Goodloe v. Dorethy, 13 C 2650
| Decision Date | 14 August 2018 |
| Docket Number | No. 13 C 2650,13 C 2650 |
| Parties | DAMON GOODLOE, Petitioner, v. STEPHANIE DORETHY, Warden Hill Correctional Center, Respondent. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois |
OPINION AND ORDER
Petitioner Damon Goodloe, currently incarcerated at Hill Correctional Center, is serving a thirty-year sentence for first degree murder. Goodloe has petitioned this Court for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. Both of Goodloe's jury instruction claims are procedurally defaulted. Although the Court reaches his Confrontation Clause and ineffective assistance of counsel claims on the merits, Goodloe has not shown that the state court's decisions on these issues were contrary to or an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law. Thus, the Court denies Goodloe's petition.
The Court will presume that the state court's factual determinations are correct for the purposes of habeas review, as Goodloe has not pointed to clear and convincing evidence to the contrary. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(1); Todd v. Schomig, 283 F.3d 842, 846 (7th Cir. 2002). The Court thus adopts the state court's recitation of the facts and begins by summarizing the facts relevant to Goodloe's petition.
In the early morning of December 24, 2002, Chicago Police Officers Joseph Hodges and Jason Venegas responded to a "shots fired" call at 113th Street and Edbrooke. When the officers arrived, they found the victim, Pierre Jones, in the backyard. Officer Hodges called an ambulance as two additional officers, Ronald Bialota and Michael Martinez, arrived at the scene. Officer Bialota asked Jones who shot him. Jones replied, "Damon shot me." Ex. A at 2.2 Jones also told the officers that Damon "was wearing a black hoodie." Id.
Officers Hodges and Venegas remained with Jones while Officers Bialota and Martinez left to search for the offender. After about a minute and a half, Officer Bialota testified that they saw Goodloe coming out of an alley near 114th Street and Prairie Avenue. The officers stopped Goodloe—whose black hoodie was visible under his jacket—and checked him for a weapon and identification. The officers did not find a weapon, but his identification card revealed that his name was Damon Goodloe.
Officers Bialota and Martinez detained Goodloe and brought him back to the shooting scene, where paramedics had begun treating Jones in an ambulance. Officer Bialota asked Jones, "is this the individual that shot you?" Id. at 3. Jones said, "[t]hat's him, he's the one that shot me." Id. Officer Martinez asked Jones whether he was a hundred percent sure the person they brought was the one who shot him. Jones confirmed, "[y]eah, that's the guy." Id. at 5. The police report, however, does not include Officer Martinez asking this question.
Officers arrested Goodloe and the State charged him with six counts of first degree murder and one count of aggravated battery with a firearm. Before trial, Goodloe filed a motion to quash his arrest and suppress evidence, which the trial court denied after a hearing. The courtfound that the officers' initial stop and pat-down of Goodloe was based on reasonable suspicion, and that the officers had probable cause to arrest after they learned Goodloe's name.
Goodloe renewed his arguments in a motion in limine to exclude Jones' initial statements to the police and his later positive identification of Goodloe as the shooter. Goodloe argued the statements were hearsay, the dying declaration exception did not apply, and that permitting the out-of-court statements would violate his constitutional confrontation rights. The trial court denied the motion, finding that Jones' statements, although not dying declarations, were admissible under the excited utterance exception to the hearsay rule. The court also found that Jones' statements were not testimonial, and thus Goodloe's confrontation rights would not be violated by their admission into evidence.
At trial, numerous witnesses, including Officer Hodges, testified as to the circumstances surrounding Goodloe's arrest and Jones' statements. Further, the parties stipulated that Officer Samuel Jones would testify that he spoke with someone who identified herself as Danielle Lovett, and that she told him she observed two black males dressed in dark clothing appear from a vacant lot located at 11311 South Edbrooke and start shooting across the street. The parties further stipulated that Officer Jones would testify that Danielle Lovett never identified Goodloe as one of those individuals.
Michelle Lovett testified that she saw Goodloe around 1:00 a.m. on December 24, 2002 with another man—both wearing black hoodies—coming toward the vehicle in which she was sitting on South Edbrooke Avenue. She then heard at least ten gunshots but ducked before she could see Goodloe's hands, whether he had a gun, or whether he shot anyone. Lovett called 911 to report the shooting. She later identified Goodloe in a lineup at the police station as the person she had seen walking toward her friend's car. She acknowledged it was dark but noted that thestreetlights were on. At Goodloe's cousin's request, Lovett later signed an affidavit stating that she did not see Goodloe at any time in the early morning hours of December 24, 2002. She testified, however, that she signed the affidavit without reading it and "out of fear of [her] life." Ex. A at 7 (alteration in original). She further testified that she had been shot at and threatened, but that upon signing the affidavit, she was left alone. Finally, Lovett acknowledged that her sister's name was Danielle but testified that she did not remember ever telling police that her name was Danielle.
The forensic investigator assigned to the case testified that he administered a gunshot residue test to Goodloe at 5:15 a.m. on December 24, 2002. A trace evidence analysis expert for the Illinois State Police analyzed the results and identified four unique gunshot residue particles and a significant number of consistent particles from the sample taken from the back of Goodloe's right hand. The expert stated that Illinois State Police require three unique particles for test results to be considered positive for gunshot residue. He acknowledged that being in an environment where a weapon is discharged could produce a positive test result and that particles could be transferred by contact. Based on Goodloe's test results, the expert testified that Goodloe either fired the gun, contacted an item with gunshot residue on it, or his right hand was near a weapon when it was discharged. Goodloe did not testify or present any evidence in his defense.
Over Goodloe's objection, the State tendered and the court gave the following jury instruction on accountability:
A person is legally responsible for the conduct of another person when, either before or during the commission of an offense, and with the intent to promote or facilitate the commission of an offense, he knowingly solicits, aids, abets, agrees to aid, or attempts to aid the other person in the planning or commission of an offense.
Ex. A at 9-10. The jury also received instructions on the definition and elements of first degree murder, which provided that Goodloe was responsible for first degree murder if his intentional or knowing act caused the death of the victim or another. On June 21, 2006, the jury found Goodloe guilty of first degree murder but did not find that he personally discharged a firearm during the commission of that offense.
The trial court sentenced Goodloe to thirty years in prison. During his sentencing hearing, Goodloe made a verbal motion for a new trial based on ineffectiveness of counsel, claiming his private counsel had failed to communicate with him. The trial court allowed Goodloe's counsel to withdraw and appointed a public defender to further represent Goodloe. The court then held a hearing on Goodloe's motion, eliciting testimony from Goodloe and his former counsel. The trial court denied Goodloe's motion for a new trial, finding that counsel's decisions at trial related to investigating witnesses and impeaching Michelle Lovett constituted trial strategy and that Goodloe had not shown that counsel's decisions were unreasonable or prejudicial.
Goodloe also filed a post-trial motion for a new trial, in which he argued that because the jury did not find that he personally discharged the gun, it could only have found him guilty based on the accountability theory, on which he claimed there was no evidence. The trial court denied Goodloe's motion, commenting that the jury performed an act of "mercy" on Goodloe by acquitting him of personally discharging the gun. Ex. A at 12.
With the assistance of counsel, Goodloe appealed to the Illinois Appellate Court. He raised the following claims: (1) that the admission of the victim's out-of-court statements violated his rights under the Confrontation Clause, (2) that the trial court erred when it instructedthe jury on accountability and transferred intent, (3) that his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to properly impeach Michelle Lovett and call Officer Jones as a witness, and (4) that the Illinois Appellate Court should vacate various fees and fines. On December 31, 2009, the Illinois Appellate Court affirmed Goodloe's conviction but vacated the fees that the trial court had assessed.
Goodloe then filed a petition for leave to appeal ("PLA") with the Illinois Supreme Court. In the PLA, Goodloe argued that the trial court erred in admitting the victim's out-of-court statements in violation of his confrontation rights and that his trial counsel had been ineffective in impeaching Michelle Lovett. The Illinois Supreme Court denied the PLA on March 24, 2010. Goodloe did not file a petition for a writ of certiorari with the United States Supreme Court.
Goodloe filed a timely pro se...
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