Hurdle v. Sheahan
| Decision Date | 30 December 2013 |
| Docket Number | 13 Civ. 6862 (BMC) |
| Parties | WALTER HURDLE, Petitioner, v. MIKE SHEAHAN, Superintendent of Five Points Correctional Facility, Respondent. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of New York |
DECISION AND ORDER
Petitioner seeks habeas corpus relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. He was convicted of assault charges stemming from an altercation with the police. He obtained reversal on appeal of the most serious charges, and now seeks review of one of the remaining charges. He alleges four points of error, but they distill into two - a Batson challenge, and a claim that with the most serious charges having been vacated, their "spillover" impact on lesser charges should have required a dismissal or a new trial on those charges as well. I hold that the state court decision rejecting the Batson claim was neither contrary to nor an unreasonable application of any Supreme Court authority, and the "spillover" argument is procedurally barred. The petition is therefore denied.
Four police officers, including Sergeant John Pagnotta, were on patrol in a drug-prone area in an unmarked police car. Pagnotta saw petitioner sitting in a truck parked across the streetfrom where the police car was driving. The police car pulled alongside of petitioner's car, and then moved in front of it in a blocking position. Pagnotta exited the police car, approached petitioner's truck on foot, and, after a verbal exchange, directed petitioner to exit the truck. Instead, petitioner floored the gas pedal, hitting the police car in front of him, which swung to the side of petitioner's truck and crushed Pagnotta between the two vehicles. Petitioner continued to accelerate, dragging Pagnotta with him for 10 or 20 feet as he remained stuck between the truck's door and door jamb, until Pagnotta was flung free from petitioner's truck when petitioner made a right turn. Pagnotta was grievously injured; petitioner voluntarily surrendered the next day.
Petitioner was charged with four counts: (1) Assault in the First Degree; (2) Assault on a Police Officer; (3) Assault in the Second Degree; and (4) Reckless Driving. (The first two of these counts will sometimes be referred to below as the "top counts," and the last two as the "bottom counts.") The jury convicted him on all four counts, rejecting his testimony that he did not believe that Pagnotta and his associates were police officers and that he thought he was being set up. He was sentenced to concurrent terms of twenty years for the first degree assault; fifteen years for the assault on a police officer; seven years for second degree assault; and one year for reckless driving.
On appeal, petitioner raised five points in his represented and pro se briefs: (1) the prosecutor had exercised a peremptory challenge of one African-American venire person based on race, in violation of Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986); (2) the evidence was legally insufficient to sustain the conviction for first degree assault because it did not show "depraved indifference to human life," a required element of Assault in the First Degree under N.Y. Penal L. § 120.10(3); (3) the evidence was legally insufficient to sustain the conviction for assault on apolice officer, N.Y. Penal L. § 120.05(4), because an element of that crime was that a police officer had to be engaged in a "lawful duty" at the time of the assault, and Pagnotta had acted unlawfully in stopping petitioner; (4) prosecutorial misconduct before the grand jury; and (5) to the extent any of petitioner's arguments were unpreserved, ineffective assistance of trial counsel for not preserving them.
Prior to determining the appeal, the Appellate Division issued an order finding that petitioner had made a prima facie showing of a Batson violation during jury selection and that the trial court had erred in not proceeding to the second and third steps of the Batson inquiry. The Appellate Division reasoned that petitioner had demonstrated a prima facie showing of discrimination because the prosecutor had used a peremptory challenge to excuse a black woman who was a retired New York City police officer, but had not challenged a white male retired police officer. See People v. Hurdle, 99 A.D.3d 943, 952 N.Y.S.2d 297 (2nd Dep't 2012). It remanded the Batson issue to the trial court to hear and report on whether a Batson violation had occurred, and held the appeal in abeyance. On remand, the trial court conducted a hearing and thereafter rendered a written decision. It held that the prosecution had met its burden of showing a race-neutral basis for the challenge, and that there was no discriminatory intent.
Upon determining the appeal on this expanded record, the Appellate Division rejected petitioner's Batson claim. It held: "The Supreme Court's determination that the explanations provided by the People for exercising a peremptory challenge to a black female venireperson were not pretextual is entitled to great deference on appeal and will not be disturbed since it is supported by the record." People v. Hurdle, 106 A.D.3d 1100, 1101, 965 N.Y.S.2d 626, 628-29 (2nd Dep't ), leave to appeal den., 22 N.Y.3d 956, __ N.Y.S.2d __ (2013), corrected order, __ N.Y.3d __, __ N.Y.S.2d __ (Nov. 18, 2013).
However, with regard to petitioner's challenge to the top counts (the first degree assault count and the assault on a police officer count), the Appellate Division reversed petitioner's conviction and dismissed both counts. As to the first degree assault charge, it held that "there is simply no 'valid line of reasoning and permissible inferences [that] could lead a rational person to the conclusion' that the defendant acted with depraved indifference when he caused the injuries to Sergeant Pagnotta." Id. at 1103, 965 N.Y.S.2d at 630 (citation omitted). As to the assault on a police officer charge, the Appellate Division held that "the police lacked reasonable suspicion, which is required to make a car stop," and, thus, the evidence was legally insufficient to show an essential element for proving assault on a police officer: that Pagnotta "was engaged in a lawful duty at the time of the assault by defendant." Id. at 1103-04, 965 N.Y.S.2d at 631 (citation omitted).
Both sides sought leave to appeal the respective adverse holding against them to the New York Court of Appeals. For the first time, in connection with his leave application, petitioner asserted that the bottom counts on which he still stood convicted (second degree assault and reckless driving) should also be reversed due to the "spillover" effect of the jury having considered the top counts. As cited above, the New York Court of Appeals denied both applications for leave.1
Petitioner's habeas corpus petition renews the Batson challenge that he raised in the state court. He also contends that once the Appellate Division determined that the evidence wasinsufficient for the top counts, it "should have decided whether erroneous submission of those counts irreparably impaired my defense on the remaining assault count," and that without the two top counts, he would have had "the right to request a reasonable justification defense."2
Additional facts will be set forth below as necessary to address each of petitioner's points of error.
Since the Appellate Division decided this claim on the merits, the standard of review on federal habeas corpus is defined by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act ("AEDPA"), 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d). That statute provides for habeas corpus relief only if the state court's adjudication of the claim was (1) "contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States;" or (2) "based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding." Id. The decision of a state court is "contrary" to clearly established federal law within the meaning of § 2254(d)(1) if it is "diametrically different" from, "opposite in character or nature" to, or "mutually opposed" to the relevant Supreme Court precedent. Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 405, 120 S. Ct. 1495, 1519 (2000) (internal quotation marks omitted). Moreover, a state court decision involves "an unreasonable application" of clearly established Federal law if the state court applies federal law to the facts of the case "in anobjectively unreasonable manner." Brown v. Payton, 544 U.S. 133, 141, 125 S. Ct. 1432, 1439 (2005).
The Supreme Court has clarified that the AEDPA standard of review is extremely narrow, and is intended only as "a 'guard against extreme malfunctions in the state criminal justice systems,' not a substitute for ordinary error correction through appeal." Ryan v. Gonzales, __ U.S. __ , 133 S. Ct. 696, 708 (2013) (quoting Harrington v. Richter, __ U.S. __, 131 S. Ct. 770, 786 (2011)). State court decisions must "be given the benefit of the doubt," Felkner v. Jackson, __ U.S. __ , 131 S. Ct. 1305, 1307 (2011) (quoting Renico v. Lett, 559 U.S. 766, 767 , 130 S. Ct. 1855, 1862 (2010)), and "even a strong case for relief does not mean that the state court's contrary conclusion was unreasonable." Harrington, 131 S. Ct. at 786. Indeed, in Harrington, the Supreme Court went so far as to hold that a habeas court may only "issue the writ in cases where there is no possibility fairminded jurists could disagree that the state court's decision conflicts with Court's precedents." Id. This standard of "no possibility" of disagreement among "fairminded jurists" as to the existence of legal error is arguably the narrowest standard of judicial review in the law. Moreover, the Supreme Court has expressed a lack of patience with lower courts that view its pronouncements as permitting a substantial measure of flexibility in applying this standard. See Parker v. Matthews, __ U.S. __ , 132 S. Ct. 2148 (2012).3
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