Cooper v. Ricci

• Decision Date: 02 April 2013
• Docket Number: Civil Action No. 10-2901 (AET)
• Parties: DAVID COOPER, Petitioner, v. MICHELLE R. RICCI, Respondent.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of New Jersey

DAVID COOPER, Petitioner,

v.MICHELLE R. RICCI, Respondent.

Civil Action No. 10-2901 (AET)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT DISTRICT OF NEW JERSEY

Dated: April 2, 2013

NOT FOR PUBLICATION

OPINION

APPEARANCES:

Petitioner prose

David Cooper

New Jersey State Prison

Counsel for Respondent

Mary R. Juliano

Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office

Monmouth County Court House

THOMPSON, District Judge

Petitioner David Cooper, a prisoner currently confined at New Jersey State Prison in Trenton, New Jersey, has submitted a petition for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254. The respondent is Warden Michelle R. Ricci.

For the reasons stated herein, the Petition will be denied.

I. BACKGROUND

A. Factual Background

The relevant facts are set forth in the opinion of the Supreme Court of New Jersey.¹

On July 18, 1993, the six-year-old victim, L.G., her mother, R.G., and the victim's two sisters were at the home of R.G.'s sister-in-law, M.W., in Asbury Park. While M.W. was at the supermarket, R.G. sat on the front porch of the house with her youngest daughter. The victim and her other sister were with M.W.'s daughter playing in the frontyard. After playing in the frontyard for some time, the children moved into a fenced-in backyard.

While they were playing in the backyard, defendant lured the victim away from the other children and eventually picked her up, lifted her over the fence, and walked away with her. The other children went to the frontyard and told R.G. what had occurred. R.G., joined by M.W., who had just returned from the supermarket, began to search for and to call out to L.G., but they could not locate her. Soon after, neighbors joined in the search.

The Asbury Park Police Department was contacted shortly after L.G.'s disappearance, and police officers also joined the search. Within a few hours after the victim had disappeared, her body was found under a porch of an abandoned house. Defendant lived under that porch. L.G. was found lying on her back on a mattress with her shirt pulled up, her panties at her ankles, a pair of men's boxer shorts over her face, and her vaginal area exposed and bloodstained.

The police found clothing and a bloodstained paper towel at arms's length from L.G.'s body. The police also found a gym bag that contained a wallet. Inside the wallet was defendant's social-security card. Defendant's latent fingerprints were found on a paper bag and on a malt-liquor bottle in the porch area. Several letters, photographs, and other documents in defendant's name were also found in the area.

That night, the police interviewed witnesses to the abduction, and defendant became a suspect almost immediately. Defendant was located the next day and was taken to police headquarters for questioning. The State concedes that defendant was in custody at that time. He was read his Miranda rights, and he signed a form waiving his rights to remain silent and to counsel. At that time, defendant denied any involvement in the child's death.

Soon thereafter, Detective John Musiello confronted defendant with the evidence that the police had against him and told him that they would seek a court order to obtain forensic evidence from his person. No law-enforcement officer, however, informed defendant that he was facing a potential death sentence. Instead, they told him that the perpetrator was facing a term of life imprisonment with thirty years of parole ineligibility.

Defendant then confessed to causing L.G.'s death. According to slightly varying police testimony, he dropped his head and stated either: (1) "It was an accident. I did it. I was drunk;" or (2) "It's an accident. I was drunk. I strangled her." Defendant explained that he had seen children playing at M.W.'s house on his way to the porch of the abandoned house and that he had told L.G. to come to him. He lifted her over the fence and led her underneath the porch of the abandoned house. Defendant then stated, "Then we had sex, and I strangled her" and that he had left her body underneath the porch. After further questioning, defendant admitted that he had ejaculated and that he had worn a condom which he later had discarded in a nearby field.

Defendant subsequently signed a formal written statement, in which he described the sexual penetration of L.G. as vaginal and stated that she had bled fromher vagina during the penetration, causing blood to get on defendant's clothes. He also told the police that he had been on top of L.G. during the penetration and that his hands had been on her neck.

An autopsy of L.G.'s body revealed dried blood on the skin of her lower abdomen and external genitalia. Numerous internal injuries were found in her vaginal canal and cervix. Her hymen was not intact. Her anal canal also showed signs of injury. The autopsy revealed swelling in L.G.'s trachea and lungs, petechial hemorrhages on the outer surface of the thymus, and swelling in her brain.

The medical examiner concluded that the injuries on and around L.G.'s neck, the edema in her lungs, and the swelling in her brain were consistent with asphyxia caused by manual strangulation. He also concluded that pressure probably had been applied for approximately four to six minutes because, for edema to form in the lungs, pressure would have had to have been applied for three to six minutes, and for irreversible brain damage to occur from lack of oxygen, pressure would have had to have been applied for four to six minutes.

The police obtained seven discarded condoms from a field, close to the abandoned house, to which defendant had led them, and obtained from defendant samples of his hair, saliva, and blood. None of the condoms tested positive for semen, although one had blood on it. Blood was found on the paper towel discovered under the porch, on the cushion on which L.G. had been found, on two pairs of sneakers found under the porch, and on defendant's jeans, t-shirt, and boxer shorts. No semen was found on L.G.'s clothes or person. Four pubic hairs found on L.G. were consistent with defendant's pubic hair, although they could not be linked to him conclusively.

State v. Cooper, 151 N.J. 326, 342-44 (1997).

B. Procedural History

A Monmouth County Grand Jury indicted Petitioner on the following charges: purposeful-or-knowing murder by his own conduct, contrary to N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3a(1) or (2) (count one);felony murder, contrary to N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3a(3) (count two); first-degree kidnapping, contrary to N.J.S.A. 2C:13-1b (count three); and two counts of first-degree aggravated sexual assault, contrary to N.J.S.A. 2C:14-2a(1) and 2C:14-2a(3) (counts four and five alleging rape and sodomy). Following a jury trial, Petitioner was convicted on all counts.

Thereafter followed the penalty phase of the proceedings.

At the ensuing penalty phase before the same jury, the State relied on three aggravating factors: (1) that the murder was outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible, or inhuman in that it involved depravity of mind, N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3c(4)(c); (2) that the murder occurred during the commission of an aggravated sexual assault or kidnapping, N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3c(4)(g); and (3) that the purpose of the murder was to escape detection or apprehension, N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3c(4)(f).

Defendant presented substantial mitigating evidence focusing on his tragic childhood and resulting emotional disturbance. Pursuant to the "catch-all" mitigating factor, defendant submitted evidence of eighteen mitigating circumstances relating primarily to his flawed upbringing and its effect on his emotional development and behavior.

Defendant's mitigating evidence demonstrated that his sixteen-year-old mother drank heavily during her pregnancy. Defendant was born with heart and respiratory ailments, and he spent the fifty-four days following his birth in the hospital. During that period his parents allegedly visited him only three times. Because of infectious and other congenital conditions, defendant was hospitalized on nine other occasions before his first birthday and required heart surgery when he was two. Defendant's father was addicted to alcohol and drugs and was a diagnosed schizophrenic. He often abused defendant's mother and once broke her arm in defendant's presence. When defendant was two years old, his father was imprisoned for raping two of defendant's older cousins.

Defendant's mother, also an alcoholic, apparently was incapable of providing defendant with normal maternal affection. She disclaimed her maternity, referring to defendant as the child of his paternal grandmother. She was violent and abusive to defendant, on one occasion dangling him out of an apartment window.

When defendant was eight years old, he told his social worker that he wanted to be removed from his home. When he was nine years old, his mother died in an automobile accident. By age eleven, defendant had lived with at least ten different caregivers, including various relatives and foster parents. In many of those placements defendant was exposed to violence and substance abuse.

Several experts testified on defendant's behalf that his sickly and unstable childhood, his exposure to violence, abuse and neglect, and the lack of any affectionate relationship with his mother had reduced his ability to understand cause and effect, limited his capacity to empathize with others, and rendered him hostile, aggressive, and prone to violence. In addition, expert testimony was presented relating defendant's emotional disturbance as an adult to his flawed and oppressive childhood.

The jury unanimously determined that defendant had committed the murder to escape detection, N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3c(4)(f), and had done so in the course of committing aggravated sexual assault and kidnapping, N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3c(4)(g). The jury rejected the State's contention that the murder had involved torture or an aggravated battery. N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3c(4)(c).

Concerning the mitigating factors proffered by defendant:

Some or all of the jurors found the following mitigating factors: (1) that defendant had been

...