Dadabo v. Sec'y, Case No. 8:15-cv-2250-T-33TGW

• Decision Date: 19 January 2017
• Docket Number: Case No. 8:15-cv-2250-T-33TGW
• Parties: ANTHONY DADABO, Petitioner, v. SECRETARY, DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, Respondent.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Middle District of Florida

ANTHONY DADABO, Petitioner, v. SECRETARY, DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, Respondent.

Case No. 8:15-cv-2250-T-33TGW

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT MIDDLE DISTRICT OF FLORIDA TAMPA DIVISION

January 19, 2017

ORDER

Petitioner Anthony Dadabo, an inmate in the Florida Department of Corrections proceeding pro se, filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. (Doc. 1.) He challenges his conviction entered by the Circuit Court for the Sixth Judicial Circuit, in and for Pinellas County, Florida, in 2009. Respondent filed a response (Doc. 8), in which it agrees that the petition is timely. Dadabo filed a reply. (Doc. 11.) Upon review, the petition must be denied.

PROCEDURAL HISTORY

A jury convicted Dadabo of one count of first degree murder. (Doc. 10, Ex. 18, Vol. I, p. 121.) He was sentenced to life imprisonment. (Id., pp. 122-25.) The state appellate court per curiam affirmed his conviction and sentence. (Doc. 10, Ex. 4.) Dadabo's motion for postconviction relief filed under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.850 was summarily denied. (Doc. 10, Exs. 6, 7, 10.) The state appellate court per curiam affirmed the order of denial. (Doc. 10, Ex. 14.)

FACTS

The postconviction court summarized the facts of the case:

The Defendant and co-defendant Joseph Difiori were individually charged by indictment with one count of murder in the first degree, a capital felony, for the beating and stabbing death of the Defendant's friend Mary Ditt[ ]us at her home during the course of a robbery. The evidence at the Defendant's trial showed that the co-defendant and Defendant planned to rob the victim. The Defendant drove the victim to a casino and later when he went to pick her up, he telephoned the co-defendant to let him know the coast was clear to hide in the victim's home and await their return. When the Defendant and the victim entered the home the Defendant made an excuse to go into the office where he knew the co-defendant was waiting. The co-defendant hit the victim numerous times with a hammer causing mortal wounds but before she died she was stabbed many times with two different knives. The Defendant used the money taken from the victim to purchase crack cocaine which was consumed by the Defendant and co-defendant. Several days later the Defendant went to the victim's home on the premise that he had not heard from her in a couple of days and "discovered" the body.

The Defendant moved back to upstate New York but he was eventually linked to the victim's murder and he confessed after questioning from detectives from the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office to again interview the Defendant.

(Doc. 10, Ex. 7, pp. 29-30.)

STANDARD OF REVIEW

The Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 ("AEDPA") governs this proceeding. Wilcox v. Florida Dep't of Corr., 158 F.3d 1209, 1210 (11th Cir. 1998), cert. denied, 531 U.S. 840 (2000). Habeas relief can only be granted if a petitioner is in custody "in violation of the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States." 28 U.S.C. § 2254(a). Section 2254(d), which sets forth a highly deferential standard for federal court review of a state court adjudication, states:

An application for a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court shall not be granted with respect to any claim that was adjudicated on the merits in State court proceedings unless the adjudication of the claim-(1) 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

(2) 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.

In Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 412-13 (2000), the Supreme Court interpreted this deferential standard:

In sum, § 2254(d)(1) places a new constraint on the power of a federal habeas court to grant a state prisoner's application for a writ of habeas corpus with respect to claims adjudicated on the merits in state court. Under § 2254(d)(1), the writ may issue only if one of the following two conditions is satisfied-the state-court adjudication resulted in a decision that (1) "was contrary to . . . clearly established Federal Law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States" or (2) "involved an unreasonable application of . . . clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States." Under the "contrary to" clause, a federal habeas court may grant the writ if the state court arrives at a conclusion opposite to that reached by this Court on a question of law or if the state court decides a case differently than this Court has on a set of materially indistinguishable facts. Under the "unreasonable application" clause, a federal habeas court may grant the writ if the state court identifies the correct governing legal principle from this Court's decisions but unreasonably applies that principle to the facts of the prisoner's case.

"The focus . . . is on whether the state court's application of clearly established federal law is objectively unreasonable . . . an unreasonable application is different from an incorrect one." Bell v. Cone, 535 U.S. 685, 694 (2002). "As a condition for obtaining habeas corpus from a federal court, a state prisoner must show that the state court's ruling on the claim being presented in federal court was so lacking in justification that there was an error well understood and comprehended in existing law beyond any possibility for fairminded disagreement." Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 103 (2011). Accord Brown v. Head, 272 F.3d 1308, 1313 (11th Cir. 2001) ("It is the objective reasonableness, not the correctness per se, of the state court decision that [the federal court is] to decide."). Thephrase "clearly established Federal law" encompasses only the holdings of the United States Supreme Court "as of the time of the relevant state-court decision." Williams, 529 U.S. at 412.

The purpose of federal review is not to re-try the case. "The [AEDPA] modified a federal habeas court's role in reviewing state prisoner applications in order to prevent federal habeas 'retrials' and to ensure that state-court convictions are given effect to the extent possible under law." Cone, 535 U.S. at 693. In other words, "AEDPA prevents defendants-and federal courts-from using federal habeas corpus review as a vehicle to second-guess the reasonable decisions of state courts." Renico v. Lett, 559 U.S. 766, 779 (2010). See also Cullen v. Pinholster, 563 U.S. 170, 181 (2011) ("This is a 'difficult to meet,' . . . and 'highly deferential standard for evaluating state-court rulings, which demands that state-court decisions be given the benefit of the doubt' . . . .") (citations omitted).

The state appellate court rejected Dadabo's direct and postconviction appeals without discussion. The court's decisions warrant deference under Section 2254(d)(1) because "the summary nature of a state court's decision does not lessen the deference that it is due." Wright v. Moore, 278 F.3d 1245, 1254 (11th Cir.), reh'g and reh'g en banc denied, 278 F.3d 1245 (2002), cert. denied sub nom. Wright v. Crosby, 538 U.S. 906 (2003). See also Richter, 562 U.S. at 99 ("When a federal claim has been presented to a state court and the state court has denied relief, it may be presumed that the state court adjudicated the claim on the merits in the absence of any indication or state-law procedural principles to the contrary.").

Review of the state court decision is limited to the record that was before the statecourt:

We now hold that review under § 2254(d)(1) is limited to the record that was before the state court that adjudicated the claim on the merits. Section 2254(d)(1) refers, in the past tense, to a state-court adjudication that "resulted in" a decision that was contrary to, or "involved" an unreasonable application of, established law. This backward-looking language requires an examination of the state-court decision at the time it was made. It follows that the record under review is limited to the record in existence at that same time, i.e., the record before the state court.

Pinholster, 563 U.S. at 181-82. Dadabo bears the burden of overcoming by clear and convincing evidence a state court factual determination. "[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." 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(1). This presumption of correctness applies to a finding of fact but not to a mixed determination of law and fact. Parker v. Head, 244 F.3d 831, 836 (11th Cir.), cert. denied, 534 U.S. 1046 (2001).

EXHAUSTION OF STATE COURT REMEDIES; PROCEDURAL DEFAULT

Before a district court can grant habeas relief to a state prisoner under § 2254, the petitioner must exhaust all state court remedies that are available for challenging his conviction, either on direct appeal or in a state postconviction motion. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b)(1)(A); O'Sullivan v. Boerckel, 526 U.S. 838, 842 (1999) ("[T]he state prisoner must give the state courts an opportunity to act on his claims before he presents those claims to a federal court in a habeas petition."). See also Henderson v. Campbell, 353 F.3d 880, 891 (11th Cir. 2003) ("A state prisoner seeking federal habeas relief cannot raise a federal constitutional claim in federal court unless he first properly raised the issue in the state courts.") (citations omitted). A state prisoner "'must give the state courts one fullopportunity to resolve any constitutional issues by invoking one complete round of the State's established appellate review process,' including review by the state's court of last resort, even if review in that court is discretionary." Pruitt v. Jones, 348 F.3d 1355, 1358-59 (11th Cir. 2003) (quoting O'Sullivan, 526 U.S. at...