Yeboah-Sefah v. Ficco
| Citation | 556 F.3d 53 |
| Decision Date | 19 February 2009 |
| Docket Number | No. 07-2585.,07-2585. |
| Parties | Daniel YEBOAH-SEFAH, a/k/a Henry K. Boateng, Petitioner, Appellant, v. Edward FICCO, Respondent, Appellee. |
| Court | United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (1st Circuit) |
Chauncey B. Wood, with whom Wood & Nathanson, LLP, was on brief for appellant.
David T. Huang, Assistant Attorney General, Criminal Division, with whom Martha Coakley, Attorney General, was on brief for appellee.
Before TORRUELLA, SELYA, Circuit Judges, and DOMÍNGUEZ,* District Judge.
Petitioner, Daniel Yeboah-Sefah, a/k/a Henry K. Boateng,1 is a state prisoner convicted in Massachusetts of charges stemming from the murder of his five-week old son and the severe beating of his former girlfriend. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. His primary defense at trial was that he was not guilty by reason of insanity.
Petitioner's present appeal challenges the district court's denial of his federal petition for habeas corpus relief. Among the issues raised on habeas, petitioner argues that (1) he did not make a "knowing, intelligent and voluntary waiver" of his constitutional right to "conflict-free counsel"; (2) he was deprived of effective assistance of counsel; and (3) he was deprived of due process by the trial court's failure to hold competency and voluntariness hearings sua sponte. After careful consideration, we affirm the denial of habeas corpus relief by the district court.
We take the facts largely as recounted by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ("SJC") decision affirming Yeboah-Sefah's conviction, "supplemented with other record facts consistent with the SJC's findings." Healy v. Spencer, 453 F.3d 21, 22 (1st Cir.2006).
Yeboah-Sefah and Alecia Moore ("Moore") met in Worcester, Massachusetts in June of 1991 and began to date. In January 1992, Yeboah-Sefah began attending the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, but soon dropped out. Yeboah-Sefah then discovered that Moore was pregnant with his child. In the fall of 1992, Yeboah-Sefah moved in with Moore and a week later their son, Jameel, was born.
As a condition for Yeboah-Sefah moving in with her, Moore asked that he either return to school or find a job. Yeboah-Sefah failed to do so and on October 24, 1992, Moore initiated a conversation with him during which she told him that he would have to move out. This discussion took place in Yeboah-Sefah's bedroom, down the hall from where Moore and the baby slept. The discussion continued into the morning of October 25th.
When Moore got up to leave the room, Yeboah-Sefah sprang up, threw her to the floor, and yelled "I'm going to kill you" as he strangled, hit and kicked her. The attack on Moore lasted about two hours, and included the use of a stick. At some point during the assault, Yeboah-Sefah announced "I'm going to get the baby." He then retrieved five-week old Jameel from his crib, threw him on the floor, and began to kick and strangle him. When Moore tried to intervene, Yeboah-Sefah kicked her in the face. Yeboah-Sefah eventually took the baby and put him back in his crib. Jameel died from his injuries.
Moore managed to crawl back to her room and lie down on the bed. Yeboah-Sefah entered and held a knife over Jameel, and then over Moore. Eventually Moore's mother, Enid Hall ("Hall"), called, and Yeboah-Sefah answered the phone. Yeboah-Sefah told Hall that Moore was out doing laundry. He then hung up and ripped the telephone cord out of the wall. As Moore had just been to her house the day before to do laundry, Hall's suspicion were aroused so she and Moore's sister drove to Moore's apartment to investigate. When no one answered the door, they contacted the police. Moore's mother and sister also yelled for Moore from outside the apartment. Upon hearing them, Yeboah-Sefah became disconsolate and went into the bathroom where he drank from a container of bleach, saying he would not go to jail. He prevented Moore from going downstairs to reach her mother and sister.
The police soon arrived. Moore was taken to a hospital while a detective read Yeboah-Sefah the Miranda warnings and questioned him about what had happened. Based on the testimony of the officer at trial, Yeboah-Sefah responded that he and Moore had gotten into a fight, and that he had beaten her with his fists and knees. When asked about what happened to the baby, he admitted to hitting Jameel's head on the bedroom wall and kicking him.
Yeboah-Sefah never denied killing Jameel or assaulting Moore. His principal defense at trial was an insanity defense; that he lacked criminal responsibility for his actions on account of mental illness. Yeboah-Sefah presented testimony that, since 1988, he had been receiving treatment for a major psychiatric disorder, diagnosed as depression with psychotic features and the possibility of schizophrenia, and that he had been prescribed and been taking various antidepressant and anti-psychotic medications. A psychiatrist, Dr. David Rosemarin, was called as a defense witness. Dr. Rosemarin testified that on the day of the crimes Yeboah-Sefah was likely in the grip of psychosis, feeling under the control of a spirit and hearing voices mocking him and telling him to kill himself. Dr. Rosemarin related that Yeboah-Sefah had told him that after assaulting Moore, but before attacking Jameel, he had responded to these voices by mixing all of his medications and taking them in one dose. While Dr. Rosemarin could come to no conclusion regarding Yeboah-Sefah's state of mind during his attack on Moore, he opined that Yeboah-Sefah had suffered a hallucination causing him to believe that Jameel was some sort of evil creature or cat who would kill him if he did not kill it first. It was Dr. Rosemarin's further opinion that Yeboah-Sefah was not criminally responsible for the killing of the child within the meaning of Massachusetts law.2
The Commonwealth called its own expert, Dr. Marc Whaley, a psychologist who acknowledged that Yeboah-Sefah suffered from mental illness and that anti-psychotic drugs had helped him function. However, Dr. Whaley opined that Yeboah-Sefah's actions on the day in question displayed a rationality that belied any claim of actual insanity and, on that basis, concluded that Yeboah-Sefah had sufficient mental capacity to be criminally responsible for his actions on that date of his crimes. Dr. Whaley further concluded that Yeboah-Sefah's mental illness impaired his capacity to "premeditate" his actions. The Commonwealth also called a medical examiner, Dr. Stanton Kessler. Dr. Kessler, who had performed the autopsy on Jameel, testified about the decedent's injuries and concluded that the cause of death was multiple blunt traumatic injuries.
The case was submitted to the jury on two theories of murder in the first degree: premeditation and "extreme atrocity or cruelty." The jury convicted Yeboah-Sefah of the murder of Jameel with "extreme atrocity or cruelty," but not murder with deliberate premeditation. For the attack on Moore, Yeboah-Sefah was convicted of armed assault with intent to murder, assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon, assault by means of a dangerous weapon and assault and battery. He was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Yeboah-Sefah appealed his conviction and subsequently filed a motion for a new trial, premised, among other things, on the ineffective assistance of his trial counsel, Mr. John LaChance ("LaChance"). The appeal was stayed pending the outcome of the motion. The motion judge, who was not the trial judge, conducted an evidentiary hearing at which Yeboah-Sefah's new counsel called three new expert witnesses, including two other psychologists and a medical examiner. Yeboah-Sefah claimed that these witnesses, if they had been called to testify at trial, would have presented a stronger case for insanity, and that trial counsel's failure to call them was manifestly unreasonable, constituting ineffective assistance. Yeboah-Sefah's trial counsel also testified and explained his trial tactics and strategy. The motion for a new trial was denied. See Commonwealth v. Boateng, No. 92-0656, 2000 WL 1481424 (Mass.Super.Ct. Sept. 19, 2000).
Yeboah-Sefah timely appealed the denial of his new trial motion, which the SJC consolidated with the direct appeal of his convictions. On January 21, 2003, the SJC issued a decision affirming both the murder conviction and the denial of the new trial motion. Commonwealth v. Boateng, 438 Mass. 498, 781 N.E.2d 1207 (2003).3
On January 20, 2004, petitioner filed the instant habeas corpus petition with the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts. The petition was followed by a motion, which was granted, to stay federal proceedings until petitioner had exhausted state avenues of relief. Petitioner then filed a second motion for new trial in the Massachusetts Superior Court. On March 25, 2005, an addendum to the motion was filed, along with motions for an evidentiary hearing and funds to hire a psychiatric expert. Following a non-evidentiary hearing before a new judge, the second new trial motion was also denied. Commonwealth v. Boateng, No. WO Cr.1992-00656 (Mass.Super.Ct. Dec. 16, 2005). Petitioner then appealed this denial to the SJC, where on May 5, 2006, pursuant to Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 278, § 33E, a single justice issued a memorandum and order denying the petition for appellate review on the ground that it did not raise a "new or substantial" issue for the Court. Commonwealth v. Boateng, No. SJ-2006-0021 (SJC Memorandum, Cowin, J., May 5, 2006).
Yeboah-Sefah thereupon returned to the federal court where the district court denied his habeas claims on September 13, 2007. Yeboah-Sefah v. Ficco, No. 04-10125-RWZ, 2007 WL 2713392 (D.Mass. Sept.13, 2007). Petitioner has timely appealed this denial and the district court has granted a certificate of appealability as to all issues.
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