Copelin v. Vannoy
| Decision Date | 09 December 2020 |
| Docket Number | Civil Action 18-10970 |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Louisiana |
| Parties | DARRIUS R. COPELIN v. DARREL VANNOY, WARDEN |
DARRIUS R. COPELIN
v.
DARREL VANNOY, WARDEN
Civil Action No. 18-10970
United States District Court, E.D. Louisiana
December 9, 2020
SECTION: "R" (5)
REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION
MICHAEL B. NORTH, UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE
This matter was referred to the undersigned United States Magistrate Judge to conduct a hearing including an evidentiary hearing if necessary, and to submit proposed findings and recommendations for disposition pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(B) and (C), and as applicable, Rule 8(b) of the Rules Governing Section 2254 Cases in the United States District Courts. Upon review of the entire record, the Court has determined that this matter can be disposed of without an evidentiary hearing. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(2). For the following reasons, IT IS RECOMMENDED that the petition for habeas corpus relief be DISMISSED WITH PREJUDICE.
Procedural History
Petitioner, Darrius Copelin, is a convicted inmate currently incarcerated at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, Louisiana. On October 25, 2012, Copelin was charged by bill of information with one count of armed robbery with a firearm and one count of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. The same bill of information charged his girlfriend, Aisha Howard, as an accessory after the fact to the armed robbery. In July 2014, Copelin went to trial before a jury and represented himself. Because the jury ultimately was unable to render a verdict in the case, Judge Karen Herman discharged the jury, resulting in a mistrial. The State subsequently entered a nolle prosequi and dismissed all charges in
Case No. 513-845.[1]
On October 22, 2014, the State reinstituted the same charges against Copelin in Case No. 522-255.[2] Once again, Aisha Howard was charged in the same bill of information as an accessory after the fact to armed robbery. The trial court denied Copelin's motion to quash on grounds of double jeopardy.[3] His writ to the Louisiana Fourth Circuit challenging that ruling was denied.[4] The defendants were severed for trial. On September 1, 2015, Copelin's second jury trial commenced before Judge Herman with Copelin again representing himself, and he was found guilty on both counts.[5] On October 9, 2015, his motion for new trial was denied and he was sentenced to imprisonment of 20 years for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and 99 years for armed robbery. The sentences were ordered to run concurrently without the benefit of probation, parole or suspension of sentence.[6] The State filed a multiple bill of information as to the armed robbery count.[7] After adjudicating him as a second-felony offender, the original sentence was vacated and he was resentenced on the armed robbery count to 125 years'
imprisonment, to be served without benefit of probation, parole or suspension of sentence.[8]
On direct appeal, his appointed counsel raised two assignments of error: (1) the second trial and conviction violated double jeopardy because the mistrial declared at the end of his first trial was manifestly unnecessary and undertaken without his consent and (2) the trial court erred in allowing the State to introduce impermissible "other crimes" evidence.[9]On December 7, 2016, the Louisiana Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal affirmed his convictions and sentences.[10] On September 29, 2017, the Louisiana Supreme Court denied his application for writ of certiorari.[11]
On or about November 3, 2017, Copelin submitted an application for post-conviction relief to the state district court.[12] In that application, he raised the following claims for relief: (1) he was denied the ability to confront and cross-examine state witness, Officer Kevin Wheeler, about his dismissal from the police department because the State suppressed material impeachment evidence, (2) the trial court erred in denying the motion to suppress and allowing evidence gained from an illegal inventory search, and (3) he was deprived of
the assistance of hybrid counsel. On January 9, 2018, the state district court denied relief on the merits.[13] On May 14, 2018, the Louisiana Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal denied his supervisory writ application.[14]
During the time that his related supervisory writ application was pending with the Louisiana Supreme Court, on or about November 6, 2018, he filed the instant federal application for habeas corpus relief.[15] In that application, he asserted four grounds for relief: (1) he was subjected to double jeopardy, (2) the trial court erred in allowing inadmissible "other crimes" evidence, (3) the trial court improperly restricted his ability to confront and cross-examine state witness, Officer Kevin Wheeler, about his termination from the department because the State suppressed material impeachment evidence; and (4) the trial court improperly denied his motion to suppress and admitted evidence gained from an illegal inventory search. The federal district court granted Copelin's unopposed motion to stay the proceedings so that he could exhaust the claims pending before the Louisiana Supreme Court. On November 12, 2019, the Louisiana Supreme Court denied his application for supervisory writ of review.[16] On December 30, 2019, Copelin's motion to
reopen the proceedings was granted.[17]
The State filed a response on August 28, 2020.[18] The State does not contend that the federal application is untimely or that the claims were not exhausted; rather, the State argues that the claims should be denied on the merits.[19]
Facts
On direct appeal, the Louisiana Fourth Circuit briefly summarized the facts adduced at trial:
This case arises out of an armed robbery that occurred on September 9, 2012, at around 1:30 a.m., at the Homedale Inn, a neighborhood bar located near City Park in New Orleans, Louisiana. According to witnesses, a man wearing gloves and a ski mask and brandishing a gun walked into the bar. The man threw a back pack across the bar and demanded that the bartender "fill it up." The bartender complied with the demand, placing about $1, 000 in the backpack. The man then backed out of the bar and fled on foot into the surrounding neighborhood. During the course of the robbery, the bar owner managed to hit the silent alarm located on the side of the cash register, which calls the police. As a result, the New Orleans Police Department ("NOPD") arrived within minutes after the robber fled.
The NOPD linked Mr. Copelin to the crime through a vehicle registered to his girlfriend's grandmother that was found parked near the bar. The vehicle was parked away from the curb, impeding traffic, in the area that the robber fled. Mr. Copelin's wallet and cell phone were found in the vehicle. When the officers ran Mr. Copelin's name, they discovered that he had a prior offense- a 2003 federal armed robbery conviction-and that he was released from federal prison nineteen days before the robbery of the bar.[20]
General Standards of Review
Title 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1) and (2), as amended by The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), provides the applicable standards of review for pure questions of fact, pure questions of law, and mixed questions of both. A state court's purely factual determinations are presumed to be correct and a federal court will give deference to the state court's decision unless it "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)(2); see also 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(1) ("In a proceeding instituted by an application for a writ of habeas corpus by a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court, a determination of a factual issue made by a State court shall be presumed to be correct. The applicant shall have the burden of rebutting the presumption of correctness by clear and convincing evidence."). With respect to a state court's determination of pure questions of law or mixed questions of law and fact, a federal court must defer to the decision on the merits of such a claim unless that decision "was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States." 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1).
The "'contrary to' and 'unreasonable application' clauses [of § 2254(d)(1)] have independent meaning." Bell v. Cone, 535 U.S. 685, 694 (2002). A state-court decision is "contrary to" clearly established precedent if the state court applies a rule that contradicts the governing law set forth in the United States Supreme Court's cases or if the state court confronts a set of facts that are materially indistinguishable from a decision of the United States Supreme Court and nevertheless arrives at a result different from United States
Supreme Court precedent. Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 405-06 (2000); Wooten v. Thaler, 598 F.3d 215, 218 (5th Cir.), cert, denied, 131 S.Ct. 294 (2010). An "unreasonable application" of [United States Supreme Court] precedent occurs when a state court "identifies the correct governing legal rule... but unreasonably applies it to the facts of the particular state prisoner's case." Williams, 529 U.S. at 407-08; White v. Woodall, 572 U.S. 415, 426(2014).
It is well-established that "an unreasonable application is different from an incorrect one." Bell, 535 U.S. at 694. A state court's merely incorrect application of Supreme Court precedent simply does not warrant habeas relief. Puckett v. Epps, 641 F.3d 657, 663 (5th Cir. 2011) ("Importantly, 'unreasonable' is not the same as 'erroneous' or 'incorrect'; an incorrect application of the law by a state court will nonetheless be affirmed if it is not simultaneously unreasonable."). "[E]ven a strong case for relief does not mean the state court's contrary conclusion was unreasonable" under the AEDPA. Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 102 (2011)...
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