Deciantis v. Wall

• Decision Date: 01 July 2013
• Docket Number: No. 12–2383.,12–2383.
• Citation: 722 F.3d 41
• Parties: Anthony DeCIANTIS, Petitioner, Appellant, v. A.T. WALL, Respondent, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

722 F.3d 41

Anthony DeCIANTIS, Petitioner, Appellant,

v.A.T. WALL, Respondent, Appellee.

No. 12–2383.

United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit.

July 1, 2013.

James T. McCormick, with whom McKenna & McCormick was on brief, for appellant.

Aaron L. Weisman, Assistant Attorney General, Rhode Island, with whom Peter F. Kilmartin, Attorney General, Rhode Island, was on brief, for appellee.

Before LYNCH, Chief Judge, THOMPSON and KAYATTA, Circuit Judges.

LYNCH, Chief Judge.

In 1984, appellant Anthony DeCiantis was tried in Rhode Island state court for the killing of Dennis Roche, convicted of first-degree murder, and sentenced to life imprisonment. In 1998, he filed an application for postconviction relief in Rhode Island state court, seeking relief based on the prosecution's alleged failure to turn over exculpatory evidence during his trial. The Superior Court for Providence County denied DeCiantis's application in 2007, DeCiantis v. State ( DeCiantis II ), No. PM 98–0899, (R.I. Super. Ct. Mar. 7, 2007), and the R.I. Supreme Court affirmed this denial in 2011. See DeCiantis v. State ( DeCiantis III ), 24 A.3d 557 (R.I.2011). The R.I. Supreme Court held that the withheld information was not material under the Brady test for materiality. See Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963).

DeCiantis then filed a petition, in 2012, for writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254 in the Rhode Island U.S. District Court. The court denied the petitionin thoughtful opinions. See DeCiantis v. Wall ( DeCiantis V ), C.A. No. 12–018–M, 2012 WL 5287036 (D.R.I. Oct. 24, 2012); DeCiantis v. Wall ( DeCiantis IV ), 868 F.Supp.2d 1 (D.R.I.2012). DeCiantis has appealed. We affirm because the decision of the R.I. Supreme Court was neither contrary to nor an unreasonable application of controlling Supreme Court case law, and so relief is precluded by the terms of the Anti–Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA). See28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1).

I.

We describe the facts found by the R.I. Supreme Court, adding other facts from the record that are consistent with these findings. Healy v. Spencer, 453 F.3d 21, 22 (1st Cir.2006).

A. The Testimony at DeCiantis's Trial

We use the R.I. Supreme Court's summary of the evidence presented at DeCiantis's June 1984 murder trial. See DeCiantis III, 24 A.3d at 559–60 (citing State v. DeCiantis ( DeCiantis I ), 501 A.2d 365, 365 (R.I.1985)). As the court recounted:

The state's witness Louis Schiappa testified that on December 4, 1981, he observed two other men force the victim into a car driven by Anthony DeCiantis. The witness stated that he had seen DeCiantis drive the car on prior occasions, and he identified the first two letters on the license plate. These two letters were identical to those on the registration of a car owned by defendant's sister.

The next day Dennis Roche's body was discovered in a dump in Providence. According to Deputy Medical Examiner Arthur Burns, Roche had died from a gunshot wound to the “trunk.” Roche had suffered a second gunshot wound, several stab wounds, and injuries to the face and head consistent with his having been run over by a car.

The state offered three additional witnesses, each of whom testified about separate occasions on which defendant had admitted to killing Roche. Louis Campagnone testified that approximately two months after Roche's murder, he and defendant were in a restaurant when DeCiantis admitted to having killed Roche, claiming that he did it because he believed Roche to have been responsible for the disappearance of DeCiantis' brother, Rocco.

Robert Livingston testified that during the summer of 1982, he and defendant had a conversation in which “Anthony DeCiantis told me that he and Ricky Silva had killed Dennis Roche.... He said that Ricky had shot him and he had stabbed him.” Livingston also testified that Rocco DeCiantis's disappearance had motivated the killing.

DeCiantis I, 501 A.2d at 365–66 (alteration in original).

The third witness who testified that DeCiantis admitted to Roche's killing was William Ferle. Ferle testified that in December 1981, DeCiantis told him that he and Silva “had killed Dennis Roche, drove over him with a car, shot him.” According to Ferle, DeCiantis said he killed Roche because “Roche kept annoying him and throwing it in his face that about [sic] his brother being killed on Halloween night and that it might be his turn the next coming Halloween night.” Ferle testified that DeCiantis also admitted on a few other occasions that he killed Roche. DeCiantis III, 24 A.3d at 560.

Ferle was extensively impeached on cross-examination by defense counsel, using Ferle's criminal history and questioning whether his testimony was motivated by the desire for state protection or for a lesser sentence on pending charges, and hence was not truthful. Ferle admitted that he had been found guilty of conspiracy and bank fraud in 1982, and that charges were pending against him for robbery, murder, first-degree arson, and obtaining money under false pretenses. Id. Ferle was asked whether it was the investigation of the arson which had prompted him to testify, or whether he was testifying “[o]ut of the goodness of [his] heart ... to help the system?” Id. Ferle answered that “I gave my word that I would tell the truth of ... about any murders that I was aware of and that is what I did and that is all I am here is to tell the truth.” Id. at 560–61 (alteration in original) (internal quotation marks omitted).

Defense counsel persisted:

Q: What would you like to happen with respect to your coming forward voluntarily and giving this testimony in these cases?

A: Well, what I suggested was that I wanted protection for me and my family. My wife and daughter, because a lot of the testimony I gave is against top organized crime figures which I was involved with and if they could get to me, they would kill me and that if whatever time I had to serve, if I could serve it in the custody of the State Police and not in a prison because they can get to you in a prison. I know how things work. I have been around them for ten years, you know, when I was in Danbury, I heard of things happening outside. Word gets around. I don't feel I would be safe in a prison.

See id. at 561. Defense counsel continued:

Q: And is it your claim, sir, that you have been promised nothing by way of consideration ... by way of sentence for [your] testimony?

A: Like I said, there hasn't been no final commitment given to me. I don't really know what's going to happen at this point.

Q: You expect ...

A: I am sure that I will be given protection somehow. They will have to do that unless I'll be dead.

Q: You expect more than protection for yourself and your family, do you know, Mr. Ferle?

A: I'd like for that to happen.

Q: You [would] very much like for that to happen, wouldn't you?

A: I think anybody would.

Q: Isn't it a fact that you are going to get it, sir?

A: I can't say that truthfully, I don't know that.

...

Q: You're telling us, then, that you don't care if you go to prison or on [sic] for all these crimes or not?

A: I am not saying that.

Q: Do you ... you do care, don't you sir?

A: Everybody cares, but whatever has to happen is going to happen. I can't change that. I hope it doesn't happen, but I don't know what's going to happen. All I am here is to tell the truth.

See id. Defense counsel pursued this same line of questioning on several other occasions.

Defense counsel also questioned whether Ferle had received or expected to receive payment for his testimony:

Q: Do you expect to go into the Federal Witness Protection Program with a stipend or something every month ... a salary?

... A: That really hasn't been discussed. I am in State Police custody. I haven't talked about any Federal programs.

Q: Who's supporting you now?

...

A: I am in the custody of the Rhode Island State Police.

Q: Who supports your family?

...

A: They're also in the State Police custody.

...

Q: Right now, you are being supported by the taxpayers of the State of Rhode Island?

...

A: I don't know that I am. I am in State Police custody.

Id. (alterations in original) (internal quotation marks omitted).

On June 7, 1984, a jury convicted DeCiantis of murder in the first degree. Id. at 559.

B. The Prosecution's Disclosures to DeCiantis

We describe how the Brady issue arose, although the outcome of this petition does not turn on the fact of non-disclosure.

In 2005 and 2006, the Providence Superior Court, on DeCiantis's application for postconviction relief, heard testimony from the prosecutor in DeCiantis's murder trial, David Leach, id. at 562, and from a lieutenant with the state police who had been involved in “handling” Ferle as a witness, Michael Urso, id. at 566. DeCiantis's trial counsel had died before the hearing. Id. at 568.

1. Disclosures Concerning Ferle's Criminal History

Prosecutor Leach testified that Ferle's Bureau of Criminal Identification (BCI) record had been disclosed to DeCiantis in February 1984, before his trial, but that this record omitted offenses with which DeCiantis had not been charged at that time. Id. at 563. Leach did not know whether he had disclosed to DeCiantis any other information about Ferle's criminal history. Id.

DeCiantis's counsel had cross-examined Ferle about crimes that were not listed in the BCI record, id., such as the pending murder charge and robbery charge, id. at 565.

Leach conceded that the prosecution, in a case concerning a different defendant, Nicholas Bianco, had submitted a September 12, 1984 supplemental answer which listed many more crimes in which Ferle had been involved than those about which Ferle had been cross-examined at DeCiantis's trial. Id. at 564. That supplemental answer stated that “[d]uring the course of the de-briefing of William Ferle, he has indicated his involvement in the following criminal activity,” id. (alteration in original) (internal quotation marks omitted); it then listed...