Cobb v. Mohan
| Decision Date | 17 August 2016 |
| Docket Number | Case No. 14-CV-335-GKF-FHM |
| Parties | WENDY COBB, Petitioner, v. RICKY MOHAN, Warden, Respondent. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Oklahoma |
Before the court is the Petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 for a Writ of Habeas Corpus [Dkt. #8] of petitioner Wendy Cobb. In October 2011, Ms. Cobb was convicted of first degree murder in Oklahoma state court and sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. She challenged her conviction on direct appeal, alleging several evidentiary and procedural errors. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals ("OCCA") affirmed her conviction and sentence. Ms. Cobb in turn filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus, followed by an amended petition in which she raises six grounds of error. For the reasons set forth in this Opinion and Order, Ms. Cobb's amended petition is denied.
This case arises from the death of petitioner's husband, Michael Cobb.1 On April 28, 2009, the Osage Fire Department responded to a fire at the Cobbs' home. Firefighters arrived at the scene approximately ten minutes after receiving the dispatch. The home was completely engulfed in flames. Because the home burnt so quickly, Osage Fire Chief Richard Howard suspected arson. He contacted the state fire marshal and directed his team to use a "fog nozzle"to contain the fire without further disturbing the scene. After the fire was contained, firefighters entered the home. They found Michael's remains in the debris. The medical examiner later determined that Michael had died from blunt force trauma to the head and ruled his death a homicide.
At the time of Michael's death, he and Ms. Cobb were having marital problems. Michael had filed for divorce and the couple had separated in October 2008. The divorce was acrimonious. During this time, Ms. Cobb was involved in a romantic relationship with Nicholas Shires. They lived together for approximately one month in late 2008 and early 2009, and their relationship continued up until Michael's death in April of that year.
Shortly after Michael's death, Shires and Ms. Cobb became the primary suspects. Shires was arrested for Michael's murder in May 2010. He later confessed to the murder pursuant to a plea agreement in which he implicated Ms. Cobb. In particular, Shires told authorities that he volunteered to kill Michael after Ms. Cobb had asked him for assistance in hiring a hitman. Shires carried out the murder by striking Michael in the head with a baseball bat, dragging his body into a bedroom, pouring gasoline throughout the house, and setting the house on fire. According to Shires, Ms. Cobb planned the killing, provided him with the gasoline and baseball bat, and lent him her motorcycle as a getaway vehicle.
Ms. Cobb was later arrested and charged with first degree murder in Mayes County District Court. She pleaded not guilty and was tried before a jury in October 2011. Shires testified against her during the trial. In exchange for his testimony, the state agreed to the imposition of a twenty-two (22) year sentence, which Shires ultimately received. Following a week-long trial, the jury returned a verdict of guilty. In accordance with the jury'srecommendation, the trial court sentenced Ms. Cobb to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
Ms. Cobb later appealed her conviction, asserting several evidentiary and procedural errors. The OCCA affirmed her conviction and sentence. In doing so, it acknowledged that Ms. Cobb's trial was not error free, but determined that the few evidentiary errors that did occur were harmless.
Ms. Cobb filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in June 2014 and an amended petition in October 2014. In her amended petition, Ms. Cobb reasserts claims she raised during her direct appeal. The state acknowledges that Ms. Cobb's claims are both exhausted and timely and thus ripe for review.
Ms. Cobb's amended petition arises under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act ("AEDPA"). AEDPA authorizes federal courts to entertain habeas petitions filed by state prisoners seeking relief on the ground that their "custody [is] in violation of the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States." 28 U.S.C. § 2254(a). For claims adjudicated on the merits in state court, review under the statute is "highly deferential." Cullen v. Pinholster, 563 U.S. 170, 181 (2011) (internal quotation marks omitted). In such cases, habeas relief is available only if the state court's adjudication of the claim (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." Id. § 2254(d). A state court's factual findings are presumed correct unless rebutted by clear and convincing evidence. Id. § 2254(e)(1).
"'Clearly established Federal law' for purposes of § 2254(d)(1) 'refers to the holdings, as opposed to the dicta, of the Supreme Court's decisions as of the time of the relevant state-court decision.'" Bonney v. Wilson, 754 F.3d 872, 880 (10th Cir. 2014) (alterations omitted) (quoting Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 412 (2000)). A "decision is 'contrary to' federal law 'if [it] applies a rule different from the governing . . . Supreme Court case[ law] or . . . decides a case differently than the Supreme Court has done on . . . materially indistinguishable facts." Hooks v. Workman, 689 F.3d 1148, 1163 (10th Cir. 2012) (alterations omitted) (quoting Bell v. Cone, 535 U.S. 685, 694 (2002)). A decision involves an "unreasonable application" of federal law if it "correctly identifies the governing legal rule but applies it unreasonably to the facts of a particular prisoner's case." Williams, 529 U.S. at 407-08. "Unreasonable" in the AEDPA context means something more than incorrect; it requires an error "beyond any possibility for fairminded disagreement." Fairchild v. Trammell, 784 F.3d 702, 711 (10th Cir. 2015) (quoting Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 103 (2011)). Under this test, a state-court decision is deemed unreasonable only if "all fairminded jurists would agree the . . . decision was incorrect." Frost v. Pryor, 749 F.3d 1212, 1225 (10th Cir. 2014).
"Generally, an error of state law 'provides no basis for federal habeas relief.'" Jones v. Stotts, 59 F.3d 143, 145 n.2 (10th Cir. 1995) (alteration omitted) (quoting Estelle v. McGuire, 502 U.S. 62, 68 n. 2 (1991)). The exception to this rule is an error "so fundamentally unfair as to deprive [the] petitioner of a fair trial and to due process of law." Patton v. Mullin, 425 F.3d 788, 807 (10th Cir. 2005) (quoting Nguyen v. Reynolds, 131 F.3d 1340, 1357 (10th Cir. 1997)); accord Hooks, 689 F.3d at 1180. Such errors are rare. "[T]he category of infractions that violate 'fundamental fairness' [is] very narrow[]," Dowling v. United States, 493 U.S. 342, 352 (1990), and extends only to those errors "shocking to the universal sense of justice," United States v.Rivera, 900 F.2d 1462, 1477 (10th Cir. 1990) (quoting United States v. Russell, 411 U.S. 423, 432 (1973)); accord Dowling, 493 U.S. at 353; Maybery v. Patton, 579 Fed. App'x 640, 647 (10th Cir. 2014). Because this standard "is not subject to clearly definable legal elements," federal courts "must approach such [an] analysis with considerable self-restraint," reversing state-court rulings only in "the most serious cases." Rivera, 900 F.2d at 1477 (internal quotation marks omitted); accord Harris v. Poppell, 411 F.3d 1189, 1197 (10th Cir. 2005).
As previously stated, Ms. Cobb's amended petition asserts six grounds for relief. Because the OCCA addressed each of her claims on the merits, AEDPA deference applies. See 28 U.S.C § 2254(d). The court addresses each claim in turn.
Ms. Cobb first challenges the OCCA's ruling that there is sufficient evidence to support her conviction for first degree murder. On direct appeal, Ms. Cobb argued that Shires's testimony against her was uncorroborated and thus should be excluded from the court's sufficiency analysis. Her argument was premised on an Oklahoma statute requiring that an accomplice's testimony be independently corroborated in order to sustain a defendant's conviction. See 22 O.S. § 742;2 see also Pink v. State, 104 P.3d 584, 590 (Okla. Crim. App. 2004). The OCCA rejected the argument as follows:
To continue reading
Request your trial