Youngstown Daily Legal News

New trial ordered for man accused of killing his mother on Christmas Eve

ANNIE YAMSON
Special to the Legal News
Published: October 6, 2016

A divided 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently ordered a new trial for a man convicted of the Christmas Eve murder of his mother.

Circuit Judge Helene White, writing on behalf of the federal appeals court's majority, held that Joseph Reddy was provided with ineffective assistance of counsel when his attorney failed to present evidence of his client's post-traumatic stress disorder at trial.

The judgment reversed the ruling of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio denying Reddy habeas corpus relief, and granted him a new trial.

A background of the case states that Reddy was removed from the care of his mother, Gloria Reddy, when he was 14 years old after she had physically assaulted him.

Court documents state that Reddy lived in a group home until he turned 18 and then moved in with a girlfriend, Michelle Dahlberg, with whom he lived until he was 21 and their relationship ended.

At that point, Reddy moved back in with his mother and his brother, Andrew, who was 17 years old at the time.

Andrew moved out of the home in 2007 in the face of increasing domestic abuse. A neighbor took him in after he showed up to a birthday party bruised and bloody.

On Christmas Eve 2007, at approximately 4 a.m., Gloria entered Reddy's bedroom and informed him that he had to leave the home, according to a statement that Reddy gave to police.

After the argument escalated, Gloria left the room and returned with a dagger, threatening to kill Reddy.

Instead, Reddy overpowered his mother, punching her several times, tackling her to the ground and choking her until she ceased moving.

Case summary states that Reddy wrapped his mother's body in a blanket and placed it in a basement storage locker. He then took her ATM card and withdrew cash from a local machine.

The search for Gloria began on New Year's Eve, when Andrew informed his uncle that he could not find his mother. Her body was found in the basement on Jan. 2, 2008.

Reddy was apprehended after he showed up to a friend's house on Jan. 8 and informed him that he had killed his mother, showed him the dagger and said he was on his way to Dahlberg's residence to give her and her boyfriend a "Christmas present."

Believing that Dahlberg was in danger, the friend called the police. Reddy was found and arrested in Dahlberg's basement.

Reddy was subsequently charged with aggravated murder.

During his trial, the state presented evidence of prior calculation and design while the defense tried to get the offense level lowered to voluntary manslaughter by showing that Reddy was provoked by his mother into a sudden fit of passion or rage.

The trial court, however, would not allow aggravated murder and voluntary manslaughter to be argued at the same time because of the required mens rea, or state of mind.

The defense presented plenty of evidence of the severe abuse that Reddy suffered at the hands of his mother but failed to introduce a report from Dr. John Fabian, which showed that Reddy suffered from PTSD at the time of the murder.

The report was introduced to the judicial panel that tried Reddy, but only after the guilty verdict was passed down. Reddy was sentenced to 20 years to life in prison.

The Ohio Court of Appeals later ruled that there was insufficient evidence to prove prior calculation and design and it modified Reddy's conviction to find him guilty of murder instead of ordering a new trial.

At his resentencing, Reddy argued that he should receive a new trial because evidence of his mental illness was not presented at his original proceedings and because at his original trial, he was precluded from arguing voluntary manslaughter when there was an aggravated murder charge on the table.

Since he had been acquitted of the mens rea of prior calculation and design, Reddy claimed that he should be allowed to argue an even lesser offense but the trial court explained that the court of appeals' order was limited to a resentencing on a murder charge and it imposed a prison term of 15 years to life.

In January 2010, Reddy filed his habeas corpus petition with the district court, the denial of which led to his most recent appeal.

Upon consideration of his case, the circuit court's three-judge appellate panel held that the Sixth Amendment guarantees the right to effective assistance of counsel.

In her opinion for the majority, White noted that Reddy's attorney had access to the Fabian report before the trial.

"Despite obtaining this report, (counsel) offered no evidence of PTSD - or any psychiatric evidence - at trial," White wrote. "Evidence of PTSD would have been vital to Reddy's defense."

The majority held that the attorney's decision to withhold the evidence of a psychiatric disorder was not sound trial strategy.

A lifetime of abuse by his mother would have given Reddy motive: the appearance that he had been planning to kill Gloria while living in her abusive home.

Evidence of PTSD, however, would have shown that Reddy was provoked by his mother into a fit of rage.

"Ohio law makes clear that PTSD evidence is admissible to support that a defendant had the mental state necessary to reduce murder to voluntary manslaughter," White wrote.

Under the circumstances, the court of appeals concluded that there was a reasonable probability that if Reddy's attorney would have presented the Fabian report, the trial court would have reconsidered the prior-calculation-and-design element of the government's aggravated murder case.

"The evidence was insufficient to establish prior calculation and design, as the Ohio Court of Appeals explained, and the trial court's comments on Dr. Fabian's report during resentencing support that there is a reasonable probability that PTSD evidence would have tipped the scales at trial in favor of a voluntary manslaughter conviction," White wrote.

White was joined by Judge Bernice Donald to grant Reddy a new trial.

Dissenting in part, Judge Danny Boggs agreed with the majority that Reddy's counsel did not have a sound trial strategy but held that the PTSD would not have significantly altered the outcome of the proceedings.

The state now has 180 days to grant Reddy a new trial, or release him from custody.

The case is cited Reddy v. Kelly, case No. 14-4002.

[Back]