Carter v. Sec'y, Dep't of Corr.

• Decision Date: 16 June 2020
• Docket Number: Case No. 3:18-cv-809-J-39JBT
• Parties: JAMES ROY CARTER, Petitioner, v. SECRETARY, DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, et al., Respondents.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Middle District of Florida

JAMES ROY CARTER, Petitioner, v. SECRETARY, DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, et al., Respondents.

Case No. 3:18-cv-809-J-39JBT

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT MIDDLE DISTRICT OF FLORIDA JACKSONVILLE DIVISION

June 16, 2020

ORDER

I. INTRODUCTION

James Roy Carter, a petitioner proceeding pro se, challenges his state court (Duval County) conviction for carjacking through his Petition Under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 for Writ of Habeas Corpus By a Person in State Custody (Petition) (Doc. 1). He raises one ground. Id. at 5. Respondents filed an Answer in Response to Order to Show Cause (Response) (Doc. 10).¹ Petitioner filed a notice that he does not intend to file a reply (Doc. 12). See Order (Doc. 4).

II. EVIDENTIARY HEARING

Petitioner carries the burden to establish a need for an evidentiary hearing. See Chavez v. Sec'y, Fla. Dep't of Corr., 647 F.3d 1057, 1060 (11th Cir. 2011) (opining a petitioner bears the burden of establishing the need for an evidentiary hearing with more than speculative and inconcrete claims of need), cert. denied, 565 U.S. 1120 (2012). Upon review, Petitioner has not met this burden; the Court finds it can "adequately assess [Petitioner's] claims without further factual development," Turner v. Crosby, 339 F.3d 1247, 1275 (11th Cir. 2003), cert. denied, 541 U.S. 1034 (2004). The Court concludes Petitioner is not entitled to an evidentiary hearing. Schriro v. Landrigan, 550 U.S. 465, 474 (2007).

III. THE PETITION AND RESPONSE

Although not a model of clarity, in ground one of the Petition, Petitioner apparently challenges the filing of the information, stating it was filed in bad faith, and the sufficiency of the evidence presented at trial, complaining there were "unsubstantiated allegations of misconduct" and no foundation for the jury to find a factual act of force, assault, violence or putting in fear in the taking of the motor vehicle. Petition at 5. Additionally, Petitioner claims he was improperly sentenced to life because he was not charged with the greater offense ofcarjacking with a weapon. Id. at 6-7. Finally, Petitioner asserts he was acquitted by the state circuit court judge in the order denying post-conviction relief. Id. at 10-11. Under relief requested, Petitioner references the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, Thirteenth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, and relies on the Due Process Clause, the Equal Protection Clause, and the "equity of the paramount organic laws." Id. at 21.

Respondents, noting the Petition is not entirely clear, restate Petitioner's ground one: "whether Petitioner fairly presented his claim that his due process rights were violated because the information in his case was filed in bad faith[.]" Response at 14 (capitalization omitted). Respondents contend ground one is unexhausted and procedurally barred. Id. at 14-17. Alternatively, Respondents assert the information adequately placed Petitioner on notice of the offense, satisfying due process requirements. Id. at 18-20. Finally, they submit, to the extent Petitioner argues insufficiency of the evidence, the evidence at trial was sufficient to support every element of the offense of carjacking. Id. at 20-22.

IV. HABEAS REVIEW

In this case, Petitioner claims he is detained "in violation of the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States." 28U.S.C. § 2241(c)(3). The Court recognizes its authority to award habeas corpus relief to state prisoners "is limited-by both statute and Supreme Court precedent." Knight v. Fla. Dep't of Corr., 936 F.3d 1322, 1330 (11th Cir. 2019), petition for cert. filed, (U.S. Apr. 20, 2019) (No. 19-8341). The AEDPA governs a state prisoner's federal petition for habeas corpus and "prescribes a deferential framework for evaluating issues previously decided in state court[,]" Sealey v. Warden, Ga. Diagnostic Prison, 954 F.3d 1338, 1354 (11th Cir. 2020) (citation omitted), limiting a federal court's authority to award habeas relief. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254; Shoop v. Hill, 139 S. Ct. 504, 506 (2019) (per curiam) (recognizing AEDPA imposes "important limitations on the power of federal courts to overturn the judgments of state courts in criminal cases"). As such, federal courts may not grant habeas relief unless one of the claims: "(1)'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) '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)." Nance v. Warden, Ga. Diagnostic Prison, 922 F.3d 1298, 1300-1301 (11th Cir. 2019), cert. denied, No. 19-6918, 2020 WL 1325907 (U.S. Mar. 23, 2020).

In Knight, the Eleventh Circuit explained:

A decision is "contrary to" clearly established federal law "if the state court arrives at a conclusion opposite to that reached by [the Supreme] Court on a question of law or if the state court decides a case differently than [the Supreme] Court has on a set of materially indistinguishable facts." Williams [v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362 (2000)] at 413, 120 S. Ct. 1495. A state court decision involves an unreasonable application of federal law "if the state court identifies the correct governing legal principle from [the Supreme] Court's decisions but unreasonably applies that principle to the facts of the prisoner's case." Id. To justify issuance of the writ under the "unreasonable application" clause, the state court's application of Supreme Court precedent must be more than just wrong in the eyes of the federal court; it "must be 'objectively unreasonable.'" Virginia v. LeBlanc, --- U.S. ----, 137 S. Ct. 1726, 1728, 198 L.Ed.2d 186 (2017)(quoting Woods v. Donald, --- U.S. ---, 135 S. Ct. 1372, 1376, 191 L.Ed.2d 464 (2015)); see alsoBell v. Cone, 535 U.S. 685, 694, 122 S. Ct. 1843, 152 L.Ed.2d 914 (2002) (explaining that "an unreasonable application is different from an incorrect one.").

Knight, 936 F.3d at 1330-31.

To obtain habeas relief, the state court decision must unquestionably conflict with Supreme Court precedent, not dicta. Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 102 (2011). If some fair-minded jurists could agree with the lower court's decision, habeas relief must be denied. Meders v. Warden, Ga. Diagnostic Prison, 911 F.3d 1335, 1351 (11th Cir.), cert. denied, 140 S. Ct. 394 (2019). Therefore, unless the petitioner shows the state-court'sruling was so lacking in justification that there was error well understood and comprehended in existing law beyond any possibility for fair-minded disagreement, there is no entitlement to habeas relief. Burt v. Titlow, 571 U.S. 12, 19-20 (2013).

This Court must accept that a state court's finding of fact, whether a state trial court or appellate court, is entitled to a presumption of correctness under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(1). "The state court's factual determinations are presumed correct, absent clear and convincing evidence to the contrary." Sealey, 954 F.3d at 1354 (quoting 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(1)). This presumption of correctness, however, applies only to findings of fact, not mixed determinations of law and fact. Brannan v. GDCP Warden, 541 F. App'x 901, 903-904 (11th Cir. 2013) (per curiam) (recognizing the distinction between a pure question of fact from a mixed question of law and fact), cert. denied, 573 U.S. 906 (2014). Where there has been one reasoned state court judgment rejecting a federal claim followed by an unexplained order upholding that judgement, federal habeas courts employ a "look through" presumption: "the federal court should 'look through' the unexplained decision to the last related state-court decision that does provide a relevant rationale. It should then presume that the unexplained decision adopted the same reasoning." Wilson v. Sellers, 138 S. Ct. 1188, 1192 (2018) (Wilson).

Thus, the reviewing federal court's habeas corpus consideration of a petition under AEDPA is a guard against extreme malfunctions in the state criminal justice systems, not a mechanism for ordinary error correction. Richter, 562 U.S. at 102-103 (citation and quotation marks omitted). As noted in Sealey, 954 F.3d at 1354 (citations omitted), when reviewing whether there has been an unreasonable application of federal law, "[t]he key word is 'unreasonable,' which is more than simply incorrect." Consequently, state-court judgments will not easily be set aside due to the applicability of the highly deferential AEDPA standard that is intentionally difficult to meet. See Richter, 562 U.S. at 102. Although a high hurdle, this high standard does not impose a complete bar to issuing a writ, but it severely limits those occasions to those "where there is no possibility fairminded jurists could disagree that the state court's decision conflicts" with Supreme Court precedent. Id.

V. GROUND ONE

Respondents assert ground one is unexhausted and procedurally defaulted. Response at 14-17. The doctrine of procedural default requires the following:

Federal habeas courts reviewing the constitutionality of a state prisoner's conviction and sentence are guided by rulesdesigned to ensure that state court judgments are accorded the finality and respect necessary to preserve the integrity of legal proceedings within our system of federalism. These rules include the doctrine of procedural default, under which a federal court will not review the merits of claims, including constitutional claims, that a state court declined to hear because the prisoner failed to abide by a state procedural rule. See, e.g., Coleman,[²] supra, at 747-748, 111 S. Ct. 2546; Sykes,[³] supra, at 84-85, 97 S. Ct. 2497. A state court's invocation of a procedural rule to deny a prisoner's claims precludes federal review of the claims if, among other requisites, the state procedural rule is a nonfederal ground adequate to support the judgment and the rule is firmly established and consistently followed. See, e.g., Walker v. Martin, 562 U.S. ----, ----, 131 S. Ct. 1120,

...