Johnson v. Luoma
| Decision Date | 12 October 2005 |
| Docket Number | No. 04-1518.,04-1518. |
| Citation | 425 F.3d 318 |
| Parties | Benny JOHNSON, Jr., Petitioner-Appellant, v. Tim LUOMA, Warden, Respondent-Appellee. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit |
ARGUED: Christopher J. Pagan, Repper, Powers & Pagan, Middletown, Ohio, for Appellant. ON BRIEF: Christopher J. Pagan, Repper, Powers & Pagan, Middletown, Ohio, for Appellant. William C. Campbell, Office of the Attorney General, Habeas Corpus Division, Lansing, Michigan, for Appellee.
Before: GUY, BATCHELDER, and GILMAN, Circuit Judges.
In April of 1998, Benny Johnson Jr. was tried in a Michigan state court for first-degree sexual assault, felonious assault, domestic violence, and two counts of kidnapping. The jury convicted him on the domestic violence and kidnapping counts, but acquitted him of the sexual-assault and felonious-assault charges. He was sentenced to concurrent prison terms of 10 to 30 years for each of the kidnapping convictions and 93 days for the domestic violence conviction. After the verdict, Johnson learned that a member of the jury was a complaining witness in a domestic violence case that was pending during Johnson's trial. Johnson's motion for a new trial based on juror bias and ineffective assistance of counsel was denied. His conviction was subsequently affirmed by the Michigan Court of Appeals, and the Michigan Supreme Court denied him leave to appeal.
Johnson then filed a petition in federal court for habeas corpus relief pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 2254, claiming juror bias and the ineffective assistance of counsel. The district court denied his petition, but granted a Certificate of Appealability on the two issues raised by Johnson. For the reasons set forth below, we AFFIRM the judgment of the district court.
The incident for which Johnson was tried involved the kidnapping of and assault on his former girlfriend, Keesha Groves. In September of 1997, Groves visited Johnson's mother, who had agreed to babysit Groves's three-year-old son. Johnson and his mother had just been in a big argument. His mother told Groves about this altercation and suggested that Groves "take [him] somewhere for a little while to cool off." People v. Johnson, 245 Mich.App. 243, 631 N.W.2d 1, 4 (2001).
After Groves and Johnson ran some errands and had dinner, Groves drove back to the home of Johnson's mother. Instead of leaving the car when they arrived, however, Johnson began to badger Groves about their relationship and about Groves's recent purchase of a new home. Johnson then grabbed the car keys and, when Groves left to call her brother for a ride home, Johnson threatened to kill her brother. Id.
When Groves attempted to walk away, Johnson "shoved her, blocked her way, and threatened her with a stick." Id. Groves then went into the house to make a telephone call, but left because she feared that Johnson would strike his mother. Johnson caught up with her when she tried to run away. After Johnson threatened to kill Groves if she did not return to the car, she and her son got in. Johnson first drove to a gas station and then to a party store to buy some beer. With Groves still in the car, Johnson drank the beer in his mother's driveway. He offered to return Groves's car keys if she had sex with him. Although she did so, Johnson still did not return the keys. Id.
Johnson then drove Groves and her son to Groves's new house, where the three slept on the floor. In order to prevent Groves from escaping, Johnson physically restrained Groves's son. Groves drove Johnson to work the following morning at Johnson's insistence. A police officer pulled the vehicle over for a traffic violation, but Groves did not alert the officer to her situation. When they arrived at Johnson's place of employment, Johnson requested the day off and got back into the car. Id.
The two of them continued to drive around, with Johnson thwarting Groves's attempt to get help from a truck driver by holding Groves's son hostage and then attempting to choke her. Id. at 4-5. Finally, Groves talked Johnson into taking her back to his mother's house. Although Johnson told Groves to lie to the police about what had happened, Groves promptly went to the police station and reported the incident. Id.
Johnson was charged with one count of first-degree criminal sexual conduct in violation of Mich. Stat. Ann. § 28.788(2)(1)(f), one count of felonious assault in violation of Mich. Stat. Ann. § 28.277, two counts of kidnapping in violation of Mich. Stat. Ann. § 28.581, and one count of domestic violence in violation of Mich. Stat. Ann. § 28.276(2). Johnson, 631 N.W.2d at 5.
During the questioning of potential jurors, which was conducted in April of 1998, the trial judge asked them: "Are there any among you who have been previously a victim of a crime?" Id. at 6. Juror 457 said that she "ha[d] been assaulted," but did not elaborate. Id. When the district court then asked whether that experience "would . . . interfere with your ability to listen to the facts of this case and decide this case from the evidence here," the juror answered "[n]o, I can keep it separate." Id.
Johnson's counsel later asked whether any of the potential jurors had been threatened with a weapon. Id. Juror 457 revealed that "she had been hit in the head with a gun as a teenager but could disregard the experience." Id. But she failed to disclose a domestic violence charge that she had filed in a Michigan state court claiming that she was assaulted with a gun in November of 1997, approximately five months before the voir dire. She was then 38 years old according to an application for a personal-protection order that she had filed approximately one year prior to the voir dire.
Juror 457 did not respond to several more general questions put to the panel of potential jurors. These questions included the trial court's inquiry as to whether there was any reason that the jurors should not serve in the case, the prosecutor's question as to whether any of the jurors would have difficulty sitting on a jury in a felonious-assault and domestic violence case, and the defense counsel's questions about whether the potential jurors had anything "weighing on their minds" that would prevent the jurors' full attention or whether they would want themselves as a juror if they were the one on trial. Id.
Although the jury acquitted Johnson on the criminal-sexual-conduct and felonious-assault charges, Johnson was convicted on both counts of kidnapping and on one count of domestic violence. Id. at 5. Johnson subsequently learned that, at the time of his trial, Juror 457 was the complaining witness in a domestic violence case that was currently being prosecuted by the same prosecutor's office. Id. at 6. The state trial court denied Johnson's motion for a new trial, noting that although Juror 457 had disclosed that she had been a victim of an assault in the past, she had said that she would be able to judge the case fairly. Id. at 6-7.
On appeal, the judgment was affirmed by the Michigan Court of Appeals, which concluded that Juror 457 had not concealed information during voir dire. Id. at 7. Likewise, the Court of Appeals rejected Johnson's ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim, stating that there was no reasonable probability that the outcome of the trial would have been any different even if Johnson's attorney had inquired further about Juror 457's domestic violence experiences. Id. at 11. The Michigan Supreme Court, with two justices dissenting, denied Johnson leave to appeal. People v. Johnson, 467 Mich. 925, 654 N.W.2d 321 (2002).
Johnson then brought a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. With the court's permission, Johnson introduced new evidence showing that Juror 457 had been the complaining witness in four other domestic violence cases in the two-and-a-half years before the voir dire was conducted. Juror 457's assailant, who was the same in all five cases, was charged with domestic violence against Juror 457 in January of 1996, domestic violence in March of 1997, felonious assault in November of 1997, domestic violence in December of 1997, and both felonious assault and domestic violence in January of 1998. He was convicted in every case except the first.
Although the district court admitted evidence of the four additional charges, its opinion did not discuss any evidence beyond what Johnson had submitted in his motion for a new trial before the state trial court. The district court reasoned that Juror 457 had not concealed her experiences because she "was never specifically asked whether she had been the victim of a domestic assault," and concluded that Johnson had failed to show actual bias. Juror 457's failure to disclose her experience of being threatened with a gun in November of 1997 was not explicitly addressed in the district court's opinion. In ruling on Johnson's ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim, the district court concluded that the failure of his counsel to further inquire about Juror 457's experiences did not constitute ineffective assistance. The district court therefore denied Johnson's petition for a writ of habeas corpus. It did, however, grant a Certificate of Appealability on the issues of juror bias and ineffective assistance of counsel. Johnson's timely appeal followed.
Under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), a federal court
may not grant a writ of habeas to a petitioner in state custody with respect to any claim adjudicated on the merits in state court unless (1) the state court's decision "was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court" . . . or...
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