On December 18, 2009, Petitioner was convicted by a jury in the Circuit Court of St. Louis City, of one count of second degree murder and abuse of a child resulting in death (Doc. 8-4 at 4). On February 19, 2010, the Circuit Court sentenced Petitioner to concurrent terms of twenty-five years in the custody of the Missouri Department of Corrections on each count (Doc. 8-5 at 64-67). Petitioner appealed the judgment on January 19, 2011, raising six claims:
(1) The trial court erred in precluding Petitioner from introducing and playing Petitioner's 911 call because the 911 call contained statements that qualified under the excited utterance exception to hearsay and it was fundamentally unfair to prohibit the admission of the 911 tape as an exhibit in that it substantially prejudiced Petitioner and affected the outcome of the trial;(2) The trial court erred in precluding Petitioner from introducing and playing Petitioner's reenactment video because the reenactment video was a part of the police investigation, the State opened the door to this evidence, and it was fundamentally unfair to prohibit the admission of Petitioner's reenactment video;
(3) The trial court erred and abused its discretion in overruling Petitioner's objection and request for a mistrial when the prosecutor elicited evidence from Ashley, the victim's mother, and Vicki, the victim's grandmother, that Petitioner had burned the victim's ("M.T.")2 hand with hot water because the evidence was not legally relevant, was more prejudicial than probative of Petitioner's commission of the charged crimes, and deprived Petitioner of his rights to due process, to a fair trial, and to be tried only for the charged offenses;
(4) The trial court erred and abused its discretion in permitting Dr. James Gerard to testify over defense counsel's objection that injuries on M.T. were indicative of child abuse in violation of Petitioner's rights to due process of law, to a fair trial, and to be judged by a fair and impartial fact-finder;
(5) The trial court abused its discretion in excluding Dr. Thomas Young's testimony that (1) M.T.'s liver lacerations were caused by improper CPR; (2) the cause of death was undetermined because he knew that M.T. went into cardiac arrest and the liver laceration did not produce enough blood to cause her death; (3) without more information, he could not tell what the actual cause of death because he did not have enough heart tissue with which to decide what caused her heart to stop; and (4) M.T.'s postmortem injuries would have been from the fall in the bathroom when she hit her forehead and her face on the faucet after she went into cardiac arrest and any splashing of water to the face could have deluded the postmortem appearance of her facial injuries in violation of Petitioner's rights to due process of law, a fair trial, and to be judged by a fair and impartial fact-finder; and
(6) The trial court erred in denying Petitioner's motion for judgment of acquittal at the close of the evidence and in entering judgment and sentence against Petitioner for conventional murder in the second degree and abuse of a child resulting in death, in violation of Petitioner's rights against double jeopardy, to due process and to a fair trial.
(Doc. 8-7). On May 17, 2011, the Missouri Court of Appeals affirmed Petitioner's conviction and sentence on direct appeal (Doc. 8-9; State v. Gray, 347 S.W.3d 490 (Mo. Ct. App. 2011)).
On November 14, 2011, Petitioner filed a pro se motion for post-conviction relief (Doc. 8-10 at 5-10). On July 22, 2013, with the assistance of counsel, Petitioner filed an amended motion for post-conviction relief (Id. at 15-25). On September 17, 2013, without an evidentiaryhearing, the motion court denied Petitioner's amended motion (Id. at 26-33). On July 7, 2014, Petitioner, with the assistance of counsel, filed an appeal raising two grounds for relief:
(1) The motion court clearly erred in denying Petitioner's motion for post-conviction relief without an evidentiary hearing because it violated his rights to due process and effective assistance of counsel in that trial counsel failed to object to the testimony of Junior (Quintin Gray, Jr.) on the grounds that he was not competent to testify pursuant to Mo. Rev. Stat. § 491.060; and
(2) The motion court clearly erred in denying Petitioner's motion for post-conviction relief without an evidentiary hearing because it violated his rights to due process and effective assistance of counsel in that trial counsel improperly advised Mr. Gray not to testify on his own behalf because of his extensive criminal history.
(Doc. 8-11). On November 14, 2014, the Missouri Court of Appeals for the Eastern District affirmed the motion court's denial of the motion (Doc. 8-13; Gray v. State, 475 S.W.3d 676 (Mo. Ct. App. 2014)).
On May 26, 2015, Petitioner filed his Petitioner under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 for Writ of Habeas Corpus by a Person in State Custody raising the following six grounds for relief:
(1) The Missouri state court decisions unreasonably applied clearly established federal law when the trial court precluded Petitioner from introducing a 911 call resulting in a violation of due process and destructive prejudice to the adversary process;
(2) The Missouri state court's determination resulted in an unreasonable application of established federal law prohibiting Petitioner's counsel from introducing and playing the police investigation reenactment video;
(3) The Missouri state court's determinations resulted in an unreasonable application of established federal law sustaining the trial court's error and abuse of discretion overruling Petitioner's objection and request for mistrial when the prosecutor elicited damaging evidence from a testifying witness caused cataclysmic prejudice to Petitioner's constitutional rights to a fair trial and due process;
(4) The Missouri appeals court decisions resulted in an unreasonable application for the federal law upholding the trial court's error permitting Dr. James Gerard to testify that injuries on the victim were indicative of child abuse resulting in a violation of due process and creating colossal prejudice;
(5) An unreasonable application of established supreme court law arose when the Missouri Court of Appeals determined that the exclusion of Dr. Thomas Young'stestimony regarding the trauma and causes of death to the victim was a denial of due process and violation of the right to present a defense; and
(6) The Missouri appeals court determinations resulted in an unreasonable application of established federal law when the trial court erred in denying Petitioner's motion for judgment of acquittal at the close of the evidence against conventional murder in the 2nd degree and abuse of a child resulting in death in violation of double jeopardy.
(Doc. 1-1).3
"In the habeas setting, a federal court is bound by the AEDPA to exercise only limited and deferential review of underlying state court decisions." Lomholt v. Iowa, 327 F.3d 748, 751 (8th Cir. 2003). Under this standard, a federal court may not grant relief to a state prisoner unless the state court's adjudication of a claim "resulted in a decision that was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States," or "was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding." 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d).
A state court decision is contrary to clearly established Supreme Court precedent if "the state court arrives at a conclusion opposite to that reached by [the] Court on a question of law or . . . decides a case differently than [the] Court has on a set of materially indistinguishable facts." Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 413 (2000). A state court decision is an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law if it "correctly identifies the governing legal rule but applies it unreasonably to the facts of a particular prisoner's case." Id. at 407-08. Finally, a state court decision involves an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the state court proceedings only if it is shown that the state court's presumptivelycorrect factual findings do not enjoy support in the record. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(1); Ryan v. Clarke, 387 F.3d 785, 790 (8th Cir. 2004).
Petitioner's Grounds 1-5 are not cognizable in a federal habeas corpus action. The United States Supreme Court has held that "'federal habeas corpus relief does not lie for errors of state law" and that "it is not province of a federal habeas court to reexamine state-court determinations on state-law questions." Estelle v. McGuire, 502 U.S. 62, 67-68 (1991) (quoting Lewis v. Jeffers, 497 U.S. 764, 780 (1990) and citing Pulley v. Harris, 465 U.S. 37, 41 (1984)). Because the admission or exclusion of evidence is primarily a question of state law, an evidentiary determination rarely gives rise to a federal question reviewable in a habeas petition. Scott v. Jones, 915 F.2d 1188, 1190-91 (8th Cir. 1990); Johnson v. Steele, No. 4:11CV01022 SNLJ, 2014 WL 4627174, at *7 (E.D. Mo. Sept. 12, 2014). Federal courts "may not review evidentiary rulings of state courts unless they implicate federal...
