Evans v. Stange
Decision Date | 28 December 2021 |
Docket Number | 4:20-cv-00097-SRC |
Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Missouri |
Parties | GLEN S. EVANS, Petitioner, v. BILL STANGE, Respondent. |
GLEN S. EVANS, Petitioner,
v.
BILL STANGE, Respondent.
No. 4:20-cv-00097-SRC
United States District Court, E.D. Missouri, Eastern Division
December 28, 2021
MEMORANDUM AND ORDER
STEPHEN R. CLARK, UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
In February 2013 Glen Evans drove his friend Matt Cook to Advance, Missouri, so Cook could “take care of some business” with someone. Cook, who was upset and was texting during the drive, said at one point: “I'm gonna kill him.” Evans also saw that Cook had a gun. In Advance, Cook shot and killed Sean Crow in a McDonald's parking lot. Evans and Cook then drove back to Evans's house, where Cook stayed for a few days. While Cook and Evans were together at an Applebee's, Police officers arrested Cook-then arrested Evans later that night at Evans's house.
A state-court jury found Evans guilty of second-degree murder. Doc. 11-2 at p. 77. The state court sentenced Evans to twenty-five years imprisonment. Doc. 11-1 at p. 820; Doc. 11-2 at pp. 81-83. Evans appealed his conviction to the Missouri Court of Appeals, which affirmed. Doc. 11-6. He did not appeal to the Supreme Court of Missouri. A state motion court denied Evans's amended post-conviction relief motion after an evidentiary hearing. Doc. 11-8 at pp. 116-40. The Missouri Court of Appeals affirmed the motion court, Doc. 11-12, and the Supreme Court of Missouri denied transfer. Evans remains incarcerated. Doc. 5 at pp. 1-2. He now petitions this Court under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 for a writ of habeas corpus, alleging ineffective
assistance of his trial counsel and claiming the state trial court made various errors. Id. For the reasons discussed below, the Court denies Evans's petition.
I. Facts and Background
According to 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e), “[i]n a proceeding instituted by an application for a writ of habeas corpus by a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court, 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.” The Missouri Court of Appeals described the pertinent facts as follows:
On Tuesday, February 19, 2013, [Evans] drove his friend Matt Cook (Cook) to Advance, Missouri, to “take care of some business” with a guy. During the drive, Cook was upset and at one point he said, “I'm gonna kill him.” Cook was texting and told [Evans], “He thinks he's getting some pu**y.” [Evans] also saw a gun that Cook told him belonged to his girlfriend, Jackie Rudd (Rudd)
When they arrived in Advance, Cook told [Evans] to pull into McDonald's. McDonald's was a combination fast food restaurant, convenience store, and gas station. Surveillance tapes showed [Evans] arrived at 7:10 p.m. After [Evans] parked, Cook exited the car and entered the convenience store, and returned about five minutes later with no purchases. Across the parking lot, Sean Crow (Crow) was sitting in his red pickup truck parked with the headlights on. Cook told [Evans] that the person he needed to see was in the red truck across the parking lot. Cook told [Evans] to pull around the back of McDonald's, which [Evans] did
Cook got out of the car and told [Evans] to pull across the highway and wait for him. As Cook walked away from [Evans] and toward Crow's truck, [Evans] saw the gun tucked in the back of his pants, in the small of his back. Cook then went up to Crow's truck, leaned in the truck window, and shot Crow in the eye with a .22 caliber pistol, killing him Cook then ran back to [Evans]'s car, and told [Evans] to park at a nearby Dollar General store and let him out so he could walk over and check on Crow, get his phone, and check for evidence. Cook returned with $19 and Crow's phone. Cook later had [Evans] pull over so he could smash the phone and dispose of it in a dumpster.
[Evans] and Cook returned to [Evans]'s home. [Evans] told his friend Brent Montgomery (Montgomery) that Cook had just shot someone. Cook confirmed this fact and put the gun, a .22 caliber, to Montgomery's head and warned him not to say anything about it. Montgomery told Cook that he could not kill anyone with a .22 caliber, but Cook answered that he could at point blank range, and that he had
shot the man in the eye. [Evans] told Cook to get the gun out of Montgomery's face and to calm down. Montgomery soon left.
The next morning, Wednesday, February 21, 2013, [Evans] told his girlfriend Beth O'Neal (O'Neal), with whom he lived, that Cook needed a place to stay. O'Neal agreed he could stay at their place. Cook was gone most of that day but returned that night and spent most of Thursday and Friday with [Evans] and O'Neal. On Saturday, February 24, 2013, [Evans] was visited by his friend Jamie Abernathy (Abernathy). [Evans], Abernathy, O'Neal and Cook went to Applebee's. At some point, [Evans] took O'Neal home and then came back. While [Evans], Abernathy and Cook were at Applebee's, police officers came in and arrested Cook for nonsupport and Abernathy for a traffic warrant and took them away. [Evans] remained by himself but then left for another bar.
Later that night, at about 2:30 a.m., Sheriff Carl Hefner (Sheriff Hefner) and Trooper Steve Jarrell (Trooper Jarrell) went to [Evans]'s house to interview him because Cook was now a suspect in Crow's murder, and earlier [Evans] had been with Cook at Applebee's. The officers wanted to discern whether [Evans] had any information about the murder. However, after Sheriff Hefner knocked on his front door and O'Neal answered and let him in, [Evans] ran out the side door. Trooper Jarrell pursued [Evans], telling him to stop or he would shoot, but [Evans] continued to run. Eventually, [Evans] was apprehended. Trooper Jarrell asked [Evans] why he had run. [Evans] said he freaked out because he had been at Applebee's earlier with a friend who had been arrested for shooting someone in the head. [Evans] was brought to the sheriff's office where he was read and then waived his Miranda rights.
Trooper Scott Stoelting (Trooper Stoelting) interviewed [Evans], who claimed he did not know anything about Crow's murder. [Evans] told Trooper Stoelting he had picked up Cook and drunk a six-pack with him on February 19, 2013, but then left and did not see Cook again until the following Friday. When asked about going to Advance, Missouri, [Evans] said he had not been there in over a year.
[Evans] finally admitted he had driven Cook to Advance, Missouri on the night of February 19, 2013, at Cook's request because Cook had alleged he had “some business to take care of” there. [Evans] told police that although Cook had told him Crow was ripping people off on dope deals, [Evans] figured out after the shooting that the real reason Cook was upset with Crow was because he was sleeping with Cook's girlfriend, Rudd. [Evans] stated he initially thought there might be a fight or a “pistol whip” between Cook and Crow, so he looked the other way as he drove past Crow's truck and parked across the street to wait for Cook. As he was parking, [Evans] saw Cook already running back toward him. [Evans] told police he could not believe Cook could have “done it” already. [Evans] said when he asked Cook how he could kill someone with a .22 caliber pistol, Cook responded that he shot him in the eye. [Evans] said he also expressed surprise no
one had heard the gunshot, but Cook assured him no one had heard it. Cook then told [Evans] to park at a Dollar General store and let him out so he could walk over and check on Crow, get his phone, and check for evidence. Cook returned with some money and Crow's phone, which he later smashed and disposed of in a dumpster. [Evans] then dropped Cook off at his girlfriend Rudd's house and went home.
The police analyzed [Evans]'s cell phone, but were unable to find any calls or text messages made from February 19, 2013, to February 23, 2013, because they had been erased. The police analyzed the phone Cook used that was registered to his girlfriend, Rudd. An analysis of the records for that phone revealed on February 19, 2013, Cook had contacted [Evans]'s phone at 2:24 p.m., and [Evans]'s phone had contacted Rudd's (Cook's) phone at 2:32 p.m. The records of these calls or text messages had been deleted from both phones. The record also showed that between 5:42 p.m. and 7:10 p.m. on February 19, 2013, 42 text messages were sent between Rudd's (Cook's) phone and Crow's phone.
Cook pled guilty to first-degree murder and received life in prison with no parole. The State charged [Evans] with first-degree murder as Cook's accomplice. After a trial, the jury was instructed on both first- and second-degree murder under an accomplice liability theory, and after deliberation, found [Evans] guilty of second-degree murder. [Evans] was sentenced by the trial court to twenty-five years' imprisonment.
Doc. 11-6 at pp. 2-5.
II. Standard
“A state prisoner who believes that he is incarcerated in violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States may file a petition for writ of habeas corpus in federal court pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254[.]” Osborne v. Purkett, 411 F.3d 911, 914 (8th Cir. 2005), as amended (June 21, 2005). Federal habeas review exists only “as ‘a guard against extreme malfunctions in the state criminal justice systems, not a substitute for ordinary error correction through appeal.'” Woods v. Donald, 575 U.S. 312, 315 (2015) (per curiam) (quoting Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 102-03 (2011)). Accordingly, “[i]n the habeas setting, a federal court is bound by the AEDPA [the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act] to exercise only limited and deferential review of underlying state court decisions.” Lomholt v. Iowa, 327 F.3d 748, 751 (8th Cir. 2003) (citing 28 U.S.C. § 2254).
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