State v. Blank

192 So. 3d 93, 2016 WL 2994172
Supreme Court of Louisiana·Decided May 13, 2016·No. No. 2016-KP-0213·Published·Cited by 10 cases

Opinions

PER CURIAM.

■ | iDenied. In 1999, a' Terrebonne Parish 1 jury found ' relator,' Daniel Joseph Blank, guilty as charged of the first degree murder of 71-year-old Lillian Philippe. At trial, the state presented a detailed recorded statement in which Blank confessed to Ms. Philippe’s .murder' and admitted guilt in five other home-invasion homicides and two attempted homicides. Specifically as to Ms. Philippe, after discussing his entry of her home through a ventilation shaft on the roof, Blank described the confrontation that led to her killing. Blank became a prime suspect in the string of home-invasion murders as a result of his unusual gambling and spending habits and past association with three of the victims. In confessing, he demonstrated knowledge of details in each crime, confessed to stealing large amounts of cash from most victims, and appeared to have had motives in addition-to or other than robbery for some. After finding Blank guilty as charged, jurors, unani[96] mously agreed to impose a sentence of death, in light of the aggravating circumstances that he was engaged in the perpetration or attempted perpetration of an aggravated burglary and Ms. Philippe was age 65 or older. The trial court sentenced him to death by lethal injection in accord with the jury’s determination. This Court affirmed his conviction and sentence, State v. Blank, 04-0204 (La.4/11/07), 955 So.2d 90, reh’g denied (La.6/1/07), and the Supreme Court denied certiorari. Blank v. Louisiana, 552 U.S. 994, 128 S.Ct. 494, 169 L.Ed.2d 346 (2007).

In 2007, Blank filed a pro se “shell” application for post-conviction relief. Thereafter, appointed counsel enrolled and filed four lengthy supplemental applications, to which the state responded with procedural objections and an answer. On July 29, 2013, the district court sustained the state’s objections and thereby dismissed several claims on procedural grounds. Nearly two years later, the court conducted an evidentiary hearing on the remaining claims, on July 20-24, 2015, after which it denied relief with written reasons.

As an initial matter, Blank contests the district court’s procedural rulings, urging that, because he did not raise any ineffective assistance of counsel claims on appeal, each of his post-conviction ineffective assistance of counsel claims which the district court dismissed as repetitive were in fact new claims.

In State v. Lee, 14-2374, pp. 8-9 (La.9/18/15), 181 So.3d 631, 638, another post-conviction capital case, we explained that an “attempt to re-litigate a claim that has been previously disposed of, by couching it as a post-conviction ineffective assistance of counsel claim, [should be] generally unavailing.” As we found in Lee, those of Blank’s post-conviction ineffective assistance of counsel claims predicated upon issues which were in fact considered on appeal are not truly new claims under La.C.Cr.P. art. 930.4(A). Moreover, even a claim which the district court has erroneously dismissed on procedural grounds does not necessarily warrant remand. State v. Singer, 09-2167, pp. 1-2 (La.10/1/10), 45 So.3d 171, 171-72 (per curiam); see also La.S.Ct.R. X, § 1(a)(4) (supervisory writ grant based on a lower court’s erroneous interpretation or application of law is generally not warranted unless the Court finds that the error “will cause material injustice or significantly affect the public interest.”).

l3The district court correctly dismissed several of Blank’s ineffective assistance of counsel claims as repetitive because we addressed their underlying substance on appeal.2 A thorough assessment of Blank’s post-conviction claims reveals further that even those claims which the district court erroneously dismissed as repetitive do not warrant further review, as explained below.

Although Blank is correct that his claim of ineffective assistance of counsel at the penalty phase was not litigated on appeal, he fails to show grounds for remanding it: Trial counsel called several penalty phase witnesses, including Blank’s [97] family members and mental health experts who testified in detail about his organic brain damage and cognitive defects.3 Under the well-established standard for. ineffective assistance of counsel set out in Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984), adopted by this Court in State v. Washington, 491 So.2d 1337, 1339 (La.1986), Blank fañs to show he was prejudiced by the omission of evidence of his troubled background in a case in which jurors heard his detailed confession to the murders of Ms. Philippe, Mr. Rossi, Mrs. Brock, Mr. and Mrs. Acuri, and Mrs. Bourgeois, and the attempted murders of Mr. and Mrs. Millet. Blank, 04-0204, p. 7 n. 3, 955 So.2d at 101. It is unreasonable to- conclude that the sentence would have been affected by evidence 14that Blank had a difficult childhood in a case in which jurors heard him admit to savagely attacking Ms. Philippe in her home — hitting her in the head with a trophy before stabbing her. Id., 04-0204, p. 7 n. 4, 955 So.2d at 101. This claim does not warrant remand.

Blank also shows 'no basis for the Court’s intervention as to his various juror misconduct allegations. Although our review of the materials presented, which includes post-conviction counsel’s arguments particularizing the claims with supporting affidavits, shows that the district'court erroneously found the claims lacked the requisite particularity, see La.C.Cr.P. art. 926(B)(3), Blank shows no basis for remanding them. Under the jury shield law, see La.C.E. art. 606(B), courts áre prohibited from inquiring into the jury’s deliberative process, except in cases in which the petitioner shows that extraneous prejudicial information influenced the deliberations. The rule originates in the common law and serves the substantial interests of finality and confidentiality in , criminal cases. See, e.g., Tanner v. United States, 483 U.S. 107, 117, 107 S.Ct. 2739, 2745, 97 L.Ed.2d 90 (1987) (“By the beginning of' this century, if not earlier, the near-universal and firmly established common-law rule in the United States flatly prohibited the admission of juror testimony to impeach a jury verdict.”). . Because none of the alleged misconduct pertained to or derived from a prohibited external source, Blank’s claims must fail and no remand for the taking of juror testimony in the district court is warranted..

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State v. Blank, 192 So. 3d 93, 2016 WL 2994172 (La. 2016).

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