Copeland v. Mass. Dep't of Corr.
| Decision Date | 11 March 2014 |
| Docket Number | CIVIL ACTION NO. 10-11215-DPW |
| Parties | JAMALL COPELAND, Petitioner, v. MASSACHUSETTS DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS and DUANE MacEACHERN, Superintendent, Respondents. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Massachusetts |
After unsuccessfully appealing his convictions on firearms charges in Massachusetts state court, petitioner Jamall Copeland now seeks a federal writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. As grounds for federal relief, Copeland advances the three grounds that formed the basis of his state court appeal: (1) that the prosecutor misstated the evidence in his closing argument; (2) that there was insufficient evidence of Copeland's constructive possession of a firearm; and (3) that Copeland's jury waiver as to the portion of the firearms indictment alleging third offense and armed career criminal enhancements was ineffective because the trial judge may not have been aware thatshe could empanel a new jury to hear those charges. Finding no unreasonable application of relevant Federal law or unreasonable determination of the facts in the governing state court judgment, I will deny habeas corpus relief.
On habeas review, factual determinations made by state courts are presumed correct absent clear and convincing evidence to the contrary. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(1); Miller-El v. Cockrell, 537 U.S. 322, 340 (2003). The following facts are drawn from the summary of the relevant evidence recounted by the Massachusetts Appeals Court, supplemented where necessary by the state record viewed in the light most favorable to the conviction under challenge here.
On the morning of October 13, 2004 two men, one of whom was displaying a weapon, took Daryl Powell to a car after asking him where his money was. Powell's companion Kyesha Elliot, who was not taken to the car, called the police to report a kidnapping. Shortly thereafter, police located the car and observed Powell exiting it. The car, with two men in it, sped away and was later located empty.
During the search for the men who had fled the car, Copeland - the petitioner before me - was found in a small, enclosed spacein the basement of a home in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston. Shining his flashlight through a hole in the sheetrock enclosing the space, an officer discovered Copeland kneeling on a wooden pallet with his hands near his waist, out of the officer's sight. Copeland ignored numerous commands to show his hands. Another officer arrived on scene and observed Copeland kneeling on the pallet with his hands between his legs; he too ordered Copeland to show his hands at least eight times. Eventually, Copeland lowered his head toward the floor with his backside in the air and slowly put his hands out in front of him.
Once Copeland finally showed his hands, one of the officers stuck his head through the hole in the sheetrock and shined his flashlight around the room. Behind a pillar, he spotted a shoulder belonging to Copeland's co-defendant, Dennis Winborn. Winborn fired three shots in the direction of the officer. The officer returned fire, striking Winborn in the knee. Winborn fell to the floor and dropped his gun.
A police canine responding to the scene tracked a scent from the car from which Powell had been released to the basement where Copeland and Winston were found. After Copeland and Winston were arrested, the police searched the basement for evidence. In addition to the gun Winborn had dropped, police recovered a second gun from between the slats of the pallet on which Copelandhad been kneeling. The gun found in the pallet had one bullet in the chamber and a magazine containing twelve rounds of ammunition. At trial, Elliot testified that the gun looked like the one that the lighter-skinned of the two kidnappers — who was wearing a dark blue hooded sweatshirt and had braided hair — had drawn on her.1 Copeland is lighter-skinned than Winston. He was wearing a dark blue hooded sweatshirt with his hair braided in cornrows when he was arrested.
On November 30, 2004, a Suffolk County grand jury returned five indicments against Copeland: (1) armed assault with intent to murder; (2) unlawful possession of a firearm as a third offense and as an armed career criminal; (3) unlawful possession of a large capacity feeding device for a large capacity weapon; (4) kidnapping; and (5) armed assault with intent to rob. Indictments 2 and 3, which are the subject of this petition, arose from Copeland's alleged constructive possession of the firearm recovered from the pallet following his standoff with police.2
In May 2006, Copeland's case was tried to a jury in Suffolk Superior Court. Pursuant to Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 278, § 11A, the trial was bifurcated so that the jury would not learn of the "third offense" and armed career criminal portion of the firearms indictment until after it had returned a guilty verdict on the underlying possession charge. Following the close of the Commonwealth's evidence, and again at the close of all evidence, Copeland filed motions for required findings of not guilty, which were denied. On May 19, 2006 the jury found Copeland guilty of unlawful possession of a firearm and unlawful possession of a large capacity feeding device, and acquitted him of the other charges.
After the jury had been dismissed, the trial judge proceeded to address the third offense and armed career criminal portions of the firearm possession indictment. She informed Mr. Copeland that "you are entitled to try to a jury, the same jury, [on] those two separate counts . . ." She then asked Mr. Copeland if it was his intention, as his counsel had indicated, to waive his right to a jury trial on those two counts, to which he replied: "Yes." She further stated: "But you understand that you haveevery right to have this jury consider the evidence and the Commonwealth would have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that indeed you were the Jamall Copeland who was convicted in January of 1991 and also in December of 1991 of two separate firearm charges," to which Mr. Copeland replied that he understood.
Copeland opted to waive his right to a jury and proceed with a jury-waived trial on the remaining charges. Following that trial, which was held immediately prior to his sentencing several weeks later, the judge found Copeland guilty of the third offense and armed career criminal portions of the firearms indictment. She then sentenced Copeland a to a term of fifteen years on the charge of unlawful possession of a firearm, and a term of three to five years from and after the firearm sentence for unlawful possession of a large-capacity feeding device. Copeland is currently serving his sentence at MCI Cedar Junction.
Copeland timely appealed, and the Massachusetts Appeals Court affirmed his convictions on December 17, 2009 in an unpublished opinion issued pursuant to that Court's Rule 1:28. Commonwealth v. Copeland, 918 N.E.2d 480 (table), 2009 WL 4842239 (Mass. App. Dec. 17, 2009). The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court denied further appellate review on February 24, 2010.Having exhausted his state direct appeal remedies, Copeland timely filed this petition on July 15, 2010.3
Under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 ("AEDPA"), 28 U.S.C. § 2241 et seq., a federal court may grant a state prisoner habeas relief if the state court's decision on the merits "resulted in a decision that was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States," or "resulted in a decision that was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding." 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d).
The Supreme Court has narrowly interpreted "clearly established federal law" to refer "to the holdings, as opposed to the dicta, of Court's decisions as of the time ofthe relevant state-court decision." Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 412 (2000). A state court's decision is "contrary to" such law if its conclusion is "opposite to that reached by Court on a question of law or if the state court decides a case differently than Court has on a set of materially indistinguishable facts." Id. at 413. A state court's decision "involve[s] an unreasonable application" of such law if the court "identifies the correct governing legal principle from Court's decisions but unreasonably applies that principle to the facts of the prisoner's case." Id.
Moreover, "a federal habeas court may not issue the writ simply because that court concludes in its independent judgment that the relevant state-court decision applied clearly established federal law erroneously or incorrectly." Renico v. Lett, 559 U.S. 766, 773 (2010) (quoting Williams, 529 U.S. at 411). Instead, Id. (internal citations omitted). The First Circuit has interpreted the "unreasonable application" standard to mean that "if it is a close question whether the state decision is in error, then the state decision cannot be an unreasonable application." L'Abbe v.DiPaolo, 311 F.3d 93, 98 (1st Cir. 2002) (citation and quotation marks omitted).
Courts look to the last reasoned state court decision in determining a petitioner's eligibility for federal habeas relief. Malone v. Clarke, 536 F.3d 54, 63 (1st Cir. 2008) (citation omitted). In this case, the last reasoned decision is the opinion of the Massachusetts Appeals Court. Copeland, 918 N.E.2d 480 (table), 2009 WL 4842239.
During his closing argument, the trial prosecutor made the following argument:
How long does it take before [Copeland] finally shows his hands? And you know what, ladies and...
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