Greer v. Minnesota

• Decision Date: 12 July 2007
• Docket Number: No. 06-2263.,06-2263.
• Citation: 493 F.3d 952
• Parties: Ronald Lewis GREER, II, Petitioner-Appellant, v. State of MINNESOTA; David Carbo, Warden, Respondents-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

493 F.3d 952

Ronald Lewis GREER, II, Petitioner-Appellant, v. State of MINNESOTA; David Carbo, Warden, Respondents-Appellees.

No. 06-2263.

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

Submitted: December 13, 2006.

Filed: July 12, 2007.

Counsel who presented argument on behalf of the appellant was Paul C. Engh of Minneapolis, MN.

Counsel who presented argument on behalf of the appellee was David C. Brown of Minneapolis, MN.

Before LOKEN, Chief Judge, JOHN R. GIBSON, and MURPHY, Circuit Judges.

JOHN R. GIBSON, Circuit Judge.

Ronald Lewis Greer appeals an order and judgment from the district court¹ denying his petition for writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254.² Greer attacks his convictions for first-degree and second-degree murder in connection with the shooting death of Kareem Brown. He argues that the Minnesota courts erred by holding that Greer waived a claim of judicial bias and that the trial court denied Greer's right of confrontation and his right to testify on his own behalf. The district court rejected Greer's claims under the deferential standards of 28 U.S.C. § 2254 as amended by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), Pub.L. No. 104-132, 110 Stat. 1214. We affirm.

Kareem Brown was shot to death on July 26, 1998, in South Minneapolis. The murder weapon, a semi-automatic pistol, was found in a trash can one block from the murder scene. At trial, several witnesses implicated Greer, testifying that they saw Greer or someone matching Greer's description in the area around the time that the murder occurred. Greer's defense was alibi. He and several other witnesses testified that Greer was visiting a friend when Brown was shot.

Greer was arrested in Detroit, Michigan on August 11, 1998, and charged with first-degree and second-degree murder under Minn.Stat. §§ 609.185(1) (1998) and 609.19(1) (2000). After his arrest, two Minneapolis police officers flew to Detroit and interviewed Greer on two separate occasions. According to the police, officers attempted to record the first conversation, but for an unknown reason were unsuccessful. There was some disagreement concerning the content of the first conversation. Greer testified that the police harassed him and told him that they had evidence against him but that he would be released if he could tell the police who committed the murder. During the second interview, which was recorded, Greer told the police that he was present at the scene of the shooting and that it was an individual named "E" who was the gunman. During a third interview with the police in Minneapolis, Greer again implicated E as the gunman, first explaining that he was not at the scene of the crime, but then changing his story and stating that he was with E when the shooting occurred.

At trial, Greer testified on his own behalf. The defense sought to question him extensively about the circumstances surrounding his statements to the police and his state of mind at the time, but the trial court limited Greer's testimony. He did testify, however, that his cell in Detroit was filthy and infested with rats and roaches. Greer also claimed that he told the police that he was at the scene of the crime because he wished to get out of jail. The prosecution presented testimony from Deanna Strom, whose boyfriend, Aaron Jones, had observed Greer moments before the murder. The defense wished to impeach her with evidence from a 1997 conviction for providing false information to the police in violation of Minn.Stat. § 609.506 (2000). The trial court, however, precluded the defense from impeaching Strom, stating that an impeachment by the defense would be misused.

Greer was convicted on both counts of murder on May 13, 1999. Greer appealed his conviction and sentence to the Minnesota Supreme Court on September 10, 1999. He argued the following issues: (1) the trial court improperly limited voir dire questioning; (2) the trial court violated Greer's right to confront witnesses by precluding evidence of Strom's prior conviction; (3) the trial court violated Greer's right to present a meaningful defense by limiting testimony from Greer regarding his pretrial statements to the police; and (4) the trial court erred in refusing to grant a hearing concerning ex parte contacts between the trial court and the jury. The Minnesota Supreme Court rejected all of Greer's claims except the claim regarding contacts between the trial court and the jury, which was remanded to the chief judge of the judicial district for consideration. State v. Greer, 635 N.W.2d 82 (Minn.2001) (Greer I).

On remand, the chief judge ordered a Schwartz³ hearing, at which the trial judge and six of the twelve jurors testified, and then denied Greer's motion for a new trial, which the Supreme Court of Minnesota affirmed. State v. Greer, 662 N.W.2d 121 (Minn.2003) (Greer II). Sometime after trial but before the Schwartz hearing, Greer obtained and submitted affidavits from two law clerks for the trial judge who stated that "the trial judge appeared `visibly angry at defense counsel' during Greer's trial; that he told them he had `denied defense counsel's challenges for cause because he was angry with them'; and that, contrary to his common practice he had not sent jury questionnaires to the attorneys." Id. at 122. The Minnesota Supreme Court did not address the law clerk affidavits submitted by Greer in its decision, instead ruling that the decision by the chief judge to examine six of the twelve witnesses was not an abuse of discretion. Id. at 125.

Greer submitted a claim of "actual bias" in connection with the law clerk affidavits on January 23, 2002, which was denied by the chief judge; the Minnesota Supreme Court affirmed. Greer v. State, 673 N.W.2d 151 (Minn.2004) (Greer III.) The Minnesota Supreme court ruled that Greer had failed to raise a timely claim and that the claim did not meet either of the two exceptions to this rule recognized by Minnesota courts. Id. at 156-57. The Minnesota Supreme Court has established that all matters known but not raised on appeal "will not be considered upon a subsequent petition for postconviction relief." State v. Knaffla, 309 Minn. 246, 243 N.W.2d 737, 741 (1976). A postconviction court, however, may hear and consider new claims if the "claim is so novel that it can be said that its legal basis was not reasonably available to counsel at the time the direct appeal was taken and decided." Roby v. State, 531 N.W.2d 482, 484 (Minn. 1995) (quotation marks omitted). Minnesota courts also allow substantive review of a claim "if fairness so requires and if the petitioner did not deliberately and inexcusably fail to raise the issue on direct appeal." Id. (quotation marks omitted).

Greer petitioned for federal habeas relief. The district court, adopting the report and recommendation of the Magistrate Judge, denied Greer's petition, holding that Greer's claim of judicial bias was procedurally barred and that Greer's remaining claims did not entitle him to habeas relief. The district court did issue a certificate of appealability on all of Greer's claims, and Greer now brings the present appeal.

I.

In the interests of finality and federalism, federal courts are bound by AEDPA to exercise a "limited and deferential review of underlying state court decisions." Lomholt v. Iowa, 327 F.3d 748, 751 (8th Cir.2003). Under this standard, federal courts 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) (2000).

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, 120 S.Ct. 1495, 146 L.Ed.2d 389 (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, 120 S.Ct. 1495. When a district court denies a habeas petition, we review the district court's factual findings for clear error and its legal conclusions de novo. Johnston v. Luebbers, 288 F.3d 1048, 1051 (8th Cir.2002).

II.

Greer argues that the affidavits submitted demonstrate judicial bias and that the Minnesota Supreme Court erred in ruling that the claim was waived. As a threshold matter, it is well-settled that federal courts are precluded from reviewing "a question of federal law decided by a state court if the decision of that court rests on a state law ground that is independent of the federal question and adequate to support the judgment." Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U.S. 722, 729, 111 S.Ct. 2546, 115 L.Ed.2d 640 (1991). "The doctrine applies to bar federal habeas when a state court declined to address a prisoner's federal claims because the prisoner had failed to meet a state procedural requirement." Id. at 729-30, 111 S.Ct. 2546. In such instances, the state prisoner "forfeits his right to present his federal claim through a federal habeas corpus petition, unless he can meet strict cause and prejudice or actual innocence standards." Clemons v. Luebbers, 381 F.3d 744, 750 (8th Cir.2004).

Greer makes numerous arguments as to why the district court erred in holding that his claim that the law clerk affidavits established "actual bias" was procedurally barred. Nearly all of his arguments, however, invite us to review the Minnesota Supreme Court's decision for error, which we are not permitted to do...