James v. Keyser
| Decision Date | 09 January 2023 |
| Docket Number | 20 Civ. 3468 (JPC) (SDA) |
| Parties | SHARKEY JAMES, Petitioner, v. WILLIAM F. KEYSER, Respondent. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Southern District of New York |
On February 25, 2015, Petitioner Sharkey James was convicted in New York Supreme Court, New York County, of robbery in the first degree and robbery in the second degree. Dkt. 51 (“Am. Pet.”) at 1.[1]Following his conviction, on September 1, 2015, he was sentenced to an indeterminate term of twenty-two years to life. Id. On April 30, 2020 he filed a Petition for a Writ of Habeas Corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, alleging six grounds on which his conviction and sentence violated the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States. See generally Dkt. 2. Subsequently, on July 15, 2021, he amended the Petition to add a seventh such ground. See Am. Pet at 14-16. On June 19, 2020, the Honorable Laura Taylor Swain, to whom this case was then assigned, referred the Petition to the Honorable Stewart D. Aaron. Dkt. 13.[2] On December 6, 2021, Judge Aaron issued a Report and Recommendation, in which he recommended that the Court deny the Amended Petition in its entirety. See generally Dkt. 61 (“R&R”). After the Court extended Petitioner's time to object to the Report and Recommendation until February 14, 2022, Dkt. 62 Petitioner filed timely objections on January 20, 2022. Dkt 63 (“Objections”). On February 23, 2022 Respondent responded to the Objections, see Dkt. 67, and on March 15, 2022, Petitioner filed a letter in reply, see Dkt. 68. Having considered Petitioner's Objections, the Court adopts the Report and Recommendation in its entirety for the reasons given below, and denies the Amended Petition.
A district court “may accept, reject, or modify, in whole or in part, the findings or recommendations made by the magistrate judge” in a report and recommendation. 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(C). Within fourteen days after a party has been served with a copy of the magistrate judge's report and recommendation, the party “may serve and file specific written objections to the proposed findings and recommendations.” Fed.R.Civ.P. 72(b)(2). If a party submits a proper objection to any part of the magistrate judge's disposition, the district court conducts de novo review of the contested section. 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(C); Fed.R.Civ.P. 72(b)(3).
To be proper, an objection must be “clearly aimed at particular findings,” Hernandez v. City of New York, No. 11 Civ. 6644 (KPF) (DF), 2015 WL 321830, at *2 (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 23, 2015) (quoting Vlad-Berindan v. MTA N.Y.C. Transit, No. 14 Civ. 675 (RJS), 2014 WL 6982929, at *1 (S.D.N.Y. Dec. 10, 2014)), and may not be “conclusory or general,” id. (quoting Thomas v. Astrue, 674 F.Supp.2d 507, 511 (S.D.N.Y. 2009)). Parties may neither “regurgitate the original briefs to the magistrate judge” nor introduce new arguments that could have been raised before the magistrate judge in the first instance but were not. Id.; accord United States v. Gladden, 394 F.Supp.3d 465, 480 (S.D.N.Y. 2019).
A district court also reviews for clear error those parts of a report and recommendation to which no party has filed proper or timely objections. 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(A); Lewis v. Zon, 573 F.Supp.2d 804, 811 (S.D.N.Y. 2008) . “A magistrate judge's decision is clearly erroneous only if the district court is ‘left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed.'” Cameron v. Cunningham, No. 13 Civ. 5872 (KPF) (FM), 2014 WL 4449794, at *2 (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 9, 2014) (quoting Easley v. Cromartie, 532 U.S. 234, 242 (2001)).
“Objections of pro se litigants are generally accorded leniency and construed to raise the strongest arguments that they suggest.” Hernandez, 2015 WL 321830, at *3 (quoting Quinn v. Stewart, No. 10 Civ. 8692 (PAE) (JCF), 2012 WL 1080145, at *4 (S.D.N.Y. Apr. 2, 2012)). “Nonetheless, even a pro se party's objections to a Report and Recommendation must be specific and clearly aimed at particular findings in the magistrate's proposal, such that no party be allowed a ‘second bite at the apple' by simply relitigating a prior argument.” Id. (quoting Pinkney v. Progressive Home Health Servs., No. 06 Civ. 5023 (LTS) (JCF), 2008 WL 2811816, at *1 (S.D.N.Y. July 21, 2008)).
Title 28, United States Code, Section 2254 permits an individual held “in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court” to petition a district court for a writ of habeas corpus “only on the ground that he is in custody in violation of the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(a). For a district court to grant such an application, the petitioner must have first “exhausted the remedies available in the courts of the State,” id § 2254(b)(1)(A), unless “(i) there is an absence of available State corrective process; or (ii) circumstances exist that render such process ineffective to protect the rights of the applicant,” id. § 2254(b)(1)(B). If in the course of exhausting his state remedies a petitioner's claim is “adjudicated on the merits in State court proceedings,” then a federal court may grant the petition with respect to 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.” Id § 2254(d). Furthermore, because relief is available under section 2254 only on the grounds that the petitioner is in custody in violation of federal law, such petitions cannot be entertained with respect to claims that were rejected in state court based on a failure to comply with procedural requirements imposed by state law, unless the petitioner can demonstrate both cause for the procedural default and actual prejudice from the alleged violation of federal law. See, e.g., Engel v. Isaac, 456 U.S. 107, 129 (1982) (“[A]ny prisoner bringing a constitutional claim to the federal courthouse after a state procedural default must demonstrate cause and actual prejudice before obtaining relief.”).
Under the Supreme Court's decision in Strickland v. Washington, “[a] convicted defendant's claim that counsel's assistance was so defective as to require reversal of a conviction or death sentence has two components.” 466 U.S. 668, 687 (1984). First, “the defendant must show that counsel's representation fell below an objective standard of reasonableness.” Id. at 688. But because in retrospectively evaluating the performance of counsel a court might easily be swayed by its knowledge of whether counsel's trial strategy proved successful, a court “should recognize that counsel is strongly presumed to have rendered adequate assistance and made all significant decisions in the exercise of reasonable professional judgment.'” Id. at 690. Second, “any deficiencies in counsel's performance must be prejudicial to the defense in order to constitute ineffective assistance under the Constitution.” Id. at 692. “In certain Sixth Amendment contexts, prejudice is presumed.” Id. In other contexts, “actual ineffectiveness claims alleging a deficiency in attorney performance are subject to a general requirement that the defendant affirmatively prove prejudice.” Id. at 693. To discharge that burden, “[t]he defendant must show that there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different,” where “[a] reasonable probability is a probability sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome.” Id. at 694.
The Court assumes the parties' familiarity with the underlying facts and procedural history of this case, which are detailed in the Report and Recommendation. See R&R at 1-14. The Amended Petition identifies seven alleged defects in Petitioner's state court proceedings (1) the trial court's admission of evidence of uncharged crimes, Am. Pet. at 4; (2) the jury's reaching a verdict against the weight of the evidence, id. at 6; (3) the trial court's failure to suppress the robbery victims' show-up identification of Petitioner on the night of the robbery, id. at 7-8; (4) the trial court's denial of his speedy trial motion, id. at 9; (5) the sentencing court's exclusion of his term of federal incarceration in computing whether ten years had passed since the two prior state convictions based on which he was adjudged a persistent violent felony offender, id. at 11; (6) the sentencing court's predication of his persistent violent felony offender status on a conviction to which he pled guilty without having first been appropriately warned that his plea could increase the sentence he would receive for any future convictions, id. at 13; and (7) the ineffective assistance provided by his counsel on appeal, id. at 14-15. In support of the seventh ground, Petitioner locates his appellate counsel's supposed ineffective assistance in the failure to raise two particular arguments: the argument that pretrial delays denied him the right to a speedy trial guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and the argument that his enhanced sentence as a persistent...
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