Blasdell v. Davis
| Decision Date | 17 October 2017 |
| Docket Number | CIVIL ACTION NO. H-17-0570 |
| Parties | BRANDON SCOTT BLASDELL, TDCJ #1639101, Petitioner, v. LORIE DAVIS, Director, Texas Department of Criminal Justice - Correctional Institutions Division, Respondent. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Southern District of Texas |
State inmate Brandon Scott Blasdell seeks a federal writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 to challenge a state court conviction for aggravated robbery, which resulted in a sentence of thirty years' imprisonment [Doc. # 1]. The respondent has filed a motion for summary judgment, arguing that Blasdell's claims are without merit and that he is not entitled to relief [Doc. # 10]. Blasdell has not filed a response and his time to do so has expired. After considering all of the pleadings and state court records, the Court will grant the respondent's motion and will dismiss this case for the reasons set forth below.
A Montgomery County grand jury returned an indictment against Blasdell in Cause Number 07-11-11972-CR, charging him with aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon in violation of §29.03(a)(2) of the Texas Penal Code.1 At trial, the State presented evidence that a man approached Katy Hadwin as she was putting gas in her car at a Citgo station on the I-45 feeder road in Conroe, Texas, on February 11, 2007.2 The man pointed a revolver at Hadwin's face and demanded her "fucking purse."3 As Hadwin fumbled with her keys and reached for her purse, the man yelled, "Hurry up, bitch."4 After Hadwin gave him the purse, the man walked to an older-model white pickup truck parked nearby and drove away.5 Hadwin left the gas station, but returned to meet with police after she called 911.6
Blasdell's identity as the robber was the primary issue at trial, which commenced in June of 2009. The State presented evidence that Hadwin provided the police a description of the perpetrator and his vehicle on the same night that the offense occurred.7 About a week later, Hadwin met with Officer Juan Luis Saucedaof the Conroe Police Department and filled out a "Suspect Description Form."8 Hadwin described the robber as a white male who weighed about 150 pounds, with short brown hair, light blue/green eyes, a fair complexion, and a "unibrow."9 After Officer Sauceda presented Hadwin with a photographic lineup of six male suspects, Hadwin identified Blasdell as the robber without hesitation.10 Hadwin circled Blasdell's photo and commented on the photo-array form: 11
Hadwin's testimony was the only proof that Blasdell was the robber. Hadwin expressed "no doubt" as she identified Blasdell in the courtroom.12 Hadwin reiterated that she had been "100 percent sure" when she identified Blasdell in the photo array created by Officer Sauceda, emphasizing that she "can't forget his face."13 Blasdell's trial counsel challenged Hadwin on cross-examination and tried to show that her briefencounter with the perpetrator precluded a reliable identification.14 While the robbery only took "a little longer than [twenty] seconds,"15 Hadwin testified that the perpetrator was close enough to touch.16 Although she was frightened, Hadwin still got "a good look" at the man pointing a black revolver in her face.17
Blasdell did not testify on his own behalf and called only one witness during the guilt/innocence phase of the trial, board certified forensic psychologist Dr. Steven James Rubenzer, who was offered as an expert on eyewitness identification.18 During a Daubert19 hearing, Dr. Rubenzer described his expertise and his review of the photographic lineup in this case.20 The trial court allowed Dr. Rubenzer to give his opinion on various issues relating to the reliability of eyewitness identifications, including problems with identifications made as the result of a photographic line-up.21 The trial court, however, did not allow him to testify about what is known as the "weapon focus effect," which is described as "a tendency, when there is a weapon involved, particularly in brief encounters, for the weapon to essentially attractattention away from the perpetrator's face and, by doing so, result in lesser accuracy for the identification."22
After hearing all of the evidence, the jury found Blasdell guilty as charged in the indictment and found in the affirmative that a deadly weapon was used to commit the offense.23 During a separate punishment hearing, the State presented evidence showing that Blasdell had a lengthy record of criminal offenses.24 At the close of that proceeding, the jury sentenced Blasdell to thirty years' confinement in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice - Correctional Institutions Division ("TDCJ").25
On direct appeal, Blasdell argued that the trial court erred by excluding Dr. Rubenzer's testimony about the weapon focus effect.26 The intermediate court of appeals initially affirmed Blasdell's conviction after determining that the trial court did not err in excluding Dr. Rubenzer's testimony because it was not relevant. See Blasdell v. State, No. 09-09-00286-CR, 2010 WL 3910586 (Tex. App. — Beaumont Oct. 6, 2010) (unpublished). On discretionary review, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals reversed and remanded the case for further proceedings. See Blasdell v.State, 384 S.W.3d 824, 831 (Tex. Crim. App. 2012). On remand, the intermediate court of appeals again affirmed Blasdell's conviction, holding that the trial court properly excluded the challenged testimony because it was not sufficiently reliable. See Blasdell v. State, 420 S.W.3d 406, 412 (Tex. App. — Beaumont 2014). The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals agreed and affirmed that decision. Blasdell v. State, 470 S.W.3d 59, 65 (Tex. Crim. App. 2015).
Blasdell challenged his conviction further by filing a state application for habeas corpus relief pursuant to 11.07 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure.27 In that application, Blasdell argued that he was entitled to relief for several reasons that he grouped together in three grounds for relief:
After considering trial counsel's response to these claims,31 the state district court issued findings of fact and conclusions of law recommending that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals deny habeas relief.32 The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals followed that recommendation and denied habeas relief on the lower court's findings without issuing a written opinion.33
Blasdell now contends that he is entitled to federal habeas corpus relief from his conviction for the same reasons that were rejected on state habeas review.34 The respondent moves for summary judgment, arguing that Blasdell fails to show that the state court's adjudication was unreasonable or wrong and that he is not entitled to relief under the governing federal habeas corpus standard of review.
Because the state courts adjudicated Blasdell's claims on the merits, his petition is subject to review under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996("AEDPA"), codified at 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d). Under the AEDPA standard, a federal habeas corpus court may not grant relief unless the state court's adjudication "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[.]" 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1). When a claim presents a question of fact, a petitioner cannot obtain federal habeas relief unless he shows that the state court's denial of relief "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)(2).
"A state court's decision is deemed contrary to clearly established federal law if it reaches a legal conclusion in direct conflict with a prior decision of the Supreme Court or if it reaches a different conclusion than the Supreme Court on materially indistinguishable facts." Matamoros v. Stephens, 783 F.3d 212, 215 (5th Cir. 2015) (citations omitted); see also Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 404-08 (2000). To constitute an "unreasonable application of" clearly established federal law, a state court's holding "must be objectively unreasonable, not merely wrong; even clear error will not suffice." Woods v. Donald, — U.S. —, 135 S. Ct. 1372, 1376 (2015) (quoting White v. Woodall, — U.S. —, 134 S. Ct. 1697, 1702 (2014)). "To satisfy this high bar, a habeas petitioner is required to 'show that the state court's ruling on the claim being presented in federal court was so lacking in justification that there was an errorwell understood and comprehended in existing law beyond any possibility for fairminded disagreement.'" Id. (quoting Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 103 (2011)).
The AEDPA standard "imposes a 'highly deferential standard for evaluating state-court rulings, . . . [which] 'demands that state-court decisions be given the benefit of the doubt." Renico v. Lett, 559 U.S. 766, 773 (2010) (citations omitted). This standard is intentionally "difficult to meet" because it was meant to bar relitigation of claims already rejected in state proceedings and to preserve federal habeas review as "a 'guard against extreme malfunctions in the state criminal justice systems,' not a substitute for ordinary error correction through appeal." Richter, 562 U.S. at 102-03 (quoting Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 332, n.5 (1979...
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