Johnson v. Estock

• Decision Date: 14 April 2023
• Docket Number: CIVIL ACTION 19-5093
• Parties: DARRELL JOHNSON, Petitioner v. SUPERINTENDENT LEE ESTOCK et al., Respondents
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Pennsylvania

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DARRELL JOHNSON, Petitioner v. SUPERINTENDENT LEE ESTOCK et al., Respondents

CIVIL ACTION No. 19-5093

United States District Court, E.D. Pennsylvania

April 14, 2023

MEMORANDUM

GENE E.K. PRATTER, UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

Darrell Johnson petitions this Court for a writ of habeas corpus asserting that his trial counsel was ineffective because they did not object to the trial court's unconstitutional reasonable doubt jury instruction. Upon careful review of this case and of the magistrate judge's Report and Recommendation, this Court finds that, although the trial court's instruction was indeed unconstitutional, Mr Johnson has not established, as he must, that he suffered actual prejudice as a result. Therefore, the Court denies Mr Johnson's habeas petition.

Background

In the early morning of December 24, 2007, Mr. Johnson confronted his cousin, Tyrone Coleman, on a street corner in Philadelphia about money he was owed. Commonwealth v Johnson, No. CP-5 l-CR-001041222008,2010 WL 10879457, at *1 (Pa. Com. Pl. Nov. 10, 2010). In the course of this argument, Mr. Johnson pulled out a firearm and shot Mr Coleman in the neck, killing him. Id. Present at the time were Curtis Johnson, another of Mr. Johnson's cousins, and Tianna Thomas, Mr. Johnson's ex-girlfriend who was walking nearby with two friends when the shooting occurred. Id. Mr. Johnson and his cousin Curtis Johnson left Mr. Coleman in the street and went to the home of Helen Durham, where they discussed the shooting in the presence of Isaac Whitaker, Id. Ms. Thomas, Mr. Whitaker, and Curtis Johnson all gave statements to law enforcement that identified Mr. Johnson as the shooter. Id.

At the conclusion of Mr. Johnson's trial, the trial court charged the jury with assessing Mr. Johnson's guilt. It began by following, more or less, the Pennsylvania Standard Jury Instruction on reasonable doubt:

Now, ladies and gentlemen, the standard that the Commonwealth is held to is proof beyond a reasonable doubt. It is the highest standard in the law. There is nothing greater. The Commonwealth bears the burden of proving that Darrell Johnson is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. But this does not mean that the Commonwealth must prove its case beyond all doubt. The Commonwealth is not required to meet some mathematical certainty. The Commonwealth is not required to demonstrate the complete impossibility of innocence.

A reasonable doubt is a doubt that would cause a reasonably careful and sensible person to pause, to hesitate, to refrain from acting upon a matter of the highest importance to their own affairs, their own interests. Ladies and gentlemen, a reasonable doubt must be a real doubt. It must be a doubt that arises out of the evidence or out of the lack of evidence presented. It may not be a doubt that is imagined. It may not be a doubt that is manufactured to avoid carrying out an unpleasant responsibility.

R. & R., at 2-3 (quoting N.T. 3/15/2010 at 51-54). See Pa. Suggested Standard Jury Instructions (Crim.) § 7.01 (2016). The trial court then proceeded to offer an illustration of reasonable doubt not present in the standard jury instructions:

I think about reasonable doubt this way:

Each one of you has someone in your life that you love. Each one of you has a precious one; a spouse, a significant other, a sibling, a child, a grandchild. There's someone in your life who is absolutely precious to you. If you were told that your precious one had a life-threatening condition and that the only appropriate protocol for that condition was surgery, now, ladies and gentlemen, most likely you're going to ask for a second opinion. You might even ask for a third opinion. If you're like me, you're going to do all the research you can find. You're going to want to know what is this condition, Elow is it treated. What is the likelihood of success. You're probably going to call everybody you know who has anything to do with medicine. Tell me. Tell me what you know about this condition. Tell me about the surgery. Tell me about this doctor who is doing the surgery.

Ladies and gentlemen, at some point, however, the question will be called, do you go forward with the surgery or not. If you go forward with the surgery, it's not because you have moved beyond all doubt. There are no guarantees. A reasonable doubt is a doubt that arises out of the evidence presented or out of the lack of the evidence presented with some respect to some element of each of the crimes charged. Ladies and gentlemen, if you go forward, it is because you have moved beyond all reasonable doubt.

R. & R., at 3 (quoting N.T. 3/15/2010 at 51-54).

The jury found Mr. Johnson guilty of murder in the first degree, firearms not to be carried without a license, carrying a firearm in public in Philadelphia, and possession of an instrument of crime. Dkt. No. CP-5l-CR-0010412-2008, at 4-5. The trial court sentenced Mr. Johnson to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole on the charge of murder in the first degree, with concurrent terms of imprisonment for the remaining offenses. Id.

Mr. Johnson appealed his conviction, challenging the sufficiency of the evidence and the trial court's decision to allow statements by Curtis Johnson to be read into the record. The Pennsylvania Superior Court affirmed the sentence, Commonwealth v. Johnson, No. 3080 EDA 2013, 2014 WL 10795279, at *5 (Pa. Super. Ct. Oct. 8, 2014), and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court denied Mr. Johnson's petition for allowance of appeal, Dkt. No. CP-51-CR-0010412-2008, at 14.

Mr. Johnson filed a timely Post-Conviction Relief Act (PCRA) petition challenging the constitutionality of the trial court's reasonable doubt instruction. R. & R., at 4; Dkt. No. CP-51-CR-0010412-2008, at 14-15. The PCRA court dismissed the petition, and the Superior Court affirmed the dismissal, finding that (1) Mr. Johnson's jury instruction claim was waived because he could have raised it on direct appeal but did not, and (2) Mr. Johnson's claim that his trial counsel was ineffective for not objecting to the instruction was waived because he did not raise this claim in his PCRA petition. Commonwealth v. Johnson, No. 358 EDA 2018, 2019 WL 1338679, at *3 (Pa. Super, Ct, Mar. 25,2019). The Pennsylvania Supreme Court denied allowance of appeal. Dkt. No. CP-51-CR-0010412-2008, at 18.

Mr. Johnson then timely filed the present habeas petition, raising only a single claim for relief: that his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to object to the reasonable doubt instruction. The Court referred the petition to a magistrate judge for a Report and Recommendation, which recommended that the Court deny Mr. Johnson's petition. Mr. Johnson timely objected to the magistrate judge's Report and Recommendation, and the Commonwealth responded to the objection, Legal Standard

I. Exhaustion and Procedural Default

Before a person in state or federal custody may file a habeas petition in federal court, they must first “exhaust[] the remedies available in the courts of the State” unless no such remedies are available or “circumstances exist that render such process ineffective . . . 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b)(1). Exhaustion requires that a habeas petitioner demonstrate that the claims at issue have been “fairly presented to the state courts,” Castille v. Peoples, 489 U.S. 346, 351 (1989), meaning they must present the “factual and legal substance” of the claims “to the state courts in a manner that puts them on notice that a federal claim is being asserted.” McCandless v. Vaughn, 172 F.3d 255, 261 (3d Cir. 1999). This is accomplished “by invoking one complete round of the State's established appellate review process,” O'Sullivan v. Boerckel, 526 U.S. 838, 845 (1999), which in Pennsylvania includes presenting the federal claim through the Superior Court on direct or collateral review, Lambert v. Blackwell, 387 F.3d 210, 233-34 (3d Cir. 2004).

The failure to present a claim to the state courts generally results in a procedural default. Lines v. Larkins, 208 F.3d 153, 160 (3d Cir. 2000). Procedural default bars federal habeas relief when a state court relies upon, or would rely upon, “a state law ground that is independent of the federal question and adequate to support the judgment.” Nolan v. Wynder, 363 Fed.Appx. 868, 871 (3d Cir. 2010), Where a claim has been procedurally defaulted in state court, federal habeas review is available only if the petitioner can establish (1) cause for the default and actual prejudice as a result of the alleged violation of federal law; or (2) that failure to consider the claims will result in a fundamental miscarriage of justice. Edwards v. Carpenter, 529 U.S. 446, 451 (2000).

II. Merits Review

A federal district court “shall not” grant a petition for habeas corpus “unless the adjudication of the claim . . . 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 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).

“A state court decision is ‘contrary to' clearly established federal law if it ‘applies a rule that contradicts the governing law set forth' in Supreme Court precedent, or if it ‘confronts a set of facts that are materially indistinguishable from a decision of [the Supreme] Court and nevertheless arrives at a result different' from that reached by the Supreme Court.” Eleyv Erickson, 712 F.3d 837, 846 (3d Cir, 2013) (alteration in original) (quoting Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 405-06 (2000)). And “a state court decision reflects an ‘unreasonable application of such law' only ‘where there is no...