurs when ‘the undisclosed
evidence demonstrates that the prosecution’s case included perjured
testimony and that the prosecution knew, or should have known, of
the perjury.’” Davis v. Terry, 465 F.3d 1249, 1253 (11th Cir. 2006)
(quoting Ventura v. Att’y Gen., Fla., 419 F.3d 1269, 1276-77 (11th Cir.
2005), cert. denied, --- U.S. ---, 127 S. Ct. 3010, 168 L. Ed. 2d 728
(2007)). To prevail on a Giglio claim, a petitioner must establish that
“(1) the prosecutor knowingly used perjured testimony or failed to
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correct what he subsequently learned was false testimony; and (2)
such use was material i.e., that there is ‘any reasonable likelihood’ that
the false testimony ‘could . . . have affected the judgment.’” Id. at
1253 (quoting Giglio, 405 U.S. at 154, 92 S. Ct. at 766). This standard
of materiality is equivalent to the Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18,
24, 87 S. Ct. 824, 828, 17 L. Ed. 2d 705 (1967), “harmless beyond a
reasonable doubt” standard. Bagley, 473 U.S. at 679 n. 9, 105 S. Ct. at
3382 n. 9.
Ford v. Hall, 546 F.3d 1326, 1331-32 (11th Cir. 2008). For Giglio violations, the
defendant is entitled to a new trial “if there is any reasonable likelihood that the
false testimony could have affected the judgment of the jury.” United States v.
Agurs, 427 U.S. 97, 103, 96 S. Ct. 2392, 2397 (1976). “The could have standard
requires a new trial unless the prosecution persuades the court that the false
testimony was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.” Smith v. Sec’y, Dept. of Corrs.,
572 F.3d 1327, 1333–34 (11th Cir. 2009).
Simply put, this claim cannot survive where Eggers’s Brady claim fails. See
section IV. 9, supra. Eggers states that the State collected, yet failed to disclose,
Eggers’s 1987 Texas records respecting his commitment in Thomson General
Hospital, and then knowingly allowed Dr. Hooper to testify falsely that Eggers
“had no history of psychiatric treatment and no history of mental illness,” [C.R.
Vol. 3 at 525] and allowed Dr. Shealy to testify that Eggers had no “significant”
history of treatment for mental illness. [C.R. Vol. 3 at 494.] However, because
Eggers presented nothing but a bare accusation that the State ever collected and
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possessed these records, or what the records contained, it was not unreasonable for
the state court to conclude that the State did not knowingly use perjured testimony.
In any event, Dr. Shealy’s statement that Eggers had no significant history of
mental health treatment was not false: one brief hospitalization fourteen years prior
to the murder could hardly be considered a “significant” history of treatment for
mental illness. And even if it could be said that the State allowed Dr. Hooper to
testify falsely when he said that Eggers had never been medically treated for
psychiatric problems, given that Eggers had informed the State that he was
committed in 1987, the falsehood was not material. The jury knew that Dr. Hooper
did not personally evaluate Eggers, so his opinion would not have borne out the
same facts as Dr. Shealy’s, who met with Eggers and was told that he was
hospitalized once in the past. The jury was aware that Eggers was briefly
committed in 1987, and it was free to weigh this fact from Dr. Shealy’s testimony
against Dr. Hooper’s and reach its conclusion about Eggers’s insanity plea.
Given these circumstances, the Court cannot say that the circuit court’s
decision denying this claim violated Giglio. Habeas relief is not warranted on this
claim.
11.

The claim that Eggers was denied counsel during a custodial
interrogation in violation of Edwards v. Arizona, 451 U.S. 477, 101
S. Ct. 1880 (1981)
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As Eggers concedes, this claim is unexhausted because, although Eggers
raised it on direct appeal, and the ACCA denied it on its merits, his appellate
counsel did not include it on petition for writ of certiorari in the Alabama Supreme
Court. In order to exhaust state remedies, a habeas petitioner must present his
claims through one full round of the State’s trial and appellate review process, even
to the state’s court of last resort, even if that review is discretionary. Pruitt, 348
F.3d at 1359 (citing O’Sullivan, 526 U.S. at 845). Alabama’s discretionary direct
review procedures bring Alabama prisoner habeas petitions within the scope of this
rule. Id. at 59. Dismissal of his habeas petition to allow Eggers to present this claim
fairly as a federal claim in state court now would be futile because it is too late for
him to return to state court to exhaust the claim by petitioning the Alabama
Supreme Court for certiorari. Thus, because any state remedy with respect to this
claim is procedurally barred by the state procedural rules noted above, Eggers’s
claim is procedurally defaulted from habeas review, unless some exception applies.
Eggers argues that his mental illness during direct appeal proceedings
constitutes cause and prejudice to excuse the default. He argues had he not been
incompetent during direct appeal, he would not have agreed with his counsel’s
decision to waive the claim before the Alabama Supreme Court. For the reasons
stated in section IV. 3, supra, Eggers has not shown that he suffered any mental
132

issues that precluded him from making rational decisions about his case and aiding
appellate counsel during the time that counsel was litigating his case in the
Alabama appellate courts.
Regardless, even if the Court were to rule that cause and prejudice existed to
excuse the procedural default of this claim, Eggers contends that such a ruling
means that this Court must then review the ACCA’s decision on his Edwards
claim, which was the last state court opinion to consider the merits of the claim,
pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d). Thus assuming for the sake of argument that the
Court could review the ACCA’s decision for reasonableness, there is still no basis
on which to find that it violated clearly established Federal law, for the following
reasons. The thorough and well-reasoned portion of the ACCA’s opinion
addressing the Edwards claim on direct appeal is as follows:
Eggers also contends that his statements were inadmissible
because, he says, they were involuntary.
As noted above, Agent Maldonado testified that when Eggers
first came out of the tent, he initially identified himself as Clay, but
that based on the description of Eggers they had received, he and the
other law-enforcement officers believed that “Clay” was, in fact,
Eggers, and Eggers subsequently admitted who he was and told the
officers that his wallet, with all of his identification, was in the tent.
Eggers was then arrested and transported to the Osceola County
Sheriff’s Department by a sheriff’s deputy. Agent Maldonado testified
that he could not remember which deputy transported Eggers to the
sheriff’s department and no one from the Osceola County Sheriff’s
Department testified at the suppression hearing or at trial; however,
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Agent Maldonado testified at the suppression hearing that he was
never informed that Eggers had made any kind of statement while
being transported to the Sheriff’s Department, but that Eggers had
been transported “from the tent city to the Sheriff’s Office with no
statement.” (R. 326.)
Once at the sheriff’s department, Agent Maldonado said, he
advised Eggers of his Miranda rights, Eggers indicated that he wanted
to make a statement, and Eggers then signed a waiver-of-rights form.
Agent Maldonado testified that he then advised Eggers that he was
being arrested on a warrant for unlawful flight to avoid prosecution
and that Eggers “asked me if I wanted to know where the body was.”
(R. 457.) Eggers then orally confessed to murdering Francis, provided
details about the murder, and agreed to take law-enforcement officers
to the location of Francis’s body. While Agent Maldonado was writing
his notes about Eggers’s oral confession, he asked Eggers if he would
be willing to make a written statement and Eggers agreed. Eggers then
handwrote a short statement, again admitting to murdering Francis.
The following morning, January 10, 2001, Eggers was brought before a
Florida circuit judge and waived extradition.
Agent Maldonado testified that, although he and the other lawenforcement officers had their guns drawn when they entered the tent
city, they did not put their guns to Eggers’s head or otherwise
threaten Eggers when they arrested him. Agent Maldonado also
testified that Eggers never asked for a lawyer at any time in his
presence; that he never promised Eggers any reward for making a
statement; that he never threatened Eggers to get him to make a
statement; and that he did not tell Eggers that it would be better for
him if he made a statement or worse for him if he did not make a
statement. Agent Maldonado specifically denied threatening to get
Eggers’s son, girlfriend, or father involved in the situation if Eggers
did not make a statement.
In contrast, Eggers testified at the suppression hearing that
when he was discovered in the tent city and initially asked what his
name was, he did not give a false name, but asked for a lawyer. Eggers
said that the officers ignored his request for a lawyer and asked him
134

what his name was again, and that he then identified himself and told
the officers that his identification was in his wallet in the tent. While
being transported to the Osceola County Sheriff’s Department,
Eggers said, he again requested a lawyer, and was told by the deputy
that he “would have to take that up as soon as we got to the Sheriff’s
Office.” (R. 347.) Eggers testified that when he arrived at the sheriff’s
department, Agent Maldonado did not advise him of his Miranda
rights, but threatened him. According to Eggers, Agent Maldonado
told him that he “had to answer some questions” and then said that if
he did not answer the questions, he (Agent Maldonado) would get
Eggers’s girlfriend, father, and son involved. (R. 350.) Eggers said that
it was only after Agent Maldonado threatened to involve his father and
his son that he agreed to make a statement, and that only after he
agreed to make a statement did Agent Maldonado advise him of his
Miranda rights and did he sign the waiver-of-rights form. Eggers also
testified that he waived extradition because he “had no choice,” the
“FBI was taking [my rights] away from me.” (R. 354.)
After Eggers waived extradition, Joe Brzezinski, an investigator
with the Alabama Bureau of Investigation, as well as other Alabama
law-enforcement officers, flew to Kissimmee and transported Eggers
back to Alabama. Upon arrival at the Walker County Airport in Jasper,
Eggers took law-enforcement officers to the location of Francis’s
body. Inv. Brzezinski testified that when they got into the vehicles, he
advised Eggers of his Miranda rights and asked Eggers if he was willing
to continue cooperating, to which Eggers replied “that’s what we’re
here for.” (R. 293.) Eggers then led law-enforcement officers to the
location of Francis’s body, during which time he again admitted to
murdering Francis and explained the events surrounding the murder.
Inv. Brzezinski stated that Eggers was not coerced or threatened; that
Eggers was not promised anything for his cooperation; and that Eggers
was never told that it would be better for him if he cooperated. After
Francis’s body was located, Eggers was taken to the Walker County
jail.
The following day, on January 11, 2001, Inv. Brzezinski went to
the Walker County jail and spoke with Eggers again. Inv. Brzezinski
testified that, before speaking with Eggers, he advised Eggers of his
135

Miranda rights; that Eggers indicated that he understood those rights;
and that Eggers signed a waiver-of-rights form. Eggers then gave a
third statement, again admitting to the murder of Francis and detailing
the circumstances of that murder; that statement was audio taped.
Inv. Brzezinski testified that Eggers was not threatened into making
the statement; that Eggers was not promised anything for making the
statement; and that no one told Eggers that it would be better for him
to make the statement.
Eggers admitted at the suppression hearing that Inv. Brzezinski
advised him of his Miranda rights before he took Inv. Brzezinski to
where Francis’s body was located and again before he gave his third
statement to Inv. Brzezinski at the Walker County jail the next day,
and that he was not threatened or coerced into making either of those
statements. Eggers also admitted that he signed a waiver-of-rights
form before he gave his third statement at the jail.
The general rule is that a confession or other inculpatory
statement is prima facie involuntary and inadmissible and the burden
is on the State to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that such a
confession or statement is voluntary and admissible. See, e.g., Ex parte
Price, 725 So. 2d 1063 (Ala. 1998). To prove voluntariness, the State
must establish that the defendant “made an independent and
informed choice of his own free will, that he possessed the capability
to do so, and that his will was not overborne by pressures and
circumstances swirling around him.” Lewis v. State, 535 So. 2d 228,
235 (Ala. Crim. App. 1988). If the confession or inculpatory statement
is the result of custodial interrogation, the State must also prove that
the defendant was properly advised of, and that he voluntarily waived,
his Miranda rights. See Ex parte Johnson, 620 So. 2d 709 (Ala. 1993),
and Waldrop v. State, 859 So. 2d 1138 (Ala. Crim. App. 2000), aff’d,
859 So. 2d 1181 (Ala. 2002).
“‘The question of whether a confession was voluntary is
initially to be determined by the trial court.’” Minor v. State, 914 So.
2d 372, 388 (Ala. Crim. App. 2004), quoting Jackson v. State, 562 So.
2d 1373, 1381 (Ala. Crim. App. 1990). “[A]ny conflicts in the
testimony or credibility of witnesses during a suppression hearing is a
136

matter for resolution by the trial court. Absent a gross abuse of
discretion, a trial court’s resolution of [such] conflict[s] should not be
reversed on appeal.” Sheely v. State, 629 So. 2d 23, 29 (Ala. Crim.
App. 1993) (citations omitted). “[A] trial court’s ruling based upon
conflicting evidence given at a suppression hearing is binding on this
Court, . . . and is not to be reversed absent a clear abuse of discretion.”
Jackson v. State, 589 So. 2d 781, 784 (Ala. Crim. App. 1991). “When
there is conflicting evidence of the circumstances surrounding an
incriminating statement or a confession, it is the duty of the trial judge
to determine its admissibility, and if the trial judge decides it is
admissible his decision will not be disturbed on appeal ‘unless found
to be manifestly contrary to the great weight of the evidence.’” Ex
parte Matthews, 601 So. 2d 52, 53 (Ala. 1992), quoting Williams v.
State, 456 So. 2d 852, 855 (Ala. Crim. App.1984). “‘In reviewing the
correctness of the trial court’s ruling on a motion to suppress, this
Court makes all the reasonable inferences and credibility choices
supportive of the decision of the trial court.’” Kennedy v. State, 640
So. 2d 22, 26 (Ala. Crim. App. 1993), quoting Bradley v. State, 494 So.
2d 750, 761 (Ala. Crim. App. 1985), aff’d, 494 So. 2d 772 (Ala. 1986).
1.
Eggers contends that his statements were involuntary because,
he says, he requested a lawyer on two occasions before he gave his first
statement to Agent Maldonado, and those requests were denied.
In Edwards v. Arizona, 451 U.S. 477, 101 S. Ct. 1880, 68 L. Ed.
2d 378 (1981), the United States Supreme Court held:
“[W]hen an accused has invoked his right to have
counsel present during custodial interrogation, a valid
waiver of that right cannot be established by showing only
that he responded to further police-initiated custodial
interrogation even if he has been advised of his rights. . . .
[A]n accused, . . . having expressed his desire to deal with
the police only through counsel, is not subject to further
interrogation by the authorities until counsel has been
made available to him, unless the accused himself
137

initiates further communication,
conversations with the police.”

exchanges,

or

451 U.S. at 484–85, 101 S. Ct. 1880 (footnote omitted). The purpose
of this rule is to protect an accused in police custody from
“‘badger[ing]’ or ‘overreaching’—explicit or subtle, deliberate or
unintentional—[that] might otherwise wear down the accused and
persuade him to incriminate himself notwithstanding his earlier
request for counsel’s assistance.” Smith v. Illinois, 469 U.S. 91, 98, 105
S. Ct. 490, 83 L. Ed. 2d 488 (1984), quoting Oregon v. Bradshaw, 462
U.S. 1039, 1044, 103 S. Ct. 2830, 77 L. Ed. 2d 405 (1983).
“This ‘rigid’ prophylactic rule, Fare v. Michael C., 442
U.S. 707, 719 (1979), embodies two distinct inquiries.
First, courts must determine whether the accused
actually invoked his right to counsel. See, e.g., Edwards v.
Arizona, supra, 451 U.S. [477], at 484–485 [(1981)]
(whether accused ‘expressed his desire’ for, or ‘clearly
asserted’ his right to, the assistance of counsel); Miranda
v. Arizona, 384 U.S. [436], at 444–445 [(1966)] (whether
accused ‘indicate[d] in any manner and at any stage of
the process that he wish[ed] to consult with an attorney
before speaking’). Second, if the accused invoked his
right to counsel, courts may admit his responses to
further questioning only on finding that he (a) initiated
further discussions with the police, and (b) knowingly
and intelligently waived the right he had invoked.
Edwards v. Arizona, supra, [451 U.S.,] at 485, 486, n. 9.”
Smith v. Illinois, 469 U.S. at 95, 105 S. Ct. 490.
At the suppression hearing, Eggers testified that he requested a
lawyer immediately upon his arrest in the tent city and again in the
patrol car while being transported to the Osceola County Sheriff’s
Department. Agent Maldonado’s testimony directly refuted Eggers’s
claim that he requested a lawyer immediately upon his arrest; Agent
Maldonado specifically testified that Eggers never requested a lawyer
when he was arrested at the tent city. Resolving this conflicting
138

evidence in favor of the trial court’s ruling, as we must, we conclude
that Eggers did not request a lawyer when he was arrested.
Whether Eggers requested a lawyer while in the patrol car being
transported to the sheriff’s department, however, is a closer question.
The State did not call the Osceola County Sheriff’s Deputy who
transported Eggers to the Sheriff’s Department to testify, but during
redirect examination of Agent Maldonado at the suppression hearing,
the following occurred:
“[Prosecutor]:
And [defense counsel] has asked you
about requests from other officers for attorneys, at any
time during your interrogation, did he ever ask you for an
attorney?
“[Agent Maldonado]: No.
“[Prosecutor]: Did he ever mention that he had asked for
an attorney or wanted an attorney?
“[Agent Maldonado]: No.”[Prosecutor]: And did you
ask him if he wanted an attorney when you gave him his
Miranda rights?
“[Agent Maldonado]: The right to—the reading of the
Miranda rights and when they transported him, I wasn’t
told he made a statement. He was transported from the jail to
the—from the tent city to the Sheriff’s Office with no
statement.”
(R. 325–26.) (Emphasis added.) We think a reasonable inference from
the above-quoted portion of Agent Maldonado’s testimony is that
Agent Maldonado was informed by the deputy who transported
Eggers to the sheriff’s department that Eggers had not said anything in
the patrol car during the transport, i.e., that Eggers did not request a
lawyer. Although the trial court did not issue any findings of fact when
denying Eggers’s motion to suppress and, thus, we do not know the
reason for the trial court’s ruling, it would not have been an abuse of
139

discretion for the trial court to find, based on the above testimony of
Agent Maldonado, that Eggers did not invoke his right to counsel
while in the patrol car.
However, assuming that it could not be inferred from the abovequoted portion of Agent Maldonado’s testimony that Eggers did not
request a lawyer while in the patrol car being transported to the
Sheriff’s Department and, thus, that Eggers’s testimony that he did
make such a request in the patrol car is unrefuted, we still conclude
that Eggers’s subsequent statements were properly admitted into
evidence.
Agent Maldonado testified that when they arrived at the
sheriff’s department, he advised Eggers of his Miranda rights; that
Eggers indicated that he wanted to make a statement; and that Eggers
signed a waiver-of-rights form. According to Agent Maldonado, after
Eggers signed the form, he advised Eggers of the reason for his arrest
and Eggers then “asked me if I wanted to know where the body was.”
(R. 457.) In response, Agent Maldonado said, “‘Well, if you want to
tell me about it.’” (R. 310.) At that point, Eggers gave his first
confession. Agent Maldonado said that he was surprised by Eggers’s
statement regarding a body because he was not aware at that time that
there had been a murder; he knew only that there was a fugitive
warrant for Eggers’s arrest for unlawful flight to avoid prosecution
based on the theft of a truck and that there may have been a missing
person involved. Although Eggers’s version of the events at the
sheriff’s department was different than Agent Maldonado’s, Agent
Maldonado’s testimony was sufficient to establish that Eggers was not
subject to custodial interrogation until after he had initiated further
conversation with Agent Maldonado and that he had voluntarily
waived his previously invoked right to counsel.
In Rhode Island v. Innis, 446 U.S. 291, 100 S. Ct. 1682, 64 L. Ed.
2d 297 (1980), the United States Supreme Court defined the term
“interrogation” as “either express questioning or its functional
equivalent,” i.e., “any words or actions on the part of the police (other
than those normally attendant to arrest and custody) that the police
should know are reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating response
140

from the suspect.” 446 U.S. at 300–01, 100 S. Ct. 1682 (footnotes
omitted). In his opinion concurring in the result in Edwards, Justice
Powell noted the difference between custodial interrogation and
custodial communications:
“Communications between police and a suspect in
custody are commonplace. It is useful to contrast the
circumstances of this case with typical, and permissible,
custodial communications between police and a suspect
who has asked for counsel. For example, police do not
impermissibly ‘initiate’ renewed interrogation by
engaging in routine conversations with suspects about
unrelated matters. And police legitimately may inquire
whether a suspect has changed his mind about speaking
to them without an attorney. E.g., State v. Turner, 32 Or.
App. 61, 65, 573 P.2d 326, 327 (1978); see State v. Crisler,
285 N.W.2d 679, 682 (Minn. 1979); State v. Marcum, 24
Wash. App. 441, 445–446, 601 P.2d 975, 978 (1979). It is
not unusual for a person in custody who previously has
expressed an unwillingness to talk or a desire to have a
lawyer, to change his mind and even welcome an
opportunity to talk. Nothing in the Constitution erects
obstacles that preclude police from ascertaining whether
a suspect has reconsidered his original decision. As
Justice White has observed, this Court consistently has
‘rejected any paternalistic rule protecting a defendant
from his intelligent and voluntary decisions about his own
criminal case.’ Michigan v. Mosley, 423 U.S. 96, 109
(1975) (White, J., concurring in result).”
Edwards, 451 U.S. at 490–91, 101 S. Ct. 1880 (Powell, J., concurring in
the result) (footnote omitted). Agent Maldonado’s advising Eggers of
his Miranda rights and of the reason for his arrest did not constitute
interrogation or its functional equivalent, but was a routine incident of
arrest. At most, Agent Maldonado’s actions in advising Eggers of his
Miranda rights and obtaining Eggers’s waiver of those rights was a
proper inquiry as to whether Eggers had changed his mind about
wanting a lawyer. “Although interrogation may not continue [after an
141

accused has requested counsel], the police legitimately may inquire
whether the suspect has changed his mind about speaking to them
without an attorney.” McCall v. State, 501 So. 2d 496, 500 (Ala. Crim.
App. 1986). See also Caldwell v. State, 249 Ga. App. 885, 549 S.E.2d
449 (2001) (police officer’s informing accused of the charges against
him and informing accused that he could change his mind about his
previous request for a lawyer and give a statement if he chose to do so
did not constitute interrogation).
Moreover, there can be no doubt that by asking Agent
Maldonado if he “wanted to know where the body was” Eggers
initiated the conversation about the murder. “Initiation” is an inquiry
that can “be fairly said to represent a desire on the part of an accused
to open up a more generalized discussion relating directly or indirectly
to the investigation.” Oregon v. Bradshaw, 462 U.S. 1039, 1045, 103 S.
Ct. 2830, 77 L. Ed. 2d 405 (1983) (plurality opinion). Eggers’s
question was not a routine inquiry arising out of the incidents of
custody, such as a request for a drink of water; it was a clear question
relating directly to the murder, and it showed Eggers’s willingness to
speak with Agent Maldonado about the crime. See, e.g., Living v. State,
796 So.2d 1121 (Ala. Crim. App. 2000) (by making spontaneous and
unsolicited statements about the crime after he had requested a
lawyer, the accused initiated the conversation with the police); Burgess
v. State, 827 So. 2d 134 (Ala. Crim. App.1998), aff’d, 827 So. 2d 193
(Ala. 2000) (by asking police officer what the charge against him was
and what punishment he could be facing for that charge, the accused
initiated the conversation with the police); Buchannon v. State, 652 So.
2d 799, 801 (Ala. Crim. App. 1994) (by asking police officer “‘[W]hat,
what robbery—what was constituting the robbery?’” after he had
invoked his right to counsel, the accused initiated the conversation);
Seawright v. State, 479 So. 2d 1362, 1366 (Ala. Crim. App.1985) (by
stating “‘I want to get it off my chest. I did it. It was self defense’”
after he had invoked his right to counsel, the accused initiated the
conversation with the police); and Moulds v. State, 429 So. 2d 1176,
1179 (Ala. Crim. App. 1983) (“The defendant’s assertion that she was
ready to make a statement, even if made in response to an officer’s
inquiry of whether she had ‘changed her mind about speaking to them
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without an attorney,’ constitutes a communication initiated by the
accused under Edwards.”).
Finally, for the reasons explained in Part I.B.3. of this opinion,
we conclude that Eggers’s waiver of his previously invoked right to
counsel was knowingly and voluntarily made.
Therefore, even assuming that Eggers invoked his right to
counsel while in the patrol car on the way to the Sheriff’s Department,
there was no violation of Edwards because Eggers was not subjected to
custodial interrogation, but initiated the conversation about the
murder with Agent Maldonado and knowingly and voluntarily waived
his previously invoked right to counsel.
Eggers, 914 So. 2d at 896-902.
As seen from the above, the ACCA thus made three findings concerning
Eggers’s Edwards claim. First, it found that it was reasonable for the trial court to
infer that Eggers did not make a request for counsel while being transported to the
sheriff’s department. Eggers argues that this finding was based on an unreasonable
determination of the facts because it did not take into account all of Agent
Maldonado’s testimony. Eggers points out that on cross examination, Agent
Maldonado stated that he did not know if the transporting deputy asked him if he
wanted an attorney. [C.R. Vol. 5 at 324.] Eggers argues that this means that
Eggers’s testimony that he requested a lawyer during transport was unrefuted. But,
as recounted by the ACCA, Agent Maldonado testified as follows on redirect
examination:
143

[Prosecutor]:

And [defense counsel] has asked you about
requests from other officers for attorneys, at any
time during your interrogation, did he ever ask you
for an attorney?

[Agent Maldonado]:
[Prosecutor]:

Did he ever mention that he had asked for an
attorney or wanted an attorney?

[Agent Maldonado]:
[Prosecutor]:

No.

No.

And did you ask him if he wanted an attorney when
you gave him his Miranda rights?

[Agent Maldonado]:

The right to—the reading of the Miranda
rights and when they transported him, I
wasn’t told he made a statement. He was
transported from the jail to the—from the
tent city to the Sheriff’s Office with no
statement.

[C.R. Vol. 5 at 325–26.] The trial court, in denying the motion to suppress,
implicitly resolved the conflicting evidence in favor of Agent Maldonado and
against Eggers and concluded that Eggers did not request a lawyer at the tent city
or during transport to the sheriff’s department. The ACCA, on direct appeal, held
that it was reasonable for the trial court to do so, given the inferences made from
that portion of Agent Maldonado’s testimony that he was informed by the deputy
who transported Eggers to the sheriff’s department that Eggers had not said
anything in the patrol car during the transport, i.e., that Eggers did not request a
144

lawyer. The trial court was in the best position to weigh conflicting evidence and
make credibility determinations at the suppression hearing, and the ACCA was
entitled under the law to give deference to the trial court’s decision on that point.
See Minor, 914 So. 2d at 388; Sheely, 629 So. 2d at 29; Jackson, 589 So. 2d at 784;
Ex parte Matthews, 601 So. 2d at 53. The state court’s factual findings are presumed
to be correct, and the petitioner can only rebut that presumption with “clear and
convincing evidence.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(1). It is Eggers’s burden to show that
the state court’s opinion was based on an unreasonable application of the facts in
light of the evidence presented at the state court proceeding, 28 U.S.C. §
2254(d)(2), and he has not met that burden here. See Wood v. Allen, 558 U.S. 290,
293, 130 S. Ct. 841, 845 (2010) (“[A] state court factual determination is not
unreasonable merely because the federal habeas court would have reached a
different conclusion in the first instance.”). In any event, the ACCA previously
addressed the very point Eggers’s raises here, by its finding that even if one could
argue that Eggers’s testimony was unrefuted and he did request a lawyer during the
car ride to the sheriff’s department, his waiver of his right to a lawyer once at the
sheriff’s department was controlling. And as will be explained, the state court’s
reasoning on that point was not an unreasonable application of clearly established
Federal law.
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The ACCA’s second finding was that even if Eggers did request counsel
during transport, his later waiver was valid because it was the result of a custodial
“communication” rather than interrogation; in other words, Agent Maldonado’s
act of advising Eggers of his Miranda rights once at the sheriff’s department and
explaining the reason for his arrest was a routine incident of arrest and not a
custodial interrogation, so Eggers’s subsequent confession was admissible. Eggers
argues that this conclusion was an unreasonable application of Edwards because the
ACCA relied on Justice Powell’s concurring opinion in Edwards, rather than on the
majority opinion, and the concurrence holds no precedential value. Eggers is
correct that to be entitled to deference under § 2254(d)(1), a state court ruling
must reasonably apply Supreme Court precedent, and precedent is defined as the
holdings of the Supreme Court. See White v. Woodall, 134 S. Ct. 1697, 1702 (2014)
“[C]learly established Federal law for purposes of § 2254(d)(1) includes only the
holdings, as opposed to the dicta, of this Court’s decisions.”) (internal quotation
marks omitted); Lockyer v. Andrade, 538 U.S. 63, 71-72, 123 S. Ct. 1166, 1172 (2003)
(“In other words, clearly established Federal law under § 2254(d)(1) is the
governing legal principle or principles set forth by the Supreme Court at the time
the state court renders its decision.”) (internal quotation marks omitted). Eggers
cites no binding authority holding that that precedent does not include analysis set
146

out in a concurring opinion. But assuming that concurring opinions do not
constitute Supreme Court “holdings,” Eggers overlooks the fact that the principle
espoused by Justice Powell, while in a concurring opinion, was rooted in previous
Supreme Court precedent. Justice Powell opined that there are “communications”
that occur with a suspect after he invokes his right to counsel that do not rise to the
level of interrogation and thus, do not violate the rule set out by the majority in
Edwards, such as “engaging in routine conversations with suspects about unrelated
matters,” or inquiring whether a suspect has changed his mind about speaking to
authorities without an attorney. Edwards, 451 U.S. at 490-91, 101 S. Ct. at 1880
(Powell, J., concurring). As noted by the ACCA, the Supreme Court had
previously, in Rhode Island v. Innis, defined the term “interrogation” as “either
express questioning or its functional equivalent,” i.e., “any words or actions on the
part of police (other than those normally attendant to arrest and custody) that the
police should know are reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating response from
the suspect.” 446 U.S. at 300-01, 100 S. Ct. 1682 (emphasis added). In addressing
what constitutes interrogation, the Edwards Court applied the standard previously
set out in Innis. See Edwards, 451 U.S. at 487. As Justice Powell merely elucidated,
before the rule in Edwards is violated, there must first be custodial “interrogation”

147

on the part of police, something that the majority in Edwards repeatedly
acknowledged as well.
Agent Maldonado testified at the suppression hearing that before Eggers
made his first oral confession at the sheriff’s department, the agent did two things:
he advised Eggers of his Miranda rights (and Eggers signed a waiver-of-rights
form), and he advised Eggers that he was being arrested for unlawful flight to avoid
prosecution. [C.R. Vol. 5 at 310.] 15 Even if one were to take as true that Eggers had
already asked for a lawyer while being transported to the sheriff’s department,
there is no question that Agent Maldonado’s mere act of advising Eggers of the
reason for his arrest was not custodial interrogation of the kind that the majority in
Edwards held could not happen if the accused had already asked for a lawyer. Such
a statement does not constitute an interrogation because it is not the kind of
statement “that the police should know [is] reasonably likely to elicit an
incriminating response from the suspect.” Innis, 446 U.S. at 300-01, 100 S. Ct. at
1682. Rather, advising a suspect of the reason for his arrest is a mere
communication “normally attendant to arrest and custody,” that the Supreme
Court excludes from the definition of “interrogation.” Id. As such, the ACCA did
15

As the ACCA noted, Eggers’s version of events at the sheriff’s department differed, as he
claimed he again requested a lawyer but Agent Maldonado denied that request and threatened
him. However, Eggers does not now challenge the trial court’s implicit decision to credit Agent
Maldonado’s testimony over Eggers’s testimony as to what happened when Eggers arrived at the
sheriff’s department.
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not “appl[y] a rule that contradicts the governing law set forth in [the Court’s]
cases . . . ,” Brown, 544 U.S. at 141, 125 S. Ct. at 1438, when it so held.
It is a closer question whether Agent Maldonado’s act of advising Eggers of
his Miranda rights once they arrived at the sheriff’s department constitutes a
prohibited interrogation or a mere communication, but the Court finds that the
ACCA did not unreasonably apply Supreme Court precedent when it held that this
statement, too, was a mere communication attendant to arrest and custody. In
Edwards itself, police officers conducting an interrogation of the accused stopped
when he said he wanted to talk to a lawyer before making a deal. 451 U.S. at 479,
101 S. Ct. at 1882. The following day, police came back to retrieve him from his
cell, said that they wanted to talk to him, and the detention officer told him that he
“had to” talk to the officers. Id. The officers then informed the accused of his
Miranda rights, and he said he was willing to talk, but he wanted to first hear the
taped statement made by the alleged accomplice who had implicated him in the
crime. Id. After listening to the tape for several minutes, the accused said that he
would make a statement and then implicated himself in the crime. Id. The Court
held that because the accused was subject to custodial interrogation at the instance
of authorities, despite his earlier request for counsel, his statement was
inadmissible. Id. at 487, 101 S. Ct. at 1886.
149

One way that Eggers may show that the ACCA’s conclusion on direct appeal
was an unreasonable application of Supreme Court precedent is by demonstrating
that the ACCA “confronted a set of facts that is materially indistinguishable from a
decision of th[e] Court but reached a different result.” Brown, 544 U.S. at 141, 125
S. Ct. at 1438. Because there are crucial differences between Edwards and the case
at bar, Eggers cannot make that showing. First, in Edwards, there was no question
about whether the defendant had initially invoked his right to counsel. In contrast
here, the ACCA found, based on a reasonable determination of the facts, that
Eggers never invoked his right to counsel. Of course, if Eggers never invoked his
right to counsel, there was nothing in federal law (in Edwards or otherwise)
preventing Eggers from implicitly waiving his right to counsel simply by responding
to police questioning and confessing. However, even if the Court is assuming for
the purposes of analyzing Eggers’s line of argument that Eggers did invoke his right
to counsel during transport to the sheriff’s department, there are still
distinguishing facts between Edwards and Eggers’s case. In Edwards, after
interrogating the accused the day before, officers returned the next morning to
retrieve the accused from his cell against his will (the detention officer told him
that he “had to” talk to police when he expressed reluctance to do so), they
informed him of his Miranda rights, and, at his request, they played him the taped
150

statement of his accomplice. This combination of events led the Court to
determine that the accused was subject to custodial interrogation with no attorney
present, despite his request for counsel.
A similar combination of events is not present in this case. Here, when one
removes from the equation Agent Maldonado’s advising Eggers of the reason for
his arrest, which was no doubt a mere communication attendant to arrest and
custody and not an interrogation, the only other communication Agent Maldonado
made to Eggers was to advise him of his Miranda rights. Under the state court’s
determination of the facts that occurred at the sheriff’s department, which Eggers
does not challenge in this proceeding, no one at the sheriff’s department told
Eggers that he “had to” speak with authorities. Under these circumstances, Agent
Maldonado’ singular act of advising Eggers of his rights does not appear to be the
type of communication that the agent should have known was likely to elicit an
incriminating response. See Innis, 446 U.S. at 300-01, 100 S. Ct. at 1682. 16 In other
Of course, Justice Powell opined in his concurrence in Edwards that police may
legitimately ask the accused whether he has changed his mind about speaking to them without an
attorney, but he did not cite to any Supreme Court precedent stating that exact rule. Edwards, 451
U.S. at 490, 101 S. Ct. at 1888 (Powell, J., concurring). In any event, the Court is not convinced
that Agent Maldonado’s act of merely reading Eggers’s his rights even equates to asking such a
question. But to the extent that the reading of the rights may have possibly caused Eggers to
change his mind about speaking with an attorney, this fact is not in and of itself sufficient to show
interrogation. See Arizona v. Mauro, 481 U.S. 520, 529, 107 S. Ct. 1931, 1936 (1987) (“Officers do
not interrogate a suspect simply by hoping he will incriminate himself.”). The rights that Agent
Maldonado read to Eggers, as recounted by the agent at the suppression hearing, are not coercive
or threatening. But see Montejo v. Louisiana, 556 U.S. 778, 805, 129 S. Ct. 2079, 2096 (2009)
16

151

words, since there was no “interrogation,” Edwards was not violated. In so holding,
the Court is reminded that Eggers’s burden on this claim is high: he must show that
“the state court’s ruling on the claim being presented in federal court was so
lacking in justification that there was an error well understood and comprehended
in existing law beyond any possibility for fairminded disagreement.” Harrington,
562 U.S. at 102, 131 S. Ct. at 786–87. The Court is of the opinion that Eggers has
not made that showing, and the ACCA’s opinion was not an unreasonable
application of clearly established Federal law.
Nor did the ACCA unreasonably apply Federal law in its third alternative
holding: that even if Eggers asked for an attorney during transport to the sheriff’s
department, his subsequent confessions were nonetheless admissible because
Eggers initiated a conversation with Agent Maldonado by asking him if he wanted
to know where Mrs. Murray’s body was. It is by now axiomatic that if an accused,
even after having expressed his desire for an attorney, subsequently initiates
communication with authorities, his volunteered statements are admissible.

(Stevens, J., dissenting) (noting that Edwards was designed to prevent police from coercing
suspects into revoking the request for counsel); see also United States v. Stevenson, 2015 WL
5737171 (A.F. Ct. Crim. App. Sept. 30, 2015) (officer telling a suspect to “think about it,”
regarding his earlier request for an attorney, in a non-confrontational tone, was not interrogation,
for purposes of determining whether Edwards was violated); United States v. Comosona, 848 F.2d
1110, 1113 (10th Cir. 1988) (handing a suspect a business card and telling him to call the agent
collect if he wanted to talk about an incident was not an interrogation, for purposes of
determining whether Edwards was violated).
152

Miranda, 384 U.S. at 436, 86 S. Ct. at 1630 (“Volunteered statements of any kind
are not barred by the Fifth Amendment and their admissibility is not affected by
our holding today.”); Edwards, 451 U.S. at 484, 101 S. Ct. at 1885 (“We further
hold that an accused, such as Edwards, having expressed his desire to deal with the
police only through counsel, is not subject to further interrogation by the
authorities until counsel has been made available to him, unless the accused himself
initiates further communication, exchanges, or conversations with the police.”)
(emphasis added).
Eggers argues that the ACCA’s conclusion on this point is based on an
unreasonable determination of the facts because it is contradicted by the ACCA’s
own factual findings. According to Eggers, it was inconsistent for the ACCA to
conclude that Eggers’s initiation of a conversation with Agent Maldonado rendered
his earlier request for counsel moot because the court found as fact that Eggers did
not initiate the confession with Agent Maldonado until after he had already signed a
waiver-of-rights form. Eggers is correct that the ACCA found as fact the following
sequence of events: “Agent Maldonado testified that when they arrived at the
sheriff’s department, he advised Eggers of his Miranda rights; that Eggers
indicated that he wanted to make a statement; and that Eggers signed a waiver of
rights form. According to Agent Maldonado, after Eggers signed the form, he
153

advised Eggers of the reason for his arrest and Eggers then “asked me if I wanted to
know where the body was.’” Eggers, 914 So. 2d at 897. Presumably Eggers means
that if he had already signed the waiver of his right to counsel, his subsequent
decision to confess to Agent Maldonado is beside the point, and cannot serve to
render any previous request for counsel moot. That may or may not be so,
depending on the circumstances. An accused could sign a waiver of rights form
under duress, and still have a colorable claim that his subsequent confession is
inadmissible. 17 In any event, contrary to Eggers’s characterization of the ACCA’s
opinion, the ACCA never explicitly concluded that Eggers initiated his confession
before signing the waiver. But if the ACCA’s conclusion about the effect of Eggers’s
initiation of his confession about the murder contains an error of some kind, it is a
harmless one, because the ACCA’s conclusion on this final point was an alternative
one: the ACCA did not need to rely on it in order to find Eggers’s statement

17

Indeed, Eggers made such a claim on direct appeal, but it was rejected. Eggers’s version
of events at the suppression hearing was that he signed the waiver form under duress: it was only
after Agent Maldonado threatened to involve his girlfriend, his father, and his son in the
investigation that he signed the form. Eggers, 914 So. 2d at 904. Agent Maldonado’s was quite
different: he testified that he never threatened to involve Eggers’s girlfriend, father, or son in the
investigation, nor did he make any other type of threats; he did not coerce Eggers into making a
statement; indeed he was surprised when he asked him if he wanted to know where the body was.
Id. The trial court implicitly rejected Eggers’s testimony in favor of Agent Maldonado’s by
denying the motion to suppress, and the ACCA found that the trial court did not abuse its
discretion in so doing. Id. Thus, the ACCA assumed that even if Eggers had asked for an attorney
during transport, he did not ask for one at the sheriff’s department but instead decided to confess
to Agent Maldonado there. Eggers does not challenge the facts found by the ACCA in this
proceeding.
154

admissible, because it had already found as much through its first two conclusions.
And because the Court has already determined that the ACCA’s first two
conclusions are reasonable, Eggers’s claim fails.
In sum, Eggers did not exhaust state remedies with respect to this argument.
His claim that his mental incompetence constitutes cause and prejudice to ignore
that fact fails, but even assuming the Court could review the argument through the
lens of § 2254(d), the ACCA, which entered the last reasoned opinion on this
claim, did not render an unreasonable application of Federal law when it rejected
the claim. Habeas relief is not warranted.
V.

EGGERS’S PRO SE ASSERTED GROUNDS FOR RELIEF
Eggers’s pro se amended petition for federal habeas relief, which he styles a

“Motion to Appoint Successor Counsel or Motion to Proceed Pro Se” (doc. 60),
appears to be, in its essence, an attempt by Eggers to set out points of disagreement
with his appointed counsel in this proceeding. In pages 1-12, Eggers asserts that he
“does not wish to assert any of the grounds for relief alleged in the Amended
Petition” and, though he “wanted counsel to present these issues,” he “cannot
move forward with the amendment as is.” (Doc. 60 at 1-12.) Eggers denies that he
is incompetent and argues that appointed counsel’s allegations are improperly

155

founded on false allegations by Nikkii Eggers Garrison, his ex-wife. Similarly,
Eggers asserts that Dr. Benedict’s evaluation is flawed.
In pages 13-22, Eggers summarizes the claims raised in his pro se Rule 32
petition and makes the bare assertion that they were fairly presented to the state
courts. The Court will address each of Eggers’s pro se claims.
Eggers’s claims 1-5 describe the Brady claims that he raised in his amended
Rule 32 petition. Appointed counsel presented Eggers’s Brady claim as “Ground
IX” in the Amended Petition, and it was addressed in section IV. 9 of this opinion,
supra. To the extent that Eggers claims that the State suppressed evidence
regarding his alleged hospitalization in Texas, habeas relief is not warranted on that
claim for the reasons set forth in section IV. 9. To the extent Eggers’s pro se claims
identify allegedly suppressed material not identified in section IV. 9, supra, such as
records from the FBI and the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department from 1985 and
arrest records from nine other individuals who were supposedly detained near the
time of his arrest in Florida, habeas relief is not warranted on this ground.
The Rule 32 court, which issued the last reasoned decision, denied these
claims in part because they were insufficiently pleaded pursuant to Ala. R. Crim. P.
32.3 and 32.6(b). As to the 1985 law enforcement records, the court, citing Brady,
stated that Eggers failed to allege what, if any, exculpatory information was
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contained in the records, and also failed to plead facts demonstrating that any such
records were possessed by the State and not turned over to trial counsel. As to the
purported arrest records of other individuals in Florida, the court, citing Brady,
stated that Eggers failed to allege what, if any, exculpatory information was
contained in the “missing” arrest records and has failed to plead facts indicating
that these records actually exist. The court further opined that Eggers’s arrest was
reviewed by the ACCA, which found that he was arrested pursuant to a valid arrest
warrant, and if Eggers alleges the rights of other individuals were violated during
his arrest, Eggers does not have standing to challenge these violations, and they do
not taint his own arrest or subsequent conviction.
A Rule 32 dismissal for lack of specificity is a merits ruling in this circuit.
Borden, 646 F.3d at 812-13. As such, this Court conducts the deferential AEDPA
review of the state court’s decision pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d), and Eggers
cannot obtain relief on this claim unless he can show that the denial of relief on this
claim in state court “(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.” See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d).
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The Rule 32 court did not violate Brady in disposing of Eggers’s claims. As
he did then, Eggers still fails to explain what exculpatory information the 1985 law
enforcement records or the arrest records from Florida contained, and any facts
indicating that the State suppressed these materials. Absent this, the Court cannot
determine whether the prosecution suppressed this evidence, whether it was
favorable to Eggers, and whether it was material. Moreover, this evidence would
have been known to the defense. The Rule 32 court did not unreasonably apply
Brady in disposing of these claims.
To the extent Eggers has added additional factual information in his pro se
petition that he did not raise in his Rule 32 petition, these claims are procedurally
defaulted from habeas review because Eggers failed to fairly present them to the
state courts. A federal habeas petitioner is required “to present the state courts
with the same claim he urges upon the federal courts.” Picard, 404 U.S. at 276, 92
S. Ct. at 512.
Eggers’s claims 7-19 describe various claims from his amended Rule 32
petition that relate to his arrest, including his claim that he was arrested pursuant to
an illegal search and seizure and that his three confessions to law enforcement were
inadmissible because they were involuntary. He contends that the confessions were
involuntary because he requested a lawyer on two occasions before he gave his first
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statement and those requests were denied, he was threatened and coerced into
giving his statements, and he did not knowingly and voluntarily waive his Miranda
rights before making his statements. Eggers’s appointed counsel in this proceeding
raised the claim that Edwards v. Arizona was violated, but did not raise the other
claims. Habeas relief is not warranted on the Edwards claim for the reasons set forth
in section IV. 11, supra. To the extent Eggers raises additional claims related to his
arrest, habeas relief is not warranted for the following reasons. While Eggers raised
these claims on direct appeal, he abandoned them on petition for writ of certiorari
in the Alabama Supreme Court. In order to exhaust state remedies, a habeas
petitioner must present his claims through one full round of the State’s trial and
appellate review process, even to the state’s court of last resort, even if that review
is discretionary. Pruitt, 348 F.3d at 1359 (citing O’Sullivan, 526 U.S. at 845).
Alabama’s discretionary direct review procedures bring Alabama prisoner habeas
petitions within the scope of this rule. Id. at 59. Dismissal of his habeas petition to
allow Eggers to present this claim fairly as a federal claim in state court now would
be futile because it is too late for him to return to state court to exhaust the claim by
petitioning the Alabama Supreme Court for certiorari. Thus, because any state
remedy with respect to this claim is procedurally barred by the state procedural
rules noted above, Eggers’s claim is procedurally defaulted from habeas review.
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Eggers has not raised this argument, but the Court notes that it has already
established that Eggers’s alleged mental illness during direct appeal is not cause
and prejudice to excuse the default of these claims, see sections IV. 3 and 11, supra.
To the extent Eggers has added additional factual information in his pro se
petition that he did not raise in his Rule 32 petition, these claims are procedurally
defaulted from habeas review because Eggers failed to fairly present them to the
state courts. Picard, 404 U.S. at 276, 92 S. Ct. at 512.
Next, Eggers’s claim 20 describes claim 20 from his amended Rule 32
petition, which alleged that Eggers was incompetent to stand trial. Eggers’s
appointed counsel presented that claim as Ground 1 in the instant action. For the
reasons stated in section, IV. 1, supra, habeas relief is not warranted on that claim.
Eggers’s claims 21-37 describe claims 21-37 from his amended Rule 32
petition. He alleges that he was denied psychiatric medical care prior to trial, that
the State withheld favorable evidence of his mental illness from expert witnesses,
and that the trial court denied him a competency evaluation, failed to provide a
judicial finding as to competence, failed to provide the defense with adequate time
to move for a competency hearing, failed to provide the defense with adequate time
to move for a jury trial on competency, failed to determine the issue of sanity before
trial, failed to assure that mental health experts received necessary evidence,
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unlawfully silenced him through the use of an electric shock belt, failed to instruct
the jury that Eggers was forced to wear an electric shock belt, failed to investigate
the death of potential witnesses, and failed to depose a potentially intimidated
witness.
In addition to denying all of these claims because Eggers did not raise them
at trial, in his motion for new trial, or on direct appeal, the Rule 32 court, which
issued the last reasoned decision, denied all of these claims because they were
insufficiently pleaded pursuant to Ala. R. Crim. P. 32.3 and 32.6(b). With regard to
the claim that Eggers was denied psychiatric medical care prior to trial, the court
found that he failed to plead what medical attention he should have received, nor
what constitutional violation occurred based on the failure to receive this
unspecified medical attention. With regard to the claim that the State withheld
favorable evidence from expert witnesses, the court found that Eggers failed to
plead specifically what evidence was withheld and which should have been
provided to expert witnesses. With regard to the remaining claims, the Rule 32
court found that Eggers provided only bare accusations without any specific factual
allegations to support the claims.
A Rule 32 dismissal for lack of specificity is a merits ruling in this circuit.
Borden, 646 F.3d at 812-13. As such, this Court conducts the deferential AEDPA
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review of the state court’s decision pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d), and Eggers
cannot obtain relief on this claim unless he can show that the denial of relief on this
claim in state court “(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.” See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d).
Eggers has not identified a ground for relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d), and
alleged the facts supporting his § 2254(d) claim. He has also not identified the
relevant Supreme Court case that the state court’s decision violated. The Eleventh
Circuit has indicated that such a failure to do so precludes relief on a claim based
on § 2254(d). See Washington v. Crosby, 324 F.3d 1263, 1265 (11th Cir. 2003)
(affirming the denial of habeas relief because the petitioner failed to identify a
relevant Supreme Court case). Additionally, to the extent Eggers has added
additional factual information in his pro se petition that he did not raise in his Rule
32 petition, these claims are procedurally defaulted from habeas review because
Eggers failed to fairly present them to the state courts. Picard, 404 U.S. at 276, 92
S. Ct. at 512.

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Eggers’s claims 38-97 make reference to claims 38-47 of his amended Rule
32 petition, which assert various ineffective assistance of trial counsel claims.
Namely, he asserts that his counsel did not file an adequate written motion to
suppress, did not interview witnesses to his arrest, did not collect arrest reports,
provided a distorted version of the facts in a post-suppression hearing
memorandum, did not adequately outline the facts regarding his interrogation, and
did not interview two officers who were present during his interrogation. To the
extent the claims Eggers intends to raise here do not duplicate the ineffective
assistance of trial counsel claims raised in this proceeding by his appointed counsel,
addressed in sections IV. 5, 6, 7, and 8, supra, they are due to be denied.
All of these claims were raised in Eggers’s Rule 32 proceedings and were
denied as in sufficiently pleaded. The court stated:
Eggers’s claims are nothing but bare allegations. Eggers utterly fails to
plead what specific records or reports should have been ‘marshaled’
by his defense counsel. Nor does Eggers plead the names of the
witnesses who should have been interviewed or called by his counsel
during the suppression hearing. Moreover, Eggers fails to specifically
plead what information these unnamed witnesses possessed that
would have been relevant to his arrest or interrogation during the
suppression hearing.
Additionally, these claims are insufficiently pleaded because
Eggers has entirely failed to plead facts which, if true, would establish
prejudice under Strickland. Eggers has utterly failed to plead any facts
concerning what evidence his trial counsel would have presented
during the suppression hearing had his counsel compiled the records
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and talked with the witnesses Eggers contends should have been
acquired and interviewed. Eggers has completely failed to plead facts
which, if true, would establish that the outcome of his trial would have
been different had his counsel conducted the investigation of his arrest
and interrogation in the way Eggers suggests.
This claim is also dismissed because it fails to state a material
issue of law or fact. Ala. R. Crim. P. 32.7(d). . . . [T]he Court of
Criminal Appeals provided a detailed analysis concerning Eggers’s
statements to law enforcement and found that his statements were
given voluntarily. [Eggers, 904 So. 2d] at 897-906. Eggers has failed to
plead what additional, specific facts his counsel could have presented
that, if true, would call that court’s holding into question.
Accordingly, this claim is dismissed pursuant to Ala. R. Crim. P.
32.7(d) for failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted.
[C.R. Vol. 16, Order Denying Rule 32 Relief, at 33.]
A Rule 32 dismissal for lack of specificity is a merits ruling in this circuit.
Borden, 646 F.3d at 812-13. As such, this Court conducts the deferential AEDPA
review of the state court’s decision pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d), and Eggers
cannot obtain relief on this claim unless he can show that the denial of relief on this
claim in state court “(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.” See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d).

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Eggers has not identified the relevant Supreme Court case, identified a
ground for relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d), and alleged the facts supporting his §
2254(d) claim. See Washington, 324 F.3d at 1265. In any event, the Rule 32 court
did not unreasonably apply Strickland in holding as it did. Additionally, to the
extent Eggers has added additional factual information in his pro se petition that he
did not raise in his Rule 32 petition, these claims are procedurally defaulted from
habeas review because Eggers failed to fairly present them to the state courts.
Picard, 404 U.S. at 276, 92 S. Ct. at 512.
VI.

EGGERS’S MOTIONS FOR DISCOVERY AND AN EVIDENTIARY
HEARING
After filing his reply brief, Eggers filed motions seeking discovery under Rule

6 of the Rules Governing Habeas Corpus Cases and an evidentiary hearing. (Docs.
108 and 109.) For the following reasons, those motions are due to be denied.
“A habeas petitioner, unlike the usual civil litigant in federal court, is not
entitled to discovery as a matter of ordinary course.” Bracy v. Gramley, 520 U.S.
899, 904, 117 S. Ct. 1793, 1796-97 (1997). Rather, pursuant to Rule 6 of the Rules
Governing Section 2254 Cases in the United States District Courts, a petitioner
must demonstrate “good cause” before a judge may authorize discovery. “Good
cause” is shown where petitioner (1) makes credible allegations of a constitutional
violation and (2) the requested discovery will enable the petitioner to investigate
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and prove his claims. See id. at 908–909. Furthermore, a petitioner must
demonstrate that he used “due diligence” in state courts to obtain the discovery
that he is seeking in a federal habeas corpus proceeding. See Isaacs v. Head, 300
F.3d 1232, 1248–49 (11th Cir. 2002) (recognizing that the 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(2)
due diligence requirement necessary for holding an evidentiary hearing applies
equally to a claim for discovery). Due diligence means that “the prisoner made a
reasonable attempt, in light of information available at the time, to investigate and
pursue claims in state court.” Id. Finally, to obtain discovery a petitioner must
demonstrate that he can make a colorable claim showing that the underlying facts,
if proven, constitute a constitutional violation. Id. “Before addressing whether [a]
petitioner is entitled to discovery . . . to support his . . . claim, [a court] must first
identify the ‘essential elements’ of that claim.” Bracy, 520 U.S. at 904 (citing
United States v. Armstrong, 517 U.S. 456, 468, 116 S. Ct. 1480, 1488 (1996)). The
court then must “turn to the question whether petitioner has shown ‘good cause’
for appropriate discovery to prove his . . . claim.” Id. at 905–06. Moreover, Rule
8(a) of the Habeas Rules states that “[i]f the petition is not dismissed, the judge
must review the answer, any transcripts and records of state-court proceedings,
and any material submitted under Rule 7 to determine whether an evidentiary

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hearing is warranted.” Rules Governing § 2254 Cases, Rule 8(a), 28 U.S.C. §
2254.
Having outlined the factual and legal elements supporting Eggers’s claims in
the rest of this opinion and finding those claims meritless, this court finds that
Eggers has failed to establish good cause on the claims in his habeas petition to
warrant discovery. Additionally, because this court finds Eggers’s habeas petition is
due to be dismissed, the court also finds Eggers’s request for an evidentiary hearing
is due to be denied.
VII. CONCLUSION
For all of the reasons set forth herein, Eggers’s petition for writ of habeas
corpus is due to be dismissed, or in the alternative denied.
Rule 11(a) of the Rules Governing Section 2254 Cases requires the district
court to issue or deny a certificate of appealability when it enters a final order
adverse to the applicant. This Court may issue a certificate of appealability “only if
the applicant has a made a substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional
right.”

28 U.S.C. 2253(c)(2). To make such a showing, a “petitioner must

demonstrate that reasonable jurist would find the district court’s assessment of the
constitutional claims debatable and wrong,” Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 484,
120 S. Ct. 1595, 1604 (2000), or that “the issues presented were adequate to
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deserve encouragement to proceed further.” Miller-El v. Cockrell, 537 U.S. 322,
336, 123 S. Ct. 1029, 1039 (2003) (internal quotations omitted). This Court finds
Eggers’s claims do not satisfy either standard. Accordingly, a motion for a
certificate of appealability is due to be denied.
A separate order in accordance with this opinion will be issued.
DONE and ORDERED on November 25, 2015.

_____________________________
L. Scott Coogler
United States District Judge
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