Bahtuoh v. Smith

• Decision Date: 12 April 2016
• Docket Number: Case No. 14-CV-5009 (DSD/JJK)
• Parties: CHRISTOPHER DINEAA BAHTUOH, Petitioner, v. MICHELLE SMITH, Warden, Respondent.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Minnesota

CHRISTOPHER DINEAA BAHTUOH, Petitioner, v. MICHELLE SMITH, Warden, Respondent.

Case No. 14-CV-5009 (DSD/JJK)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT DISTRICT OF MINNESOTA

April 12, 2016

REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION

Frederick J. Goetz, GOETZ & ECKLAND PA, for petitioner Christopher Dineaa Bahtuoh.

Elizabeth Roosevelt Johnston, HENNEPIN COUNTY ATTORNEY'S OFFICE, for respondent.

After a jury trial, petitioner Christopher Dineaa Bahtuoh was convicted of first-degree felony murder after participating in a drive-by shooting for the benefit of a gang. See Minn. Stat. § 609.185(a)(3). On appeal, the Minnesota Supreme Court affirmed both the conviction and the trial court's denial of Bahtuoh's petition for post-conviction relief. This matter is now before the Court on Bahtuoh's petition for a writ of habeas corpus, brought pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254. The petition has been referred to this Court for a Report and Recommendation pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 636 and Local Rule 72.1. For the reasons provided below, this Court recommends that Bahtuoh's habeas petition be denied.

I. BACKGROUND

A. The State Court Proceedings

The Minnesota Supreme Court succinctly summarized the underlying facts of this case as follows:

On the evening of April 28, 2009, Kyle Parker was at his mother's home in Minneapolis with two other men from his neighborhood, A.M. and N.A. While the three men were outside, Bahtuoh drove past the home, turned his car around, and then drove toward them. Bahtuoh, who knew Parker, opened a car window and called for Parker. As Parker approached the car, Bahtuoh's passenger — later identified as Lamont McGee — shot Parker multiple times. Bahtuoh then drove away, speeding through a stop sign. After Parker's sister learned of the shooting, she ran to Parker. Parker told her that Bahtuoh was responsible for the shooting. Parker died later that evening from the gunshot wounds.

Bahtuoh and his attorney met with the police approximately 6 weeks later. Bahtuoh waived his right to remain silent and denied any involvement in the shooting. The next day, the State charged Bahtuoh by complaint with intentional second-degree murder. Bahtuoh admitted during a second conversation with the police that he was present at the scene of the shooting, drove the car, and fled the scene. Bahtuoh testified before a grand jury, which indicted him on four counts of first-degree murder, including first-degree felony murder while committing a drive-by shooting for the benefit of a gang, and two counts of second-degree murder. On all six counts, the indictment charged Bahtuoh as both a principal and an accomplice.

At the jury trial that followed, defense counsel repeatedly told the jury during his opening statement that Bahtuoh would testify. Nevertheless, Bahtuoh later waived his right to testify and presented no witnesses in his defense. The jury found Bahtuoh not guilty of two of the counts of first-degree murder, but guilty of the four remaining counts of the indictment. The district court convicted Bahtuoh of each of the four counts on which the jury found him guilty, but sentenced him only on the count of first-degree felony murder while committing a drive-by shooting for the benefit of a gang. The district court sentenced Bahtuoh to life imprisonment with the possibility of release after 31 years.

State v. Bahtuoh, 840 N.W.2d 804, 808 (Minn. 2013) (citations omitted).

Bahtuoh appealed his conviction to the Minnesota Supreme Court,¹ but the appeal was stayed so that Bahtuoh could file a petition for post-conviction relief before the trial court under Minn. Stat. § 590.01. In his post-conviction petition, Bahtuoh argued (1) that his defense counsel had provided constitutionally deficient assistance by informing the jury during the opening statement that he would testify at trial, when he did not in fact testify; (2) that his defense counsel had been ineffective in failing to object to an erroneous jury instruction concerning aiding-and-abetting liability under Minnesota law; (3) that the erroneous instruction prejudiced him, as it allowed the jury to find him guilty without finding beyond a reasonable doubt an essential element of the offense of conviction; (4) that the prosecutor committed misconduct by reading, and thereby reinforcing, the erroneous jury instruction during closing arguments; and (5) that his constitutional right to a public trial was violated when trial proceedings were closed during the testimony of one witness. See generally Goetz Aff. Ex. 1 [ECF No. 22-1]. Bahtuoh also requested that the trial court hold an evidentiary hearing on his post-conviction claims. See Minn. Stat. § 590.04.

The district court summarily denied most of Bahtuoh's post-conviction claims for relief, as the files and records from trial conclusively showed that Bahtuoh was not entitled to relief on those claims. See Appendix ("Tr.") at 988-98.² However, the district court elected to hold anevidentiary hearing on a claim that was implied, but not directly articulated, in the post-conviction petition: whether Bahtuoh's waiver of his right testify had been knowing and voluntary. Id. at 995-96. In the trial court's view, Bahtuoh's ineffective-assistance claim would entirely rise or fall on the question of whether his waiver of the right to testify was knowing and voluntary. Id. at 996 ("Thus, if Petitioner's waiver of his right to testify was knowing and voluntary, he was not prejudiced by his attorney's failure to call him as a witness after he promised to do so during opening statements.").

"At the postconviction evidentiary hearing, Bahtuoh was the only witness who testified." Bahtuoh, 840 N.W.2d at 809.

Bahtuoh said that he was shocked and confused when, at a meeting the night before the State rested its case, defense counsel told Bahtuoh that he had decided not to have Bahtuoh testify. Bahtuoh also stated that defense counsel never advised him about the advantages and disadvantages of testifying. According to Bahtuoh, defense counsel simply instructed him to say nothing other than [that he] understood the questions that [he] was being asked when he was questioned about his decision not to testify on the record.

Id. (quotations omitted); accord Tr. 809-58 (transcript from hearing on petition for post-conviction relief). Bahtuoh's claim that his waiver of his right to testify was not voluntary or knowing ultimately was rejected by the trial court, which found that Bahtuoh's testimony at the hearing was not consistent and therefore not credible and that his allegations were undercut by his unmistakable acknowledgment at trial that the decision whether to testify was his alone to make. Tr. 1003-04.

The district court also went on to find that Bahtuoh's attorney had not provided ineffective assistance with respect to the decision whether to testify. Regarding the adequacy ofdefense counsel's performance, the trial court found that "Petitioner acknowledged that his attorney came to the jail and spoke to him about the decision to testify or not. The attorney provided advice. Petitioner was able to state his concerns about not testifying." Tr. 1005 (footnote omitted). The trial court also noted that even if defense counsel's performance had been deficient, there was not a "real and substantial probability that the outcome of the trial would have been different but for the decision not to testify." Tr. 1006. The petition for post-conviction relief was therefore denied in full.

The Minnesota Supreme Court consolidated the direct appeal from Bahtuoh's conviction and the appeal from the denial of his petition for post-conviction relief. Bahtuoh fairly presented seven claims in total before the Minnesota Supreme Court:

First, the Minnesota Supreme Court addressed whether the evidence introduced at trial was sufficient to support Bahtuoh's conviction of first-degree felony murder committed via drive-by shooting for the benefit of a gang. The focus of the analysis centered on whether the evidence introduced at trial supported a rational inference that Bahtuoh, beyond a reasonable doubt, intentionally aided the shooter and thereby acted as his accomplice. According to the Minnesota Supreme Court, copious circumstantial evidence about Bahtuoh's state of mind at the time of the murder supported the reasonable inference that Bahtuoh intended to further the commission of the crime. Bahtuoh, 840 N.W.2d at 810-11. Indeed, the Minnesota Supreme Court went still further in concluding that "there is no rational hypothesis in this case other than Bahtuoh's guilt . . . ." Id. at 811.

Second, the Minnesota Supreme Court considered Bahtuoh's arguments regarding the instructions provided to the jury on the mental state required under Minnesota law foraccomplice liability. After reviewing the jury instructions as a whole, the Minnesota Supreme Court concluded that the trial court had, in fact, erred in its instructions regarding accomplice liability. Id. at 813-14. Far from the instructions prejudicing Bahtuoh, though, "the jury was required to find that Bahtuoh had a more culpable state of mind than is required for accomplice liability under Minnesota law." Id. at 814. The Minnesota Supreme Court declined to address the related question of whether Bahtuoh's trial counsel had been ineffective in failing to object to the challenged instructions, as "the jury instructions, considered as a whole, did not constitute reversible error . . . ." Id. at 816 n.2.

Third, the Minnesota Supreme Court considered whether Bahtuoh knowingly and voluntarily waived his right to testify at trial. In considering the claim, the Minnesota Supreme Court concluded that the district court's factual findings — including specifically and most importantly the finding that Bahtuoh's testimony at the post-conviction petition hearing was not credible — were not clearly erroneous. Id. at 815-16. Because the only evidence supporting Bahtuoh's claim was testimony that had been rejected by the trial court as not being credible, the ...