Danny Hooks

Case identification

Danny E. Hooks was convicted of the aggravated murders of Donald Danes, his wife Karen Danes, and their sixteen-year old son Rodney Danes, and he was sentenced to death.

Timeline

• March 28, 1984 — Danny E. Hooks, 39, and his accomplice Terry Coffman robbed and murdered a family during a home invasion in Lee’s Creek, Ohio.
• October 22, 1986 — The court of appeals affirmed Hooks’s convictions and death sentences.
• 1988 — The Supreme Court of Ohio affirmed Hooks’s convictions and death sentences.
• 1989 — The U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari in Hooks v. Ohio.
• October 30, 1998 — The court of appeals affirmed the trial court’s decision to deny Hooks’s petition for postconviction relief.
• 1999 — The Supreme Court of Ohio refused to accept Hooks’s appeal of the postconviction-relief denial.
• March 17, 2000 — Hooks filed an application to reopen his initial appeal pursuant to App.R. 26(B) and State v. Murnahan.
• August 23, 2000 — The court of appeals denied Hooks’s application to reopen his appeal.
• June 20, 2001 — The Supreme Court of Ohio affirmed the judgment denying reopening of Hooks’s appeal; judgment affirmed.
• September 15, 2004 — Hooks died in prison.

The offence

Danny E. Hooks and his accomplice Terry Coffman committed a robbery and murders during a home invasion on March 28, 1984, in Lee’s Creek, Ohio.

Donald Danes, 39, was beaten and his throat was cut in his van outside his home.

Karen Danes, 39, was beaten and stabbed inside the house.

Rodney Danes, 15, was tied up and stabbed.

Three guns were stolen along with approximately $300 in cash.

Donald Danes was a tools salesman, and over 1000 tools were stolen from the warehouse shed on his property.

Investigation

The case proceeded through the trial court and multiple appeals, culminating in a Supreme Court of Ohio opinion in 2001 addressing Hooks’s application to reopen his initial appeal.

Trial

Danny E. Hooks was convicted of the aggravated murders of Donald Danes, Karen Danes, and Rodney Danes.

Hooks was also convicted and sentenced to prison for three counts of aggravated robbery and one count of aggravated burglary.

The court of appeals affirmed his convictions and sentences.

Appeals

Direct appeal

State v. Hooks (Oct. 22, 1986), Montgomery App. No. CA 9275, unreported, 1986 WL 11906 — the court of appeals affirmed Hooks’s convictions and death sentences.

State v. Hooks (1988), 39 Ohio St.3d 67, 529 N.E.2d 429, certiorari denied, Hooks v. Ohio (1989), 490 U.S. 1012, 109 S.Ct. 1657, 104 L.Ed.2d 171 — the Ohio Supreme Court affirmed Hooks’s convictions and death sentences.

Postconviction relief

State v. Hooks (Oct. 30, 1998), Montgomery App. Nos. 16978 and 17007, unreported, 1998 WL 754574 — the court of appeals affirmed the trial court’s decision to deny Hooks’s petition for postconviction relief.

State v. Hooks (1999), 85 Ohio St.3d 1424, 707 N.E.2d 515 — the Supreme Court refused to accept Hooks’s appeal of that decision.

Application to reopen appeal (App.R. 26(B))

On March 17, 2000, Hooks filed an application with the court of appeals to reopen his initial appeal under App.R. 26(B) and State v. Murnahan (1992), 63 Ohio St.3d 60, 584 N.E.2d 1204, alleging ineffective assistance of his appellate counsel before the court of appeals in his first appeal.

The court of appeals found that Hooks failed to demonstrate that a genuine issue existed and denied the application to reopen.

State v. Hooks (Aug. 23, 2000), Montgomery App. No. 9275, unreported — the court of appeals denied the application.

Supreme Court of Ohio decision (ineffective assistance / reopening)

The cause was before the Ohio Supreme Court on an appeal as of right.

The Supreme Court case citation was: The State of Ohio, Appellee, v. Hooks, Appellant; [Cite as State v. Hooks (2001), 92 Ohio St.3d 83.].

Appellate procedure — Application for reopening appeal from judgment of conviction based on claim of ineffective assistance of appellate counsel — Application denied when claimant fails to demonstrate that his allegations of ineffectiveness of appellate counsel have any merit — Court of appeals’ denial of application to reopen appeal affirmed.

(No. 00-1771 — Submitted March 27, 2001 — Decided June 20, 2001.) Per Curiam.

Hooks raised three issues:

1. He sought an evidentiary hearing to perfect his claim of appellate counsel’s ineffectiveness. The court stated that a reviewing court could not add matter to the record that was not part of the trial court’s proceedings and then decide the appeal on the basis of the new matter, and that effectiveness could not be judged by adding new matter to the record and arguing counsel should have raised issues revealed by that new matter. The court concluded the request for an evidentiary hearing lacked merit.
2. He argued that appellate counsel had a conflict of interest because his trial attorneys also represented him on appeal. Hooks argued that a conflict existed because such counsel were precluded from raising their own ineffectiveness at trial. The court acknowledged appellate counsel could not realistically be expected to argue their own ineffectiveness, but applied a standard requiring an actual conflict adversely affecting performance, stating that a possible conflict was insufficient. The court concluded Hooks failed to demonstrate that his allegations of ineffectiveness of appellate counsel had any merit, and noted that new counsel on the appeal represented Hooks so no possible conflict of interest existed then.
3. He argued on the merits that his appellate counsel were constitutionally ineffective because they failed to raise eleven specific assignments of error on direct appeal. The court applied Strickland v. Washington (1984), 466 U.S. 668, 687, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 2064, 80 L.Ed.2d 674, 693 as the standard under App.R. 26(B)(5). The court concluded that Hooks failed to raise a genuine issue as to effective assistance because the alleged errors had no reasonable probability of success: they were precluded by settled law, involved decisions within the discretion of the trial judge, or otherwise lacked merit. The court also stated that the court of appeals noted Hooks failed to raise many issues at trial and thereby waived them on appeal, and that he failed to demonstrate outcome-determinative plain error. The court rejected cumulative-error prejudice, stating that such errors could not become prejudicial by sheer weight of numbers.

The court concluded that Hooks failed to raise "a genuine issue as to whether [he] was deprived of the effective assistance of counsel on appeal" as required under App.R. 26(B)(5). Accordingly, the judgment of the court of appeals was affirmed. Judgment affirmed.

Quotes and verbatim reasoning

The Supreme Court included the following quoted standard for conflicts of interest:

" ‘In order to establish a violation of the Sixth Amendment, a defendant * * * must demonstrate that an actual conflict of interest adversely affected his lawyer’s performance.’ A possible conflict is insufficient." (Citations omitted and emphasis deleted.)

The dissenting opinion also quoted and discussed the standards in App.R. 26(B)(5) and App.R. 26(B)(9):

"An application for reopening shall be granted if there is a genuine issue as to whether the applicant was deprived of the effective assistance of counsel on appeal."

"If the court finds that the performance of appellate counsel was deficient and the applicant was prejudiced by that deficiency, the court shall vacate its prior judgment and enter the appropriate judgment. If the court does not so find, the court shall issue an order confirming its prior judgment."

Dissent

Lundberg Stratton, J., dissented from the majority’s decision to affirm the judgment denying defendant’s appeal to reopen appellate proceedings.

The dissent stated that Hooks was represented at trial and on direct appeal by the same two counsel and that the brief filed in the court of appeals was only twenty-five pages long, raising three assignments of error, including a general challenge to the constitutionality of the death penalty, with very few citations of authority. The dissent stated that in a capital case, a twenty-five-page brief was, on its face, deficient, particularly when raising only three issues and none supported by adequate authority.

The dissent asserted that appellate counsel’s representation was so poor that Hooks was not fairly represented on direct appeal of his death sentences, and that if the facts did not warrant a finding of ineffective assistance of counsel, then the dissent could not imagine a set of facts that would meet the threshold. The dissent argued that Hooks should have been given the opportunity to reopen his appeal for a thorough review.

The dissent referenced the integrity of the system and stated that many briefs in capital cases averaged from 150 to 300 pages and raised 15 to 25 assignments of error.

Sentencing

Hooks was sentenced to death for the aggravated murder convictions.

Other details

Terry Coffman was sentenced to die for these murders but had a heart attack and died in prison in 1985.