Hester v. Ballard
| Decision Date | 14 February 2017 |
| Docket Number | No. 15-7605,15-7605 |
| Parties | WARREN CUTHA HESTER, II, Petitioner - Appellant, v. DAVID BALLARD, Warden, Mt. Olive Correctional Complex, Respondent - Appellee. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit |
UNPUBLISHED
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia, at Beckley. Irene C. Burger, District Judge. (5:13-cv-21007)
Before NIEMEYER, DUNCAN, and WYNN, Circuit Judges.
ARGUED: Michael Allen McIntosh, Washington, D.C., for Appellant. Gilbert Charles Dickey, OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL OF WEST VIRGINIA, Charleston, West Virginia, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Patrick Morrisey, Attorney General, Elbert Lin, Solicitor General, Shannon Frederick Kiser, Assistant Attorney General, OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL OF WEST VIRGINIA, Charleston, West Virginia, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
Petitioner Warren Hester seeks federal habeas relief from his convictions of sexual assault, battery, brandishing a deadly weapon, kidnapping, and nighttime burglary after a trial in the Circuit Court of Raleigh County, West Virginia. During state post-conviction proceedings, Petitioner claimed that the state trial court committed numerous constitutional errors. After conducting two evidentiary hearings, West Virginia courts denied Petitioner post-conviction relief.
Upon considering Petitioner's subsequent appeal for federal habeas relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, the United States District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia denied his petition. We granted a certificate of appealability as to three of Petitioner's claims of constitutional error. Because Petitioner has not proven that the state habeas court's denial of his petition was contrary to or involved an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law, we affirm the district court's denial of his petition.
Petitioner's challenged convictions arose from his 2005 sexual assault of an 11-year-old girl (hereinafter referred to as "M") in Beckley, West Virginia. At trial, M testified that, on the night of January 20, 2005, she was home with her younger siblings while her mother worked the night shift at a local convenience store. That evening, Petitioner came to M's home and told M that he had her mother's permission to wait there until her mother returned from work the following morning. M allowed Petitioner to enter the home. Later that night, M fell asleep on the couch in the living room whilewatching a movie. While M was asleep, Petitioner attempted to remove her sock, but he ceased his attempt when M awoke. Later, Petitioner went into the kitchen and called for M's assistance in finding a light switch. When M entered the kitchen, Petitioner asked M if he could suck her toes. M replied "no" and attempted to leave the kitchen, but Petitioner grabbed her from behind and put a steak knife to her face, leaving two small cuts on her mouth. Petitioner then led M upstairs, forced her to remove her clothes, and sexually assaulted her in two different rooms by kissing her, sucking her toes, subjecting her to oral sex, and forcing her to perform oral sex on Petitioner.
After these assaults, Petitioner allowed M to dress and return downstairs. Later that night, however, Petitioner forced M to sit on his lap while he again sucked her toes. Petitioner left M's home ten minutes before her mother returned from work. When her mother returned, M told her mother about the assaults and identified Petitioner as her assailant. M's mother reported the assaults to law enforcement soon thereafter. Police officers arrested Petitioner in connection with the assaults later that day.
On May 9, 2005, a grand jury indicted Petitioner for first degree sexual assault, battery, brandishing a deadly weapon, kidnapping, and nighttime burglary. Before and during trial, Petitioner unsuccessfully made motions to: (1) bar the prosecution from introducing evidence of two out-of-state offenses Petitioner committed as a juvenile, including (a) evidence that Petitioner, at the age of 15, broke into an Ohio woman's home, accosted the woman at knifepoint, attempted to remove her clothes, and sucked her toes and (b) evidence that Petitioner, also at the age of 15, entered a Washington, D.C.woman's apartment, pointed a gun at her, sucked her toes, and sexually assaulted her twice; (2) admit evidence of seminal fluid found in one of the rooms in which Petitioner assaulted M that, based on DNA testing, belonged to an unknown third party and not to Petitioner; and (3) allow Petitioner's trial counsel to withdraw due to two alleged conflicts of interest.
Petitioner's case proceeded to trial before a jury. On January 11, 2006, the jury found Petitioner guilty of two counts of first degree sexual assault and one count each of battery, brandishing a deadly weapon, kidnapping, and nighttime burglary. The court subsequently sentenced Petitioner to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for the kidnapping conviction and imposed additional, consecutive terms of imprisonment of varying lengths for each of Petitioner's other convictions.1
On August 29, 2007, Petitioner filed a petition for appeal of his convictions and sentence in the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia. The Supreme Court of Appeals refused the petition on May 22, 2008. Petitioner then challenged his convictions and sentence through West Virginia's post-conviction proceedings, filing a petition for writ of habeas corpus pursuant to W. Va. Code § 53-4A-1 in the Circuit Court of Raleigh County (the ) and asserting that myriad constitutional errors taintedhis trial and convictions. On March 2, 2012, after conducting two evidentiary hearings, the state habeas court entered a 99-page "Omnibus Habeas Corpus Final Judgment Order" denying Petitioner's claims for relief.2 Petitioner appealed the state habeas court's denial of his petition to the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia, which adopted the state habeas court's findings and conclusions and summarily affirmed its denial of habeas relief.
Thereafter, Petitioner initiated this petition for federal habeas review under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 in the United States District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia, alleging seven separate grounds for relief. Respondent moved for summary judgment. A United States Magistrate Judge entered proposed findings and recommended that the district court grant Respondent's motion for summary judgment and dismiss Petitioner's Section 2254 petition. The district court adopted the magistrate's findings and recommendation, awarding summary judgment in favor of Respondent and dismissing the petition.
We granted a certificate of appealability on three issues: (1) whether the trial court's admission of evidence related to Petitioner's out-of-state juvenile convictions violated his rights under the Full Faith and Credit Clause, Equal Protection Clause, and Due Process Clause; (2) whether the trial court's exclusion of the seminal fluid evidenceviolated the Due Process Clause; and (3) whether the trial court's denial of trial counsel's motion to withdraw based on two allegedly disabling conflicts of interest violated Petitioner's Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel. After thorough consideration, we affirm the district court's denial of Petitioner's Section 2254 petition.
"We review the district court's denial of a habeas petition de novo," Grueninger v. Dir., Va. Dep't of Corr., 813 F.3d 517, 523 (4th Cir. 2016), but "[t]he Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 ('AEDPA'), which accords deference to final judgments of state courts, circumscribes our review," LeBlanc v. Mathena, 841 F.3d 256, 263 (4th Cir. 2016). Under AEDPA, we may grant habeas relief to a state prisoner, like Petitioner, only when the Petitioner's state court adjudication (1) "was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States," or (2) "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's decision is "contrary to . . . clearly established precedent if the state court applies a rule that contradicts the governing law set forth" in Supreme Court holdings or "confronts facts that are materially indistinguishable from a relevant Supreme Court precedent and arrives at [the opposite] result." Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 405 (2000). A state court's decision involves an "unreasonable application" of clearly established federal law when it states the "correct governing legal principle . . . butunreasonably applies that principle to the facts" of the case. Id. at 413. To warrant reversal, the state court's application must be "objectively unreasonable." Id. at 409.
"In assessing a state prisoner's habeas claims, we review the 'last reasoned' state court decision." LeBlanc, 841 F.3d at 263-64 (citing Ylst v. Nunnemaker, 501 U.S. 797, 803 (1991)). In other words, "[w]hen a state appellate court summarily affirms a reasoned lower-court decision, . . . a federal habeas court is to 'look through' the unexplained affirmance to examine the 'last reasoned decision' on the claim, assuming that the summary appellate decision rests on the same ground." Grueninger, 813 F.3d at 525-26 (citing Ylst, 501 U.S. at 803-04). Here, the parties agree that the state habeas court's 99-page order denying Petitioner habeas relief was the "last reasoned [state court] decision." Id. at 526. Accordingly, "the state-court decision that we review for 'objective reasonableness'" is that of the state habeas court. Id. at 525.
First, we address Petitioner's claims that the trial court's admission...
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