Cookson v. Warden, Maine State Prison

• Decision Date: 24 February 2020
• Docket Number: 1:19-cv-00170-NT
• Parties: JEFFREY COOKSON, Petitioner, v. WARDEN, MAINE STATE PRISON, Respondent
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Maine

JEFFREY COOKSON, Petitioner, v. WARDEN, MAINE STATE PRISON, Respondent

1:19-cv-00170-NT

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT DISTRICT OF MAINE

February 24, 2020

RECOMMENDED DECISION ON 28 U.S.C. § 2254 PETITION

Petitioner, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254, seeks relief from a state court conviction and sentence.(Petition, ECF No. 1.)Petitioner claims the use of certain evidence deprived him of a fair trial and his attorneys provided constitutionally ineffective assistance of counsel.(Petitionat 6-22.)The State asks the Court to dismiss the petition.(Answer, ECF No. 5.)

After a review of the section 2254 petition, the State's request for dismissal, and the record, I recommend the Court grant the State's request and dismiss the petition.

FACTUAL BACKGROUND¹AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

A.Trial

In December 1999, 20-year-old Mindy Gould was babysitting 22-month-old T.C. when they were both shot and killed.In January 2000, Petitioner was indicted on twocounts of murder, in violation of 17-A M.R.S. § 201(1)(A).(State v. Cookson, Me. Super. Ct., BANSC-CR-2000-00011, Docket Recordat 1.)

The evidence at trial showed that Petitioner and Ms. Gould had periodically lived together for several years before Ms. Gould attempted to separate from Petitioner about one month before her death.The evidence also established that a state court had granted Ms. Gould's request for a protection from abuse order against Petitioner.Over Petitioner's objection, a nurse practitioner testified about her diagnosis and treatment of Ms. Gould for depression as a result of an emotionally abusive relationship with Petitioner.

Police had been unable to locate the murder weapon before trial, but believed it was a 9mm Taurus Model PT-99-AF that was given to Petitioner two years earlier.A firearms expert, Brian Bachelder, testified that shell casings found at the crime scene shared unique characteristics of the murder weapon and matched shell casings collected from previous owners of the PT-99.Another firearms expert, Charles Helms, testified that bullets collected from the crime scene were fired from the same gun as three spent bullets found in Petitioner's yard.The defense did not challenge the ballistics evidence.Instead, defense counsel introduced at trial a bill of sale that reflected a transfer of ownership of the PT-99 from Petitioner to Ms. Gould before date of the murders.The State argued Petitioner manufactured the bill of sale and other evidence regarding his location on the day of the murders.

In December 2001, the jury returned guilty verdicts on both charges of the indictment.(Docket Recordat 13.)

B.Motion for New Trial

Immediately after the jury returned its verdict, defense counsel requested a conference with the state court and revealed that another individual, David Vantol, had recently confessed to the murders.Counsel initially learned of Vantol's apparent confession approximately one month before the trial.Based on the Vantol information and other developments, Petitioner later moved for a new trial.(Docket Recordat 14.)

Petitioner's attorneys were skeptical about Vantol's confession when they first met with him because he told them he shot Ms. Gould in self-defense.At a subsequent meeting, Vantol said Petitioner offered to pay him to kill Ms. Gould and that Petitioner drove him to the scene of the murders.Because Vantol's testimony would implicate Petitioner and was inconsistent with Petitioner's defense, his attorneys decided not to call Vantol to testify at trial.Police interviewed Vantol several times and he led them to a 9mm Taurus Model PT-92 that he claimed to have used to shoot Ms. Gould and T.C. Vantol also provided police with a bag of clothing that appeared to have been buried for a significant period of time.Police did not find Vantol's account to be credible.After speaking with police, Vantol received treatment at a psychiatric hospital, where he recanted his confession and said the clothing was unrelated to the murders and was found in a junk car.According to his treating psychiatrist, Vantol had a relatively low functioning level and was easily influenced by others.Vantol had visited Petitioner in jail several times before trial, andVantol testified at the motion hearing that Petitioner had provided him with the details and told him to confess to the killings.

Expert testimony at the motion hearing confirmed that the PT-92 was the murder weapon, not the PT-99 that was discussed at trial.Bachelder testified that his ballistics opinion at trial was incorrect because he had mistaken characteristics applicable to a class of firearms for characteristics that are unique to a particular firearm.Bachelder discovered the error when he read an article about the class of firearms at issue in the case.Another firearms expert, Robert Hathaway, testified that if he had performed the ballistics analysis with the information available before trial, he would have concluded that it was inconclusive whether the shell casings from the crime scene matched the shell casings from the prior owners of the PT-99.(New Trial Hearing Transcriptat 144:17-145:22.)

In August 2002, the state court denied the motion for a new trial.(Decision and Order on Motion for a New Trialat 1.)The court concluded the state did not intentionally present false evidence and that the murder weapon, the ballistics, and Vantol's confession did not constitute newly discovered evidence because they were either known to the defense at trial or could have been discovered through the exercise of diligence.(Id. at 9-17.)

C.Sentence and Appeal

In October 2002, the trial court sentenced petitioner to two terms of imprisonment for life, to be served consecutively.(Docket Recordat 18-19.)Petitioner sought leave to appeal from the sentence to the Sentencing Review Panel, which, in March 2003, denied leave to appeal.(State v. Cookson, Me. L.Ct., SRP-02-0653, Order.)Petitioner alsoappealed from the conviction based on the trial court's evidentiary rulings regarding the testimony of the nurse practitioner, the trial court's decisions on the motion for a new trial, and the legality of the consecutive life sentences.State v. Cookson, 2003 ME 136, ¶ 1, 837 A.2d 101, 104.In December 2003, the Law Court affirmed the conviction and sentence.Id.Petitioner sought a writ of certiorari from the United States Supreme Court; the Supreme Court denied the petition in October 2004.Cookson v. State, No. 03-10809, 543 U.S. 852(Oct 4, 2004).

D. Postconviction Proceedings

In December 2004, Petitioner filed a state petition for postconviction review.(Cookson v. State, Me. Super. Ct., BANSC-CR-04-1043, Docket Recordat 1.)The state court held a two-day evidentiary hearing in 2017 and denied the petition in May 2018.(Postconviction Hearing Transcriptat 1;Postconviction Orderat 19.)In June 2018, Petitioner sought discretionary review with the Maine Law Court.(Cookson v. State, Me. L.Ct.PEN-18-247, Docket Recordat 2.)The Law Court denied leave to appeal and denied Petitioner's subsequent motion to reconsider.(Docket Recordat 3.)

While the statepostconviction petition was pending, pursuant to 15 M.R.S. §§ 2136-2138, Petitioner sought DNA testing of the clothing Vantol had provided and a piece of hair collected from Ms. Gould's hand.SeeCookson v. State, 2011 ME 53, 17 A.3d 1208;Cookson v. State, 2014 ME 24, 86 A.3d 1186;State v. Cookson, 2019 ME 30, 204 A.3d 125.The state court denied Petitioner's requests for DNA testing of the clothing because of a lack of a chain of custody as a result of the nearly two-year delay before the evidence was turned over to police.Cookson, 2014MEat ¶¶ 17-20, 86 A.3d at 1191-92.Mitochondrial DNA testing of a single hair recovered from the palm of Ms. Gould's hand excluded Petitioner as the source and was inconclusive as to Vantol; the state court denied Petitioner's motion for a new trial because the evidence did not show that the hair could only have belonged to the perpetrator.Cookson, 2019 ME at ¶ 9, 204 A.3d at 127-28.

DISCUSSION

A.Legal Standards

Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254(a), a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a state court may apply to a federal district court for writ of habeas corpus "only on the ground that he is in custody in violation of the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States."

Absent circumstances not relevant to Petitioner's case, a petitioner is required to exhaust available state court remedies before he seeks federal habeas review.28 U.S.C. § 2254(b), (c).²"Before seeking a federal writ of habeas corpus, a state prisoner mustexhaust available state remedies, 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b)(1), thereby giving the State the 'opportunity to pass upon and correct' alleged violations of its prisoners' federal rights."Baldwin v. Reese, 541 U.S. 27, 29(2004)(quotingDuncan v. Henry, 513 U.S. 364, 365(1995)(per curiam))(quotation marks omitted).In Baldwin, the Court noted that "[t]o provide the State with the necessary 'opportunity,' the prisoner must 'fairly present' his claim in each appropriate state court(including a state supreme court with powers of discretionary review), thereby alerting that court to the federal nature of the claim."Id.(quotingDuncan, 513 U.S. at 365-66).

To exhaust a claim fully in state court in Maine, a petitioner must request discretionary review by the Law Court.See15 M.R.S. § 2131.The Supreme Court has held that a procedural default bars federal review absent a demonstration of cause for the default and prejudice to the petitioner:

In all cases in which a state prisoner has defaulted his federal claims in state court pursuant to an independent and adequate state procedural rule, federal habeas review of the claims is barred unless the prisoner can demonstrate cause for the default and actual prejudice as a result of the alleged violation of federal law, or demonstrate that failure to consider the claims will result in a fundamental miscarriage

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