Baker v. State

• Decision Date: 22 July 2021
• Docket Number: 9:18-CV-1048 (LEK/DJS)
• Parties: CHRISTOPHER BAKER, JR., Petitioner, v. THE STATE OF NEW YORK and DEBORAH MCCULLOCH, Executive Director, Central New York Psychiatric Center, Respondents.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of New York

CHRISTOPHER BAKER, JR., Petitioner, v. THE STATE OF NEW YORK and DEBORAH MCCULLOCH, Executive Director, Central New York Psychiatric Center, Respondents.

No. 9:18-CV-1048 (LEK/DJS)

United States District Court, N.D. New York

July 22, 2021

CHRISTOPHER BAKER, JR. Petitioner, Pro Se

HON LETITIA JAMES Attorney General of the State of New York Assistant Attorney General

PRISCILLA I. STEWARD, ESQ. Attorney for Respondents

REPORT-RECOMMENDATION AND ORDER^[1]

DANIEL J. STEWART UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE

Pro se Petitioner Christopher Baker, Jr., currently confined at Central New York Psychiatric Center, seeks a Writ of Habeas Corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254. Petitioner's incarceration stems from his conviction based on a plea of guilty on March 22, 2010, for Sexual Abuse in the First Degree. Dkt. No. 11-2, State Court Record “SR.” at pp. 3-15.^[2]Petitioner asserts the following grounds for habeas relief: (1) denial of a preliminary hearing, denial of jurisdictional transfer, ineffective assistance of counsel; (2) defective grand jury procedure, legally insufficient indictment, ineffective assistance of counsel; and (3) violation of statute of limitations of prosecution, and ineffective assistance. Dkt. No. 1, Pet.

On September 25, 2018, the Court ordered that Petitioner submit an affirmation explaining why the statute of limitations should not bar his Petition. Dkt. No. 4. Petitioner responded, Dkt. No. 5, and on October 30, 2018, the Court determined that it would not dismiss the Petition as untimely at that time, and that it would consider the timeliness of the Petition after Respondent had an opportunity to respond to the Petition. Dkt. No. 6.

Respondent opposes the Petition and contends that the application should be dismissed, both because it is time-barred, and because none of Petitioner's claims warrant habeas relief. Dkt. No. 11-1, Resp. Mem. of Law. Petitioner has submitted a Traverse. Dkt. No. 12. For the reasons that follow, it is recommended that this action be dismissed in its entirety.

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Petitioner pled guilty to first-degree sexual abuse on March 22, 2010, in exchange for a sentence that would not exceed four years and a post-release supervision period not to exceed ten years, retaining the right to appeal only claims that his sentence was illegal or constitutional claims that would necessarily survive a waiver. SR. at pp. 3-13. On May 17, 2010, Petitioner was sentenced to a prison term of four years, plus ten years of post-release supervision. SR. at p. 34.

Petitioner filed a notice of appeal as to his conviction on June 9, 2010, but he never perfected the appeal. See SR. at pp. 39 (notice of appeal) & 132 (court noting in decision on CPL § 440.10 motion that Petitioner never perfected his appeal); Traverse at p. 6^[3](admitting that he did not perfect his appeal, because he believed that he would be assigned counsel). On August 30, 2016, Petitioner filed a motion to vacate the judgment of conviction, pursuant to CPL § 440.10. SR. at pp. 40-80. Petitioner asserted the following grounds in his motion: (1) denial of preliminary hearing, denial ofjurisdictional transfer, and ineffective assistance of counsel; (2) defective grand jury procedures, legally insufficient indictment, and ineffective assistance of counsel; and (3) violation of statute of limitations of prosecution and ineffective assistance of counsel. SR. at pp. 40-43. He further asserted that due to the ineffective assistance of counsel, he was forced into a plea agreement. Id. The motion was denied on March 16, 2017. SR. at pp. 129-33. Petitioner sought leave to appeal the denial of his motion to the Appellate Division and to the New York State Court of Appeals; he was denied leave to appeal to the Court of Appeals on February 21, 2018. Pet. at p. 9.

II. STANDARD OF REVIEW

Under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, Pub. L. No. 104132, 110 Stat. 1214 (1996) (“AEDPA”), a petitioner bears the burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence that he is “in custody in violation of the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(a); Jones v. Vacco, 126 F.3d 408, 415 (2d Cir. 1997); Rivera v. New York, 2003 WL 22234697, at *3 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 28, 2003). A federal court may not grant habeas relief to a state prisoner on a claim unless the state court adjudicated the merits of the claim and such adjudication either

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.

28 U.S.C. § 2254(d); see also Hawkins v. Costello, 460 F.3d 238, 242 (2d Cir. 2006).

The Second Circuit has summarized the application of the standard of review under AEDPA as follows:

Under AEDPA, we ask three questions to determine whether a federal court may grant habeas relief: (1) Was the principle of Supreme Court case law relied upon in the habeas petition “clearly established” when the state court ruled? (2) If so, was the state court's decision “contrary to” that established Supreme Court precedent? (3) If not, did the state court's decision constitute an “unreasonable application” of that principle?

Williams v. Artuz, 237 F.3d 147, 152 (2d Cir. 2001) (citing Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362 (2000) and Francis S. v. Stone, 221 F.3d 100, 108-09 (2d Cir. 2000)). The standard of review under section 2254(d) is “highly deferential” and “demands that state-court decisions be given the benefit of the doubt.” Renico v. Lett, 559 U.S. 766, 773 (2010). “[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, 562 U.S. 86, 103 (2011).

The phrase “clearly established Federal law” refers to “the holdings, as opposed to the dicta, of th[e] Court's decisions as of the time of the relevant state-court decision.” Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. at 412. A state court decision is “contrary to” established Supreme Court precedent “if the state court arrives at a conclusion opposite to that reached by th[e] Court on a question of law or if the state court decides a case differently than th[e] Court has on a set of materially indistinguishable facts.” Id. at 413. A state court decision is an “unreasonable application” of established Supreme Court precedent “if the state court identifies the correct governing legal principle from th[e] Court's decisions but unreasonably applies that principle to the facts of the prisoner's case.” Id. AEDPA also requires that “a determination of a factual issue made by a State court shall be presumed to be correct [and t]he applicant shall have the burden of rebutting the presumption of correctness by clear and convincing evidence.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(1); see also DeBerry v. Portuondo, 403 F.3d 57, 66 (2d Cir. 2005); Boyette v. LeFevre, 246 F.3d 76, 88 (2d Cir. 2001) (quoting 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(1)).

III. TIMELINESS OF THE PETITION

Respondent maintains that Petitioner's claim is time-barred under the applicable statute of limitations. See Resp. Mem. of Law at pp. 7-11. Under the AEDPA, a one-year statute of limitations was established for prisoners seeking federal review of their state court criminal convictions. 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(1). The one-year period generally begins to run from the date on which the state criminal conviction became final by the conclusion of direct review or by the expiration of the time to seek direct review. 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(1)(A); Gonzalez v. Thaler, 565 U.S. 134, 149-50 (2012). For purposes of section 2244, a state conviction becomes “final” when the United States Supreme Court denies an application for a writ of certiorari or when the time to seek certiorari has expired, which is ninety days after the date on which the highest court in the state has completed direct review of the case. Gonzalez v. Thaler, 565 U.S. at 150; Saunders v. Senkowski, 587 F.3d 543, 547-59 (2d Cir. 2009). As Petitioner did not appeal to the state's highest court, his judgment became final when the time for seeking such review expired. Gonzalez v. Thaler, 565 U.S. at 150. Courts look to “state-court filing deadlines when petitioners forgo state-court appeals.” Id. at 152.

Here, Petitioner filed a timely notice of appeal on June 9, 2010. He never took any further action on the appeal, and pursuant to the Rules of Practice of the Appellate Division, Third Department, his appeal was deemed abandoned on June 11, 2012. Appellate Division, Third Judicial Department Rules of Practice, 850.11(d) (“[A]n appeal authorized by the Criminal Procedure Law shall be deemed to have been abandoned where the appellant shall fail to apply for permission to proceed as a poor person and/or for assignment of counsel or shall fail to perfect the appeal within twenty-four months after the date of the notice of appeal”). If the abandonment of his appeal rendered Petitioner's appeal dismissed and constituted a final judgment, then his conviction would have become final on June 11, 2012. In such circumstances, the present Petition, dated August 22, 2018, would be untimely as it was filed over five years after the statute of limitations would have run on his claim.^[4]

However “no court in this Circuit has ever held that an unperfected direct appeal, which has not been formally dismissed by the state court, can be deemed a ‘final judgment' for habeas corpus purposes.” Best v. New York City...