Hyman v. Hoekstra
Decision Date | 19 July 2022 |
Docket Number | 21-6852 |
Citation | 41 F.4th 272 |
Parties | Terrence Lowell HYMAN, Petitioner – Appellee, v. Casandra Skinner HOEKSTRA, Interim Secretary, North Carolina Department of Public Safety, Respondent – Appellant. |
Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit |
ARGUED: Nicholaos George Vlahos, NORTH CAROLINA DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellant. Kristen Lindsay Todd, NORTH CAROLINA PRISONER LEGAL SERVICES, INC., Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Joshua H. Stein, Attorney General, Mary Carla Babb, Special Deputy Attorney General, NORTH CAROLINA DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellant.
Before WILKINSON, KING, and AGEE, Circuit Judges.
Vacated and remanded with instructions by published opinion. Judge Agee wrote the opinion, in which Judge Wilkinson joined. Judge King wrote a separate opinion dissenting.
Casandra Skinner Hoekstra, the Interim Secretary of the North Carolina Department of Public Safety (the "State"), appeals from the district court's order granting state prisoner Terrence Lowell Hyman's 28 U.S.C. § 2254 petition for a writ of habeas corpus. For the following reasons, we vacate the district court's judgment and remand with instructions to dismiss Hyman's petition.
"As a federal court reviewing a state court's decision under § 2254, we do so through a narrow lens, ‘carefully consider[ing] all the reasons and evidence supporting [it].’ Mahdi v. Stirling , 20 F.4th 846, 854 (4th Cir. 2021) (alterations in original) (quoting Mays v. Hines , ––– U.S. ––––, 141 S. Ct. 1145, 1149, 209 L.Ed.2d 265 (2021) (per curiam)). Only then may we determine whether a state court's judgment resulted from "an error that lies beyond any possibility for fairminded disagreement." Mays , 141 S. Ct. at 1146.1
Hyman's sole claim in his § 2254 petition is that his lead trial counsel, Teresa Smallwood, rendered ineffective assistance by failing to withdraw and testify on his behalf to impeach Derrick Speller, one of the State's key witnesses. We begin by recounting the offense underlying Hyman's conviction and summarizing the proceedings before the North Carolina state trial court. Next, we review the evidentiary hearing addressing whether Smallwood operated under an actual conflict of interest based on her prior representation of Speller. After discussing Hyman's post-conviction proceedings, we then turn to the district court's grant of his petition from which the State now appeals.
The Supreme Court of North Carolina ("SCNC") summarized the events underlying Hyman's conviction:
At approximately 10:00 p.m. on 5 May 2001, Earnest Bennett arrived at the L and Q nightclub with his friends Shelton Lamont Gilliam, Tyrone Knight, and Alton Bennett. As the night progressed and early morning arrived, a man confronted Mr. Bennett, leading to an argument between the two men that escalated into an altercation after a "crew of people" approached Mr. Bennett and began to hit him with "bottles, chairs and basically everything that they could find."
State v. Hyman , 371 N.C. 363, 817 S.E.2d 157, 159 (2018). As the altercation escalated, Bennett was shot multiple times inside and outside the club. He later succumbed to his injuries.
Hyman was arrested soon after, and the trial court appointed Smallwood to represent him. See J.A. 286 ( ). The court also appointed W. Hackney High as second-chair counsel. Nearly three months after the shooting, the Bertie County, North Carolina, grand jury returned a one-count indictment charging Hyman with first-degree murder.
The case went to trial in September 2003, with Superior Court Judge Cy A. Grant, Sr., presiding. Over several weeks, the jury heard conflicting accounts about what happened the night of Bennett's murder.
Hyman , 817 S.E.2d at 159, 371 N.C. 363 (footnotes omitted).
Amid this conflicting testimony, Speller testified on direct examination that he had spoken with Smallwood before the trial, and suggested that she had "wanted [him] to help her with the case at one point in time" J.A. 110. After a fourteen-minute recess, Smallwood began her cross-examination of Speller, which included the following exchange.
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