Wynne v. Renico
| Decision Date | 23 January 2009 |
| Docket Number | Case No. 01-10247-BC. |
| Citation | 595 F.Supp.2d 775 |
| Parties | Scott WYNNE, Petitioner, v. Paul RENICO, Respondent. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Michigan |
John R. Minock, Cramer and Minock, Ann Arbor, MI, for Petitioner.
Brad H. Beaver, Michigan Department of Attorney General, Lansing, MI, for Respondent.
SUPPLEMENT TO OPINION AND ORDER CONDITIONALLY GRANTING PETITION FOR WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS
In 1995, the petitioner was convicted in a Michigan state court of murdering Philip Timmerman in a dispute over a piece of land the petitioner's family owned and Mr. Timmerman leased. The petitioner filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus in this Court through counsel, arguing, among other things, that his constitutional rights were violated because the state court refused to allow him to introduce certain evidence that tended to show that Mark Peckham, the State's principal witness against the petitioner, actually committed the murder and framed the petitioner. The Court conditionally granted the petition. The Court observed that the right to present witnesses in one's defense was clearly established as a fundamental element of due process to which certain state evidentiary rules must yield. The Court then held that the state trial court violated the petitioner's right by excluding exculpatory evidence based on its application of state evidence rules, which the trial court did not apply correctly, and that the excluded evidence would have substantially influenced the jury's decision.
Shortly after the opinion granting the writ was filed, the Court was notified that the petitioner's first brief contained factual inaccuracies that may have influenced the Court's decision. The Court stayed the order granting the writ and permitted the parties to submit supplemental briefs addressing the factual inaccuracies. The Court has carefully examined the record again in light of the parties' supplemental submissions. The Court concludes that although there are discrepancies between the description of the facts in the petitioner's brief and the record (to which the respondent originally acquiesced), the Court remains convinced that evidence excluded from the petitioner's trial resulted in a denial of his constitutional rights under the Due Process Clause and the Sixth Amendment, and the state courts' conclusions otherwise constituted an unreasonable application of clearly established federal constitutional law as determined by the Supreme Court.
The facts of the case are recounted in the Court's original opinion, Wynne v. Renico, 279 F.Supp.2d 866, 868-75 (E.D.Mich.2003). These facts were taken from the record, viewed through the lens of the petitioner's brief drafted by his attorney, who continues to represent him. The respondent, represented by the state attorney general, filed a response to the petition, which took no issue with the factual representations in the opening brief. In fact, it appears that the attorney general merely copied the statement of facts from the state prosecutor's brief filed in the state appellate court, and it was not until the Court filed its opinion that the respondent read the record. Thereafter, the petitioner's attorney acknowledged the inaccuracies in his representations to the Court, which focus primarily on four areas. The respondent contends that some additional arguments by the petitioner misapprehends the State's trial theory and did not represent the record in the light most favorable to the State.
First, the initial brief stated that Mark Peckham showed an unregistered gun to his ex-girlfriend, Melissa Hill, and threatened to kill her if she told her family about the gun. In fact, Peckham threatened to kill himself, not Ms. Hill, if she told her family about the gun. However, he did threaten to kill her on another occasion. Hill testified:
Q. Okay. Did he [Peckham] ever show you a hand gun that he had?
A. Yes, he did.
Q. Did he tell you that he got it from anyone? Who did he tell you that he got it from?
A. I recall a hitchhiker, that's what I have in my mind.
Q. What did he say when he showed you the gun?
A. He had told me that he picked it up from a hitchhiker and I was going to tell his family that he had it and he told me that if I told anyone that he had it that he would kill himself.
Q. Did he ever threaten to kill you?
A. Yes.
Q. On more than one occasion?
A. Yes.
Q. Was there another thing that he told you never to tell and if you told that he would kill you?
A. Yes.
Q. What is that?
A. He—
Q. What did he do?
A. He took females' underwear.
Trial Tr. vol. IX, 297-98, Oct. 30, 1995.
Second, the initial brief stated Peckham confessed to Melissa Hill that he had burned down their trailer after they broke up. This is not true. Peckham did not admit that he burned down the trailer. Rather, it was Hill who suspected him of doing so. Hill testified as follows:
Q. Now Missy, at some point you broke up with Mark [Peckham]. Is that correct?
A. Yes, I did.
Q. Within 24 hours of breaking up with him what happened?
A. I recall it within 24 hours, that's what it seems like to me.
Q. Okay.
A. His trailer, the trailer that we stayed at, burnt down.
Q. Did he ever admit to you that he burned the trailer down?
A. No, he did not.
Trial Tr. vol. IX, 301, Oct. 30, 1995.
Third, the initial brief stated that Peckham was at the petitioner's house the day of the murder. Actually it was two days before the murder. Peckham testified at the trial:
A. ... Then on Tuesday the following week I stopped and looked at the lawn mower again, to just look at it.
Q. The lawn mower was at the Wynne residence when stopped on Tuesday?
A. Yes.
Q. Was that two days before the shooting?
A. The shooting happened on—yes, it was two days.
Q. The shooting happened on the 18th, a Thursday, just to help you.
A. It was on the 16th that I had stopped there....
Trial Tr. vol. VI, 51, 53, Oct. 24, 1995.
The respondent makes much of this discrepancy, arguing that the difference in those facts severely weakens one pillar supporting the theory that Peckham framed the petitioner. The respondent states the petitioner told the police during an interview that his .45 pistol was "definitely" in his bedroom two nights, prior to the murder. Detective O'Reilly did testify that the petitioner "stated that it [the gun] had definitely been there two nights before." Trial Tr. vol. IV, 15, Oct. 19, 1995. This would directly contradict the petitioner's claim that Peckham stole the gun from the petitioner's house on the day of the murder since Peckham was not there that day, or that he stole it on his visit two days prior since the gun was still there after Peckham's visit.
On this point, it appears that it is the respondent that is taking creative license with the record. The petitioner denied telling Detective O'Reilly that the .45 was "definitely" on his bed post two nights before the murder. Although Detective O'Reilly did, in fact, testify that the petitioner made such a statement, a transcript of the interview reveals that Detective O'Reilly was wrong. O'Reilly said several times that the petitioner saw the gun two nights before, but the petitioner never made that statement. The interview transcript reads:
App. 11 to Pet. for Writ at 82, 84-85.
Fourth, and perhaps most importantly, the initial brief represented that after Timmerman was killed, Peckham told Kathy Hinson that he had done something so wrong that if the police ever found out he would go to prison for life and that hunting men was more fun that hunting animals. However, in fact Ms. Hinson would have testified that Peckham made these statements to her six months before the murder, not after the murder, and therefore they could not have been a reference to the murder of Mr. Timmerman. Ms. Hinson was prepared to testify that she worked with Peckham in November or December 1994, six months before the murder, and that
Mark Peckham has said to her that he has done something so bad in his past that if the police ever found out about it he would go to prison for life. He also has made statements to her that if—that he plays paintball because it's more fun to hunt men than animals. He repeated the statement...
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