Executed January 27, 2004 by Lethal Injection in Georgia
8th murderer executed in U.S. in 2004
893rd murderer executed in U.S. since 1976
1st murderer executed in Georgia in 2004
35th murderer executed in Georgia since 1976
(Race/Sex/Age at Murder-Execution) |
Birth |
(Race/Sex/Age at Murder) |
Murder |
Murder |
to Murderer |
Sentence |
||||
|
Willie James Hall B / M / 32 - 47 |
Thelma Carlisha Hall B / F / 23 |
In full, the transcript of the 9-1-1 call reads:
No ... Stop, stop, stop Bo ... stop it;
Stop it, stop it;
Bo stop it, stop it the police are on the way;
Please, Bo, quit it;
Bo, stop;
Bo, stop it please;
Bo, stop it;
Bo, stop, stop it;
Stop it ...;
Please Bo, please stop;
Stop it;
Oh God;
Stop Bo;
Bo, please, please;
Bo please;
Bo, Bo stop;
Stop Bo please;
Oh God ... Oh ....
Citations:
Hall v. State, 383 S.E.2d 128 (Ga. 1989).
Hall v. Georgia, 498 U.S. 881, 111 S. Ct. 221, 112 L. Ed. 2d 177 (1990) (Cert. Denied)
Hall v. Georgia, 498 U.S. 994, 111 S. Ct. 543, 112 L. Ed. 2d 552 (1990) (Reh. Denied)
Final Meal:
A foot-long chili dog with everything, French fries, a dill pickle, strawberry ice cream and a 7Up soft drink.
Final Words:
None.
Internet Sources:
Georgia Department of Corrections (Willie James Hall)
GDC ID#: #0000507778
The state has set Jan. 27 as the execution date for a DeKalb County man who stabbed his estranged wife to death while she was on the phone with a 911 dispatcher. Willie James Hall, 48, was convicted of murdering Thelma Carlisha Hall in 1988.
Willie James Hall enlisted in the Army following graduation from high school. Upon completion of a four-year Army term, Hall returned home to Columbus, Georgia, where he pursued a bachelor's degree of science at Columbus College. While he was in college, Hall met Thelma Burns, and dated her for about two and one-half years before marrying her in November 1982. After finishing college and getting married, Hall was commissioned back into the Army, this time as a second lieutenant, and the Halls initially were stationed at Fort Dix, New Jersey. Almost from the beginning, the Halls had a tumultuous marriage. They would constantly fight and undergo extended periods of separation. Hall testified at sentencing that the separations were due to marital problems involving perceived financial difficulties, conflicting personality types, and Thelma's distance from her family.
Thelma's sister, Janice Sanks, once visited them at Fort Dix. She testified that she saw evidence of substantial marital discord. Indeed, she said that on one occasion, she saw Hall grab her sister by the hair and pull her into a room, making noises for almost an hour that indicated he was banging her head against the wall. From behind closed doors, Thelma was overheard saying, "Stop it, Bo, stop it." "Bo" is Hall's nickname. Sanks remembered that during the visit, Hall told her that he was "going to end up killing her one of these days." Hall also told her that her sister had given him a venereal disease.
In May 1985, Hall was promoted from second lieutenant to first lieutenant, and the couple relocated to St. Louis, Missouri where Hall worked at a military processing station. There, the marital problems continued. They enrolled in a nine-week family advocacy program, but Thelma left for Columbus after the first two weeks. Hall finished the nine-week program. Thelma returned to St. Louis pregnant with the couple's child, and the couple again saw a marriage counselor. At a marriage counseling class, Hall voiced his opinion that he did not need to go through counseling since he had already attended the nine-week course. Not long thereafter, Thelma complained to Hall's military supervisor at work, Major Stanford, that Hall refused to take the counseling class. She also told Major Stanford that Hall was not paying the bills and that there was not enough food in the house. Hall denied these claims. After speaking with his supervisor, Hall abruptly resigned from the Army in August 1986, while he was being considered for promotion to Captain.
On August 5, 1986, the couple's daughter Tiara was born. Shortly thereafter, Thelma returned to Columbus and Hall departed for California. After reaching California, Hall spoke with Thelma on the phone and returned to Columbus. While back in Columbus, Hall lived with his mother; Thelma and Tiara lived with Thelma's grandmother, although Hall would spend some nights at the grandmother's house. Throughout this period, the marriage continued to deteriorate. Hall again left for California several times, but always returned.
By January 1988, Hall moved to Atlanta where he began working at a Chick-Fil-A restaurant. Around April 1988, Thelma and Tiara also moved to Atlanta, where they stayed in an apartment with Thelma's sister, Antoinette Ware, Ware's boyfriend, Ben Marshall, and Thelma's brother, Everette Burns. Hall did not live with them, and at first, did not know that Thelma had moved to Atlanta. One night, he went over to Ware's house and was surprised to see Thelma when she opened the door. They talked, and he began visiting her regularly. Sometime in May, Hall moved into Ware's apartment. By July, Thelma was dissatisfied that Hall had not found them an apartment of their own. At this time, Hall had started working at the Kidney Foundation Thrift Store as a manager/trainee.
Over the weekend of July 4, Thelma went home to Columbus and dropped her daughter off at her grandmother's house. The couple argued, apparently because Hall wanted their daughter brought back to Atlanta. Thelma returned to Atlanta a few days later and stayed with her brother's girlfriend, Valerie Hudson. Ware testified that Thelma felt uncomfortable staying in Ware's apartment because Hall was still staying there, and she did not want Hall to know where she was. On Saturday evening, July 9, 1988, Thelma, Hudson, Burns, and Sebastian (a friend of Burns) came over to Ware's apartment to get some of Thelma's clothes. When Hall heard his wife's voice, he came out of his bedroom and tried to get her to step outside and talk, but she refused. After collecting her things, Thelma went out that night with Hudson, Burns, and Sebastian. As the group returned home early Sunday morning, they saw Hall lurking around Hudson's apartment. Thelma asked the group to pretend they did not see him and to continue driving. The group later returned and spent the night at Hudson's apartment. Thelma apparently slept on the couch in the living room, while Sebastian slept on the floor. Ware, Hudson, and Burns all testified that Sebastian was not having a relationship with Thelma. After being observed outside of Hudson's apartment, Hall spent the night sleeping in a "field."
On Sunday evening, July 10, Hall returned to Ware's apartment, and had a conversation with Ware and Marshall about the fact that Thelma had moved out. Vicki Gardner, Ware's next-door neighbor, was also present. During this conversation, Ware, Marshall, and Gardner all heard Hall threaten to kill his wife. According to Marshall, Ware told Hall that Thelma had moved out, and "he got kind of angry with that . . . and said 'I am gonna kill her' . . . about a dozen [times]." Ware observed that Hall "was pretty upset because [Thelma] had moved out. He said, you know, that he was tired of it," and that "he knew deep down inside he could really hurt her." Gardner noted that "he just said he was upset and that he wouldn't let her get away with that. And he just said something like he would, he could kill her." Notably, all three witnesses also heard Hall ruminate about what would happen to him if he killed his wife -- two of the witnesses, Ware and Marshall, testified that Hall said he would not get "more than ten years" in jail, and Gardner recalled Hall saying that "he would get about ten or twenty years."
The group talked to Hall for hours, trying to convince him that he could find another woman, and trying to calm him down. Hall then told them that he was going back to Columbus, and went to bed. That same night, when Ware was cooking dinner, she noticed that her kitchen knife was missing. She later testified that she "never thought nothing else about the knife" until her neighbor, Gardner, said to her after Thelma's death that she knew where the knife was. When Ware awoke Monday morning at around 6:00 a.m., Hall was not in the apartment. Marshall found a note in the apartment that said: "Annette and Ben, I am hitchhiking to Columbus, so I left early. Thank both of you for everything and as soon as they mail me my check I'll send both of you some money." The note was signed "Bo."
At about 7:40 a.m., Monday, July 11, 1988, Hudson left her apartment and took Burns and Sebastian to work. Thelma was still at the apartment, asleep on the sofa, when they left. At 7:58 a.m., a DeKalb County operator received a frantic 911 call from Thelma at Hudson's apartment. During the call, Thelma told the operator that someone was trying to break into the apartment, but that she did not know who was outside. These statements by Thelma were followed by the sound of breaking glass, and Thelma's repeated pleas, "Bo, stop it please, Bo stop it." The call ended with Thelma's final words, "Stop Bo please. Oh God . . . Oh."
Thelma's murder was partially observed by Pamela Rathbone, an apartment complex resident. Although Rathbone could not identify Hall as the murderer, she testified that she saw a "fairly slender black girl" wearing a slip, run out of an apartment chased by a man, and heard the girl saying "something to the effect" of "don't, stop." When Rathbone came closer to the apartment, she saw that the apartment door was open, the girl was "lying on the floor, and [the man] was standing over her with his fist raised." Within minutes of Thelma's phone call, the police arrived and discovered a black female, later identified as Thelma, lying next to the open door with a knife sticking out of her back. She suffered four stab wounds to the neck, three to the back, and various other stab wounds to the chest, abdomen and arms. The police specifically noticed a large slash across her neck and a large quantity of blood covering her chest, stomach, and the surrounding floor. The DeKalb County Medical Examiner, Dr. Burton, later observed that Thelma had been stabbed seventeen times in her neck, torso and extremities, and that at least "seven or eight" of those seventeen wounds were potentially fatal. One stab wound was eight inches deep and went completely through her liver and down into the back of her abdomen. She also received a series of wounds in a crisscrossing pattern on her neck. The Medical Examiner said at trial that the majority of her wounds were consistent with her being on the ground when she was stabbed. He further surmised that Thelma was aware of the injuries she sustained, and that she likely died within five minutes of the time they were inflicted. Finally, he observed that the nature and number of her wounds were indicative of "overkill," which "sometimes, oftentimes, imparts that there is an emotional involvement between the two parties."
Further testimony elicited at trial revealed that Hall's fingerprints matched those lifted at the crime scene, and that shoe prints matching Hall's tennis shoes were found at the scene. On July 14, 1988, three days after the murder, Hall called the Clinton, Mississippi police department and indicated that he was wanted for a crime. When the officers picked him up, they noticed cuts on his hand.
"Clemency Hearing Set Monday for Willie James Hall." (Associated Press January 26, 2004)
ATLANTA - The state Board of Pardons and Paroles will hold a clemency hearing for condemned inmate Willie James Hall on Monday, one day before Hall is scheduled to be put to death for murdering his estranged wife by stabbing her 17 times. Hall, 48, stabbed Thelma Carlisle Hall of Clarkston in the neck while she begged him to stop as she called DeKalb County police July 11, 1988.
In August, 2001, a federal judge overturned the death sentence, saying Halls lawyers elicited little if any mitigation testimony on their clients behalf during the sentencing phase of the case. A three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals determined 14 months later that the sentencing phase was not constitutionally flawed, and the sentence was reinstated.
Hall would be the 12th man put to death since Georgia adopted lethal injection as its method of execution.
National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty
Willie James Hall, GA - Jan. 27, 7 PM EST
The state of Georgia is scheduled to execute Willie James Hall, a black man, Feb. 27 for the 1988 murder of his wife, Thelma Hall, in DeKalb county. A district court initially found egregious ineffectiveness of counsel, but this finding was overturned by a higher court.
On July 11, 1988, Thelma Hall was found stabbed 17 times. Mr. Hall had made threatening statement in the days leading to the murder. His shoe prints and fingerprints were found at the scene.
The district court found that trial counsel provided ineffective assistance of counsel during the sentencing phase of the trial by failing to obtain expert psychological assistance, failing to present non-expert mitigation evidence, and failing to adequately prepare Hall to testify. This was largely based on a gross misallocation of time, because counsel focused almost exclusively on convincing Hall to plead guilty and conducted little, if any, sentencing investigation and preparation. At a hearing, his attorneys testified to their deficient performance before, during, and after the sentencing phase of the trial. They stated that there was no excuse for their failure to request military and counseling records, or gather and present mitigating psychological or background evidence. The court found a total lack of reasoned trial strategy and virtual lack of trial preparation. They determined that no competent counsel would have proceeded with the sentencing phase as Hall’s counsel did.
Hall’s attorneys had eight months to prepare; however they requested a psychological evaluation only four days before the trial. The psychologist, Dr. Herendeen, spent approximately two hours with Mr. Hall. Dr. Herendeen was unable to present any conclusive evidence; only that there was the possibility that Mr. Hall was psychologically compromised or "in an altered mental state" at the time of the crime, and that he may suffer from a personality disorder, paranoia, paranoid delusions, post- traumatic stress disorder or a violent attachment disorder. Yet, Dr. Herendeen was unable to speak about these diagnoses with any confidence, let alone say that any such diagnoses drove Hall to kill his wife. As a result, his testimony did not provide any medically reliable insight into the psychology of Hall.
The state court overturned the findings of the district court, claiming that there was a possibility that the jury would have sentenced Mr. Hall differently had they all the information available – but not a reasonable possibility. Thus, they reinstated Mr. Hall’s death sentence.
Ninety-five percent of men and women on death row were unable to afford an attorney at trial. America’s poor are unprotected in the criminal justice system and fall victim to incompetent attorneys. When it becomes a matter of life and death, this disparity is a disgrace to the Constitution and a gross human rights violation. Please take a moment to contact the Georgia Parole Board and urge them to commute the death sentence of Willie James Hall.
Georgians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (Brown Background)
"Departing DA pulls no punches; DeKalb's Tom Morgan set to exit Saturday," by David Simpson.
As he ends a 21-year career as a prosecutor, DeKalb County District Attorney J. Tom Morgan offers some blunt warnings: • People increasingly don't trust cops, leading to juries that won't convict. • Frustration of victims who don't see offenders held accountable could invite vigilante justice. • Many citizens regard the war on drugs as misguided and hypocritical.
"I think our whole war on drugs needs to be looked at," Morgan said as he prepares to leave office Saturday. He said people see crack cocaine users being sent to prison "and on the other hand you've got Rush Limbaugh getting thousands of [prescription pills] and he's making millions of dollars and he's out on the street." The result, he said, is that "juries will no longer hold individuals accountable in drug cases. . . . Juries are telling us that prosecution is not the answer."
Morgan has spent most of his adult life putting criminals behind bars. He is nationally recognized as an expert on child abuse. He lost big and then won big in the case against the suspects in the 2000 slaying of DeKalb Sheriff-elect Derwin Brown and became a pain for county Chief Executive Officer Vernon Jones.
Morgan has received praise from prosecutors -- who gave him a prestigious award last year -- and defense attorneys. Dwight Thomas, who represented a defendant in a DeKalb death penalty trial last year, calls Morgan "a worthy adversary and professional friend" whose office is regarded by defense lawyers as one of the best in the state. Now Morgan, a Democrat who started in the DeKalb district attorney's office in 1983, is leaving, 11 months before his third term as district attorney was to end. He will work on civil litigation and white-collar crime cases with Balch & Bingham, a Birmingham-based law firm with an office in Buckhead.
During a recent interview, Morgan's office already showed the signs of his departure. Walls were stripped bare except for a dozen or so hooks; shelves were half-empty.
There was a time, he said, when a police officer's word was like gold to a jury. Today, he said, some jurors seem to distrust all officers -- perhaps because of highly publicized police misconduct, including the conviction of former DeKalb Sheriff Sidney Dorsey for ordering the assassination of Brown, his elected successor. Morgan said the public should understand that "99.9 percent of our police officers are good people." Jurors' distrust of police leads to more acquittals, which Morgan said could one day so much undermine confidence in the criminal justice system that people pursue vigilante justice. "We're a long way from that, but I see victims and victim advocates very frustrated," he said.
Few political dustups
Morgan has largely avoided political conflicts. But as three successive grand juries last year delved into county finances in a noncriminal investigation, CEO Vernon Jones complained that Morgan was conducting a "witch hunt" to tarnish his reputation. In his State of the County address this month, Jones accused Morgan of "convening several grand juries for the sole purpose of public embarrassment" and of making "misguided and uninformed allegations." Morgan insisted citizens on the grand jury drove the investigation, and that two reports that contained criticism of Jones -- including a finding that his security detail was "a very expensive decoration" -- were written by grand jurors, not the district attorney's office. After the State of the County speech, Morgan called Jones "paranoid" and accused him of trying to mislead the public.
That spat was far from the most trying moment of Morgan's career. The low point, he said, was in March 2002, when his office failed to win convictions against two defendants in the December 2000 assassination of Brown. Morgan had agreed to give immunity to two admitted conspirators in the murder in exchange for their testimony, but a DeKalb jury did not believe them. So at that point Morgan had zero murder verdicts out of four suspects in a case that drew international attention. "District attorneys from around the country told me this could be a career-ending case," Morgan said at the time. Things had changed by 2003. Morgan won guilty verdicts against Dorsey, who was sentenced to life in prison for murder, racketeering and theft. In recognition of that victory, the International Association of Prosecutors made Morgan the first American district attorney to receive its annual Special Achievement Award.
Also last year, Gov. Sonny Perdue appointed Morgan as special prosecutor in the case against Bobby Whitworth, a former parole board member and Corrections commissioner. In December, Morgan won a jury verdict in Fulton County convicting Whitworth on a felony charge of accepting money while a state official in exchange for influencing legislation. One thing Morgan never did as district attorney was have a defendant executed. DeKalb juries have been reluctant to impose the death penalty, and Morgan has founddefendants and victims' families receptive to plea bargains for life without parole. Morgan sought a death sentence last year against cop-killer Bautista Ramirez, but a jury gave Ramirez life with the chance of parole. Tom West, one of Ramirez's lawyers, praised Morgan. His infrequent use of death penalty prosecutions "means a great deal and demonstrates his character as a prosecutor," West said.
As he leaves office, Morgan gives a flat answer to the question of whether America needs the death penalty: "No, we do not. We need life without parole and to be able to get that with the use of aggravating circumstances [such as torture] and without the cost of a death penalty case. "It's not the severity of the punishment, but the certainty of the conviction that changes behavior," he said.
Morgan's last act as district attorney may be to witness the execution, scheduled for Tuesday night, of Willie James Hall, who was convicted of murdering his estranged wife in DeKalb before Morgan took office. Perdue, a Republican, will appoint a temporary successor to Morgan. Voters in heavily Democratic DeKalb will have their say on a full-time successor in November. Morgan hasn't endorsed anyone, but had some pointed advice about the "very talented pool of lawyers" in his office. "I would hope the people will elect a district attorney who would recognize how talented these people are and would keep them on staff," he said.
Willie James Hall v. Frederick Head U.S. Court of Appeals - 11th Circuit
WILLIE JAMES HALL, Petitioner-Appellee, Cross-Appellant,
versus
FREDERICK HEAD, Warden, Respondent-Appellant, Cross-Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia (October 25, 2002)
Before DUBINA, BLACK, and MARCUS, Circuit Judges.
MARCUS, Circuit Judge:
Willie James "Bo" Hall filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in federal district court challenging both his 1989 conviction for the murder of his wife, Thelma Hall ("Ms. Hall"), and the death sentence imposed by the Superior Court of DeKalb County, Georgia. The district court granted his petition in part, finding that Hall's counsel was constitutionally ineffective at the sentencing phase of his trial, and denied his petition in part, concluding that counsel was not otherwise constitutionally ineffective and that Hall was not entitled to an evidentiary hearing or access to further psychological testing. Although we agree with the district court that the underlying conviction was devoid of any constitutional error, and that the denial of a hearing and access was proper, we are not convinced that the sentencing portion of Hall's trial was constitutionally flawed. Accordingly, we reverse the district court's order regarding the sentencing phase of the trial and remand the case with instructions to reinstate Hall's sentence of death.
I. A.
This case involves the stormy and unhappy marriage of the defendant, Willie James Hall, and, ultimately, the brutal murder of his wife, Ms. Thelma Hall. The essential facts are undisputed.
Willie James Hall enlisted in the Army following graduation from high school. Upon completion of a four-year Army term, Hall returned home to Columbus, Georgia, where he pursued a bachelor's degree of science at Columbus College. While he was in college, Hall met Thelma Burns (Ms. Hall), and dated her for about two and one-half years before marrying her in November 1982. After finishing college and getting married, Hall was commissioned back into the Army, this time as a second lieutenant, and the Halls initially were stationed at Fort Dix, New Jersey.
Almost from the beginning, the Halls had a tumultuous marriage. They would constantly fight and undergo extended periods of separation. Hall testified at sentencing that the separations were due to marital problems involving perceived financial difficulties, conflicting personality types, and Ms. Hall's distance from her family. Ms. Hall's sister, Janice Sanks, once visited them at Fort Dix. She testified that she saw evidence of substantial marital discord. Indeed, she said that on one occasion, she saw Hall grab her sister by the hair and pull her into a room, making noises for almost an hour that indicated he was banging her head against the wall. From behind closed doors, Ms. Hall was overheard saying, "Stop it, Bo, stop it." "Bo" is Hall's nickname. Sanks remembered that during the visit, Hall told her that "he was going to end up killing [Ms. Hall] one of these days." Hall also told her that her sister had given him a venereal disease.
In May 1985, Hall was promoted from second lieutenant to first lieutenant, and the couple relocated to St. Louis, Missouri where Hall worked at a military processing station. There, the marital problems continued. They enrolled in a nine-week family advocacy program, but Ms. Hall left for Columbus after the first two weeks. Hall finished the nine-week program. Ms. Hall returned to St. Louis pregnant with the couple's child, and the couple again saw a marriage counselor. At a marriage counseling class, Hall voiced his opinion that he did not need to go through counseling since he had already attended the nine-week course.
Not long thereafter, Ms. Hall complained to Hall's military supervisor at work, Major Stanford, that Hall refused to take the counseling class. She also told Major Stanford that Hall was not paying the bills and that there was not enough food in the house. Hall denied these claims. After speaking with his supervisor, Hall abruptly resigned from the Army in August 1986, while he was being considered for promotion to Captain.
On August 5, 1986, the couple's daughter Tiara was born. Shortly thereafter, Ms. Hall returned to Columbus and Hall departed for California. After reaching California, Hall spoke with Ms. Hall on the phone and returned to Columbus. While back in Columbus, Hall lived with his mother; Ms. Hall and Tiara lived with Ms. Hall's grandmother, although Hall would spend some nights at the grandmother's house. Throughout this period, the marriage continued to deteriorate. Hall again left for California several times, but always returned. By January 1988, Hall moved to Atlanta where he began working at a Chick-Fil-A restaurant.
Around April 1988, Ms. Hall and Tiara also moved to Atlanta, where they stayed in an apartment with Ms. Hall's sister, Antoinette Ware ("Ware"), Ware's boyfriend, Ben Marshall ("Marshall"), and Ms. Hall's brother, Everette Burns ("Burns"). Hall did not live with them, and at first, did not know that Ms. Hall had moved to Atlanta. One night, he went over to Ware's house and was surprised to see Ms. Hall when she opened the door. They talked, and he began visiting her regularly.
Sometime in May, Hall moved into Ware's apartment. By July, Ms. Hall was dissatisfied that Hall had not found them an apartment of their own. At this time, Hall had started working at the Kidney Foundation Thrift Store as a manager/trainee. Over the weekend of July 4, Ms. Hall went home to Columbus and dropped her daughter off at her grandmother's house. The couple argued, apparently because Hall wanted their daughter brought back to Atlanta.
Ms. Hall returned to Atlanta a few days later and stayed with her brother's girlfriend, Valerie Hudson ("Hudson"). Ware testified that Ms. Hall felt uncomfortable staying in Ware's apartment because Hall was still staying there, and she did not want Hall to know where she was.
On Saturday evening, July 9, 1988, Ms. Hall, Hudson, Burns, and Sebastian (a friend of Burns) came over to Ware's apartment to get some of Ms. Hall's clothes. When Hall heard his wife's voice, he came out of his bedroom and tried to get her to step outside and talk, but she refused.
After collecting her things, Ms. Hall went out that night with Hudson, Burns, and Sebastian. As the group returned home early Sunday morning, they saw Hall lurking around Hudson's apartment. Ms. Hall asked the group to pretend they did not see him and to continue driving. The group later returned and spent the night at Hudson's apartment. Ms. Hall apparently slept on the couch in the living room, while Sebastian slept on the floor. Ware, Hudson, and Burns all testified that Sebastian was not having a relationship with Ms. Hall.
After being observed outside of Hudson's apartment, Hall spent the night sleeping in a "field." On Sunday evening, July 10, Hall returned to Ware's apartment, and had a conversation with Ware and Marshall about the fact that Ms. Hall had moved out. Vicki Gardner, Ware's next-door neighbor, was also present. During this conversation, Ware, Marshall, and Gardner all heard Hall threaten to kill his wife. According to Marshall, Ware told Hall that Ms. Hall had moved out, and "he got kind of angry with that . . . and said >I am gonna kill her' . . . about a dozen [times]." Ware observed that Hall "was pretty upset because [Ms. Hall] had moved out. He said, you know, that he was tired of it," and that "he knew deep down inside he could really hurt her." Gardner noted that "he just said he was upset and that he wouldn't let her get away with that. And he just said something like he would, he could kill her." Notably, all three witnesses also heard Hall ruminate about what would happen to him if he killed his wife -- two of the witnesses, Ware and Marshall, testified that Hall said he would not get "more than ten years" in jail, and Gardner recalled Hall saying that "he would get about ten or twenty years." The group talked to Hall for hours, trying to convince him that he could find another woman, and trying to calm him down. Hall then told them that he was going back to Columbus, and went to bed.
That same night, when Ware was cooking dinner, she noticed that her kitchen knife was missing. She later testified that she "never thought nothing else about the knife" until her neighbor, Gardner, said to her after Ms. Hall's death that she knew where the knife was. When Ware awoke Monday morning at around 6:00 a.m., Hall was not in the apartment. Marshall found a note in the apartment that said: "Annette and Ben, I am hitchhiking to Columbus, so I left early. Thank both of you for everything and as soon as they mail me my check I'll send both of you some money." The note was signed "Bo."
At about 7:40 a.m., Monday, July 11, 1988, Hudson left her apartment and took Burns and Sebastian to work. Ms. Hall was still at the apartment, asleep on the sofa, when they left. At 7:58 a.m., a DeKalb County operator received a frantic 911 call from Ms. Hall at Hudson's apartment. During the call, Ms. Hall told the operator that someone was trying to break into the apartment, but that she did not know who was outside. These statements by Ms. Hall were followed by the sound of breaking glass, and Ms. Hall's repeated pleas, "Bo, stop it please, Bo stop it." The call ended with Ms. Hall's final words, "Stop Bo please. Oh God . . . Oh." [1]
Ms. Hall's murder was partially observed by Pamela Rathbone, an apartment complex resident. Although Rathbone could not identify Hall as the murderer, she testified that she saw a "fairly slender black girl" wearing a slip, run out of an apartment chased by a man, and heard the girl saying "something to the effect" of "don't, stop." When Rathbone came closer to the apartment, she saw that the apartment door was open, the girl was "lying on the floor, and [the man] was standing over her with his fist raised."
Within minutes of Ms. Hall's phone call, the police arrived and discovered a black female, later identified as Ms. Hall, lying next to the open door with a knife sticking out of her back. She suffered four stab wounds to the neck, three to the back, and various other stab wounds to the chest, abdomen and arms. The police specifically noticed a large slash across her neck and a large quantity of blood covering her chest, stomach, and the surrounding floor. The DeKalb County Medical Examiner, Dr. Burton, later observed that Ms. Hall had been stabbed seventeen times in her neck, torso and extremities, and that at least "seven or eight" of those seventeen wounds were potentially fatal. One stab wound was eight inches deep and went completely through her liver and down into the back of her abdomen. She also received a series of wounds in a crisscrossing pattern on her neck.
The Medical Examiner said at trial that the majority of her wounds were consistent with her being on the ground when she was stabbed. He further surmised that Ms. Hall was aware of the injuries she sustained, and that she likely died within five minutes of the time they were inflicted. Finally, he observed that the nature and number of her wounds were indicative of "overkill," which "sometimes, oftentimes, imparts that there is an emotional involvement between the two parties."
Further testimony elicited at trial revealed that Hall's fingerprints matched those lifted at the crime scene, and that shoe prints matching Hall's tennis shoes were found at the scene.
On July 14, 1988, three days after the murder, Hall called the Clinton, Mississippi police department and indicated that he was wanted for a crime. When the officers picked him up, they noticed cuts on his hand. Soon after his arrest, he was brought to Atlanta to face charges, where he met Lynn Whatley ("Whatley"), the attorney his mother had hired. Shortly thereafter, Whatley asked attorney Tony Axam ("Axam") to assist him. Axam successfully moved the trial court to appoint him as counsel, as Hall was indigent. A protracted legal battle was then set in motion.
B.
On September 12, 1988, a DeKalb County grand jury indicted Hall on charges of malice murder, burglary, and felony murder. He pled not guilty. Prior to trial, the State offered Hall a plea to the malice murder charge with a life sentence. Hall rejected the plea against his lawyers' advice, and the case proceeded to trial.
On February 2, 1989, after the jury heard the evidence, Hall was found guilty on all counts. The penalty phase of the trial occurred the next day. The jury returned a verdict finding the existence of statutory aggravating circumstances under section 17-10-30 of the Georgia Code, and recommending the imposition of the death penalty. Specifically, the jury found that the murder was "outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible, or inhuman in that it involved torture, depravity of mind, or an aggravated battery to the victim." O.C.G.A. ' 17-10-30(b)(7). The jury also found that the "offense of murder was committed while the offender was engaged in the commission of a burglary." O.C.G.A. ' 17-10-30(b)(2). The trial court sentenced Hall to death.[2]
Hall's motion for a new trial was denied, and Hall's sentence was affirmed on appeal by the Georgia Supreme Court. See Hall v. State, 383 S.E.2d 128 (Ga. 1989). On October 1, 1990, the United States Supreme Court denied a petition for writ of certiorari filed on Hall's behalf, see Hall v. Georgia, 498 U.S. 881, 111 S. Ct. 221, 112 L. Ed. 2d 177 (1990), and later denied his petition for rehearing. See Hall v. Georgia, 498 U.S. 994, 111 S. Ct. 543, 112 L. Ed. 2d 552 (1990).
On February 7, 1992, proceeding with new counsel, Hall filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus in the Superior Court of Butts County, Georgia, raising, among other things, the claim that Hall's counsel had provided ineffective assistance in violation of his Sixth Amendment right to counsel. On October 16, 1992, Hall filed a motion for access to conduct a psychological examination in preparation for a state evidentiary hearing on the habeas petition. The state habeas court granted Hall's motion for access, and a preliminary psychological evaluation was conducted by Dr. Dennis Herendeen the day before the hearing.
On October 20, 1992, the day of the hearing, Hall amended his habeas petition to include eighteen grounds contained in 127 paragraphs. Hall's counsel requested a continuance based on a lack of preparation, but the state habeas court deferred ruling on the motion. That same day, the trial court conducted an evidentiary hearing on the amended petition, and counsel presented the evidence that was available at that time. In particular, Dr. Herendeen testified as to his preliminary psychological evaluation of Hall. Additionally, both of Hall's trial counsel, Whatley and Axam, testified as to their conduct before and during Hall's trial. On November 17, 1992, the state habeas court issued a written order denying Hall's motion for a continuance. The state habeas court issued a written order denying in all respects Hall's state habeas petition on July 30, 1993. The court determined, among other things, that Hall had failed to show that his counsel had provided ineffective assistance at trial or at sentencing. In so holding, the state court acknowledged that Hall's trial counsel admitted to performing deficiently at both the guilt-innocence and sentencing phases of Hall's trial. The court nonetheless found that their conduct passed constitutional muster because it was the trial strategy of two experienced trial lawyers, and dismissed their statements as examples of counsel concluding in "hindsight" that they would have done something differently. The state court further found that habeas relief was unwarranted because, even if Hall's trial counsel unreasonably failed to obtain and present certain mitigating evidence at sentencing, Hall failed to show that his counsel's performance ultimately affected the outcome of the guilt-innocence or sentencing phases of his trial. In short, the state court concluded that Hall had not proven that his conviction or sentence was constitutionally infirm.
Hall filed a motion for reconsideration, which was denied on August 30, 1993. On March 1, 1994, the Georgia Supreme Court denied Hall's application for a certificate of probable cause, and later denied his motion for reconsideration.
Having exhausted all avenues of recourse through the state system, Hall filed his federal habeas petition in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia on April 23, 1997, (which he amended on August 15, 1997), alleging numerous constitutional infirmities underlying his conviction and death sentence. Before the district court, Hall also filed a motion for access to conduct another psychological evaluation and a motion for an evidentiary hearing, both of which were denied. On August 15, 2001, the district court granted the amended habeas petition in part and denied it in part, granting it only with respect to Hall's sentence of death based on his claim of ineffective assistance of counsel. The State then timely appealed.
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