Fields v. Thaler
| Decision Date | 01 March 2011 |
| Docket Number | CIVIL ACTION NO. H-09-3582 |
| Parties | JAMES CURTIS FIELDS, TDCJ-CID NO. 626058, Petitioner, v. RICK THALER, Respondent. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Southern District of Texas |
Petitioner James Curtis Fields, a state inmate, seeks federal habeas relief pursuant to 28 U.S.C.§ 2254 from his conviction for murder.1 (Docket Entry No.1). Respondent has filed a motion for summary judgment (Docket Entry No.13), to which petitioner has filed a response. (Docket Entry No.14). After considering the pleadings and the entire record, the Court will grant respondent's summary judgment motion.
A grand jury in Harris County, Texas, indicted petitioner on one count of murder in cause number 619379 and two counts of aggravated assault in cause number 619235, which were enhanced by prior convictions. (Docket Entries No.9-2, page 9; No.9-6, page 1). In March 1992, petitioner entered a negotiated guilty plea to one assault charge with the State's recommendation of a twenty-five year sentence and agreement to abandon one count with an affirmative deadly weapon finding. (Docket Entry No.9-1, page 13). Petitioner also entered a negotiated guilty plea to the murder charge with the State's recommendation of forty years confinement in TDCJ-CID and an affirmative finding that petitioner used a deadly weapon.
(Docket Entry No.9-2, page 3). All the documents executed by petitioner, his trial counsel, and the state district judge show that petitioner understood the charges against him and the terms of the prosecutor's plea agreement, and that he was competent and his plea to each offense was free, knowing, and voluntary. (Docket Entries No.9-2, pages 3-6; No.9-5, pages 15-18). The same documents also show that the state district judge accepted the prosecutor's recommendation of twenty-five years confinement for the assault charge and forty years confinement for the murder charge and that he informed petitioner that he would not exceed the recommended punishment.2 (Id.). Nevertheless, the state district judge entered a judgment of guilt and sentenced petitioner to forty years confinement on both the murder charge and the aggravated assault charge, to run concurrently. (Docket Entry No.9-5, pages 1, 3).
Petitioner did not appeal the 1992 convictions. (Docket Entry No.1). In state habeas application, WR-71, 897-01, filed on March 20, 2009, petitioner complained that he hadbeen denied his constitutional right to appeal his aggravated assault conviction in cause number 619235 because he waived such right before the adjudication of his guilt and pronouncement of a forty-year sentence, which did not comport with the terms of the negotiated plea agreement. (Docket Entry No.9-4, page 5). Petitioner complained that he had tendered to the state district court and to trial counsel that he was actually innocent; he further complained that the state district court did not have jurisdiction due to fatally defective filing procedures with respect to the indictment, and that he had received ineffective assistance of counsel. (Id).
On April 7, 2009, the state district court granted the State's motion for a judgment nunc pro tunc and ordered the Clerk to prepare a corrected judgment to reflect the plea agreement on the aggravated assault conviction. (Docket Entry No.9-5, page 7). Thereafter, the 248th Criminal District Court entered a corrected Judgment of Conviction by Court—Waiver of Jury Trial, setting punishment in the aggravated assault conviction at twenty-five years confinement in TDCJ-CID, to run concurrently with the murder sentence. (Id., pages 8-9). On April 8, 2009, the State filed a response to the habeas application, in which it indicated that the sentence in the primary conviction for assault had been corrected to reflect the parties' true intent and that petitioner had waived his rights as part of the plea bargain; the State asserted that the claim was moot and that petitioner's habeas application should be dismissed. (Docket Entry 9-4, page 18). On May 6, 2009, in an unpublished opinion, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals noted that the state district court had corrected the error by entering a judgment nunc pro tunc reflecting petitioner's sentence as twenty-five years' imprisonment. (Docket Entry No.9-6, page 10). The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ordered the officials at TDCJ-CID to correct petitioner's records to show that he received a twenty-five year sentence in cause number 619235 from the 179th Criminal District Court of Harris County. (Id.).
On March 30, 2009, ten days after he filed the state habeas application in cause number 619235, petitioner filed state habeas application number WR-71, 897-02, from his murder conviction in cause number 619379. In this new application, petitioner raised the same concerns regarding the waiver of his appeal, the state district court's failure to honor the plea agreement, the defective indictment, actual innocence and ineffective assistance of counsel. (Docket Entry No.9, page 13). In its response filed on April 8, 2009, the State reported that petitioner had alleged that the state district court did not honor the plea agreement in the companion case for aggravated assault and that the error had been found and corrected in a judgment i^u^cpro tunc in cause number 619235. (Docket Entry No.9-1, page 7). On April 13, 2009, the state district court, sitting as a habeas court, recommended that petitioner's habeas action be dismissed because his sole ground for relief had become moot. (Id., pages 19-20). In his Response and Objection to the Findings of Fact and Order of the Trial Court, filed on April 29, 2009, petitioner appears to complain that the state district court breached the plea agreements in both the assault and murder convictions. (Docket Entry No.9-2, page 17). On May 6, 2009, the same day that it entered the unpublished opinion in Application No. WR-71, 897-01, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals dismissed Application No. WR-71, 897-02 as moot. (Docket Entry No.9, page 3).
In the pending federal habeas action filed on November 2, 2009, petitioner complains that the Texas courts did not address all of the issues he raised in his state habeas applications. (Docket Entry No.1). He seeks federal habeas relief on the following grounds:
1. His pleas to the murder and assault charges was involuntary because he suffered from a mental impairment at the time he entered such pleas;
2. He is unlawfully imprisoned because the state district courtbreached his negotiated plea agreement in both cause numbers by sentencing him to forty years confinement in each cause; thereby,
a. making his guilty pleas and related waivers involuntary;
b. rendering his convictions and sentences void; and,
c. depriving him of his right to appeal;
4. He was deprived of the effective assistance of counsel at trial.
(Id.).
Respondent moves for summary judgment on grounds that some of petitioner's claims are time-barred, some are unexhausted and procedurally barred, and alternatively that petitioner has failed to meet his burden of proof under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1). (Docket Entry No.13). In response, petitioner contends that he entered into a plea bargain agreement for a sentence of twenty-five years in both cause numbers and that he is functionally illiterate in that he cannot read or write. (Docket Entry No.14).
To be entitled to summary judgment, the pleadings and summary judgment evidence must show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. FED. R. Civ. P. 56(c). The moving party bears the burden of initially pointing out to the court the basis of the motion and identifying the portions ofthe record demonstrating the absence of a genuine issue for trial. Duckett v. City of Cedar Park, Tex., 950 F.2d 272, 276 (5th Cir. 1992). Thereafter, "the burden shifts to the nonmoving party to show with 'significant probative evidence' that there exists a genuine issue of material fact." Hamilton v. Seque Software, Inc., 232 F.3d 473, 477 (5th Cir. 2000) (quoting Conkling v. Turner, 18 F.3d 1285, 1295 (5th Cir. 1994)). The Court may grant summary judgment on any ground supported by the record, even if the ground is not raised by the movant. United States v. Houston Pipeline Co., 37 F.3d 224, 227 (5th Cir. 1994).
Respondent maintains that petitioner's claims that he was denied the effective assistance of counsel and that he is unlawfully imprisoned because the State breached his plea bargain agreement by sentencing him to forty years confinement in cause number 619235 are time-barred and should be dismissed with prejudice. (Docket Entry No.13).
The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 ("AEDPA") was signed into law on April 24, 1996. Title 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d) (1) of the AEDPA provides that a one-year statute of limitations for state prisoners' habeas cases shall run from the latest of the following four possible situations:
(A) the date on which the judgment became final by the conclusion of direct review or the expiration of the time for seeking such review;
(B) the date on which the impediment to filing an application created by State action in violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States is removed, if the applicant was prevented from filing by such State action;
(C) the date on which the constitutional right asserted was initially recognized by the Supreme Court, if the right has been newly recognized by the Supreme Court and made retroactively applicable to cases on collateral review; or(D) the date on which the factual predicate of the...
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