Jackson v. Dir., TDCJ-CID

• Docket Number: 3:20-cv-1631-B-BN
• Decision Date: 01 November 2021
• Parties: EVENDER GENE JACKSON, JR., TDCJ No. 2021056, Petitioner, v. DIRECTOR, TDCJ-CID, Respondent.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Texas

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EVENDER GENE JACKSON, JR., TDCJ No. 2021056, Petitioner, v. DIRECTOR, TDCJ-CID, Respondent.

No. 3:20-cv-1631-B-BN

United States District Court, N.D. Texas, Dallas Division

November 1, 2021

FINDINGS, CONCLUSIONS, AND RECOMMENDATION OF THE UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE

DAVID L. HORAN, UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE.

“A jury convicted Evender Gene Jackson of aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon”; “[a]fter he pled true to the State's enhancement allegation, the trial court sentenced Jackson to fifty years' imprisonment” his conviction and sentence were affirmed; the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (the CCA) refused Jackson's petition for discretionary review; and the United States Supreme Court denied his petition for writ of certiorari. Jackson v State, 487 S.W.3d 648, 652 (Tex. App. - Texarkana 2016 pet. ref'd), cert. denied, 139 S.Ct. 2643 (2019); Dkt. No. 14-2.

After the CCA denied Jackson's state habeas application without written order, see Ex parte Jackson, WR-86, 487-02 (Tex. Crim. App. May 6, 2020); Dkt. No. 14-3, he filed this pro se 28 U.S.C. § 2254 application for a writ of habeas corpus in the Eastern District of Texas see Dkt. No. 1. Once it was transferred to this district, in which the state court that convicted Jackson lies, see Dkt. No. 3, United States District Judge Jane J. Boyle referred the Section 2254 application to the undersigned United States magistrate judge for pretrial management under 28 U.S.C. § 636(b) and a standing order of reference. The State responded. See Dkt. No. 14. Jackson replied. See Dkt. No. 16. And the undersigned enters these findings of fact, conclusions of law, and recommendation that the Court should deny federal habeas relief.

Legal Standards

“Federal habeas features an intricate procedural blend of statutory and caselaw authority.” Adekeye v. Davis, 938 F.3d 678, 682 (5th Cir. 2019). In the district court, this process begins - and most often ends - with the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), under which “state prisoners face strict procedural requirements and a high standard of review.” Adekeye, 938 F.3d at 682 (citation omitted). This is because “[u]nder AEDPA, state courts play the leading role in assessing challenges to state sentences based on federal law.” Shinn v. Kayer, 141 S.Ct. 517, 526 (2020) (per curiam).

So, where a state court has already rejected a claim on the merits, a federal court may grant habeas relief on that claim only if the state court adjudication

(1) 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

(2) 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.

28 U.S.C. § 2254(d).

The statute therefore “restricts the power of federal courts to grant writs of habeas corpus based on claims that were ‘adjudicated on the merits' by a state court, ” Shinn, 141 S.Ct. at 520 (citation omitted). And, “[w]hen a state court has applied clearly established federal law to reasonably determined facts in the process of adjudicating a claim on the merits, a federal habeas court may not disturb the state court's decision unless its error lies ‘beyond any possibility for fairminded disagreement.'” Id. (quoting Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 103 (2011)).

Further, “[u]nder § 2254(d), ” the reasonableness of the state court decision -not whether it is correct - “is ‘“the only question that matters.”'” Id. at 526 (quoting Richter, 562 U.S. at 102); accord Schriro v. Landrigan, 550 U.S. 465, 473 (2007) (“The question under AEDPA is not whether a federal court believes the state court's determination was incorrect but whether that determination was unreasonable - a substantially higher threshold.”); Sanchez v. Davis, 936 F.3d 300, 305 (5th Cir. 2019) (“[T]his is habeas, not a direct appeal, so our focus is narrowed. We ask not whether the state court denial of relief was incorrect, but whether it was unreasonable -whether its decision was ‘so lacking in justification' as to remove ‘any possibility for fairminded disagreement.'” (citation omitted)); Hughes v. Vannoy, 7 F.4th 380, 387 (5th Cir. 2021) (“‘A merely incorrect state court decision is not sufficient to constitute an unreasonable application of federal law ....' Instead, the state court decision must be ‘so lacking in justification that there was an error well understood and comprehended in existing law beyond any possibility for fairminded disagreement.'” (footnotes omitted)).

A state court adjudication on direct appeal is due the same deference under Section 2254(d) as an adjudication in a state post-conviction proceeding. See, e.g., Dowthitt v. Johnson, 230 F.3d 733, 756-57 (5th Cir. 2000) (a finding made by the CCA on direct appeal was an “issue ... adjudicated on the merits in state proceedings, ” to be “examine[d] ... with the deference demanded by AEDPA” under “28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)”). And nothing “in AEDPA or [the Supreme] Court's precedents permit[s] reduced deference to merits decisions of lower state courts.” Shinn, 141 S.Ct. at 524 n.2 (citing 28 U.S.C. § 2254).

Starting with Section 2254(d)(1), a state court decision is “contrary” to clearly established federal law if “it relies on legal rules that directly conflict with prior holdings of the Supreme Court or if it reaches a different conclusion than the Supreme Court on materially indistinguishable facts.” Busby v. Dretke, 359 F.3d 708, 713 (5th Cir. 2004); see also Lopez v. Smith, 574 U.S. 1, 2 (2014) (per curiam) (“We have emphasized, time and time again, that the [AEDPA] prohibits the federal courts of appeals from relying on their own precedent to conclude that a particular constitutional principle is ‘clearly established.'” (citation omitted)).

“A state court unreasonably applies clearly established Supreme Court precedent when it improperly identifies the governing legal principle, unreasonably extends (or refuses to extend) a legal principle to a new context, or when it gets the principle right but ‘applies it unreasonably to the facts of a particular prisoner's case.'” Will v. Lumpkin, 978 F.3d 933, 940 (5th Cir. 2020) (quoting Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 407-08 (2000); citation omitted). “But the Supreme Court has only clearly established precedent if it has ‘broken sufficient legal ground to establish an asked-for constitutional principle.'” Id. (quoting Taylor, 569 U.S. at 380-82; citations omitted).

As noted above, “[f]or purposes of § 2254(d)(1), an unreasonable application of federal law is different from an incorrect application of federal law....A state court's determination that a claim lacks merit precludes federal habeas relief so long as fairminded jurists could disagree on the correctness of the state court's decision.” Richter, 562 U.S. at 101 (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). “Under § 2254(d), a habeas court must determine what arguments or theories supported or ... could have supported, the state court's decision; and then it must ask whether it is possible fairminded jurists could disagree that those arguments or theories are inconsistent with the holding in a prior decision of [the Supreme] Court.” Id. at 102 (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Evans v. Davis, 875 F.3d 210, 216 (5th Cir. 2017) (recognizing that Section 2254(d) tasks courts “with considering not only the arguments and theories the state habeas court actually relied upon to reach its ultimate decision but also all the arguments and theories it could have relied upon” (citation omitted)).

The Supreme Court has further explained that “[e]valuating whether a rule application was unreasonable requires considering the rule's specificity. The more general the rule, the more leeway courts have in reaching outcomes in case-by-case determinations.” Richter, 562 U.S. at 101 (internal quotation marks omitted). And “even a strong case for relief does not mean the state court's contrary conclusion was unreasonable.” Id. at 102. The Supreme Court has explained that, “[i]f this standard is difficult to meet, that is because it was meant to be, ” where, “[a]s amended by AEDPA, § 2254(d) stops short of imposing a complete bar on federal court relitigation of claims already rejected in state proceedings, ” but “[i]t preserves authority to issue the writ in cases where there is no possibility fairminded jurists could disagree that the state court's decision conflicts with this Court's precedents, ” and “[i]t goes no further.” Id. Thus, “[a]s a condition for obtaining habeas corpus from a federal court, a state prisoner must show that the state court's ruling on the claim being presented in federal court was so lacking in justification that there was an error well understood and comprehended in existing law beyond any possibility for fairminded disagreement.” Id. at 103; accord Burt v. Titlow, 571 U.S. 12, 20 (2013) (“If this standard is difficult to meet - and it is - that is because it was meant to be. We will not lightly conclude that a State's criminal justice system has experienced the extreme malfunction for which federal habeas relief is the remedy.” (internal quotation marks, brackets, and citations omitted)).

As to Section 2254(d)(2)'s requirement that a petitioner show that the state court adjudication “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, ” the Supreme Court has explained that “a state-court factual determination is not unreasonable merely because the federal habeas court would have reached a different conclusion in the first instance” and...