Boggs v. Shinn
| Decision Date | 27 March 2020 |
| Docket Number | No. CV-14-02165-PHX-GMS,CV-14-02165-PHX-GMS |
| Parties | Steve Alan Boggs, Petitioner, v. David Shinn, et al., Respondents. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Arizona |
DEATH PENALTY CASE
Before the Court is the Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus filed by Steve Alan Boggs, an Arizona death row inmate. (Doc. 48.) Respondents filed an answer and Boggs filed a reply. (Docs. 21, 26.) For the reasons set forth below, and based on the Court's review of the briefings and the entire record herein, the petition is denied.
In 2002, Boggs and Christopher Hargrave robbed a fast food restaurant and shot three employees to death. In 2005, Boggs was found guilty of three counts of first-degree murder, among other counts, and sentenced to death. The following facts are taken from the opinion of the Arizona Supreme Court upholding the convictions and sentences. State v. Boggs, 218 Ariz. 325, 185 P.3d 111 (2008).
On May 19, 2002, police officers responded to a 911 call from a Jack in the Box restaurant in Mesa. The first officer to arrive found one of the restaurant's employees, Beatriz Alvarado, lying on the ground outside the back door. She repeatedly asked for help before dying from two gunshot wounds to her back. Inside the restaurant, officers found the body of another employee, Fausto Jimenez, next to a telephone. Jimenez had been shot three times in the back but managed to dial 911 shortly before dying from his wounds. In the freezer was the body of a third employee, Kenneth Brown, who had died from two gunshot wounds. Police found shell casings and bullets in the freezer. Two cash registers were opened and contained only coins. A third register appeared as if someone had tried to pry it open. Jimenez and Brown were missing their wallets.
The next night, Hargrave, a friend of Boggs's who had recently been fired from the restaurant, tried to use Jimenez's bank card at an ATM.
Two days after the murders, Boggs traded in a Taurus handgun at a pawnshop. Police recovered the weapon and determined that it had fired all of the shell casings and bullet fragments found at the scene, including fragments found in the victims' bodies.
During interviews with Detective Donald Vogel, Boggs "confessed to playing an active role in the robbery and admitted shooting at the victims." Boggs, 218 Ariz. at 331, 185 P.3d at 117. He described the murders in detail, explaining that "the victims were forced at gunpoint to lie down in the work area of the restaurant, ordered to remove everything from their pockets, ordered to march through the cooler into the back freezer with their hands interlaced on top of their heads, forced to kneel down, and then shot in rapid succession." Id. at 341, 185 P.3d at 127. Boggs also told police that after they left the victims in the freezer, he and Hargrave heard screaming, "at which point he returned to the freezer and shot some more." Id.
Boggs and Hargrave were involved in a white supremacist "militia" they called the Imperial Royal Guard. They and their girlfriends were the only members. In a letter to a Detective Vogel, written after his confession, Boggs explained that his motive for the murders was racial rather than pecuniary.
Prior to trial, Boggs waived his right to counsel and represented himself. He relinquished his right to self-representation after several days of jury selection, and his advisory counsel took over his defense. Boggs moved to resume self-representationbetween the aggravation and penalty phases of trial, but the court denied his request. The jury found Boggs guilty of all charged crimes.
At sentencing, the jury found three aggravating factors for each of the murders: expectation of pecuniary gain, under A.R.S. § 13-703(F)(5); the murders were committed in an especially heinous, cruel or depraved manner, under § 13-703(F)(6); and a conviction for one or more other homicides during the commission of the offense, under § 13-703(F)(8).1 The defense presented mitigation evidence concerning Boggs's troubled childhood and mental health issues. At the close of the trial, the jury found that Boggs's mitigation was not sufficiently substantial to call for leniency and concluded that death was the appropriate sentence for each murder.
The Arizona Supreme Court affirmed the convictions and sentences. Boggs, 218 Ariz. 325, 185 P.3d 111. After unsuccessfully pursuing post-conviction relief ("PCR"), Boggs filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus in this Court. (Doc. 15.) The Court previously granted in part and denied in part Boggs's motion for evidentiary development. (Doc. 67.) The Court also denied Claims 1, 2, 4 (in part), 7, 8, 12(A), 15 (in part), 17, 18, 22, 24, 26, 28, 30, 40, and 43. (Id.)
A. AEDPA
Federal habeas claims are analyzed under the framework of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act ("AEDPA"). Pursuant to the AEDPA, a petitioner is not entitled to habeas relief on any claim adjudicated on the merits in state court unless the state court's adjudication (1) resulted in a decision that was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established federal law or (2) resulted in a decision that was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in state court. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d).
The Supreme Court has emphasized that "an unreasonable application of federal law is different from an incorrect application of federal law." Williams (Terry) v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 410 (2000) (O'Conner, J., concurring). Under § 2254(d), "[a] state court's determination that a claim lacks merit precludes federal habeas relief so long as 'fairminded jurists could disagree' on the correctness of the state court's decision." Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 101 (2011) (quoting Yarborough v. Alvarado, 541 U.S. 652, 664 (2004)). The burden is on the petitioner to show "there was no reasonable basis for the state court to deny relief." Id. at 98.
A petitioner may challenge a state court's factual findings by attempting to show that the "findings were not supported by substantial evidence in the state court record" or by demonstrating that the fact-finding process was "deficient in some material way." Hibbler v. Benedetti, 693 F.3d 1140, 1146 (9th Cir. 2012). To succeed on federal habeas review, however, the petitioner must demonstrate "that the state court was not merely wrong, but actually unreasonable." Taylor v. Maddox, 366 F.3d 992, 999 (9th Cir. 2004), abrogated on other grounds by Murray (Robert) v. Schriro, 745 F.3d 984, 999-1000 (9th Cir. 2014).
In Cullen v. Pinholster, 563 U.S. 170, 181 (2011), the Court reiterated that "review under § 2254(d)(1) is limited to the record that was before the state court that adjudicated the claim on the merits." See Murray, 745 F.3d at 998 ().
For claims not adjudicated on the merits in state court, federal review is generally not available when the claims have been denied pursuant to an independent and adequate state procedural rule. Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U.S. 722, 750 (1991). In Arizona, there are two avenues for petitioners to exhaust federal constitutional claims: direct appeal and PCR proceedings. Rule 32 of the Arizona Rules of Criminal Procedure governs PCR proceedings and provides that a petitioner is precluded from relief on any claim that could have been raised on appeal or in a prior PCR petition. Ariz. R. Crim. P. 32.2(a)(3).
For unexhausted and defaulted claims, "federal habeas review . . . is barred unless the prisoner can demonstrate cause for the default and actual prejudice as a result of the alleged violation of federal law, or demonstrate that failure to consider the claims will result in a fundamental miscarriage of justice." Coleman, 501 U.S. at 750. Coleman further held that ineffective assistance of counsel in PCR proceedings did not establish cause for the procedural default of a claim. Id.
In Martinez v. Ryan, 566 U.S. 1, 9 (2012), however, the Court established a "narrow exception" to the rule announced in Coleman. Under Martinez, a petitioner may establish cause for the procedural default of an ineffective assistance of trial counsel claim "by demonstrating two things: (1) 'counsel in the initial-review collateral proceeding, where the claim should have been raised, was ineffective under the standards of Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984)' and (2) 'the underlying ineffective-assistance-of-trial-counsel claim is a substantial one, which is to say that the prisoner must demonstrate that the claim has some merit.'" Cook v. Ryan, 688 F.3d 598, 607 (9th Cir. 2012) (quoting Martinez, 566 U.S. at 14); Ramirez v. Ryan, 937 F.3d 1230, 1241 (9th Cir. 2019). "Strickland, in turn, requires [a petitioner] to establish that both (a) post-conviction counsel's performance was deficient, and (b) there was a reasonable probability that, absent the deficient performance, the result of the post-conviction proceedings would have been different." Clabourne v. Ryan, 745 F.3d 362, 377 (9th Cir. 2014), overruled on other grounds by McKinney v. Ryan, 813 F.3d 798 (9th Cir. 2015). The Ninth Circuit has explained that, "The reasonable probability that the result of the post-conviction proceedings would have been different, absent deficient performance by post-conviction counsel, is necessarily connected to the strength of the argument that trial counsel's assistance was ineffective." Clabourne, 745 F.3d at 377; see also Sexton v. Cozner, 679 F.3d 1150, 1157 (9th Cir. 2012) ().
Martinez applies only to claims of ineffective assistance of trial counse...
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