Crawford v. Capra
| Decision Date | 05 April 2022 |
| Docket Number | 20 Civ. 8574 (KPF) (SDA) |
| Parties | BARTHOLOMEW CRAWFORD, Petitioner, v. MICHAEL CAPRA, Superintendent, Sing Sing Correctional Facility, Respondent. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Southern District of New York |
OPINION AND ORDER ADOPTING REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION
Petitioner Bartholomew Crawford filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254 (the “Petition”) against Respondent Superintendent Michael Capra of the Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Ossining, New York. Crawford's Petition seeks review of his New York State Supreme Court conviction for second-degree burglary, a charge for which he was convicted following a second jury trial, after the first trial ended in a hung jury.
Now pending before the Court is the June 14, 2021 Report and Recommendation from United States Magistrate Judge Stewart D Aaron (the “Report, ” copy attached), which recommends that the Petition be dismissed in its entirety. The Court has examined the Report, Petitioner's July 12 2021 objections to the report (the “Objections”), Respondent's August 17, 2021 submission in response to the Objections, as well as the parties' submissions before Judge Aaron and the underlying state court record. For the reasons set forth below, the Court finds no error in the Report and adopts it in its entirety.
BACKGROUND[1]
The facts and procedural history underlying this action are set forth in the Report (see Report 2-9), and the Court assumes familiarity with them. A brief overview is set forth herein.
On November 6, 2015, a jury convicted Petitioner of burglary in the second degree; Petitioner was later sentenced as a persistent violent felony offender to an indeterminate prison term of 25 years to life. (Report 1; Petition ¶¶ 2-3). The incident giving rise to Petitioner's conviction was the burglary of Wendy Shanker's top-floor Chelsea apartment, which occurred in the early morning hours of October 27, 2009. (Report 2). The intruder allegedly pried open a loft window of the apartment that was accessible from the roof and proceeded to bind Ms. Shanker's wrists with a nylon stocking and blindfold her with a sleep mask. (Id. at 3-4; Petition ¶ 13). The burglar stole $5, 000 in cash and $60, 000 in jewelry from Ms. Shanker's apartment. (Report 4).
Between October 30, 2009, and November 16, 2009, DNA tests were performed on several pieces of evidence recovered from Ms. Shanker's apartment, including the nylon stocking that had been used to tie Ms. Shanker's hands and the window frame that had been pried open. (Report 6). The tests revealed DNA matching Petitioner's profile on the nylon stocking, and DNA of a different man on the inside window frame. (Id.). Following the results of the DNA tests, Petitioner was arrested on December 9, 2009. (Id.).
On December 19, 2009, a grand jury sitting in Manhattan indicted Petitioner, charging him with the offense of burglary in the first degree. (Report 7; SR 72, 233). Nearly three years later, on October 11, 2012, Petitioner proceed to trial before a jury in New York State Supreme Court. (Report 7). Seven days later, on October 18, 2012, the presiding judge declared a mistrial because the jury was deadlocked. (Id.).
Thereafter, Petitioner was re-tried, and that second trial commenced on June 13, 2013. (Report 7). The evidence at trial included the DNA evidence linking Petitioner to the nylon stocking, as well as the test results showing that another man's DNA sample had been found on the broken-in window frame. (Id. at 6). Ms. Shanker also testified that based off her physical struggle with the intruder, she believed he weighed between 180 to 200 pounds and stood between 5'9'' and 5'11'' inches tall - despite Petitioner's standing at only 5'3'' tall. (Id. at 3, 6). She also noticed that the intruder had rifled through her lingerie drawers, and believed that the stocking used by the burglar belonged to her. (Id. at 4). On cross-examination, however, Ms. Shanker admitted that she could not be certain where the stocking came from because she did not see the intruder take it from her dresser. (Id.).
The presiding judge charged the jurors on first-degree burglary, and instructed them that if they found Petitioner not guilty of this offense, they could consider the lesser included offense of second-degree burglary. (Report 7). During deliberations, the jury announced they were deadlocked, in response to which the court gave the jury an Allen charge. (Id.). After further deliberations, the jury returned a verdict convicting Petitioner of second-degree burglary, but acquitting him of first-degree burglary. (Id.). Following this verdict, on November 6, 2015, Petitioner was sentenced to a term of imprisonment of 25 years to life. (Id. at 8). During Petitioner's sentencing hearing, it was made clear that this conviction was Petitioner's fourth violent felony conviction and the sixth time he was convicted of a burglary-related offense. (Dkt. #1-12 at 4-5).
In January 2019, Petitioner filed a direct appeal of his conviction to the Supreme Court of the State of New York, Appellate Division, First Department. (Report 8; SR 500-33). In his appeal, Petitioner argued in relevant part that: (i) the jury's verdict was not supported by legally sufficient evidence, and was against the weight of the evidence, because the prosecution had failed to prove that he was the individual who burglarized Ms. Shanker's apartment; and (ii) his sentence was excessive. (Report 8). On June 11, 2019, the Appellate Division unanimously affirmed Petitioner's conviction. See People v. Crawford, 99 N.Y.S.3d 878 (1st Dep't 2019).
In finding the evidence at trial sufficient to convict Petitioner, the Appellate Division emphasized that it was “undisputed that [Petitioner's] DNA was on the stockings used by the burglar to tie up his victim, and that the only DNA found on the stockings came from [Petitioner] and the victim.” Crawford, 99 N.Y.S.3d at 878. The Appellate Division discredited Petitioner's explanation for how his DNA was found at the crime scene (i.e., that he had previously come in contact with the stockings and that another person used those particular stockings to commit the burglary) because it “rests entirely on speculation.” Id. at 878-79. The Appellate Division also noted that the evidence supported the inference that the burglar took the stockings from Ms. Shanker's hosiery drawer, despite her inability to identify the garment as her own. Id. at 879. The Appellate Division further saw no basis for a sentence reduction. Id.
Following the Appellate Division's denial of his appeal, Petitioner sought leave to appeal this decision to the New York Court of Appeals. (Report 9; SR 598-629). On July 31, 2019, the New York Court of Appeals denied Petitioner's application. People v. Crawford, 33 N.Y.3d 1103 (2019).
On October 14, 2020, Petitioner filed a petition in this Court for a writ of habeas corpus, on the grounds that the state court's adjudication of his claim had resulted in a decision that was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established federal law, or, alternatively, was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented. (Petition ¶ 11). Petitioner asserted two primary arguments controverting the state court determination: (i) DNA evidence recovered from an easily movable object such as a stocking is insufficient on its own to prove guilt, unless the prosecution also established that the DNA was deposited during the commission of the crime (id. at ¶ 19); and (ii) the evidence was insufficient to support Petitioner's conviction because the jury had no rational basis to conclude that Petitioner was any more likely to have committed the burglary than the man whose DNA was recovered from the broken-in window frame (id. at ¶ 21).
The day after Petitioner filed the Petition, the Court referred the case to Judge Aaron for a Report and Recommendation. (Dkt. #6).
Judge Aaron issued the Report on June 14, 2021. In recommending that the Petition be denied, Judge Aaron rejected Petitioner's attempts to locate an error of clearly established federal law in the state court's adjudication of his criminal case. Specifically, Judge Aaron found that it was not an unreasonable application of federal law for the Appellate Division to conclude that the DNA evidence linking Petitioner to the nylon stocking was legally sufficient to support his conviction. (Report 12-14).
In his briefing to Judge Aaron, Petitioner had cited cases from the Fourth, Sixth, Ninth, and District of Columbia Circuits, as well as from the District of Maryland and the New York state court system, in support of the legal principle that “[u]nder federal law, where the prosecution seeks to prove a defendant's guilt solely on the presence of his forensic material on an easily movable object, the prosecution must establish that the forensic material could have been left only during the commission of the crime.” (Id. at 12 (quoting Pet. Br. 13)). However, Judge Aaron declined to rely on these cases, noting that a state prisoner may not seek federal habeas relief on the basis of a state court's refusal to adhere to legal principles articulated only by lower federal courts, as opposed to the Supreme Court. (Id. at 13). Moreover, Judge Aaron noted that only one of the cases cited by Petitioner in support of this...
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