Nappi v. Yelich

• Decision Date: 15 July 2015
• Docket Number: No. 14–2201.,14–2201.
• Parties: Donato NAPPI, Petitioner–Appellant, v. Bruce YELICH, Superintendent, Bare Hill Correctional Facility, Respondent–Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

793 F.3d 246

Donato NAPPI, Petitioner–Appellant

v.Bruce YELICH, Superintendent, Bare Hill Correctional Facility, Respondent–Appellee.^*

No. 14–2201.

United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.

July 15, 2015.

Christopher J. Pelli, Utica, New York, for Appellant.

Lisa Ellen Fleischmann, Assistant Attorney General (with Barbara D. Underwood, Solicitor General, and Nikki Kowalsi, Deputy Solicitor General for Criminal Matters, on the brief) for Eric T. Schneiderman, Attorney General of the State of New York, New York, New York, for Appellee.

Before: JACOBS, CALABRESI, and LYNCH, Circuit Judges.

Opinion

DENNIS JACOBS, Circuit Judge:

Donato Nappi was convicted, after a jury trial in New York's Herkimer County Court, of Criminal Possession of a Weapon in the Third Degree. At the time of his arrest, Nappi was on parole after having served a long sentence for a prior, unrelated crime. His wife, Janice Nappi, reported Nappi's gun possession to his parole officer and was the key witness against him at trial.

Nappi was tried twice for the crime at issue on this appeal. At his first trial, which ended in a hung jury, Nappi cross-examined his wife about her motive for reporting him and testifying against him: he suggested that she wanted to continue a relationship with another man, whom she had recently—and secretly—bailed out of jail. At the second trial, which ended in conviction, the court sustained the state's relevance objection to this line of inquiry. The Appellate Division concluded that the trial court properly precluded the inquiry.

Nappi raised a host of challenges to his conviction in a habeas petition filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York (Singleton, Jr., J. ). Among them was the argument that his rights to confrontation and a fair trial were violated because the state trial court prevented him from probing his wife's motive to implicate him in the gun possession charge: her relationship with another man. The district court denied relief, concluding that the high threshold for relief under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 was not satisfied. The court issued a certificate of appealability only as to Nappi's Confrontation Clause challenge.

We conclude that the limitation imposed on Nappi's ability to cross-examine the key witness against him at trial was contrary to clearly established Supreme Court Confrontation Clause jurisprudence. We further conclude that this Confrontation Clause violation was not harmless.

BACKGROUND

At the time of his arrest, Nappi and his wife had been married for 36 years, of which time he spent 26 years in prison after his conviction for an unrelated crime. (Trial Tr., New York v. Nappi, 09–037, at 254 (Feb. 23, 2010) (“Trial Tr.”).) Upon his release, Nappi returned to live with his wife; but since they “really weren't that close” anymore, they slept in separate bedrooms, and hers was often kept deadbolted. (A. 114; Trial Tr. at 300–01, 304–04.)

Before Nappi was released, Janice was informed by Nappi's parole officer that no firearms could be kept in the home as a condition of his parole. (A.114.) Nevertheless, Janice testified that she helped Nappi retrieve a gun from a family home and bring it back to their residence. (Trial Tr. at 271–72.) She maintained that she agreed to allow the gun into the home on condition that she would store the gun without telling Nappi where she had put it, and he would separately keep the ammunition. (Id. at 230, 274–76.)

Several months after Nappi's release, parole officer Jeffrey Stewart visited the Nappis' home for an unannounced but routine visit, which did not cause Stewart to raise any questions about Nappi's compliance with the conditions of his release. (Id. at 278–79.) The following day, Janice called Stewart and reported that Nappi had a weapon in the house. (Id. at 279–81.) In a conversation between Stewart and Janice prior to the search for the weapon and Nappi's ensuing arrest, Janice confirmed to Stewart that the weapon was still there. (Id. at 205.) Stewart, according to trial testimony, “decided it would be best for [Janice] to move that weapon,” which she had previously stored in her bedroom, and “told her to move it to the bed area or under the bed” in another unused bedroom. (Id. at 205–06, 275–76.) This decision was made purportedly for officer safety, though Janice informed Stewart that Nappi did not know where the gun was being kept because the Nappis had agreed that she would hide it from him. (Id. at 230, 277.) A search of the Nappis' home revealed a gun, located in the spare bedroom and wrapped in a “dingy” old towel or “rag.” (Id. at 183, 215–16, 350, 427.)

Nappi was tried in state court twice on the gun possession charge; the first trial ended with a hung jury. During the first trial, Nappi's defense was that Janice had framed him because she wanted him back in prison so that she could conduct a romantic relationship with a man named Del Dyman. As a basis for this defense theory, counsel cross-examined Janice about the fact that, shortly after her husband's arrest, she had secured Dyman's release on $50,000 bail using her house as collateral. The prosecution argued that Janice had no reason to falsely implicate Nappi, as she could have revoked her permission for him to live with her at any time, and had remained married to Nappi during his lengthy incarceration.

Before the second trial, the government moved to exclude any mention of the fact that Janice arranged for a bail bond to be posted for Dyman. The trial court declined to rule in limine on this issue but, at trial, sustained the government's objections to defense counsel's attempt to cross-examine Janice about her relationship with Dyman, including her posting of bond for him. Defense counsel requested an opportunity to make an offer of proof, emphasizing to the court that “the entire defense was based on the fact that we believed that the gun was planted by Ms. Nappi,” and that because he had been precluded from substantiating this theory, Nappi had “been denied his constitutional right to present a defense” and the court should “either dismiss the charges or declare a mistrial.” (Id. at 450.)

Although the trial judge indicated that he was “not changing [his] mind,” (id. at 311), defense counsel made the following offer of proof, which he represented was supported by “conversations that [he] had with [his] client,” the “research [he had] ... done in this case,” and “circumstantial evidence”:

• He would cross-examine Janice about whether her relationship with Dyman motivated her to plant the gun that formed the basis for Nappi's prosecution;

• He would call Dyman, who “would be able ... to personally answer the question as to whether or not he had a romantic relationship [at] any time” during Nappi's incarceration;

• He expected that if Janice testified that she did not have a romantic relationship with Dyman, that Dyman's testimony would “contradict her”;

• He would introduce evidence that Janice mortgaged her “only house” to raise Dyman's $50,000 bail; and• Janice sought information from an attorney “about how to go about bailing Del Dyman out, but ... she wanted it to remain completely secret.”²

(Id. at 458–59.) Counsel explained that he would have used these suggestive pieces of information to support Nappi's only defense at trial: Janice planted the gun to put her husband back in prison, which she was motivated to do because of her relationship with Dyman.

The state took the position that “[t]here should be no reference to any other male friends or boyfriends that she may or may not have had,” because the defense evidence was “[c]learly collateral ... and immaterial to why we're here.” (Id. at 451) As the state blandly explained, Janice had “already testified [to] what her motive was for coming forward to the police here. She testified her motive was that she was afraid for her life, and there's no other motive of record or in existence.” (Id. ) The trial court agreed. (Id. at 461.)

Nappi was convicted and the Appellate Division affirmed. In rejecting defendant's Confrontation Clause challenge, the Appellate Division concluded that the trial court acted within its discretion to limit cross-examination on collateral matters. People v. Nappi, 83 A.D.3d 1592, 922 N.Y.S.2d 669, 671–72 (4th Dep't 2011). In considering Nappi's petition for a writ of habeas corpus, the district court regarded the exclusion of evidence relating to Janice's relationship with Dyman as a “close[ ] issue,” and recognized that this Court has “cautioned that the preclusion of motive evidence may present a strong argument that a constitutional violation has occurred.” Nappi v. Yellach, No. 12–cv–01193–JKS, 2014 WL 2434805, at *14 (N.D.N.Y. May 30, 2014) (internal quotation marks omitted). The district court nevertheless concluded that the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (“AEDPA”) “preclude[d] ... granting habeas relief on this claim.” Id. at *15.

DISCUSSION

Under AEDPA's deferential standard for evaluating state court decisions, Nappi's application for a writ of habeas corpus may only be granted if the state court's ruling denying his opportunity to cross-examine his wife about her relationship with Dyman “resulted in a decision that was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1). We consider here whether the state court's ruling was contrary to clearly established Confrontation Clause jurisprudence.

“The phrase ‘clearly established federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States' refers to the holdings ... of the Supreme Court's decisions as of the time of the relevant state-court decision. A state court decision is contrary to such clearly established federal law if it applies a rule that contradicts the governing law set forth in the Supreme Court's cases.”Lewis v. Conn. Comm'r of...