Barnes v. Stephens

• Decision Date: 11 February 2016
• Docket Number: CIVIL ACTION NO. H-15-0815
• Parties: ANDREW BARNES, TDCJ #1531062, Petitioner, v. WILLIAM STEPHENS, Director, Texas Department of Criminal Justice - Correctional Institutions Division, Respondent.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of Texas

ANDREW BARNES, TDCJ #1531062, Petitioner, v. WILLIAM STEPHENS, Director, Texas Department ofCriminal Justice - Correctional Institutions Division, Respondent.

CIVIL ACTION NO. H-15-0815

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS HOUSTON DIVISION

February 11, 2016

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

The petitioner, Andrew Barnes, seeks a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 to challenge a state court conviction that has resulted in his incarceration by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice - Correctional Institutions Division ("TDCJ"). The respondent, William Stephens, has filed a Motion for Summary Judgment with Brief in Support ("Motion for Summary Judgment") (Docket Entry No. 19), along with a copy of the state court record. Barnes has filed a response in opposition to the Motion for Summary Judgment ("Response") (Docket Entry No. 26). After considering all of the pleadings, the state court record, and the applicable law, the court will grant respondent's Motion and will dismiss this action for the reasons explained below.

I. Background

A local grand jury returned an indictment against Barnes in cause number 1179556, charging him with capital murder for killing Robert Jackson by striking him with a baseball bat during the course of either a burglary or a robbery.¹ Because the State did not seek the death penalty, Barnes faced a mandatory sentence of life without parole if convicted of capital murder as charged in the indictment.² A jury in the 183rd District Court of Harris County, Texas, found Barnes guilty of the lesser-included offense of murder and sentenced him to 40 years' imprisonment in TDCJ.³

On direct appeal Barnes argued that the evidence was factually and legally insufficient to rebut his claim of self-defense.⁴ Barnes also argued that the trial court erred by excluding evidence of the victim's violent character and by admitting prejudicialautopsy photographs.⁵ Barnes argued further that he was denied effective assistance of counsel during voir dire, closing arguments, and the punishment phase of the trial.⁶ The intermediate state court of appeals rejected all of Barnes' arguments and affirmed the conviction after summarizing the evidence at length:

Houston Police Department ("HPD") Officer P. Jackson testified that on the morning of September 3, 2006, he was dispatched to the home of sixty-nine-year-old Robert Jackson, the complainant. An emergency dispatcher had received a telephone call from the complainant's residence, but the caller did not speak into the phone. When he arrived at the complainant's house, Officer Jackson noted burglar bars completely enclosed the front porch and front door and "the burglar bar doors were locked." On the front door was a sign that read, "Occupants are armed; Intruders will be shot." A window to the left of the front door, inside the enclosed front porch, was broken. Because he was unable to enter through the front door, Jackson went around the house, through an open gate, to the backyard, where he saw that "the back door and all the windows were boarded up." Seeing nowhere to enter the house from the backyard, Jackson returned to the broken window in the front of the house where he heard what sounded like a radio playing at a low volume. Jackson looked through the broken window and "saw what looked to be an outline of a person's upper torso" on the floor. Jackson pounded on the house, yelled that he was a police officer, and asked if everything was "okay." He then thought that he saw the person on the floor raise his hand intermittently as if he needed help.

Using a key that a neighbor showed him under the complainant's mailbox, Officer Jackson entered the house and saw blood "all over" — on the kitchen counter, on the floor, on a desk, and on a telephone. He saw thecomplainant sitting in a chair by a desk with blood "on his face, all over his head, his arms, his hands, [and] his legs." Jackson asked the complainant, "Do you know who did it?" The complainant responded, "It's the boy that cuts my grass."

HPD Officer R. King testified that when he arrived at the complainant's house after Officer Jackson, he saw "blood spatter evidence on many surfaces" and a "pool of coagulated blood" on the floor. King also saw a knife lying on the living room floor.

King explained that later in the day, he received information about a possible suspect at appellant's house, which is two blocks away from the complainant's house. King and HPD Officer R. Moreno went to appellant's house and knocked on the door. A man answered the door and allowed them to enter the house, where they found appellant standing in a bedroom closet. King informed appellant that he was under arrest and searched him for weapons and identification. In appellant's left hip pocket, King discovered the complainant's wallet. King also testified that appellant "could have been under the influence of some substance that made him more lethargic" when he was arrested.

HPD Crime Scene Unit Officer D. Lambright testified that after he arrived at the complainant's home, he collected a baseball bat that officers had found in a vacant lot near the complainant's house. Lambright noted that the bat had blood and scratches on it. When he examined the broken window at the complainant's home, Lambright determined that it had been "broken with a blunt object" and "was struck from the outside to the inside." Lambright explained that the blood spatter in the complainant's living room indicated that the complainant had been bludgeoned. He noted that the knife found on the living room floor only had small droplets of blood on it, indicating that the knife had not been used to cut anyone.

Lambright further testified that on a table in the complainant's master bedroom he saw a "revolver-type handgun," which appeared to have "been there for a while." Lambright also saw a large number of pill bottles, with prescription labels made out to the complainant, in the master bathroom and the living room. In the living room, Lambright retrieved from thecomplainant's desk a notebook in which the complainant had written appellant's name and phone number and a note that appellant would cut the complainant's grass. Lambright retrieved this notebook because, at the hospital, the complainant told HPD Sergeant J. Parker that the name of the person who attacked him was on a pad on his table.

When Officer Lambright later went to appellant's house, he recovered from appellant's room three bottles of pills with the complainant's name on them. One of the bottles, which was labeled "Claritin D," was empty. The other two bottles contained pills and were labeled "Hydralazine" and "Amoxi/Clav."

Harris County Assistant Medical Examiner M. Anzalone testified that the complainant died on March 1, 2007, after six months of "required chronic ventilatory support and nursing home placement." Based on his autopsy on the complainant's body, Anzalone opined that fractures on the complainant's skull indicated that he had been hit in the head at least five times.

Appellant testified that in 2000, when he was eleven years old, he began mowing the complainant's lawn and would also do other jobs around his house. Sometimes the complainant would "just want to talk to [appellant] or have [him] inside [the] house." At some point, the complainant began to "[t]ouch [appellant's] private parts" approximately "once every couple of weeks." In 2005, when appellant told the complainant that he "was tired of it and [he] didn't want it to go on anymore," the complainant "started cursing at [him] ... and said that [appellant had] to let him do things to [appellant] or [the complainant] was going to call the police," and accuse appellant of stealing his wallet. The complainant did later accuse appellant of stealing his wallet, and when HPD Officer Hadnot contacted appellant about the accusation, appellant "made a statement that [he] didn't steal [the complainant's] wallet that day." Appellant explained that the complainant further began to call appellant's telephone "and threaten to kill [him]." However, they reconciled later that summer, and appellant started working for him again.

Appellant further testified that the complainant, over time, had given him many bottles of pills and that the pill bottles found by police officers in his room hadbeen given to him sometime in 2004 or 2005. Although, appellant asserted that he had not stolen any pills from the complainant, he acknowledged that he had been convicted of possessing a controlled substance in 2003 and of burglary in 2005.

Appellant explained that at 10:30 p.m. on September 2, 2006, the complainant picked him up from his house and drove him to the complainant's house, where the complainant gave him seven or eight pills. After appellant swallowed five of the pills and put the rest in his pocket, he then "passed out." When he awoke, the complainant "was over [him], touching [his] private parts," and appellant said, "Let me out. I don't want this to happen anymore." They began arguing, and the complainant said, "I'm going to kill you, you little bastard." Appellant found the complainant's wallet by the fireplace and said, "Is this the wallet you're going to accuse me of stealing? I'm going to take this to my mom and Officer Hadnot." Appellant explained that he did not "intend to use it for [his] own gain." Appellant put the wallet in his pocket and said, "Let me out right now." The complainant threatened appellant again and then "opened his front door to let [appellant] out as [he] requested."

After appellant walked onto the front patio area, which was enclosed by the locked burglar bars, the complainant "slammed the door ... and started screaming he was going to kill [appellant] and blow [his] head off." Appellant screamed for help for about two minutes and then grabbed a baseball bat that was near the porch and broke a window so that he could go into the house to "look for some keys or another window that might

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