Davis v. State
| Decision Date | 14 February 2023 |
| Docket Number | PM-2017-1034 |
| Parties | MIGUEL DAVIS v. STATE OF RHODE ISLAND |
| Court | Superior Court of Rhode Island |
For Plaintiff: James T. McCormick, Esq.
For Defendant: John M. Moreira, Esq.
In this postconviction-relief application, Miguel Davis blames his trial attorney for the two consecutive life sentences he must serve for committing first degree murder. He says that his trial attorney's efforts were constitutionally flawed because he failed to (1) investigate the event and interview witnesses who would have provided exculpatory evidence; (2) confer with him and prepare him for trial; (3) investigate purported prosecutorial misconduct before the grand jury; and (4) preserve identification issues for appeal.
The Court disagrees.
After a February 2013 jury trial, Davis was convicted of the first-degree murder of Dominique Gay, discharging a firearm during a crime of violence resulting in Gay's death, and unlawfully carrying a pistol without a license. As mandated by statute, this Court sentenced Davis to consecutive life terms on the first two charges and ordered him to serve a concurrent ten-year term for unlawfully carrying the firearm. See G.L. 1956 §§ 11-23-1 and -2 11-47-3.2. The Court denied Davis's new trial motion on April 19, 2013, and his conviction has been affirmed. State v. Davis, 131 A.3d 679 (R.I. 2016). A full explication of the facts and circumstances surrounding the 2009 homicide is set forth in the Supreme Court's opinion. An abbreviated version will suffice here.
Davis and Gay had disliked each other for some years. That animosity essentially stemmed from amorous entanglements each man had with Crystal Dutra, the mother of Gay's child. Ultimately, their reciprocal resentment led to Gay's murder.
On March 20, 2009, Gay and two friends, Wilson Andujar and Dean Robinson, were walking in Providence when Andujar heard noise from the area of a nearby dumpster. When he looked, Andujar recognized Davis next to the dumpster. Davis wore a bandana which only covered his mouth and chin and a half-up black hoodie. Davis pointed a handgun at them and fired two shots, killing Gay.
Andujar and Robinson were unharmed and fled. Andujar testified that when he looked back, he saw Christopher Martinez, known by his nickname "Ucci," running behind Robinson. He said that Ucci also had a black hoodie, but nothing covered his face. Andujar was firm that Davis, not Ucci, was the shooter.
In the days following the shooting, Davis, on multiple occasions, told his friend Kevin Santiago that he had killed Gay, essentially describing it as an ambush. Corroborating Andujar's testimony, Davis told Santiago that he had hidden behind a dumpster until he saw Gay and then shot him. He also told Santiago that prior to the shooting, he had stolen some guns from a friend's family house, including a nine-millimeter handgun which he showed to Santiago. Although the State was unable to produce the murder weapon at trial, ballistic examination linked the shooting to that class of weapons.
At trial, Andujar was the only witness who identified Davis as the shooter. The State had also expected Robinson to identify Davis, but he invoked his Fifth Amendment privilege midtrial and refused to testify. Apparently satisfied with Santiago and Andujar's testimony, and that of Crystal Dutra, who provided the star-crossed jealousy motive for the murder, the State did not request that Robinson be immunized.
The State's confidence in that evidence was not misplaced, as reflected by the jury's verdict and this Court's subsequent denial of Davis's motion for a new trial. As this Court said at that hearing and referenced by the Supreme Court: "If Kevin Santiago's testimony was credible, there was no way Miguel Davis was going to avoid conviction in this case[,]" and when added to Dutra's testimony and Andujar's identification, "the evidence of guilt becomes overwhelming." Davis, 131 A.3d at 704. This Court found that testimony credible in 2019 and renews that sentiment here.
Strickland, et al.
The benchmark for a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel is Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984); accord, Brennan v. Vose, 764 A.2d 168, 171 (R.I. 2001); LaChappelle v. State, 686 A.2d 924, 926 (R.I. 1996). Whether an attorney has failed to provide effective assistance is a factual question which a petitioner bears the "heavy burden" of proving. Rice v. State, 38 A.3d 9, 17 (R.I. 2012); Padilla v. Kentucky, 559 U.S. 356, 371 (2010) (). When reviewing a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, the question is whether counsel's conduct "so undermined the proper functioning of the adversarial process that the trial cannot be relied on as having produced a just result." Strickland, 466 U.S. at 686; Heath v. Vose, 747 A.2d 475, 478 (R.I. 2000).
A Strickland claim presents a two-part analysis. The petitioner must first demonstrate that his attorney's performance was deficient, which requires a showing that counsel made errors that were so serious that the attorney was "not functioning as the 'counsel' guaranteed the defendant by the Sixth Amendment." Strickland, 466 U.S. at 687; Powers v. State, 734 A.2d 508, 522 (R.I. 1999).
Furthermore, a petitioner "must overcome a strong presumption that counsel's conduct falls within the wide range of reasonable professional assistance and sound trial strategy." Hughes v. State, 656 A.2d 971, 972 (R.I. 1995); Strickland, 466 U.S. at 689.
Even if the petitioner can satisfy that initial step, he must also demonstrate that counsel's deficient performance was prejudicial. In other words, he is required to show that a reasonable probability exists that but for counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different. Strickland, 466 U.S. at 694; Hazard v. State, 968 A.2d 886, 892 (R.I. 2009).
* * *
The parties have filed memoranda and have agreed that the Court may consider trial counsel's affidavit as a substitute for his testimony. They have also agreed to forgo a hearing. Having reviewed those materials and the record of the case, the Court finds that the facts and legal contentions have been adequately presented and that further proceedings would not assist the Court.
Davis's four claims will be addressed seriatim. The first three need not detain the Court long.
Trial counsel has flatly rejected Davis's assertion that he failed to investigate the incident, and he recounts that he spent considerable time conferring with Davis, who failed to identify any possible witness who might assist his defense. Davis has entirely failed to carry his burden of proof offering no evidence to support this barren claim or rebut counsel's declaration.
The State's discovery materials included a transcript of a March 20, 2009 police interview of Alisha Sousa, who said that from a nearby laundromat she had heard shots but had not seen the shooting. She simply recalled seeing someone in a dark hoodie running on Broad Street in the direction of Roger Williams Park. When shown a photospread which included the petitioner's picture, she selected someone else's photograph. Davis claims that counsel was derelict in not following that lead.
Davis's postconviction relief attorney engaged an investigator, who spoke with Ms. Sousa on March 22, 2022. She confirmed that she had not witnessed the shooting and that the individual she saw had been on Broad Street. No evidence at trial supported a theory that the shooter had been on Broad Street. He had emerged from behind a dumpster by Porter Street.
In any event, Andujar testified that even though Davis had covered his mouth and chin, he knew it was Davis, with whom he had shared middle school years as well as time at the Rhode Island Training School, who shot Gay. Just as importantly, Davis had bragged to Santiago that he had shot Gay, and this Court found Santiago's recitation of Davis's incriminating admission entirely credible. Their testimony, when coupled with that of Dutra, unquestionably foretold a guilty verdict. Davis, 131 A.3d at 704-05.
The Court agrees with the State that it is most likely that Sousa had glimpsed Ucci, whom the police eliminated as a suspect. They did not feel the need to review her recollection, and trial counsel cannot be faulted for having made that same determination. Retrospective criticism of his judgment is not at all warranted here. "As the Strickland Court cautioned, a reviewing court should strive 'to eliminate the distorting effects of hindsight.'" Clark v. Ellerthorpe, 552 A.2d 1186, 1189 (R.I. 1989) (quoting Strickland, 466 U.S. at 689); Linde v. State, 78 A.3d 738, 747 (R.I. 2013). See Rice, 38 A.3d at 17 (). Id. (quoting Brennan, 764 A.2d at 173).
Failure to Prepare for trial
Davis's imprecation that his lawyer had not adequately prepared him for trial is baseless. Counsel recounts that he spent considerable time prepping him, and Davis offers no evidence which in any way negates that assertion. Davis also told counsel that he did not wish to testify at trial. Counsel carefully explored that option with him, and upon inquiry by the Court, Davis unequivocally said that he had no intention of testifying.
Trial counsel also related that he reviewed all of the evidence with Davis and that prior to trial brought him proposed dispositions which would have exposed him to markedly less incarceration than if he were to be convicted at trial. In every instance, including once in the middle of...
To continue reading
Request your trial