Jones v. Stinson
| Decision Date | 01 August 1999 |
| Docket Number | Docket No. 00-2245 |
| Citation | 229 F.3d 112 |
| Parties | (2nd Cir. 2000) CHARLES JONES, Petitioner-Appellee, v. JAMES STINSON, Superintendent Great Meadow Correctional Facility, Respondent-Appellant, |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit |
THOMAS S. BERKMAN, Assistant District Attorney, Queens County, (Richard A. Brown, District Attorney, Queens County, Gary Fidel, Assistant District Attorney, of counsel), Kew Gardens, New York, for Respondent-Appellant.
GEORGIA J. HINDE, New York, New York, for Petitioner-Appellee.
Before: CALABRESI, CABRANES, and POOLER, Circuit Judges.
INTRODUCTION
Charles Jones was a crack addict who sometimes engaged in the dangerous practice of selling "beat"1 to feed his addiction. On March 21, 1994, he was arrested for selling three vials which, combined, contained one grain of cocaine and was charged with the knowing and unlawful sale of a controlled substance in violation of New York Penal Law § 220.39. At trial, Jones testified he intended to sell beat, not cocaine, and any trace amounts of cocaine were residue from the vials' original contents, which he had smoked. After nearly seven hours of deliberation, the jury rejected Jones' testimony and returned a guilty verdict. Jones had previously been arrested as many as four times by the same undercover team and then released when laboratory tests revealed he had not sold a controlled substance. That evidence was not before the jury, however, because the official arrest records were not obtained by the defense attorney, and because the trial court refused to allow Jones to testify about those previous arrests.
On direct review, an appellate division panel affirmed the conviction by a bare majority, and the Court of Appeals denied leave to appeal. Jones then moved in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York (Trager, J.) for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1). The district court granted Jones' habeas petition and ordered him released on bail pending retrial2 , holding the appellate division unreasonably applied clearly established federal law in refusing to overturn Jones' conviction on the ground that evidentiary rulings at trial prevented him from presenting a defense. See Jones v. Stinson, 94 F. Supp.2d 370, 392-93 (E.D.N.Y. 2000).
On appeal, we must decide whether the district court exceeded the narrow confines of habeas review allowed by 28 U.S.C. § 2254, as recently interpreted by the Supreme Court in Terry Williams v. Taylor, 120 S. Ct. 1495 (2000).3 We agree with the district court that Jones might have created a reasonable doubt which did not otherwise exist if he were allowed to testify that he had been arrested multiple times in the past for allegedly selling drugs but released each time after lab tests revealed his innocence. Nonetheless, we hold that under section 2254 and Williams, it was not objectively unreasonable for the appellate division to conclude that the testimony would not create new grounds for reasonable doubt. The appellate division could have decided that the defendant's additional testimony would, at best, only have bolstered the credibility of his statement that he did not intend to sell drugs in this case.4 Therefore, for reasons discussed more fully below, we find that the appellate division did not interpret or apply Supreme Court precedent in an objectively unreasonable fashion when it concluded that the trial court's evidentiary rulings did not infringe Jones' constitutional right to present a defense. We reverse the judgment of the district court.
We presume familiarity with the district court's thorough decision. See Jones, 94 F. Supp.2d 370.
Charles Jones was apprehended in a "buy-and-bust" on March 21, 1994. He sold three vials to an undercover police officer who was pretending to be a drug customer and Jones received three marked five dollar bills. Back-up police officers arrived in a van and arrested Jones, recovering the marked bills and three additional vials. Jones never disputed that he sold an undercover police officer three red-capped vials, which contained a combined total of one grain of cocaine, in exchange for fifteen dollars.5 Three orange-capped vials found on Jones' person at the time of his arrest contained no illicit substance.
Jones appeared before the Supreme Court of the State of New York, Queens County, (Spires, J.) on January 10, 1995. At that hearing, Jones' attorney requested records of prior dismissed drug arrests:
[M]y client informs me that he was arrested by this same . . . drug team three times over the last four years. And in each of these cases the . . . cases were dismissed because of no controlled substance.
I would ask at this time that the District Attorney turn over any copies of any files they have related to those arrests.
The district attorney stated that any such arrests were not on the rap sheet and would not be subject to disclosure. Jones' attorney responded that the cases might be in a closed file. The court suggested, "maybe you can provide . . . more specificity," to inform the district attorney's search for the records. While the court did not rule at that time whether the prosecution would be obligated to turn over the material to the defense, the district attorney said that "[i]f we are able to locate those files I would be happy to turn it over to the court for an in-camera inspection." No records were ever produced. The records did not surface until Judge Trager requested them in order to resolve the habeas petition. See Jones, 94 F. Supp.2d at 375 () 6
Defendant's trial began on January 12, 1995. At trial, the crucial issue was whether Jones possessed the requisite criminal intent to sell cocaine, because the defense did not dispute that Jones sold the vials and that the vials contained cocaine. The defense elicited from two undercover officers on cross-examination that "[b]eat is when somebody tries to pass off a substance that is not controlled substance to you, not a drug . . . as if it were drugs." Jones, 94 F. Supp.2d at 375. The court sustained prosecution objections, however, when the defense attorney asked how much cocaine one would expect to find in a five-dollar vial. The police chemist, Ali Hassan, testified that the total weight of the substance recovered from the three vials Jones sold to the undercover officer was one grain, or roughly the weight of one-fifth of an aspirin tablet. Hassan further testified that the tests he administered did not reveal what percentage of the substance found was cocaine and that the cocaine could have been mixed with another substance.
Jones took the stand in his own defense on January 18, 1995. He testified that on the day of the arrest, he smoked six vials of crack cocaine, dumping them one at a time into a glass stem. He then refilled the empty vials with baking soda, planning to sell them for more money to buy crack. Jones contended that any trace amount of cocaine remaining in the vials was left by accident, as he did not wash the vials before reusing them. Although the court sustained several prosecution objections, Jones was allowed to testify he had sold beat in the past.] Jones was not allowed to testify, however, about prior arrests and their subsequent dismissals:
Q. Have you ever been arrested before with respect to items that were baking soda, turned out to be baking soda?
[District Attorney]: Objection, Judge.
The Court: Sustained.
[Defense Attorney]: Just one second.
(Whereupon, a brief pause.)
[Defense Attorney]: I have nothing further.7
The defense attorney did not inquire as to the nature of the prosecutor's objection or the basis for the court's ruling, nor did he make an offer of proof about what the evidence would show.
After almost seven hours of deliberation, and a request to have instructions and testimony read again, the jury convicted Jones on January 19, 1995, and he was sentenced to an indeterminate term of six to twelve years imprisonment.
The Second Department affirmed Jones' conviction by a vote of 3 to 2. See People v. Jones, 658 N.Y.S.2d 366 (2d Dep't 1997). The court dismissed defendant's objection that the evidence was not sufficient to sustain a conviction, finding that he "failed to preserve" the issue and also rejecting it on the merits. Id. at 367-368. With regard to the contention that defendant "was denied the opportunity to establish his lack of intent to sell cocaine," the court observed that "[a]t no time during the trial did defense counsel articulate that the trial court's rulings improperly interfered with the ability to present a defense." Id. at 368 ().
On the merits of Jones' argument that he was prevented from presenting a defense, the court noted that "the defendant was permitted to establish, through the testimony of the undercover officer, that 'beat' was an expression for an innocuous substance which someone sells as if it were a controlled substance." Jones, 658 N.Y.S.2d at 368. The court further observed...
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