Chanthakoummane v. Director

• Decision Date: 20 March 2015
• Docket Number: CIVIL ACTION NO. 4:13cv67
• Parties: KOSOUL CHANTHAKOUMMANE, Petitioner, v. DIRECTOR, TDCJ-CID, Respondent.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Texas

KOSOUL CHANTHAKOUMMANE, Petitioner, v. DIRECTOR, TDCJ-CID, Respondent.

CIVIL ACTION NO. 4:13cv67

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS SHERMAN DIVISION

March 20, 2015

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER OF DISMISSAL

Petitioner Kosoul Chanthakoummane, an inmate confined in the Texas prison system, filed the above-styled and numbered petition for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254. Petitioner is challenging his capital murder conviction and death sentence imposed by the 380th Judicial District Court of Collin County, Texas in Cause Number 380-81972-07, in a case styled The State of Texas v. Kosoul Chanthakoummane. For reasons set forth below, the Court finds that the petition is not well-taken and that it will be denied.

Procedural History of the Case

On October 17, 2007, Petitioner was convicted of the offense of capital murder for stabbing and killing Sarah Walker in the course of committing the offense of robbery, in violation of Tex. Penal Code § 19.03(a). The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ("TCCA") affirmed the conviction and death sentence. Chanthakoummane v. State, No. AP-75,794, 2010 WL 1696789 (Tex. Crim. App. April 28,2010) (unpublished). The Supreme Court denied his petition for a writ of certiorari. Chanthakoummane v. Texas, 131 S. Ct. 506 (2010).

Petitioner filed an application for a writ of habeas corpus in state court on April 5, 2010. An evidentiary hearing was conducted on November 10, 2010. The state trial court issued thorough findings of fact and conclusions of law on September 20, 2012. The TCCA subsequently denied relief based on the trial court's findings and conclusions and on its own review. Ex parte Chanthakoummane, No. WR-78,107-01, 2013 WL 363124 (Tex. Crim. App. Jan. 30, 2013) (unpublished).

Petitioner began the present proceedings on February 5, 2013. He filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254 on January 26, 2014 (docket entry #15). The Director filed an answer on July 28, 2014 (docket entry #31). No reply was filed.

Factual Background of the Case

The TCCA thoroughly discussed the factual background of the case as follows:

On Saturday, July 8, 2006, real estate agent Sarah Walker was murdered in the D.R. Horton model home where she worked in the "Craig Ranch" subdivision in McKinney, Texas. [Petitioner] was charged with intentionally and knowingly causing Walker's death while in the course of committing or attempting to commit robbery.

On the morning of July 8, Walker's ex-husband, Randy Tate, went to Walker's residence in Frisco, Texas. Walker planned to work at the model home that day, so Tate picked up their son early that morning. While Tate was at Walker's residence, Walker showed him a new Rolex watch that she said she had purchased the previous day. Later that morning, Walker went to a Bank of America in Frisco. Still photographs taken from the bank surveillance video showed Walker wearing a watch and a ring at around 11:45 a.m. Walker's cousin, Jessica Allen, testified that Walker often wore ornate rings and a Tag Heuer watch that she had owned for several years.

Another real estate agent, Mamie Sharpless, received a phone call at 9:40 a.m. that morning from a man who identified himself as "Chan Lee." The man told Sharpless that he found her phone number in a Keller Williams advertisement and that he wanted to look at a town house she had listed in the Craig Ranch subdivision. He said that he had just moved from North Carolina to the Dallas area, that he had graduated from the University of North Carolinaat Charlotte, and that he worked for Texas Instruments. He said that he was calling from a phone booth at the 7-Eleven at Midway and Park and that he was staying in Room 245 at the "InTown Suites." When Sharpless asked him for a contact number, he said that he did not have a cell phone. The phone "cut off" before their conversation ended, so Sharpless tried to reach him by calling his hotel. Sharpless testified that she "called two InTown Suites, and one didn't have a [Room] 245, the other one did, but it just had a recording on it."

Sharpless arrived to show the town house between 11:30 a.m. and noon, and she brought her husband, Nelson Villavicencio, with her. As they sat in their car and waited, they saw a man drive by in a white Ford Mustang and park across from a D.R. Horton model home down the street. They observed the man getting out of the Mustang and starting to cross the street. They drove over to the man and asked him if he was "Chan Lee," and he replied, "No." Sharpless described him as a muscular man of Asian descent, about 5' 4" or 5' 5" tall, with a "buzz cut." She made an in-court identification of [Petitioner] as the man she saw that day, but explained that he was thinner with longer hair at the time of trial.

As Sharpless and Villavicencio drove away, they noticed that the Mustang had Texas license plates. When Villavicencio drove to the end of the block, turned around, and drove back, the Mustang was no longer there. He then drove back to the town house so Sharpless could show it to another potential buyer. As Villavicencio looked out the bedroom window while Sharpless showed the town house, he observed Walker arrive in her Porsche Boxster. Walker parked her car across the street from the D.R. Horton model home and went inside. At that point, Villavicencio also saw a white Mustang parked on the street in front of the model home. Sharpless then finished showing the town house and they left between 12:30 and 1:00 p.m. As they left the subdivision, Sharpless also noticed a white Mustang parked in front of the model home.

At about 12:30 p.m., Walker called her cousin, Jessica Allen. Allen testified that Walker was "in a really good mood" during their brief telephone conversation. They talked for about 15 minutes, then Walker "said someone had walked in and she'd call [Allen] back."

At approximately 1:10 p.m., Andy Lilliston and his wife came to look at the D.R. Horton model home. When they entered the model home, Lilliston thought that it appeared to have been "ransacked." He observed a large pool of blood in the dining room, where the sales desk was located. He followed a trail of blood into the kitchen, where he saw Walker lying face-up on the floor, with the upper half of her body covered in blood. Lilliston directed his wife to call 9-1-1, and they exited the model home. Lilliston ran into the street and flagged down a vehicle for help. He briefly went back inside the model home to check on Walker, but she did not display any signs of life. Lilliston then went back outside and waited for emergency personnel to arrive.

When Texas Ranger A.P. Davidson arrived at the model home, he noticed signs of a struggle in the dining room. The desk was crooked, the desk chair was out of place, a plant stand was knocked over, and a potted plant was on the floor. A pair of women's shoes, a broken hair clip, and a broken earring were also on the floor. There was a trail of blood leadingfrom the dining room into the kitchen. Walker's body was on the kitchen floor, and it appeared that she had multiple stab wounds. Davidson opined that Walker had been dragged by her feet from the dining room to the kitchen because the long skirt she was wearing was rolled up to her waistline.

McKinney police officer Pete Copin discovered a bloody fingerprint on the deadbolt lock on the front door of the model home; however, he testified that there were "not enough individual characteristics for a positive identification." Copin further observed what appeared to be blood on the plant stand, on the ceramic tile in the entryway, on the wall next to the edge of the window beside the front door, and on the pull cord for the window blinds. It also appeared that there had been blood in the kitchen sink that had been washed or diluted with water. Copin collected blood swabs and other evidence from the scene for further testing.

When Walker's body was discovered, she was no longer wearing the watch and ring that she had been shown wearing earlier on the bank surveillance video. When the police searched Walker's residence after her death, they found her Tag Heuer watch. The police never located her Rolex watch, but they did find the box and the receipt for the Rolex watch in her residence.

William Rohr, the Collin County Medical Examiner who performed Walker's autopsy, testified that Walker sustained several blunt force injuries to her head. He opined that the blunt force injuries were the result of "several blows," and that they were consistent with Walker being struck in the face and head with the plant stand in the model home. Walker had multiple bruises on her face and head, a broken nose, and fractured teeth. She had some defensive wounds, including an excised wound on her left arm and a broken fingernail on her right hand. She suffered a total of 33 stab wounds, 10 of which penetrated vital organs and blood vessels. Rohr testified that any one of those 10 wounds could have been "pretty much immediately fatal." Walker also had a bite mark on the back of her neck that Rohr opined was inflicted "at or near her death." Rohr testified that he preserved this evidence by using a scalpel to excise the bite mark and surrounding area.

DNA analysis linked [Petitioner] to evidence from the crime scene. [Petitioner's] DNA profile was consistent with the DNA obtained from Walker's fingernails, the window blind pull cords, the deadbolt lock and faceplate, and some of the swabs taken from the living room, kitchen, and entryway of the model home. The DNA analyst testified that only a "partial profile" was obtained from a swab taken from the kitchen sink because the DNA extracted from that swab "was of low quality and degraded quality." However, the set of genetic markers that she was able to detect in the partial profile "corresponded with the genetic markers observed in the DNA profile of [Petitioner]."

After receiving the results of the DNA analysis,

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