Applicant v. Sec'y

Decision Date05 April 2016
Docket NumberCASE NO. 8:13-cv-1860-T-23TGW
PartiesSHAWN MARTIN Applicant, v. SECRETARY, Florida Department of Corrections, Respondent.
CourtU.S. District Court — Middle District of Florida
ORDER

Shawn Martin ("Martin") applies under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 for the writ of habeas corpus and challenges a probation revocation judgment from the Thirteenth Judicial Circuit for Hillsborough County, Florida. Martin's application alleges that counsel rendered ineffective assistance. (Doc. 1) In support of the response, the respondent Secretary of the Florida Department of Corrections provides as an appendix the record of Martin's state court proceedings. (Docs. 5 and 7) The respondent admits the application's timeliness. (Response at 4, Doc. 5) The respondent thoroughly analyses the claims and, notwithstanding Martin's reply (Doc. 11), the application for the writ of habeas corpus lacks merit.

BACKGROUND

On June 24, 2004, Martin pleaded guilty to four counts of lewd or lascivious battery on a child under sixteen (counts one through four), procuring a person under sixteen for prostitution (count six), possession of photographs depicting sex with a child (count seven), promotion of a sexual performance by a child (count eight), and thirteen counts of possession of child pornography (counts nine through twenty-one). (Doc. 7, Respondent's Exhibit 1 at 77-109).1 Martin was sentenced to (1) four years of imprisonment on one of the counts of lewd battery on a child under sixteen; (2) ten years of sex-offender probation on (a) his remaining three counts of lewd battery, (b) his procuring of a person under sixteen for prostitution, (c) his possession of photographs depicting sex with a child, and (d) his promotion of a sexual performance by a child; and (3) five years of sex-offender probation on his thirteen counts of possession of child pornography. Shortly after his release from prison, Martin was charged with violating the terms of his supervision. (Exhibit 1 at 120-59) After admitting to violating probation, the state court revoked Martin's probation and sentenced him to imprisonment for thirty-five years.

Martin moved to mitigate his sentence or to withdraw his admission to violating his probation, which motion was denied after a hearing. (Exhibit 1 at 161-163) Martin appealed the probation revocation judgment, which the Second District Court of Appeal per curiam affirmed without a written decision. Martin v. State, 954 So. 2d 34 (2nd DCA 2007) (table).

Martin moved for post-conviction relief under Rule 3.850, Florida Rules of Criminal Procedure, in which motion he attacked the probation revocationjudgment. (Respondent's Exhibit 6) After the motion was dismissed as facially insufficient (Respondent's Exhibit 7), Martin amended his Rule 3.850 motion to assert the claim alleged in his federal application, specifically, that his retained counsel in his probation revocation proceeding rendered ineffective assistance (1) by not informing him that the state was required to prove the alleged violations of probation were both willful and substantial and (2) by not investigating potential defenses to the violation charges. (Respondent's Exhibit 8) After conducting an evidentiary hearing, the post-conviction court denied the claim (Respondent's Exhibit 10), which decision was per curiam affirmed without a written decision. Martin v. State, 111 So. 3d 889 (2nd DCA 2013) (table).

STANDARD OF REVIEW

The Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 ("AEDPA") governs this proceeding. Wilcox v. Florida Dep't of Corr., 158 F.3d 1209, 1210 (11th Cir. 1998), cert. denied, 531 U.S. 840 (2000). Section 2254(d), which creates a highly deferential standard for federal court review of a state court adjudication, states in pertinent part:

An application for a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court shall not be granted with respect to any claim that was adjudicated on the merits in State court proceedings unless the adjudication of the claim —
(1) 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; or(2) resulted in a decision that was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding.

In Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 412-13 (2000), the Supreme Court interpreted this deferential standard:

In sum, § 2254(d)(1) places a new constraint on the power of a federal habeas court to grant a state prisoner's application for a writ of habeas corpus with respect to claims adjudicated on the merits in state court. Under § 2254(d)(1), the writ may issue only if one of the following two conditions is satisfied — the state-court adjudication resulted in a decision that (1) "was contrary to . . . clearly established Federal Law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States" or (2) "involved an unreasonable application of . . . clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States." Under the "contrary to" clause, a federal habeas court may grant the writ if the state court arrives at a conclusion opposite to that reached by this Court on a question of law or if the state court decides a case differently than this Court has on a set of materially indistinguishable facts. Under the "unreasonable application" clause, a federal habeas court may grant the writ if the state court identifies the correct governing legal principle from this Court's decisions but unreasonably applies that principle to the facts of the prisoner's case.

"The focus . . . is on whether the state court's application of clearly established federal law is objectively unreasonable, . . . an unreasonable application is different from an incorrect one." Bell v. Cone, 535 U.S. 685, 693 (2002). "As a condition for obtaining habeas corpus from a federal court, a state prisoner must show that the state court's ruling on the claim being presented in federal court was so lacking in justification that there was an error well understood and comprehended in existing law beyond any possibility for fairminded disagreement." Harrington v. Richter, 131 S. Ct. 770, 786-87 (2011). Accord Brown v. Head, 272 F.3d 1308, 1313 (11th Cir.2001) ("It is the objective reasonableness, not the correctness per se, of the state court decision that we are to decide."). The phrase "clearly established Federal law" encompasses only the holdings of the United States Supreme Court "as of the time of the relevant state-court decision." Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. at 412.

The purpose of federal review is not to re-try the state case. "The [AEDPA] modified a federal habeas court's role in reviewing state prisoner applications in order to prevent federal habeas 'retrials' and to ensure that state-court convictions are given effect to the extent possible under law." Bell v. Cone, 535 U.S. at 694. A federal court must afford due deference to a state court's decision. "AEDPA prevents defendants — and federal courts — from using federal habeas corpus review as a vehicle to second-guess the reasonable decisions of state courts." Renico v. Lett, 559 U.S. 766, 779 (2010). See also Cullen v. Pinholster, 131 S. Ct. 1388, 1398 (2011) ("This is a 'difficult to meet,' . . . and 'highly deferential standard for evaluating state-court rulings, which demands that state-court decisions be given the benefit of the doubt' . . . .") (citations omitted).

In a per curiam decision without a written opinion the Second District Court of Appeal affirmed the denial of Martin's Rule 3.850 post-conviction. (Respondent's Exhibit 15) The state appellate court's per curiam affirmance warrants deference under Section 2254(d)(1) because "the summary nature of a state court's decision does not lessen the deference that it is due." Wright v. Moore, 278 F.3d 1245, 1254 (11th Cir.), reh'g and reh'g en banc denied, 278 F.3d 1245 (2002), cert. denied sub nomWright v. Crosby, 538 U.S. 906 (2003). See also Richter, 131 S. Ct. at 784-85 ("When a federal claim has been presented to a state court and the state court has denied relief, it may be presumed that the state court adjudicated the claim on the merits in the absence of any indication or state-law procedural principles to the contrary."), and Bishop v. Warden, 726 F. 3d 1243, 1255-56 (11th Cir. 2013) (describing the difference between an "opinion" or "analysis" and a "decision" or "ruling" and explaining that deference is accorded the state court's "decision" or "ruling" even if there is no "opinion" or "analysis").

Review of the state court decision is limited to the record that was before the state court:

We now hold that review under § 2254(d)(1) is limited to the record that was before the state court that adjudicated the claim on the merits. Section 2254(d)(1) refers, in the past tense, to a state-court adjudication that "resulted in" a decision that was contrary to, or "involved" an unreasonable application of, established law. This backward-looking language requires an examination of the state-court decision at the time it was made. It follows that the record under review is limited to the record in existence at that same time, i.e., the record before the state court.

Pinholster, 131 S. Ct. at 1398. Martin bears the burden of overcoming by clear and convincing evidence a state court factual determination. "[A] determination of a factual issue made by a State court shall be presumed to be correct. The applicant shall have the burden of rebutting the presumption of correctness by clear and convincing evidence." 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(1). This presumption of correctness applies to a finding of fact but not to a mixed determination of law and fact. Parker v.Head, 244 F.3d 831, 836 (11th Cir.), cert. denied, 534 U.S. 1046 (2001). The state court's rejection of Martin's post-conviction claim after conducting an...

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