Johnson v. Carroll
| Decision Date | 23 July 2004 |
| Docket Number | No. CIV.A. 02-1563-JJF.,CIV.A. 02-1563-JJF. |
| Parties | Edward N. JOHNSON, Petitioner, v. Thomas L. CARROLL, Warden, Respondent. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Delaware |
Matthew M. Robinson, Esq., Robinson & Brandt, P.S.C., Cincinnati, Ohio. for Petitioner.
Thomas E. Brown, Deputy Attorney General, Delaware Department of Justice, Wilmington, for Respondent.
Petitioner Edward N. Johnson is a Delaware inmate in custody at the Delaware Correctional Center in Smyrna, Delaware. Currently before the Court is Petitioner's application for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254. (D.I.1.) For the reasons that follow, the Court will deny his petition. (D.I.1.)
At approximately 9:00 p.m. on December 2, 1997, officers from the City of Dover Police Department were dispatched to an apartment in response to an "assault in progress" complaint made by an anonymous female 911 caller. Upon entering the premises, a second floor apartment, the officers discovered Johnson ["Petitioner"] lying on the living room/kitchen floor. Petitioner had been shot in th thigh. His legs were bound together with duct tape. It was later determined that the beating had also fractured Petitioner's right femur. When the officers arrived at the apartment Johnson told them that a person named Chris had shot him.
In the apartment, the police officers also discovered a small female child, later to be determined to be 18-months old, positioned on the floor next to Petitioner. On the same floor, the police discovered a .25 caliber shell casing, a clean diaper, a roll of duct tape, and a box of sandwich type bags. Another box, containing several .25 caliber rounds, was found on the kitchen counter. The police found the female tenant sitting in her bedroom. The woman's lethargic presence made the officers believe that she was under the influence of some drug.
The paramedics took both Petitioner and the child to the Kent General Hospital. The police assumed the child was Petitioner's daughter. Once at Kent General, a nurse cared for the child, while other medical staff in the emergency room attended to Petitioner's wounds. Because the child's diaper felt heavy, the nurse proceeded to change the child's diaper in an adjacent room.
When the nurse opened the diaper, she discovered two bags containing a total of 136 grams of cocaine inside the diaper. There were also several paper towels which were placed between the cocaine and the child's crotch. Although the paper towels appeared soiled, the diaper was dry.
Without telling Petitioner that cocaine had been discovered in the child's diaper, a detective questioned Petitioner in the emergency room. Petitioner told the detective that he was from New Jersey. According to Petitioner, he and the child were going to Maryland in a rental car to visit a person named Charles Riley. Johnson said he did not know the name of the town in Maryland where Riley lived. While driving to Maryland, Petitioner stated that he was paged by Chris, who asked him to come to the Dover apartment.
After arriving at the Dover address, Petitioner approached the apartment. He was immediately accosted by two males, one of whom had a gun. The assailants forced Petitioner upstairs into an apartment. One of the assailants took the child from him. Petitioner was beaten and bound with duct tape, before being shot in the leg by Chris. Petitioner told the police that Chris and he had "a beef" earlier in their relationship, but did not know why Chris and the others attacked him.
When the detective confronted Petitioner about the cocaine found inside the diaper, Petitioner denied any knowledge. He surmised that Chris must have planted it to set him up. The police suspected that "Chris" was Chris Burroughs, who was known to them as a drug dealer in Dover, and frequented the Dover apartment where they found Petitioner. After presenting him with a photo line-up, Petitioner identified Burroughs as the person who shot him.
Upon searching Petitioner's clothing at the hospital, the police found keys for an Avis rental car. These keys listed the tag number for an automobile. Other Dover Police officers locked the rental car parked approximately 150 feet from the Dover apartment where Petitioner had been found. The police suspected that someone had rummaged through the car, which was unlocked when they found it.
After obtaining a search warrant, the Dover Police conducted a thorough search of the car. No contraband or drug paraphernalia was found in the car. The police did, however, seize: correspondence addressed to Petitioner at a Poughkeepsie, New York address; and Avis rental agreement issued to a "Lincoln Grant" that same day at 3:35 in Mount Vernon, New York; and a backpack containing the same type of diapers worn by the infant child who was with Petitioner.
Without any objection from Petitioner's defense attorney at trial, the State called Detective William L. Kent to testify as an expert witness regarding the sale of illegal drugs. Detective Kent told the jury that Petitioner fit the profile of a drug courier because: Mount Vernon, New York, where the car was rented, is only 10-15 miles north of the Bronx; that New York City is a major "source city" for cocaine sold in Dover; and that illegal drug dealers often have couriers transport the contraband in rental cars. In its closing argument to the jury, the State theorized that the drugs must have belonged to Petitioner, in part, because he is from New York City, the source city for cocaine, and because he had a rental car, a "red flag" indicator for a drug courier.
Petitioner did not testify at trial. His defense attorney argued that no one saw Petitioner place two plastic bags of crack cocaine in the 18-month old child's diaper. The defense attorney also argued that any contraband found in the diaper was probably put there by Petitioner's attackers, in order to get him in trouble with the police.
The jury found Petitioner guilty of Trafficking Cocaine, Possession with Intent to Deliver Cocaine, and Endangering the Welfare of a child. Petitioner's sentences included a minimum mandatory term of 30 years' imprisonment.
Petitioner appealed his conviction and sentence, alleging that it was plain error for the State to introduce drug courier profile evidence during its case-in-chief as expert police testimony. Id. The Delaware Supreme Court concluded that trial counsel's failure to object to this evidence raised an issue about the effectiveness of Petitioner's trial counsel, and remanded the ineffectiveness issue to the Superior Court for a hearing. Id. at 929. The Delaware Supreme Court also deferred ruling on the admissibility of the drug courier profile evidence until the Superior Court reviewed the ineffective assistance of counsel issue. Id.
On remand, the Superior Court held that defense counsel was not ineffective for failing to object to the drug courier profile evidence. Johnson v. State, ID No. 9712001659, No. 46,1999, Rep. on Remand (Del.Super.Ct. Feb. 20, 2001). Petitioner appealed this decision. On appeal, the Delaware Supreme Court reviewed both issues regarding the drug courier profile evidence and the ineffective assistance of counsel issue.
The Delaware Supreme Court affirmed both of the Superior Court's judgments. Johnson, 813 A.2d at 168. With respect to the admissibility of the drug courier profile evidence, the Delaware Supreme Court concluded that the Superior Court's failure to exclude the drug courier profile evidence sua sponte, absent any contemporaneous defense objection, was not plain error. Id. at 166. However, the court held that, as a matter of first impression, drug courier profile evidence may not be admitted during a criminal trial as substantive evidence of guilt. Id. at 165-66. The Delaware Supreme Court also concluded that the Superior Court's rejection of Petitioner's ineffective assistance of counsel claim was supported by the record. Johnson, 813 A.2d at 168.
Petitioner's habeas petition asserts two claims: (1) the introduction of drug courier profile evidence at Petitioner's trial violated his constitutional due process rights and his right to a fair trial; and (2) trial counsel provided ineffective assistance by failing to object to the admission of drug courier profile evidence at trial. (D.I. 1 at 9.)
Respondent contends that federal habeas review of the due process/fair trial claim is procedurally barred by an independent and adequate state procedural rule. (D.I. 15 at 4-6.) Respondent also contends that the state supreme court's rejection of Petitioner's ineffective assistance of counsel claim was not contrary to, nor an unreasonable application of, Strickland, thereby precluding federal habeas relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1). (D.I. 15 at 13.)
Congress enacted the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 ("AEDPA") "to reduce delays in the execution of state and federal criminal sentences ... and to further the principles of comity, finality, and federalism." Woodford v. Garceau, 538 U.S. 202, 206, 123 S.Ct. 1398, 155 L.Ed.2d 363 (2003) (internal citations and quotation marks omitted). The AEDPA increases the deference federal courts must give to state court decisions, primarily by imposing procedural requirements and standards for analyzing the merits of a habeas petition. See Woodford, 538 U.S. at 206, 123 S.Ct. 1398. Generally, the AEDPA "modified a federal habeas court's role in reviewing state prisoner applications in order to prevent federal habeas `retrials' and to ensure that state-court convictions are given effect to the extent possible under law." Bell v. Cone, 535...
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