Alston v. Phillips
| Decision Date | 31 March 2010 |
| Docket Number | No. 05-CV-593 (SLT)(MDG).,05-CV-593 (SLT)(MDG). |
| Citation | 703 F.Supp.2d 150 |
| Parties | Ronald ALSTON, Petitioner,v.William PHILLIPS, Respondent. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of New York |
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Robert J. Boyle, Robert J. Boyle, Esq., New York, NY, for Petitioner.
John M. Castellano, Kew Gardens, NY, Ellen C. Abbot, Queens, NY, for Respondent.
Petitioner Ronald Alston brings this petition for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254, challenging his July 13, 2000, conviction on two counts of robbery in the first degree and two counts of robbery in the second degree. Petitioner argues inter alia, that the trial court violated his constitutional rights by granting the prosecutor's reverse Batson motion and denying petitioner's subsequent Batson motion and that both his trial counsel and appellate counsel provided ineffective assistance of counsel. For the reasons stated below, petitioner's application for a writ of habeas corpus is denied.
This case relates to three robberies of a Rite-Aid pharmacy located at 162-19 Hillside Avenue in Jamaica, Queens (the “Rite-Aid” or “Pharmacy”), which occurred within a period of just over two months. The first of these robberies took place early in the morning of March 15, 1997. There were only three people working in the store at the time: a cashier named Latrice, a Stock clerk named Leo, and the Pharmacy's co-manager, Mona Dutt. Dutt was in an office at the rear of the Pharmacy, counting cash received by the Rite-Aid and making preparations to deposit the money in the bank. Although the door to the office was closed, Ms. Dutt was able to see out through a one-way window in the door.
At around 8:30 a.m., Ms. Dutt observed a short black man, in his thirties and wearing a black ski hat and black jacket, approaching the “Rite-Aid Express” area adjacent to the office (Dutt: 588). When Dutt came out of the office to ask if she could help him, the man initially asked her to explain how Rite-Aid's “money-gram” system worked. However, while Ms. Dutt was explaining the system, the man pulled a silver gun from a bag he had placed on the counter and ordered Dutt back into the office. There, he ordered her to fill his bag with the money she had been counting. After she complied, filling the bag with over two thousand dollars, the man left the store. According to Dutt, the whole incident lasted only five minutes.
The second robbery occurred around 6:00 or 6:30 in the morning of Friday, May 2, 1997, as Rite-Aid Assistant Manager Duewdett Chatram and two employees, Late Lawson and Jerome Scantlebury, were helping a truck driver unload the weekly deliveries from a semi-trailer in back of the Pharmacy. The driver was in the back of the truck, “sending ... stuff” to Mr. Chatram, who was stacking it onto “U-Boats,” a type of large hand truck (625). Lawson and Scantlebury were inside the Pharmacy, unloading the supplies from the U-Boats (628).
Chatram was busy stacking supplies on the U-Boat when he was accosted by two armed black men, both of whom wore stockings over their heads and carried automatic pistols. The shorter of the men, who was approximately 5'63? or 5'7? tall and 150 pounds, called Mr. Chatram by his nickname, “Ricky,” and demanded money (634-35). Before entering the store with Chatram, the men locked the driver in the back of the truck with Lawson and Scantlebury, who had returned to the truck with an empty U-Boat as the robbery was happening.
The taller of the perpetrators remained outside as Chatram led the shorter man to the office of the still-closed Pharmacy. There, the man ordered Chatram to “open up the safe” (638). In fact, there were three safes in the office: one containing approximately one thousand dollars in rolled coins; one containing the drawers (or “tills”) from the cash registers, each containing about $75.00; and one containing the previous day's cash receipts (Dutt: 578-80). The latter safe operated on “a fifteen-minute time delay” (Dutt: 580; Chatram: 641), meaning it would open fifteen minutes after the combination was entered.
Chatram told the man about the time delay, but claimed it was a half-hour, not fifteen minutes, in the hopes that the man would choose not to wait. However, the man replied, “[T]hat is okay, we have all the time in the world” (642), and remained in the office with Chatram until the safe opened. After approximately five minutes, the man rolled the stocking above his nose, revealing a mustache (642-43). The stocking remained in that position for the next three to five minutes, enabling Chatram to see the lower portion of the man's face and to observe sweat rolling down his cheeks. Thereafter, the man removed the stocking altogether, affording Chatram approximately five minutes in which to observe the man's face in the brightly lit office (644).
When the safe finally opened, the man instructed Chatram to empty clothes from a duffel bag that a fellow employee kept in the office and to place the rolled coins and the previous day's receipts in the bag. Chatram complied, placing a total of approximately four thousand dollars in the duffel bag. By that time, the taller perpetrator had joined the shorter man in the office. However, the taller man never removed the stocking and Chatram never had an opportunity to observe his face.
The men then took Chatram back to the truck, where they ordered him to climb in the back with the driver, Lawson and Scantlebury. They then latched the back door of the semitrailer, trapping the four men inside. The men remained in the back of the truck until approximately 8:00 a.m., when “the stock guy” arrived (648).
The third robbery occurred on the morning of Friday, May 16, 1997, exactly two weeks after the second robbery. Chatram was also working at the Pharmacy that morning, and arrived hours before the Pharmacy opened to unload the weekly deliveries from a semi-trailer, just as he had prior to the robbery on May 2. However, on May 16, Chatram and his co-workers took the precaution of locking the gate of the chain-link enclosure which surrounded the truck. That enclosure was topped with barbed wire, and no incidents occurred during the three hours the men spent unloading the truck.
Shortly after 8:00 a.m., Chatram opened the Pharmacy for business by unlocking the Pharmacy's front doors. He then went to retrieve the tills from one of the safes. Chatram was facing the front of the store as he prepared to open this safe, and observed a black man, approximately 5'5? to 5'6? tall, enter the Pharmacy. Although he looked familiar, Chatram did not immediately recognize him.
It took Chatram about one minute to open the safe and to remove the tills. He then stood up to find the familiar-looking man pointing a gun in his face. The man's face was uncovered, enabling Chatram to recognize him as the shorter of the two men who had robbed the store two weeks earlier.
The man told Chatram that he did not “want to hurt nobody,” but “just want[ed] the money” (654). Meanwhile, Chatram could see a taller man-standing approximately six feet tall and weighing 200 pounds-directing the Pharmacy's security guard to kneel. Chatram “took a quick glance at [the] face” of the taller man (654) but, by the time of trial, could no longer recall whether he had both a mustache and a beard or just a mustache (655-56). The men then took the $350 to $400 contained in the tills, along with some food stamps, transit tokens, and some blank Western Union money orders bearing the Rite-Aid logo. Three to five minutes after the incident began, the men walked out of the front door.
As soon as they walked outside, Chatram sent the security guard after them to see which way they were going. Chatram then called the police.
Shortly after the third robbery, a woman named Diane Dorsey called 911 to report that she had been the victim of a carjacking and kidnaping. A police officer from the 103rd Precinct, John Warner, interviewed Dorsey at her home, but became suspicious of her story when he learned that neither her car nor Rite-Aid money orders and food stamps contained therein had been stolen.
Although the Pharmacy was in the 107th Precinct, Warner was aware that the Pharmacy had been robbed that morning (428). Warner deduced that the money orders might be proceeds of the robbery, and took the money orders to the Pharmacy to be fingerprinted. Although no prints could be lifted from the money orders, Warner nonetheless decided to make a computerized check of Dorsey's criminal history and to interview her further. During that second interview, Warner told Dorsey that he knew she was on parole and falsely alleged that he had a videotape of the intersection at which the carjacking had allegedly occurred. Dorsey then “changed her story” (432). As discussed below see p. 163 post, the record does not reflect what Dorsey told Warner thereafter. However, it is clear that by the early morning of May 17, 1997, Dorsey, petitioner and a man named Glen Milton had all been arrested in connection with the May 16, 1997, robbery.
On Saturday, May 17, 1997, the police brought Chatram and other Rite-Aid employees to the 103rd Precinct to view two lineups. In the first of the lineups, Chatram identified petitioner as the shorter of the perpetrators. In the second lineup, Chatram identified Glen Milton as the taller man in the May 16, 1997, robbery. Chatram, who had never seen the face of the taller of the perpetrators of the May 2, 1997, robbery was unable to identify Milton in connection with that robbery. Petitioner was also identified in connection with the first robbery by Dutt, who told the police that petitioner “look[ed] like” the person who had robbed the Pharmacy on March 15, 1997(599).
Petitioner, Milton and Dorsey-a woman who lived with petitioner at the time of his arrest-were subsequently indicted in connection with...
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