Brown v. Dir., TDCJ-CID
| Decision Date | 10 August 2022 |
| Docket Number | 3:19-cv-2301-L-BN |
| Parties | MICAH CROFFORD BROWN, Petitioner, v. DIRECTOR, TDCJ-CID, Respondent. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Texas |
MICAH CROFFORD BROWN, Petitioner,
v.
DIRECTOR, TDCJ-CID, Respondent.
No. 3:19-cv-2301-L-BN
United States District Court, N.D. Texas, Dallas Division
August 10, 2022
FINDINGS, CONCLUSIONS, AND RECOMMENDATION OF THE UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE
DAVID L. HORAN, UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE.
Petitioner Micah Brown filed this federal habeas corpus action under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 challenging his May 2013 Hunt County conviction for capital murder and sentence of death. See ECF no. 29. The Respondent has filed an answer, see ECF no. 40, and Brown has filed a reply in support, see ECF no. 48. For the reasons explained below, the Court should deny all relief requested in Brown's federal habeas corpus petition, deny Brown's motion for leave to amend, and deny Brown a Certificate of Appealability as to all his claims.
I. BACKGROUND
A. The Offense
The lengthy factual scenario leading up to Brown's capital offense is set forth in detail in the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals opinion affirming Brown's conviction and sentence on direct appeal. See Brown v. State, AP-77,019, 2015 WL 5453765, *1-*6 (Tex. Crim. App. Sept. 16, 2015).
Multiple witnesses, including Brown, testified about a number of instances of violence involving Brown, his ex-wife Stella Ray (“Ray”), and another of Ray's exhusbands (Tracy Williams) in the days preceding Ray's murder. Those include instances in which Brown allegedly gave Ray and one of their young children each a black eye and another in which Williams allegedly choked Brown in front of Brown's and Ray's children. It was undisputed that, shortly after those events, Brown informed Ray that he was suicidal. Ray contacted police. When police did a welfare check at Brown's residence, they found Brown in possession of an illegal weapon - a sawed-off shotgun - which resulted in the police confiscating the shotgun and arresting Brown.
On the evening of July 20, 2011, Brown went to Ray's residence but found no one at home. Brown searched the house and took a shotgun that belonged to Ray's son Wesley as well as marijuana belonging to Ray and a camera containing photographs of Ray's face taken after an altercation with Brown days before. Brown returned to his own home, sawed off the shotgun, and loaded it with twenty-gauge slugs suitable for hunting hogs. Later that same evening, Brown saw Ray driving her vehicle past his residence. Brown got into his own vehicle, pursued Ray, and attempted to flag her down. Brown admitted that, when Ray stopped her vehicle, Brown pulled his vehicle up beside Ray's vehicle, pointed his shotgun at her head, and pulled the trigger.
It is undisputed that Brown intentionally murdered his ex-wife by fatally shooting her with a sawed-off shotgun as she sat in her vehicle talking to a 911
dispatcher on her telephone. Ray reported to the dispatcher that Brown was pursuing her, that she had previously filed a complaint against Brown, that she feared he might ram his vehicle into hers, and that she had informed Brown that she was then speaking with the police.
A police officer responded to Ray's 911 call. As he approached Ray's and Brown's vehicles from behind with his lights flashing (the two vehicles were stopped side by side), his dash camera recorded the fatal shooting. Immediately after firing the fatal shot, Brown drove away from the scene while law enforcement officers attempted to render assistance to the unresponsive Ray.
The state trial court admitted into evidence as State Exhibit No. 44 the video recording from the dash camera of the Greenville, Texas police officer who responded to Ray's 911 call. The audio recording of Ray's 911 call was also played for the jury. See Statement of Facts from Brown's Trial (“S.F. Trial”), Volume 40/53 [ECF no. 5331], at 65.
B. Indictment
On October 28, 2011, a Hunt County grand jury indicted Brown on a charge of capital murder - specifically, intentionally or knowingly causing the death of Stella Ray by shooting Ray with a firearm while then and there in the course of committing or attempting to commit the offense of obstruction or retaliation against Ray, and intentionally or knowingly causing the death or Ray by shooting Ray with a firearm while in the course of committing or attempting to commit the offense of terroristic threat against Ray with intent to cause a reaction of any type to his threat by an
official or volunteer agency organized to deal with emergencies. See ECF no. 58-3, p. 12 of 355.
C. Guilt-Innocence Phase of Trial
The guilt-innocence phase of Brown's capital murder trial commenced on May 20, 2013.
1. The Prosecution's Evidence
The prosecution presented testimony from Heather Doty, the dispatcher who received Stella Ray's 911 call around 10:20 p.m. on July 20, 2011. Doty testified that she could hear the children in Ray's vehicle and heard the fatal shot fired. See S.F. Trial, Vol, 40/53 [ECF no. 53-31], at 36-43.
The audio recording of Ray's 911 conversation with Doty was admitted into evidence as State Exhibit No. 39 and played for the jury. See id. at 38. The state trial court also admitted into evidence State Exhibit No. 388L, a written transcription of Ray's 911 call, which appears at ECF no. 53-47, pp. 371-77 of 464, and at ECF no. 5349, pp. 224-30 of 317. Ray reported to the dispatcher that Brown had struck her the night before (which Ray stated that she had reported to police) and that he was following her in his own vehicle, hollering at her, and trying to get her to pull over. Ray stated that she feared that he would ram his vehicle into hers. She also reported that she had informed Brown that she was calling the police and that he knew she was talking with police at that moment.
Greenville police officer Gregory Hughes, the law enforcement officer who responded to Ray's 911 call and arrived at the scene as Brown fired the fatal shot,
testified that he heard but did not see the shotgun blast; that, after the shot was fired, Brown's vehicle jerked to the left and took off while Ray's vehicle rolled forward but quickly halted when it struck a curb; that officers had to break into Ray's vehicle through the shattered driver's side window because the windows were up and the doors locked; and that he activated his flashing lights just prior to the fatal shot being fired. See S.F. Trial, Vol. 40/53 [ECF no. 53-31], at 45-93.
A witness to the shooting testified that he pursued Brown's vehicle after it fled the crime scene, managed to get the license plate of Brown's vehicle, and then returned to the crime scene and gave police the license plate number. See S.F. Trial, Vol. 40/53 [ECF no. 53-31], at 102-20.
Ray's teenage son from a prior marriage testified that his biological father (Tracy Williams) came to live with Ray, himself, and Ray's two youngest children a couple weeks before the fatal shooting. He described an incident a few days before the shooting in which Tracy Williams and Brown engaged in a physical confrontation that included Williams choking Brown after Brown arrived at the home and entered without knocking. He testified that Tracy Williams left for Louisiana after that incident to avoid being a source of trouble between Ray and Brown. He also described an incident on July 19, 2011, in which an apparently intoxicated Brown struck Ray and their young son Colten in the face after Ray refused to allow Brown to leave with Colten. Brown sped off after the assaults. Ray's teenage son testified that he took photographs of Ray's and Colten's injured faces on his cell phone. He described Ray as shocked that Brown had struck her. He testified further that he was visiting
friends the evening the murder and that he had refused to answer Brown's telephone calls to him that evening because Ray told him that Brown was acting crazy. He also testified that, about a week before Ray's murder, Brown began coming to Ray's home early in the morning banging on windows and doors. Finally, he testified that Ray had recently earned her doctorate, had accepted a job with a college in East Texas, and planned to move with him and her two young children starting on July 20. See S.F. Trial, Vol. 40/53 [ECF no. 53-31], at 121-60.
Ray's mother testified that Ray and Brown divorced about a year before the fatal shooting. Brown is the biological father of Ray's two youngest children, Colten and Willow. Brown called Ray's mother around 7:00 p.m. on July 20, 2011 to ask about Ray and their children. Ray's mother informed Brown the children were not at her home. Brown called back later to inform Ray's mother that he had shot Ray in the head and that Ray was dead. See S.F. Trial, Vol. 40/53 [ECF no. 53-31], at 16185.
Shortly after his arrest on July 21, 2011, Brown gave a videotaped statement to law enforcement personnel, which was admitted into evidence as State Exhibit No. 46. The recording was played for the jury. See S.F. Trial, Vol. 40/53 [ECF no. 53-31], at 198. The state trial court also admitted into evidence State Exhibit No. 388A, a transcript of the same interview, which appears at ECF no. 53-47, pp. 191-208 of 464, and at ECF no. 53-49, pp. 44-61 of 317.
During his police interview, Brown admitted that he pursued Ray in his vehicle; that he sought to get her to pull over; that he fatally shot her when she
refused his demands that she answer his questions about their children; that, just before he fired the fatal shot, he saw a police vehicle approaching them from behind; and that he had no regrets over having shot Ray.
The Greenville police investigators who interviewed Brown following his arrest testified that Brown never asked about Ray or inquired about his children during his post-arrest interview and that Brown never expressed remorse for killing Ray. Brown admitted that he knew Ray was on the phone with police at the time that he shot Ray. Brown stated that he knew the police were directly behind him...
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