Johnson v. Puckett

• Citation: 176 F.3d 809
• Decision Date: 20 May 1999
• Docket Number: No. 97-60687,97-60687
• Parties: Samuel Bice JOHNSON, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Steve PUCKETT, Commissioner; James V. Anderson, Superintendent, Mississippi State Penitentiary; State of Mississippi, Respondents-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 809

176 F.3d 809

Samuel Bice JOHNSON, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Steve PUCKETT, Commissioner; James V. Anderson Superintendent, Mississippi State Penitentiary State of Mississippi, Respondents-Appellees.

No. 97-60687.

United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit.

May 20, 1999.

Clive A. Stafford-Smith, Louisiana Crisis Assistance Center, New Orleans, LA, for Petitioner-Appellant.

Jo Anne McFarland McLeod, Jackson, MS, for Respondents-Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi.

Before KING, Chief Judge, and POLITZ and BENAVIDES, Circuit Judges.

KING, Chief Judge:

Samuel Johnson appeals the district court's denial of his habeas corpus application. Johnson challenges his continued confinement on several grounds, but his chief complaint is that the state failed to disclose exculpatory material and suborned perjury in violation of Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963), and Giglio v. United States, 405 U.S. 150, 92 S.Ct. 763, 31 L.Ed.2d 104 (1972). Because we conclude the district court correctly denied relief on this and all of Johnson's other assignments of error, we affirm.

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

On December 31, 1981, Mississippi Highway Patrol Officer Billy Langham stopped a car driven by Samuel Johnson containing three passengers (Anthony Fields, Otis Fairley, and Charles Montgomery, Jr.) as it traveled north on Highway 49 approaching Collins, Mississippi. Langham asked to see Johnson's license, and Johnson informed the officer that he did not have one. Langham asked the occupants of the car to exit the vehicle, and they complied with his request.

As the magistrate judge noted in his report in which he recommended that the district court deny Johnson habeas relief, "[t]here is a great deal of conflicting testimony as to what transpired next and as to 'who did what.' " Ultimately, Officer Langham was killed after being stabbed with a butcher knife in the back between his shoulder blades and being shot at close range with his own revolver. Johnson, Fairley, and Montgomery were indicted for capital murder. Fairley and Montgomery were convicted and each given a life sentence. Fields, in contrast, pleaded guilty to accessory after the fact and was sentenced to a five-year term of imprisonment.

Both Fairley and Fields testified at Johnson's trial. Johnson called Fairley as his primary witness, and Fairley testified that Fields stabbed and shot Langham. Fields was called as a witness by the state and testified that Langham was stabbed by Johnson and shot by Montgomery. Johnson did not testify in his own defense.

On September 3, 1982, Johnson was convicted of Officer Langham's murder and sentenced to death. On direct appeal, the Supreme Court of Mississippi affirmed his conviction and sentence. See Johnson v. State, 477 So.2d 196 (Miss.1985). On May 6, 1986, the United States Supreme Court denied Johnson's petition for writ of certiorari. See Johnson v. Mississippi, 476 U.S. 1109, 106 S.Ct. 1958, 90 L.Ed.2d 366 (1986).

Johnson then filed a motion for post-conviction relief in Mississippi state court. In that motion, Johnson argued, inter alia, that post-conviction relief was justified based on the fact that a 1963 felony assault conviction in New York, which was one of three aggravating circumstances that elevated Johnson's crime from murder to capital murder, had been set aside by the New York courts. See People v. Johnson, 69 N.Y.2d 339, 514 N.Y.S.2d 324, 506 N.E.2d 1177 (N.Y.1987). The Mississippi Supreme Court, by a vote of 6-3, denied Johnson's application for post-conviction relief. See Johnson v. State, 511 So.2d 1333 (Miss.1987).

Johnson then filed a petition for writ of certiorari with the United States Supreme Court, which the Court granted on January 11, 1988. See Johnson v. Mississippi, 484 U.S. 1003, 108 S.Ct. 693, 98 L.Ed.2d 646 (1988). The Supreme Court vacated Johnson's death sentence, ruling that, in the context of the Mississippi sentencing scheme, the Eighth Amendment requires re-examination of a death sentence based in part on a prior felony conviction which was set aside in the rendering state after the capital sentence was imposed. See Johnson v. Mississippi, 486 U.S. 578, 584-90, 108 S.Ct. 1981, 100 L.Ed.2d 575 (1988). On remand, the Mississippi Supreme Court reconsidered Johnson's motion for post-conviction relief and remanded to the trial court for re-sentencing. See Johnson v. State, 547 So.2d 59 (Miss.1989) (en banc). The trial court subsequently re-sentenced Johnson to life in prison.

On June 6, 1994, Johnson filed a second motion for post-conviction relief with the Mississippi Supreme Court, in which he alleged that his conviction was flawed because it was based on the perjured testimony of a co-indictee, Fields, and because the prosecution failed to disclose certain evidence to which Johnson claimed he did not have access until his re-sentencing hearing. The Mississippi Supreme Court denied relief, finding that his petition was barred: (1) by the applicable three-year statute of limitations, (2) as a second, successive application for post-conviction relief, and (3) by the doctrine of res judicata. See Johnson v. State, No. 94-DP-00532-SCT (Miss. June 8, 1995).

On April 23, 1996, Johnson filed an application for writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi. A magistrate judge conducted an evidentiary hearing on April 22, 1997, limited to the presentation of proof in support of Johnson's claim that newly discovered evidence was not reasonably available to Johnson at the time of his trial. The magistrate judge issued a report recommending that Johnson's habeas application be dismissed with prejudice. The district court adopted the magistrate's report on September 25, 1997, denying Johnson relief. The district court construed Johnson's timely notice of appeal as a request for a certificate of probable cause (CPC), and granted Johnson a CPC to appeal the denial of habeas relief to this court.

II. DISCUSSION

We review the district court's findings of fact for clear error and its conclusions of law de novo. See Gochicoa v. Johnson, 118 F.3d 440, 444 (5th Cir.1997), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 118 S.Ct. 1063, 140 L.Ed.2d 124 (1998); Spence v. Johnson, 80 F.3d 989, 993 (5th Cir.1996). Because Johnson filed his federal habeas application in district court prior to April 24, 1996, the date Congress enacted the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), we must apply pre-AEDPA deference standards to any state court determinations. See Gochicoa, 118 F.3d at 444-45. Under pre-AEDPA law, state court findings of fact are entitled to a presumption of correctness, see Boyle v. Johnson, 93 F.3d 180, 186 (5th Cir.1996), and we review state determinations of law and mixed questions of law and fact de novo, see Gochicoa, 118 F.3d at 444; Amos v. Scott, 61 F.3d 333, 337-38 (5th Cir.1995).

Johnson raised twenty-eight grounds in his habeas corpus application in the district court. He briefs six of these issues on appeal, and we consider the remainder abandoned. See Trevino v. Johnson, 168 F.3d 173, 181 n. 3 (5th Cir.1999); Yohey v. Collins, 985 F.2d 222, 225 (5th Cir.1993). In addition, Johnson argues for the first time on appeal that collateral relief is warranted on the basis of the cumulative effect of errors committed by the state trial court. "We have repeatedly held that a contention not raised by a habeas petitioner in the district court cannot be considered for the first time on appeal from that court's denial of habeas relief." Johnson v. Puckett, 930 F.2d 445, 448 (5th Cir.1991). We therefore limit our attention to the six issues Johnson argued to the district court and now advances on appeal. We address these issues in turn.

A. Brady/Giglio Claim

Johnson bases his first claim of error on Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963), and Giglio v. United States, 405 U.S. 150, 92 S.Ct. 763, 31 L.Ed.2d 104 (1972). The district court concluded that this claim was procedurally barred, a legal conclusion that we review de novo. See Martin v. Maxey, 98 F.3d 844, 847 (5th Cir.1996); Amos, 61 F.3d at 338.

Johnson maintains that the state withheld exculpatory evidence, including details concerning benefits that Fields, the state's chief witness, received from the state as a result of testifying against Johnson. ¹ Further, Johnson maintains that the state suborned perjury because prosecutors knew or should have known that Fields lied during his testimony. Specifically, in his habeas application submitted to the district court, Johnson identifies several areas of Fields's testimony in which he argues that the state knew or should have known that Fields lied: whether Fields previously had been convicted of a crime; whether Fields, Johnson, Montgomery, and Fairley had stopped in Purvis, Mississippi before they were stopped by Officer Langham; when and where Fields first saw the knife that was eventually used in stabbing Officer Langham; whether Johnson was wearing a coat during the assault of the officer; the number of times Fields spoke to authorities before testifying in Johnson's trial; and, most importantly, who killed Officer Langham.

Johnson presented a similar claim in his first state motion for collateral relief. In that motion, Johnson argued that the state failed to disclose Fields's criminal record and inculpatory statements made by Fields in violation of Brady, and that the state failed to correct Fields's testimony concerning his prior criminal record that it knew was perjured, necessitating relief under Giglio. Johnson had not briefed either issue in his direct appeal before the Mississippi Supreme Court, and neither argument addressed the alleged deal Fields and prosecutors entered into as a result of Fields's testifying against Johnson.

It is clear from the opinion...