Green v. Legoney
| Decision Date | 25 October 2012 |
| Docket Number | 09 Civ. 0747 (SAS) |
| Parties | ERIC GREEN, Petitioner, v. PATRICIA LEGONEY, Superintendent of Washington Correctional Facility, Respondent. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Southern District of New York |
I. INTRODUCTION
Petitioner Eric Green brings this pro se habeas corpus petition pursuant to section 2254 of Title 28 of the United States Code challenging his state court conviction following a jury trial in New York State Supreme Court, New York County.1 Petitioner was convicted of three counts of Rape in the First Degree2 and one count of Sodomy in the Third Degree.3 Petitioner was sentenced to nine years of imprisonment, followed by five years of post-release supervision.4
On January 27, 2009,5 petitioner filed the instant Petition, challenging his conviction on the following grounds: (1) the trial court's instruction to the jury on the charge of forcible rape violated petitioner's right to a jury trial under the Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution; (2) the prosecutor's summation deprived petitioner of a fair trial; (3) ineffective assistance of trial counsel; and (4) petitioner's sentence was harsh and excessive under the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution. For the following reasons, the Petition is denied.
II. BACKGROUND
In early July 2003, "NS"6 met petitioner at a day care center in Manhattan at which they were both employed.7 After becoming acquainted, they had consensual sexual intercourse in early August 2003.8 About one week later, on August 12, 2003, NS accompanied petitioner and a co-worker, Tyrell, to the roof of an apartment building, where petitioner suggested that NS have sexual intercourse with Tyrell. When NS refused, petitioner choked her.9
Subsequently, NS accompanied Tyrell and petitioner downstairs to the apartment of a friend of petitioner's, Charles Hickman.10 NS, thinking that she was going to have sex with petitioner, immediately entered Hickman's bedroom. Once she was there, though, petitioner demanded that she have sex with Tyrell.11 Ashort time later, Hickman entered the room, and NS had sexual intercourse with him in an effort to gratify petitioner.12
NS, Tyrell, and Hickman then accompanied petitioner to his grandmother's house, where they met petitioner's older brother, Earl Green.13 There, Earl Green demanded that NS perform oral sex on him, and threatened that if she refused, he would "fuck her up."14 NS, frightened, complied. Afterwards, she went home.15
The next day, NS went to petitioner's apartment, where she and petitioner had consensual sexual intercourse in petitioner's bedroom.16 Soon after, NS overheard petitioner on the telephone inviting other people over. This made NS angry, because petitioner had promised that they would be alone.17 Petitioner demanded oral sex, but NS refused. Then, petitioner pushed NS off the bed and forced his penis into her mouth. While so engaged, petitioner pressed the dull sideof a knife against NS's face and said that he would kill her if she "[told] anybody."18
Afterwards, Hickman entered the bedroom, and petitioner asked NS if she would perform sexual favors on Hickman if Hickman performed oral sex on her.19 NS began crying, because she wanted to go home, and got dressed. Petitioner and Hickman then left the room.20 A few minutes later, two men entered the room: a man later identified as Darmel Cox, and a man identified only by his nickname, "Vad."21
After Cox and Vad arrived, petitioner returned to the bedroom, where NS remained, removed NS's pants, and threatened to throw them out the window if NS did not have sex with Cox and Vad.22 Vad then raped NS. When Vad finished, Cox then raped NS.23 Shortly afterwards, petitioner also raped NS.24 Petitioner then allowed NS to leave, but not before warning her that if she told anyone, hewould "do it to [her] all over again."25 NS then put on her clothes and took the subway home.26
Once home, NS falsely told her mother that a man on the subway had forced her back to his apartment at knife-point and raped her there.27 NS's parents took her to the emergency room at Montefiore Hospital, where she repeated her story to police and medical personnel.28 Later that day, police officers told NS that there were video cameras on the subway platform, and NS informed them that petitioner was the one who had raped her.29
On April 4, 2005, petitioner was convicted by a jury of three counts of first degree rape and one count of sodomy in the third degree.30 Petitioner, represented by new counsel, appealed his conviction to the Appellate Division, First Department, raising the following claims: (1) the court's instruction to the jury on the first degree rape charge that the "forcible compulsion" element of firstdegree rape included kidnapping, which was defined, in part, as the confinement of an acquiescent person under the age of 16, deprived petitioner of his right to a jury trial; (2) the prosecutor's comments during summation, bolstering the victim's testimony and asking the jury to picture themselves in her place, deprived petitioner of his right to a fair trial; (3) the petitioner's sentence was excessive and unduly harsh; and (4) the Clerk of Court improperly added a surcharge and fees to petitioner's sentence.
On September 8, 2007, the Appellate Division unanimously affirmed petitioner's conviction.31 The court found that petitioner's claims regarding the court's charge and the prosecutor's summation were unpreserved, and that even if they were preserved, the court would have rejected them on the merits.32 As to the jury instruction, the Appellate Division stated that "[t]he court made it abundantly clear to the jury that defendant was charged with forcible rape, and there is no reasonable possibility that the jury could have been misled into believing that the victim's age satisfied the element of force."33 The Appellate Division also found no basis for reducing petitioner's sentence, and held his claim regarding fees to beunavailing.34 On December 18, 2007, the New York Court of Appeals denied petitioner's motion for leave to appeal.35
III. LEGAL STANDARDS
This Petition is governed by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (the "AEDPA"). The AEDPA provides that a federal court may not grant a writ of habeas corpus to a prisoner in custody pursuant to the judgment of a state court with respect to any claim, unless the state court's adjudication on the merits of that claim: "(1) was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States;"36 or (2) "was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding."37
A state-court decision is contrary to clearly established federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court, in the following two instances:
First, a state-court decision is contrary to this Court's precedent if the state court arrives at a conclusion opposite to that reached by this Court on a question of law. Second, a state-court decision is also contrary to this Court's precedent if the state court confronts facts that are materially indistinguishable from a relevant Supreme Court precedent and arrives at a result opposite to ours.38
With regard to the "unreasonable application" prong, the Supreme Court has stated:
[A] state-court decision can involve an "unreasonable application" of this Court's clearly established precedent in two ways. First, a state-court decision involves an unreasonable application of this Court's precedent if the state court identifies the correct governing legal rule from this Court's cases but unreasonably applies it to the facts of the particular state prisoner's case. Second, a state-court decision also involves an unreasonable application of this Court's precedent if the state court either unreasonably extends a legal principle from our precedent to a new context where it should not apply or unreasonably refuses to extend that principle to a new context where it should apply.39
In order for a federal court to find a state court's application of Supreme Court precedent to be unreasonable, the state court's decision must have been more than incorrect or erroneous. Rather, "[t]he state court's application ofclearly established law must be objectively unreasonable."40 This standard "'falls somewhere between merely erroneous and unreasonable to all reasonable jurists.'"41 While the test requires "'[s]ome increment of incorrectness beyond error, . . . the increment need not be great; otherwise habeas relief would be limited to state court decisions so far off the mark as to suggest judicial incompetence.'"42 Furthermore, section 2254(d) applies to a defendant's habeas petition even where the state court order does not include an explanation of its reasoning.43
Where a state court's decision is unaccompanied by an explanation, the habeas petitioner's burden still must be met by showing there was no reasonable basis for the state court to deny relief. This is so whether or not the state court reveals which of the elements in a multipart claim it found insufficient, for [section] 2254(d) applies when a 'claim,' not a component of one, has been adjudicated.44
Section 2254(d) also applies where a state court does not explicitly state in its opinion that it is adjudicating a claim on the merits.45 "When a federal claim has been presented to a state court and the state court has denied relief, it may be presumed that the state court adjudicated the claim on the merits in the absence of any indication or state-law procedural principles to the contrary."46
The deferential standard of review created by the...
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