Cavitt v. Saba

• Citation: 57 F.Supp.3d 81
• Decision Date: 31 October 2014
• Docket Number: Civil Action No. 1:12–cv–11700–WGY.
• Parties: Brian CAVITT, Petitioner, v. James SABA, Superintendent, Respondent.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Massachusetts

57 F.Supp.3d 81

Brian CAVITT, Petitioner

v.James SABA, Superintendent, Respondent.

Civil Action No. 1:12–cv–11700–WGY.

United States District Court, D. Massachusetts.

Signed Oct. 31, 2014.

Brian Cavitt, South Walpole, MA, pro se.

Anne Marie Thomas, Office of the Attorney General, Boston, MA, Jennifer L. Sullivan, Office of the Attorney General, Worcester, MA, for Respondent.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

YOUNG, District Judge.

I. INTRODUCTION

Brian Cavitt (“Cavitt”) brings this pro se petition seeking a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. section 2254 (“section 2254 ”). Pet. 28 U.S.C. § 2254 Writ Habeas Corpus Person State Custody (“Pet.”), ECF No. 6. Cavitt presents four grounds for relief: (1) whether the “[j]udge erred in denying [a] motion for new trial where trial counsel failed to pursue suppression of a pair of sneakers, notwithstanding a lack of probable cause for search and seizure,” id. at 6; (2) whether the “[j]udge erred in denying [a] motion to suppress evidence where the search warrant affidavit was not supported by probable cause because the veracity of an ‘unknown’ citizen informant was not adequately demonstrated,” id. at 8; (3) whether the “[j]udge erred in denying [a] motion to suppress a photographic identification made [by] a 13[-]year-old witness that was a result of undue suggestion by police,” id. at 9; and (4) whether the “[j]udge erred in allowing [the] introduction of inconclusive [DNA] evidence [without] the requisite explanatory statistical support,” id. at 11. James Saba (“Saba”), Cavitt's immediate custodian, opposes the petition in its entirety. Resp't James Saba's Mem. Opp'n Brian Cavitt's Pet. Writ Habeas Corpus (“Saba's Opp'n”), ECF No. 35.

A. Procedural Posture

Cavitt filed his petition for a writ of habeas corpus on October 9, 2012, raising eight grounds for relief. Pet. Saba moved to dismiss the petition for failure to exhaust state court remedies on four of the eight grounds on December 3, 2012. Resp't's Mot. Dismiss Failure Exhaust State Ct. Remedies, ECF No. 13. On January 7, 2013, the Court granted the motion and entered an order of dismissal. Order, ECF No. 15; Order Dismissal, ECF No. 16. Cavitt moved for reconsideration and asked the Court for permission to withdraw his unexhausted grounds for relief, Mot. Recons. Habeas Corpus Pet., ECF No. 17, and on January 31, 2013, the Court entered the following order: “Upon reconsideration ground[s] 5–8 are unequivocally waived and the case may proceed on counts 1–4 alone.” Elec. Order, Jan. 31, 2013, ECF No. 18.

On February 15, 2013, Saba presented his answer to the habeas petition. Resp't's Answer, ECF No. 25. On October 21, 2013, Cavitt filed a memorandum of law in support of his petition. Pet'r's Mem. Law Supp. Pet. Habeas Corpus (“Cavitt's Mem.”), ECF No. 32. Saba then filed his opposition on December 12, 2013, Saba's Opp'n, to which Cavitt replied one week later, Pet'r Brian Cavitt's Reply Resp't James Saba's Mem. Opp'n Pet'r's Pet. Writ Habeas Corpus, ECF No. 36.

B. Facts¹

On May 5, 2006, a man, later identified as Cavitt, robbed a Western Union office located inside a supermarket in Springfield; the same day, fire officials investigating smoke coming from a nearby housing complex discovered the bodies of a man and a woman who had been stabbed to death. Commonwealth v. Cavitt, 460 Mass. 617, 618, 620, 953 N.E.2d 216 (2011). On June 30, 2006, a grand jury returned indictments against Cavitt for two counts for murder, and one count each for arson of a dwelling house, armed robbery while masked, assault and battery, and carjacking. Id. at 618, 953 N.E.2d 216 ; Saba's Opp'n 2. On February 1, 2007, Cavitt filed a motion to suppress evidence—a pair of sneakers—seized by the police during a search of the apartment where he was staying and a motion to suppress two photographic identifications. Cavitt, 460 Mass. at 618, 953 N.E.2d 216 ; Saba's Opp'n 2. The Massachusetts Superior Court denied both motions on June 14, 2007. Cavitt, 460 Mass. at 618, 953 N.E.2d 216 ; Saba's Opp'n 2.

On December 11, 2007, a jury found Cavitt guilty of both charges of murder in the first degree on theories of deliberate premeditation, extreme atrocity or cruelty, and felony murder; they also found him guilty of the charges of arson of a dwelling house, armed robbery while masked, and assault and battery, while finding him not guilty on the carjacking charge. Cavitt, 460 Mass. at 618, 953 N.E.2d 216 ; Saba's Opp'n 2. Judge Carhart then sentenced Cavitt to serve two consecutive terms of life in prison, a term of ten to fifteen years in prison concurrent with the first life sentence, a term of twenty to twenty-five years after the second life sentence, and a term of two years concurrent with the first life sentence. Saba's Opp'n 2–3.

Three days later, Cavitt filed a motion to revise and revoke his sentence, but it was denied on January 7, 2008. Saba's Opp'n 3. After filing a timely notice of a direct appeal, Cavitt also filed a motion for a new trial, “alleging ineffective assistance of trial counsel based on counsel's failure to pursue the suppression of evidence.” Cavitt, 460 Mass. at 618, 953 N.E.2d 216. Judge Carhart denied the motion on July 22, 2010. Id.; Saba's Opp'n 3. Cavitt's appeal from the denial of his new trial motion was then consolidated with his direct appeal, and on September 21, 2011, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court affirmed the convictions and the denial of the new trial motion. Cavitt, 460 Mass. at 618–19, 636, 953 N.E.2d 216. Finally, on October 9, 2012,² Cavitt filed this petition for a writ of habeas corpus. Pet.

II. ANALYSIS

A. Standard of Review—Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act

Under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (“AEDPA”), “habeas corpus review of claims previously adjudicated in state court is both limited and highly deferential.” Evans v. Thompson, 465 F.Supp.2d 62, 66 (D.Mass.2006), aff'd, 518 F.3d 1 (1st Cir.2008) ; see also Johnson v. Dickhaut, 308 Fed.Appx. 454, 456 (1st Cir.2009). More specifically:

An application for a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court shall not be granted with respect to any claim that was adjudicated on the merits in State court proceedings unless the adjudication of the claim—(1) 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; or (2) resulted in a decision that 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). “This ‘highly deferential standard for evaluating state-court rulings' reflects the overarching structure of the federal habeas corpus scheme, which vests ‘primary responsibility’ for evaluating federal law claims raised in criminal trials in the state courts,” on the presumption that state courts know and follow federal law. Evans, 465 F.Supp.2d at 66 (quoting Woodford v. Visciotti, 537 U.S. 19, 24, 27, 123 S.Ct. 357, 154 L.Ed.2d 279 (2002) ).

Accordingly, “[u]nder current Supreme Court precedent, habeas relief is not warranted if the state court's decision was merely erroneous or incorrect.” Id. (citing Woodford, 537 U.S. at 27, 123 S.Ct. 357 ; Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 412–13, 120 S.Ct. 1495, 146 L.Ed.2d 389 (2000) ). As a consequence of this high standard, it is not enough “that the state court ‘failed to apply’ clearly established Supreme Court law, or that the state court committed ‘clear error,’ or that the reviewing court is of the ‘firm conviction’ that the state court's ruling was erroneous.” Id. (citations omitted).

Thus, the habeas petitioner bears the burden of showing “that his claim falls into one of the narrow categories set forth in [section 2254(d) ].” Id. at 66–67. The first category regards decisions that were “contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law.”³ 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1). As this Court has previously analyzed,

“Under the ‘contrary to’ clause, a federal habeas court may grant the writ 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, 529 U.S. at 412–13, 120 S.Ct. 1495. The analysis under the “unreasonable application” clause makes relief available only 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. at 413, 120 S.Ct. 1495. The application of a legal rule will be deemed unreasonable if there is “some increment of incorrectness beyond error” that is “great enough to make the decision unreasonable in the independent objective judgment of the federal court.” Norton v. Spencer, 351 F.3d 1, 8 (1st Cir.2003).

Evans, 465 F.Supp.2d at 67 (alterations in original).

B. Standard of Review—Ineffective Assistance of Counsel

In Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984), the Supreme Court set forth the two-part test for a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel. The so-called Strickland prongs demand from the petitioner a showing that: (1) counsel's representation fell below an objective standard of reasonableness, and (2) prejudice resulted from this error. Id. at 688–92, 104 S.Ct. 2052 ; see also Hallums v. Russo, 491 F.Supp.2d 161, 165 (D.Mass.2007).

Under the first prong, a petitioner must show that counsel has failed to employ “such skill and knowledge as will render the trial a reliable adversarial testing process.” Scarpa v. Dubois, 38 F.3d 1, 8 (1st Cir.1994) (quoting Strickland, 466 U.S. at 688, 104 S.Ct. 2052 ) (internal quotation marks omitted). Under the second prong, the petitioner must demonstrate a “reasonable probability that, but for cou...