Ford v. Ahitow, 95-2542
| Decision Date | 14 January 1997 |
| Docket Number | No. 95-2542,95-2542 |
| Citation | 104 F.3d 926 |
| Parties | Robert FORD, Jr., Petitioner-Appellee, v. Rodney J. AHITOW, Warden, and Roland W. Burris, Respondents-Appellants. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit |
Raymond C. Perkins (argued), Winston & Strawn, Chicago, IL, for petitioner-appellee.
Steven J. Zick (argued), Office of the Attorney General, Criminal Appeals Division, Chicago, IL, for respondents-appellants.
Before EASTERBROOK, RIPPLE and KANNE, Circuit Judges.
On Sunday, September 17, 1989, around 6 o'clock in the afternoon, a violent fight erupted between the petitioner Robert Ford and Karonda Marion ("Karonda"), his stepdaughter, who was approximately five months pregnant. During the brawl, Mr. Ford kicked Karonda in the abdomen several times and Karonda stabbed Mr. Ford. Each was taken to a hospital. In the emergency room, a Doppler machine detected a fetal heartbeat but the ultrasound/sonogram did not. The radiologist concluded that the fetus was dead.
Mr. Ford was convicted in an Illinois state court of the intentional homicide of Karonda's unborn child. He was sentenced to a prison term of twenty years. The judgment was affirmed by the Appellate Court of Illinois, People v. Ford, 221 Ill.App.3d 354, 163 Ill.Dec. 766, 581 N.E.2d 1189 (1991), and leave to appeal to the Illinois Supreme Court was denied, People v. Ford, 143 Ill.2d 642, 167 Ill.Dec. 404, 587 N.E.2d 1019 (1992). However, the United States District Court granted Mr. Ford's petition for a writ of habeas corpus. Ford v. Ahitow, 888 F.Supp. 909, 910 (C.D.Ill.1995). It found that "the state failed to prove the petitioner guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and therefore the petitioner's incarceration violates due process." Id. Concluding that Ford is in "custody in violation of the Constitution ... of the United States" pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254, it granted the writ. Id. For the reasons discussed in the following opinion, we reverse the district court's issuance of the writ of habeas corpus.
The house in which Robert Ford lived with his wife, Mary Marion, and her two daughters, Gwendalyn and Karonda, was often the scene of domestic clashes and abusiveness, one which the state trial court described as an "almost unbelievably violent environment from time to time." Tr. X at 461. Frequently Mr. Ford had disputes with his wife Mary Marion; and typically her seventeen year-old daughter Karonda would intervene. There was much enmity between Mr. Ford and Karonda. Mary Marion, Karonda and Gwendalyn each testified that, at different times, Mr. Ford had called Karonda's baby a bastard and had threatened to "knock that baby bastard," Tr. VII at 45, 105, 116, or "kick that bastard out of" Karonda. Tr. VII at 9, 14, 51, 54, 66-67, 108, 110, 122, 124. Just a month prior to the events in question, Karonda and Mr. Ford had fought on Karonda's seventeenth birthday. On that day Mr. Ford, intoxicated, had verbally threatened Karonda and her unborn baby; he then had lifted Karonda in the air and had thrown her down on the ground. Mr. Ford himself described his handling of Karonda on that occasion: "I didn't pick her up, I just grabbed The decisions of the Appellate Court of Illinois and the United States District Court chronicle fully the atmosphere and events surrounding the physical confrontation of September 17, 1989. See Ford, 888 F.Supp. at 910-16; People v. Ford, 163 Ill.Dec. at 768-74, 581 N.E.2d at 1191-97. When we review a habeas petition, we must accept the factual findings of the state trial and appellate courts as true because they are entitled to a presumption of correctness. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(1); 1 Sumner v. Mata, 449 U.S. 539, 547, 101 S.Ct. 764, 769, 66 L.Ed.2d 722 (1981); Abrams v. Barnett, 100 F.3d 485, 487 (7th Cir.1996). We turn, therefore, to the state appellate court opinion and to the trial record and focus only on certain pivotal, essentially undisputed factual elements.
her and swung her around and, you know, like a karate lay down with, you know, just laid her down." 8 Loose Pleadings at C 128. Following that altercation, the police held Mr. Ford at the jail overnight before releasing him
Mr. Ford agreed to two interviews conducted by Officer Jeffrey Michael Regan of the Urbana Police Department. The second was tape-recorded. Mr. Ford also testified at trial. His testimony concerning the arguments and physical fighting on September 17, 1989, in most ways parallels the testimony of others. Therefore, we begin our overview of the events of September 17, 1989, by reviewing Mr. Ford's testimony and interview statements.
On the afternoon of September 17, 1989, Mr. Ford had been out drinking. 2 When he returned home late that afternoon, he was angry to find so many people in his house, in fact in his bedroom, drinking his alcohol and eating his food. Hoping to lie down because he was drunk, Mr. Ford threw open the door to the bedroom. He began an argument with his wife Mary Marion which turned into a physical tussle. Mr. Ford burned his wife's chest with a cigarette once or twice; he testified that he must have burned her "by accident." After Mary Marion screamed, Karonda came into the bedroom to defend her mother. She and her stepfather began arguing as well. Someone pushed Mr. Ford onto the bed; he began throwing his hands around and kicking to try to get up. Mr. Ford, wearing black combat or engineer-type boots at the time, admitted that he "may have kicked [Karonda] a couple of times" and that he probably kicked her with his "left foot 'cause [his] right foot is messed up.' " 8 Loose Pleadings at C 135; see also id. at C 118; Tr. VII at 159. Karonda stabbed her stepfather with a steak knife that was in the bedroom. 3
Once he realized that he was bleeding, Mr. Ford left the house. However, the stabbing upset him; he returned swinging an automobile bumper jack, which he beat on the kitchen stove. When he went back outside, the police had arrived. Mr. Ford collapsed and was taken to Carle Hospital.
The descriptions given by the numerous other witnesses who saw the verbal and physical violence in the Ford house on September 18 reflected a scene of pandemonium. Several testified that Mr. Ford had stomped and kicked Karonda hard in the stomach a number of times. Karonda and other witnesses testified that he kicked her first. Many saw Mr. Ford leave the house, return with an automobile bumper jack and beat the kitchen stove with it. Karonda's mother testified that, at the same time, he was cursing Karonda and vowing to "kick that bastard" out of her. Tr. VII at 20. Karonda got a different knife, but her mother and sister took it from her. At that point, Karonda was experiencing pain in her abdomen; she collapsed and perhaps lost consciousness. When the ambulances arrived, Mr. Ford was bleeding from his stab wound; Karonda was bleeding from a cut on her wrist and had abdominal pain. Each was carried to a different hospital.
Karonda was taken to Mercy Hospital around 7:00 p.m. She was first examined, briefly, by Dr. Anton Dubrick, the emergency room physician on duty. Then two registered nurses assessed the vital signs of Karonda and her baby. Nurses Susan Fifield and Jodi Smalley used a Doppler device to obtain a fetal heart tone. 4 Because the Doppler amplifies the sounds through a speaker, the heart beat was audible to everyone in the room. 5 The nurses monitored both the fetal and maternal heart rates. They obtained a fetal heart rate of 148 beats per minute and a maternal pulse of 120.
Nurse Smalley informed Dr. Dubrick of the results; he then palpated Karonda's abdomen and found it soft and normal. Although all the evidence indicated that Karonda and her baby were stable, on the advice of Dr. Trupin, the obstetrician-gynecologist on call, Dr. Dubrick ordered a sonogram.
Dr. Delores Fernandez, a diagnostic radiologist, viewed the ultrasound images for approximately fifteen minutes. During that time, Karonda stated that she had felt the baby moving when she was in the emergency room but had not felt it move since she had been taken to the ultrasound room. Dr. Fernandez saw no evidence in the sonogram of fetal motion or of cardiac activity. She concluded that the baby was dead. Dr. Dubrick then notified Karonda that her baby was dead. The stillborn baby was delivered two days later, at 5:31 p.m. on September 19, 1989. The autopsy report, requested by the Urbana Police Department, listed that time and date as the official time of death of the baby.
Dr. Barrett Dick, the anatomical and clinical pathologist who performed the autopsy the next morning, September 20, 1989, spent two hours and twenty minutes examining the body of the baby. Also present were eleven other aids and witnesses-assistants from histology and radiology, photographers, a secretary, and Officer Regan from the Urbana Police Department. The forensic autopsy report presents the following observations and findings:
Our conclusions are based upon the known circumstances of death as related to us at the time of autopsy, the postmortem examination, and various laboratory studies. This stillborn fetus was the product of an estimated 22 week gestation. The mother sustained abdominal trauma during a domestic dispute with fetal heart tones initially 8 Loose Pleadings at C 367. Dr. Dick declined to offer his opinion as to the cause of death. He stated that the cause was "undetermined with a suggestion of blood loss inferred because of marked paleness of the tissue and lack of hemoglobin staining." Id. at C 367, 372. In his summary, Dr. Dick stated that the ultrasound was "interpreted as having suggestion of fetal skull fracture with overlap of the fetal skull bones." Id. at C 374. The pathologist also explained that the data were based on the dissection and microscopic...
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