Hernandez v. Kenneway
| Decision Date | 13 December 2021 |
| Docket Number | CIVIL ACTION NO. 20-11794-DPW |
| Citation | 575 F.Supp.3d 218 |
| Parties | Jose HERNANDEZ, Petitioner, v. Steven KENNEWAY, Respondent. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Massachusetts |
David H. Mirsky, Mirsky & Petito, Attorneys at Law, Exeter, NH, for Petitioner.
Anna E. Lumelsky, Massachusetts Attorney General's Office, Boston, MA, for Respondent.
Petitioner Jose Hernandez was convicted of first-degree murder in Massachusetts state court. He now seeks a federal writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. He argues that the prosecution withheld material exculpatory evidence before trial, in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. See generally Brady v. Maryland , 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963) ; Kyles v. Whitley , 514 U.S. 419, 115 S.Ct. 1555, 131 L.Ed.2d 490 (1995). The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts upheld the petitioner's conviction on appeal and affirmed the denial of a motion for a new trial. I defer to the state court's factual findings and find the SJC reasonably applied established federal law. Consequently, I will deny federal habeas relief.
I accept the state courts’ reports regarding factual determinations absent clear and convincing evidence of error. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(1). The facts as the jury could have found them were outlined by the SJC in the last fully reasoned statement of the factual determinations by the state courts1 :
At trial, Mr. Hernandez argued self-defense. As the Massachusetts Superior Court motions judge2 observed, he testified that the victim appeared to reach for a shiny object resembling a gun and told him: Nevertheless, "[t]he prosecution presented evidence that the only items found in the motor vehicle in which the victim sat were a steering wheel locking device, a baseball hat, a cigarette lighter, a cellular telephone, and a twenty dollar bill." Hernandez , 113 N.E.3d at 836. The prosecution argued that none of these items could have been mistaken for a firearm. Id.
Following the jury's guilty verdict of first-degree murder, Mr. Hernandez was given a life sentence without parole.
Mr. Hernandez appealed his conviction and sentence. On May 7, 2015, the day before scheduled oral argument in the SJC, his counsel learned of work-related performance issues involving a prosecution witness, Erik Koester. Koester, a chemist with the Massachusetts State Police Crime Laboratory, had testified as the crime scene supervisor that at the scene he inspected the outside of the victim's vehicle and searched the surrounding area. Koester also testified regarding gunshot residue on the victim's clothes.
As explained by the SJC:
The trial in this case began on March 21, 2012. On March 9, 2012, Koester was informed that the "satisfactory" result he had previously received on his 2011 crime scene proficiency test had been rescinded and that instead he received an "unsatisfactory" result due to his method of measuring blood spatter. On March 15, 2012, a member of the crime lab quality assurance management section was informed that Koester received "unsatisfactory" results on his 2010 crime scene proficiency test, also as a result of improperly measured blood spatter evidence. This information was not disclosed to the defense prior to trial.
Hernandez , 113 N.E.3d at 834. After trial, the prosecution became aware further that Koester failed a trace evidence proficiency test in 2011. Id. at 835. Koester resigned from the crime lab on April 1, 2014.
Koester's deficiencies were not made known to defense counsel before the trial was concluded.
When Mr. Hernandez's counsel learned of the withheld information, oral argument before the SJC was postponed to allow Mr. Hernandez to file a motion for a new trial, and he submitted one to the SJC on July 24, 2015. The SJC remanded the motion to the Essex County Superior Court on July 27, 2015, where the motions judge, see supra note 2, denied it on December 27, 2016. Mr. Hernandez immediately appealed that decision to the SJC, which consolidated the new trial motion appeal with Mr. Hernandez's initial appeal of the conviction.
On January 9, 2019, in the course of sustaining Mr. Hernandez's conviction and sentence, the SJC affirmed the denial of his motion for a new trial. On March 6, 2019, the SJC denied his petition for rehearing. On October 7, 2019, the Supreme Court of the United States denied Mr. Hernandez's petition for certiorari.
In the argument he ultimately presented to the SJC, Mr. Hernandez based his contentions on a Brady claim arising from the evidence of Koester's performance issues. The SJC concluded that the Koester evidence should have been disclosed to Mr. Hernandez, but that he was not entitled to a new trial "because the new evidence would not have been ‘a real factor in the jury's deliberations.’ " Hernandez , 113 N.E.3d at 835-36 (quoting Commonwealth v. Grace , 397 Mass. 303, 491 N.E.2d 246, 306 (1986) ).
Mr. Hernandez "claimed that the Commonwealth used Koester to bolster generally the credibility of the investigation and that the Koester deficiency evidence could have been used to raise doubts as to the thoroughness of the search of the vehicle." Hernandez , 113 N.E.3d at 836. But the SJC disagreed:
First, although Koester was involved in the investigation, he neither searched the motor vehicle at the scene nor participated in the more thorough search that took place at the tow yard. In fact, his participation in the investigation at the crime scene yielded nothing of evidentiary value. Further, although Koester was present at the crime scene in a supervisory role, he supervised other crime scene analysts, not the police sergeant who searched the vehicle at the scene. Koester's only substantive testimony at trial pertained to the gunshot residue recovered on the victim's clothes, an issue that was ultimately made moot by the defendant's own admission that he shot the victim.[3 ]
Id. ().
Mr. Hernandez's petition to this Court is based on the withholding of the impeachment evidence concerning Koester.
Under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 ("AEDPA"), 28 U.S.C. §§ 2241 - 55, on habeas review of a state court decision, the first question for a federal court is "whether the state court ever adjudicated the relevant claim on the merits." Junta v. Thompson , 615 F.3d 67, 71 (1st Cir. 2010) (citing Clements v. Clarke , 592 F.3d 45, 52 (1st Cir. 2010) ). The second question, assuming the state court adjudicated the claims on the merits, is whether the state court erred in any one of the three ways identified in AEDPA as giving rise to relief. A federal court may only grant habeas relief if the state court proceeding 1) "resulted in a decision that was contrary to ... clearly established Federal law," § 2254(d)(1) ; 2) "involved an unreasonable application of[ ] clearly established Federal law," id. ; or 3) "resulted in a decision that was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding," § 2254(d)(2).
As to the first two categories of potentially cognizable errors, which together appear in § 2254(d)(1), the Supreme Court of the United States has offered guidance through its case law.
A state court's legal decision is "contrary to ... clearly established Federal law" if it "arrives at a conclusion opposite to that reached by [the Supreme Court] on a question of law or if the state court decides a case differently than 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's legal decision "involve[s] an unreasonable application of[ ] clearly established Federal law" if "the state court identifies the correct governing legal principle from Court's cases but unreasonably applies it to the facts of the ... prisoner's case." Id. at 407, 120 S.Ct....
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