Summary
The Supreme Court of Arkansas denied Bruce Earl Ward’s motion to recall the mandate from his 1997 capital sentencing proceeding. The court rejected Ward’s claims that he was denied constitutionally adequate mental-health assistance under Ake v. Oklahoma and that the jury received an unconstitutional instruction limiting consideration of mitigating evidence to circumstances existing at the time of the murder. The court concluded that no extraordinary circumstance or breakdown in the appellate process warranted recalling the mandate.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether the Arkansas Supreme Court should recall the mandate from Ward's 1997 sentencing appeal because the court overlooked an alleged Ake v. Oklahoma violation involving the denial of an independent mental-health expert and an alleged failure to address Ward's competence.
- Whether the Arkansas Supreme Court should recall the mandate because the jury's at-the-time-of-the-murder mitigating-evidence instruction and verdict forms violated the Eighth Amendment by limiting consideration of mitigating evidence.
Holdings
- The alleged Ake error did not establish a breakdown in the appellate process or extraordinary circumstances warranting recall of the mandate. Ward was afforded constitutionally adequate access to a competent psychiatric evaluation through the state hospital, and he failed to make the required threshold showing that his sanity at the time of the offense or competence to proceed was a significant factor.
- The at-the-time-of-the-murder language in the mitigating-circumstances forms and related argument did not demonstrate that the jury was confused, misled, or prevented from considering relevant mitigating evidence. The asserted error therefore did not constitute a breakdown in the appellate process warranting recall of the mandate.
- The Arkansas Supreme Court recalls its mandate only in extremely limited, extraordinary circumstances involving an error in the appellate process, generally as a last resort to avoid a miscarriage of justice or protect the integrity of the judicial process.
Key quotations
“recall of our mandate is an extremely narrow remedy. Indeed, we stated in Robbins that recall of our mandate is to be granted only in extraordinary circumstances as a last resort to “avoid a miscarriage of justice” or “to protect the integrity of the judicial process.”” (at 2-3)
“This is not to say, of course, that the indigent defendant has a constitutional right to choose a psychiatrist of his personal liking or to receive funds to hire his own.” (at 6)
“In other words, the defendant does not have a constitutional right to search for a psychiatrist of his personal liking or to receive funds to hire his own but is entitled to access to a competent psychiatrist and the examination afforded to Ward satisfied that right.” (at 14)
Factual background
In 1989, Rebecca Doss was found strangled in the men's restroom of a Little Rock convenience store after Sergeant Michael Middleton encountered Ward near the store's restrooms. Ward was convicted of capital murder and ultimately received a third death sentence at a 1997 resentencing. Before that sentencing, Ward sought funding for an independent mental-health expert, but he refused to participate in a state-hospital evaluation; a psychologist nevertheless reported no evidence of psychosis or an Axis I disorder. Years later, a forensic psychiatrist diagnosed Ward with paranoid schizophrenia based on a 2008 examination and opined that Ward had been incompetent during the 1997 penalty phase.
Procedural history
Ward was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death. The Arkansas Supreme Court affirmed his conviction in Ward I but reversed and remanded for resentencing; it reversed and remanded the second death sentence because the sentencing transcript was incomplete; and it affirmed the third death sentence in Ward III. The court later affirmed denial of Ward's Rule 37.5 petition in Ward IV. Ward then sought recall of the mandate from the 1997 sentencing appeal, which the court denied.