Dunigan v. Stephens, 3:13-cv-3992-M-BN

• Decision Date: 12 May 2015
• Docket Number: No. 3:13-cv-3992-M-BN,3:13-cv-3992-M-BN
• Parties: DAVID DUANE DUNIGAN, Petitioner, v. WILLIAM STEPHENS, Director Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Correctional Institutions Division, Respondent.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Texas

DAVID DUANE DUNIGAN, Petitioner, v. WILLIAM STEPHENS, Director Texas Department of

Criminal Justice, Correctional Institutions Division, Respondent.

No. 3:13-cv-3992-M-BN

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT NORTHERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS DALLAS DIVISION

May 12, 2015

FINDINGS, CONCLUSIONS, AND RECOMMENDATION OF THE UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE

Petitioner David Duane Dunigan, a Texas prisoner, has filed an application for writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254. For the reasons explained below, the application should be denied.

Background

On September 11, 2008, in the 40th Judicial District Court of Ellis County, Texas, Petitioner was convicted of evading arrest with a vehicle, in violation of Texas Penal Code Annotated Section 38.04, and was sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment and fined $10,000.00. See Dunigan v. State, No. 10-10-00043-CR, 2011 WL 723463, at *1 (Tex. App. - Waco Mar. 2, 2011, pet. refused); see also Dkt. No. 21-2 at 69 (state habeas court findings of fact and conclusions of law), ¶¶ 1-4.

The guilt phase of Petitioner's trial, at which one witness - Trooper Vance Griffin - testified, lasted approximately 70 minutes. See Dkt. No. 19-7 (trialtranscript). The jury was out for approximately 16 minutes, see id. at 35, before finding Petitioner guilty, see id. at 35-36.

Petitioner was allowed to file an out-of-time appeal, his conviction and sentence were affirmed, and his petition for discretionary review was refused. See generally Dunigan, 2011 WL 723463; see also Dkt. No. 21-2 at 69-70, ¶¶ 5-12. Petitioner also challenged this conviction and sentence through a state application for writ of habeas corpus, which was denied by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ("CCA") without written order, on the findings of the trial court, made without a hearing. See Ex parte Dunigan, WR-30,289-03 (Tex. Crim. App. June 26, 2013); see also Dkt. No. 21-2 at 69-72; Dkt. No. 21-10 at 2.

In his federal habeas application, which timely followed the CCA's denial of his state habeas application, Petitioner raises three principal grounds: (1) his trial counsel rendered, for multiple reasons, constitutionally ineffective assistance; (2) the trial court denied him his right to a fair trial; and (3) the State committed prosecutorial misconduct. See Dkt. No. 14-1 at 6-26.

Legal Standards

A federal court will not reach the merits of claims denied by the state court on state procedural grounds if the state-law grounds are independent of the federal claim and adequate to bar federal review. See Sawyer v. Whitley, 505 U.S. 333, 338 (1992); Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U.S. 722, 750 (1991), modified by Martinez v. Ryan, 132 S. Ct. 1309, 1315, 1316-19 (2012). But, if the state procedural determination is based on state grounds that were inadequate to bar federal habeas review, or if the habeaspetitioner shows than an exception to the bar applies, the federal court must resolve the claim without the deference that the AEDPA otherwise requires. See Woodfox v. Cain, 609 F.3d 774, 794 (5th Cir. 2010) (the AEDPA's deferential standard of review would not apply to a procedural decision of the state court); Miller v. Johnson, 200 F.3d 274, 281 n.4 (5th Cir. 2000) ("Review is de novo when there has been no clear adjudication on the merits." (citing Nobles v. Johnson, 127 F.3d 409, 416 (5th Cir. 1997))); Mercadel v. Cain, 179 F.3d 271, 274-75 (5th Cir. 1999) ("the AEDPA deference scheme outlined in 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d) does not apply" to claims not adjudicated on the merits by the state court).

And, where a state court has already rejected a claim on the merits, a federal court may grant habeas relief on that claim only if the state court adjudication:

(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.

28 U.S.C. § 2254(d). A state court decision is "contrary" to clearly established federal law if "it relies on legal rules that directly conflict with prior holdings of the Supreme Court or if it reaches a different conclusion than the Supreme Court on materially indistinguishable facts." Busby v. Dretke, 359 F.3d 708, 713 (5th Cir. 2004); see also Lopez v. Smith, 135 S. Ct. 1, 2 (2014) (per curiam) ("We have emphasized, time and time again, that the that the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), 110 Stat. 1214, prohibits the federal courts of appeals from relying on theirown precedent to conclude that a particular constitutional principle is 'clearly established.'" (citation omitted)).

A decision constitutes an "unreasonable application" of clearly established federal law if "the state court identifies the correct governing legal principle from [the] Court's decisions but unreasonably applies that principle to the facts of the prisoner's case." Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 413 (2000). "For purposes of § 2254(d)(1), an unreasonable application of federal law is different from an incorrect application of federal law.... A state court's determination that a claim lacks merit precludes federal habeas relief so long as fairminded jurists could disagree on the correctness of the state court's decision." Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 131 S. Ct. 770, 785-86 (2011) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). "Under § 2254(d), a habeas court must determine what arguments or theories supported or, as here, could have supported, the state court's decision; and then it must ask whether it is possible fairminded jurists could disagree that those arguments or theories are inconsistent with the holding in a prior decision of this Court." Id. at 786 (internal quotation marks omitted).

The Supreme Court has further explained that "[e]valuating whether a rule application was unreasonable requires considering the rule's specificity. The more general the rule, the more leeway courts have in reaching outcomes in case-by-case determinations." Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). And "even a strong case for relief does not mean the state court's contrary conclusion was unreasonable." Id. The Supreme Court has explained that, "[i]f this standard is difficult to meet, that isbecause it was meant to be," where, "[a]s amended by AEDPA, § 2254(d) stops short of imposing a complete bar on federal court relitigation of claims already rejected in state proceedings," but "[i]t preserves authority to issue the writ in cases where there is no possibility fairminded jurists could disagree that the state court's decision conflicts with this Court's precedents," and "[i]t goes no farther ." Id. Thus, "[a]s 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." Id. at 786-87; accord Burt v. Titlow, 134 S. Ct. 10, 16 (2013) ("If this standard is difficult to meet - and it is - that is because it was meant to be. We will not lightly conclude that a State's criminal justice system has experienced the extreme malfunctio[n] for which federal habeas relief is the remedy." (internal quotation marks and citations omitted)).

As to Section 2254(d)(2)'s requirement that a petitioner show that the state court adjudication "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," the Supreme Court has explained that "a state-court factual determination is not unreasonable merely because the federal habeas court would have reached a different conclusion in the first instance" and that federal habeas relief is precluded even where the state court's factual determination is debatable. Wood v. Allen, 558 U.S. 290, 301, 303 (2010). Under this standard, "it is not enough to show that a state court's decision was incorrect or erroneous. Rather, a petitioner must show that the decision wasobjectively unreasonable, a substantially higher threshold requiring the petitioner to show that a reasonable factfinder must conclude that the state court's determination of the facts was unreasonable." Batchelor v. Cain, 682 F.3d 400, 405 (5th Cir. 2012) (brackets and internal quotation marks omitted).

The Court must presume that a state court's factual determinations are correct and can find those factual findings unreasonable only where the petitioner "rebut[s] the presumption of correctness by clear and convincing evidence." 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e) (1); Gardner v. Johnson, 247 F.3d 551, 560 (5th Cir. 2001). This presumption applies not only to explicit findings of fact but also "to those unarticulated findings which are necessary to the state court's conclusions of mixed law and fact." Valdez v. Cockrell, 274 F.3d 941, 948 n.11 (5th Cir. 2001); see also Harrington, 131 S. Ct. at 784 ("[D]etermining whether a state court's decision resulted from an unreasonable legal or factual conclusion does not require that there be an opinion from the state court explaining the state court's reasoning.").

In sum, Section 2254 creates a "highly deferential standard for evaluating state court rulings, which demands that state-court decisions be given the benefit of the doubt." Woodford v. Visciotti, 537 U.S. 19, 24 (2002). To overcome this standard, a petitioner must show that "there was no reasonable basis for the state court to deny relief." Harrington, 131 S. Ct. at 784.

Analysis

I. Procedurally Barred Claim - Trial Court's Misstatement of Law During Voir Dire

One basis for Petitioner's claim against the trial court - which is also in part a basis for his claims against his trial counsel and the prosecutor - is that State District Judge Gene Knize...