Coleman v. Lemke

• Decision Date: 08 January 2014
• Docket Number: No. 12–2000.,12–2000.
• Citation: 739 F.3d 342
• Parties: Maurice COLEMAN, Petitioner–Appellant, v. Michael LEMKE, Warden, Respondent–Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

739 F.3d 342

Maurice COLEMAN, Petitioner–Appellant,

v.Michael LEMKE, Warden,^* Respondent–Appellee.

No. 12–2000.

United States Court of Appeals,Seventh Circuit.

Argued Sept. 16, 2013.

Decided Jan. 8, 2014.

Steven Shobat, Attorney, Chicago, IL, for Petitioner–Appellant.

Drew Meyer, Attorney, Office of The Attorney General, Chicago, IL, for Respondent–Appellee.

Before KANNE, ROVNER, and WILLIAMS, Circuit Judges.

WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge.

Maurice Coleman's collateral challenge of his 1983 murder and armed robbery convictions is before us a second time. In the first appeal, we reversed the district court's denial of Coleman's habeas petition. Coleman v. Hardy (“ Coleman I ”), 628 F.3d 314, 323 (7th Cir.2010). We concluded that the facts underlying Coleman's petition could potentially demonstrate his actual innocence of the state charges and ordered the district court to conduct an evidentiary hearing on the issue. Id. at 322–23 (citing 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(2)(B)). On remand, the parties completed discovery and the district court held a two-day evidentiary hearing. After the hearing, the district court examined the entirety of the evidentiary record and concluded that Coleman had not satisfied the actual innocence standard. Because Coleman needed to make this showing in order for the court to excuse his failure to exhaust state remedies and consider his substantive ineffective habeas claim, the court denied his petition.

After reviewing the extensive record from Coleman's pretrial investigation, trial, state collateral review, and federal habeas proceedings, we agree with the district court that Coleman has not demonstrated his actual innocence. Much of the evidence Coleman presented to establish his innocence was unreliable. Even though Coleman did introduce evidence that two eyewitnesses were unable to place him at the scene of the crime, this was not enough to overcome the testimony of two eyewitnesses to the crime who identified Coleman as the perpetrator and another witness who implicated Coleman in the murder. Absent a showing of his actual innocence, we must refrain from reviewing the substance of Coleman's procedurally defaulted habeas claims. We affirm the denial of his habeas petition.

I. BACKGROUND¹

A. Offense, Investigation, and Trial

On the evening of August 2, 1981, a drug dealer named Terrell Jackson (“TJ”) was shot to death in his home on Chicago's South Side. TJ's brother, Arlander Adamson, and his stepdaughter, Gwen Thomas, were both in the house at the time of the murder. According to Adamson, two men entered the house, pointed their guns at Adamson, tied his hands behind his back, and gagged him. The gunmen forced Adamson up the stairs to TJ's bedroom. Adamson was thrown to the floor, face down. The gunmen repeatedly asked TJ where he kept his money. When TJ refused to cooperate, the assailants fired multiple bullets into him.

One of the gunmen proceeded into the next room where Thomas was watching television with her week-old baby. Thomas was forced into the other bedroom where she was tied up and placed on the floor next to Adamson and a dying TJ. The gunmen eventually left the house and TJ soon succumbed to his wounds.

Adamson and Thomas did not know the gunmen and were only able to provide general descriptions in their initial statements to police. On the day of the crime, they viewed mug shot photos of possible suspects but did not identify TJ's murderer. When police searched the scene, they found an unloaded .22 caliber revolver under TJ's mattress. Ballistics tests later revealed that none of the bullets recovered at the scene came from the gun. According to the initial police report of the incident, the gunmen stole a necklace and ring with the initials “TJ” written in diamonds.

Two weeks after the murder, police interviewed TJ's neighbors, two brothers named David and Tracey Wilkins. David told officers that he saw two men on TJ's back porch on the night of the murder. He stated that the two men repeatedly entered and exited TJ's house during the hour-and-a-half period before the shooting. David saw one of the men run across the street to the laundromat and then return to the house a few minutes later. David's brother Tracey was at that laundromat at the time and told police that he saw a man (matching Adamson's and Thomas's description of one of the killers) walk in and use the phone forty-five minutes before the murder. Tracey saw the same man and another man running down the street after the shooting occurred. Both brothers provided descriptions of the two males that were similar to those given by Adamson and Thomas.

Chicago Police officers also spoke to Roy Wright on two occasions over the course of their investigation. The first interview with Wright occurred the day after TJ's murder on August 3, 1981. At that meeting, Wright told officers that on the day of the murder he was trying to coordinate a drug deal with TJ but the deal never went through. He also stated that he picked up two men (one of whom was Coleman and the other whom he did not know) on the night of the murder and dropped them off in front of TJ's house. Police interviewed Wright a second time on August 18, 1981, at which time Wright stated that Coleman had tried to sell him TJ's medallion with his initials written in diamonds.

On August 19, 1981 (more than two weeks after the murder), Adamson, Thomas, and David Wilkins each separately viewed a police lineup that included Coleman and six other suspects. Adamson and Thomas both identified Coleman as one of the men who murdered TJ. David Wilkins did not select Coleman or any other suspect as one of the men he saw hanging around TJ's house just before the murder. Police interviewed Coleman that same day. He denied any involvement in TJ's murder and stated that he could not remember exactly where he was or what he was doing at the time of the crime. He believed that he was either at the home of his then-girlfriend or at his own home, alone. Adamson and Thomas later viewed another lineup of suspects and identified Joseph Barnes as the other perpetrator.

Coleman and Barnes were tried together in the Circuit Court of Cook County. Each man had his own separate counsel. Adamson and Thomas were the key witnesses tying Coleman to TJ's murder. Both identified Coleman as one of the perpetrators in open court. Adamson testified that he had a good look at Coleman on the day of the murder—they stood six inches away from each other at one point. But on cross-examination Adamson stated that he looked down and closed his eyes when Barnes put a gun to his head. Thomas also identified Coleman as the person who came into her room and brought her into TJ's bedroom. Coleman called two police officers to impeach Thomas's trial testimony. Although Thomas testified at trial that one of the assailants pulled her necklace off, the officers testified that she did not report this theft on the day of the murder. Coleman also elicited testimony from one of the officers that David Wilkins had seen two men near TJ's house around the time of the murder but had not identified Coleman as one of them.

Both Barnes and Coleman were convicted of murder and armed robbery. After considering whether to impose the death penalty, the trial judge elected to sentence Coleman and Barnes to natural life in prison on their respective murder convictions.

B. State Postconviction Proceedings

After an unsuccessful direct appeal, Coleman pursued postconviction relief with the help of his co-defendant Barnes. In 1994, Barnes submitted an affidavit stating that Coleman had nothing to do with TJ's murder. Barnes stated that his co-defendant should have been Wright. According to Barnes, he, Wright, and another man, Barnett Hall,² purchased drugs from TJ that turned out to be of low quality. Barnes averred that, on the evening of the murder, he and Wright went to TJ's house to get their money back. A confrontation ensued during which TJ pulled out a gun. Barnes and Wright responded by pulling out their guns and shooting TJ multiple times in self-defense.

Coleman also submitted a signed affidavit from Barnes's trial attorney, James L. Rhodes.³ According to Rhodes's statement, Barnes informed him during the trial that Coleman had nothing to do with the murder. Moreover, Rhodes stated that Barnes expressed dismay about Coleman's conviction. Coleman also relied upon an affidavit from a defense investigator who interviewed Adamson in 1994. According to the investigator, Adamson told him that Wright had been to TJ's house a couple of times on the day of the murder. Adamson also reportedly told the investigator that Thomas and Wright had dated at some point.

In 2000, while Coleman's postconviction petition was still pending, Loretta Cade, Coleman's girlfriend at the time of the murder and the mother of his child, submitted a signed statement. Loretta stated that Coleman was with her at the time of the shooting. In 1999, Loretta's mother, Evelynn Cade, signed a statement that she called Loretta and Coleman on the day of the shooting in 1981 at approximately 5:00 or 5:15 p.m. and spoke to Coleman for fifteen minutes.

The Illinois postconviction trial court held a hearing on Coleman's petition in which Barnes testified. Ultimately, the court rejected the petition for postconviction relief and Coleman was unable to overturn the decision on appeal.

C. Federal Habeas Hearing

Coleman filed a federal habeas petition in 1999. In his petition, Coleman asserts three ineffective assistance of trial counsel claims. Coleman concedes that he procedurally defaulted these claims by neglecting to present them for one complete round of state-court review. See Bolton v. Akpore, 730 F.3d 685, 696 (7th Cir.2013) (“Procedural default generally precludes a federal court from reaching the merits of a habeas claim when the claim was not presented to the state courts and it is clear that the state courts would now find the claim procedurally...