Forbes v. Ricci
| Decision Date | 03 January 2011 |
| Docket Number | Civil Action No. 09-1886 (SDW) |
| Parties | PIERRE FORBES, Petitioner, v. MICHELLE RICCI, et al., Respondents. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of New Jersey |
NOT FOR PUBLICATION
Petitioner Pierre Forbes ("Petitioner") filed a Petition for a Writ of Habeas Corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254(a) challenging a judgment of conviction in the Superior Court of New Jersey. The Court provided Petitioner with Mason notice and directed Respondents to file their answer to the Petition. Respondents duly complied. Petitioner elected not to traverse. For the reasons expressed below, the Court will dismiss the Petition and will decline to issue a certificate of appealability. See 28 U.S.C. §§ 2253(c), 2254(a), (b), (c).
The underlying events of Petitioner's conviction were defined by the Appellate Division as follows:
Following a joint trial by jury, defendants John Martinez and [Petitioner] were convicted of aggravated manslaughter, a lesser-included offense of murder with which they were charged; and conspiracy to commit aggravated assault. For sentencing purposes, the latter conviction was merged into the former. Martinez was sentenced to a twenty-five year term with an 85% parole disqualifier pursuant to the No Early Release Act (NERA). [Petitioner] was sentenced to a thirty-year term with an 85% parole disqualifier pursuant to NERA....
The criminal charges arose from the death of forty-six year old Salvatore Salierno on October 25, 1998. At 7:30 p.m. that evening, he was found, unconscious and bleeding, lying face down next to his car in a parking lot adjacent to the apartment building in Parsippany where he lived. He was taken to the hospital and pronounced dead. The autopsy revealed that Salierno had sustained a two-inch laceration in the back of the head, abrasions and bruising to the right side of the neck, internal bleeding in the lumbar area, and a broken nose. The cause of death was bleeding as a result of blunt trauma to the head, administered by an elongated object. According to the State's proofs, Salierno had lived in the same apartment building as Ivette and... Martinez who had a troubled marriage. In October 1997, Ivette met Salierno, who was handicapped and walked with a cane, and in March 1998, the two became friends. Martinez became jealous of that relationship. In May 1998, he told his wife that Salierno was interfering in their marriage and that he should stay out of their business. Later that summer, a neighbor heard Martinez yelling at Salierno at close range to "stay the 'F' away from my wife, " and on another occasion that he had "friends" who could "take care" of [Salierno]. On August 22, 1998, Martinez accused Ivette of having sex with Salierno after he saw her wearing Salierno's shirt. That same day, Ivette moved out of their apartment, and in September moved in with Salierno. The tension between Martinez and Salierno eventually came to the attention of local police. On August 22, 1998, the same day Ivette moved out of her apartment, Parsippany police responded to a diner, where Officer Joseph Chmura found Salierno outside complaining that Martinez, who was inside the diner with his daughter, had been making harassing calls to his residence. Martinez denied this and told Officer Chmura that his wife was having an affair with Salierno and that he had an active restraining order against Ivette. On the next day, August 23,
1998, Martinez gave a written statement to Parsippany police that "Sal Salierno has, for the past three months that I know about, has been having an affair with my wife in the presence of my daughter." Apparently, Salierno and Martinez filed complaints against each other in Parsippany Municipal Court. The situation did not abate. Between September 18 and 20, 1998, eleven phone calls were made from Martinez's home to Salierno's. On October 6, 1998, Martinez called Salierno's apartment several times complaining that Ivette and Salierno had taken a jeep automobile that contained equipment he needed for work and that had been awarded to him under a restraining order. And on October 21, 1998, Martinez filed a complaint with the Parsippany Police Department accusing Salierno of taking "aggressive action" when Martinez came to pick up the jeep. Earlier, in late August 1998, Martinez had enlisted the aid of Richard Forbes--a long-time acquaintance who had served six years in federal prison and was living in Queens, New York to persuade Salierno to stay away from Ivette. Richard obliged and, before eventually speaking to him, left messages on Salierno's answering machine, to the effect: Apparently convinced this approach was not having the desired effect, at the end of August Martinez asked Richard to recruit some people to beat up Salierno. In return, Richard was promised a computer that he could use in a counterfeiting scheme he was concocting with Martinez. Three weeks later, Martinez gave Richard a Polaroid camera and a map with Salierno's address on it, and told him that he wanted Salierno beaten up and his legs broken. Richard in turn recruited his brother, [who was the Petitioner in this action], and an acquaintance, Jeremiah Farmer, who both agreed to do it. Farmer had been living in the basement of the Forbes' home from where he and Richard were selling drugs. Richard explained to both [Petitioner] and Farmer that Martinez's wife had been having an affair and Martinez would pay them to beat up her boyfriend, although a specific sum was never discussed. Richard gave them $50 bus fare to Parsippany and a camera, and made them redraw the map, retaining the original himself. Richard described the target Salierno as an Italian man named "Sal, " in his mid-forties who walked with a cane, lived on Baldwin Road in Parsippany, and drove a Cadillac. Farmers' and [Petitioner's] first two attempts proved unsuccessful, although on the second occasion, they saw Salierno before he got into his car and drove off. When Farmer and [Petitioner] reported back that the attack had not yet taken place, Richard insisted that it be done before October 27, the scheduled date for a municipal court hearing on the cross complaints of Martinez and Salierno. Consequently, on October 25, 1998, [Petitioner] asked Gerald Gloster, a friend of the Forbes' family, for a ride to Parsippany to "catch up with a person" and "take care of business." Gloster agreed. During the ride, [Petitioner] and Farmer mentioned "kicking somebody's ass." After they arrived at the destination, the two sat in the parking lot for about twenty to thirty minutes until a Cadillac pulled up and Farmer said "that's him." [Petitioner] and Farmer exited the van. [Petitioner] approached Salierno, requesting the time and a cigarette. [Petitioner] then began repeatedly beating Salierno with both a metal pipe and his hands. Although Gloster, who remained in the van, did not see the weapon, Farmer described it as an eight-to-ten pound pipe. Once Salierno had fallen to the ground, unconscious and "in a deep snore, " Farmer kicked him and took his wallet, both to prove the assault had occurred and to make it look like a robbery. Farmer asked [Petitioner] why he had killed him, to which [Petitioner] replied, "that's what I wanted to do." When the pair arrived back in Queens, they reported to Richard that [Petitioner] had beaten Salierno with a pipe and after Salierno was "snoring, " Farmer joined in and "stomped" him. They gave Richard the wallet and a disposable camera and showed him the metal pipe used to beat Salierno. Richard at first put the camera and wallet in his dresser drawer, but when he later learned that Salierno had been killed, he burned the camera, the wallet and its contents. According to Farmer, Richard telephoned Martinez in front of him, and then asked Farmer to step out of the room. After the phone conversation, Richard said he told Martinez that the mission was completed and asked about payment to which Martinez replied "be patient." Meanwhile, policearrived on the crime scene at 7:53 p.m. There was blood on the ground and on the Honda that was parked next to Salierno's Cadillac. Ed Williams, a detective in the forensic crime scene unit of the Sheriff's Department, and an expert in blood spatter analysis, determined that the blood spatters found on the lower rocker panel of the Honda were medium velocity spatters, which was consistent with blunt force trauma. In his opinion, the cast-off patterns on the rocker panel were caused by an instrument with blood on it, as it was being whipped up and down. A jacket taken from the victim also had medium velocity spatters on the shoulder and neck area. Because of the prior relationship between the two, Martinez became an immediate suspect, and within hours of Salierno's death, police officers were dispatched to his apartment where they conducted a search and found a journal belonging to Martinez, detailing his feelings about the relationship between Salierno and his wife. Two passages in particular read: "I still have a lot of hate for Ivette and Sal, " and "God will not let him/her get away with it." The last passage in the journal is dated October 19, 1998, six days before Salierno's death. The investigation also revealed that there was a lot of telephone activity and contact between Martinez and Richard immediately before and after Salierno's homicide. A total of twenty-seven phone calls were made from Martinez's work cellular phone to [Richard and Petitioner's] residence between August 24, 1998 and October 21, 1998. Numerous calls were made from Martinez's extension and another nearby extension at his place of employment-Manhattan Off-Track Betting on Broadway in New York City--to [Richard and Petitioner's] residence between October 1998 and February 1999....
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