Gonzalez v. DeTella

• Decision Date: 14 October 1997
• Docket Number: No. 96-1707,96-1707
• Citation: 127 F.3d 619
• Parties: Alfredo GONZALEZ, Petitioner-Appellant, v. George DeTELLA, Warden, Respondent-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Page 619

127 F.3d 619

Alfredo GONZALEZ, Petitioner-Appellant, v. George DeTELLA, Warden, Respondent-Appellee.

No. 96-1707.

United States Court of Appeals Seventh Circuit.

Argued Sept. 17, 1997.

Decided Oct. 14, 1997.

Frederick F. Cohn (argued), Chicago, IL, for Petitioner-Appellant.

Margaret M. O'Connell (argued), Office of the Attorney General, Chicago, IL, for Respondent-Appellee.

Before COFFEY, EASTERBROOK, and RIPPLE, Circuit Judges.

EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge.

Serving a sentence of natural life imprisonment for murder, Alfredo Gonzalez sought a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. Pictures at his trial showed two men dead on the sidewalk, riddled by bullets. A drug deal had gone awry. Four members of the Latin Kings street gang were at or near the scene. Justino Cruz, one of the four, pleaded guilty to murder and in exchange for a 22-year sentence testified that Jose Maysonet provided the gun and drove the car, while Cruz, Gonzalez, and Chris Hernandez pulled up the hoods of their sweatshirts and left the car. Cruz asserted that he kept watch while Gonzalez and Hernandez first negotiated with, and then killed, the other drug dealers. After shooting at least four bullets, Gonzalez ran back to Cruz and said: "Let's get out of here. We just shot two guys." The quartet fled and dispersed. Corroboration came from Rosa Bello, who testified that Gonzalez, Cruz, and Hernandez came to the apartment she shared with Maysonet. At Maysonet's request, Bello gave a package to Gonzalez, who opened it, revealing a gun, which he loaded and placed in the pouch of his sweatshirt. The men departed; Maysonet returned, alone, after the murders. Bello also related that the Friday before the trial someone tried to kill her by running her down with a car.

Gonzalez testified the other three offered him a ride home while he was walking on the street at midnight, then stopped on the way and committed the murders while he sat in the car, unaware until the last minute what was about to happen. He concedes that when his companions pulled up their hoods, he knew that a crime was in prospect and did nothing to prevent it. According to Gonzalez, the Latin Kings signify an impending murder by wearing their "hoodies," which his companions did that night. (A member since 1977, Gonzalez was acquainted with the gang's rituals.) Gonzalez allows that he learned of the slayings as soon as the other gang members returned to the car, yet never told the police. On his own testimony, Gonzalez was guilty of misprison of felony, but he was not charged with that crime. The jury believed Cruz and Bello over Gonzalez, however, and convicted him of murder. Although the state's appellate court concluded that the photographs should not have been admitted, it deemed the error harmless and affirmed. People v. Gonzalez, 265 Ill.App.3d 315, 202 Ill.Dec. 399, 637 N.E.2d 1135 (1st Dist.1994). The district court then denied Gonzalez's petition for collateral relief. Gonzalez v. DeTella, 918 F.Supp. 1214 (N.D.Ill.1996).

The petition was filed before April 24, 1996, so the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act does not affect our analysis. Lindh v. Murphy, --- U.S. ----, 117 S.Ct. 2059, 138 L.Ed.2d 481 (1997). But both before and after the new law, collateral relief under § 2254 has been available only when the custody violates the Constitution, treaties, or laws of the United States. Errors of state law, such as the improper admission of evidence, do not support a writ of habeas corpus. Estelle v. McGuire, 502 U.S. 62, 112 S.Ct. 475, 116 L.Ed.2d 385 (1991); Watkins v. Meloy, 95 F.3d 4 (7th Cir.1996). Gonzalez's principal claim--that the grisly pictures of the dead drug dealers, which included depictions of genitalia pierced by bullets, should not have been admitted into evidence--depends more on Illinois law than on the Constitution of the United States. Evidence wrongly admitted does not support a writ of habeas corpus unless all things considered the trial posed an unacceptably great risk of convicting an innocent person, and the judicial process therefore denied the accused due process of law. The district court held that Illinois gave Gonzalez a forum in which guilt could be separated from innocence, and that the erroneous evidentiary rulings therefore did not support collateral relief. As we remarked in Watkins, "when the state ... fails to limit the prosecution's evidence, the only constitutional principle to which a defendant can appeal is a catch-all sense of due process, and the appeal almost always fails. If the evidence is probative, it will be very difficult to find a ground for requiring as a matter of constitutional law that it be excluded; and if it is not probative, it will be hard to show how the defendant was hurt by its...