Jones v. Joyner

• Decision Date: 21 September 2015
• Docket Number: 3:14cv420-FDW
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of North Carolina
• Parties: RODNEY JONES, Petitioner, v. CARLTON B. JOYNER, Respondent.

RODNEY JONES, Petitioner, v. CARLTON B. JOYNER, Respondent.

3:14cv420-FDW

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT WESTERN DISTRICT OF NORTH CAROLINA CHARLOTTE DIVISION

September 21, 2015

ORDER

THIS MATTER is before the Court upon Rodney Jones's amended pro se Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus filed pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254. (Doc. No. 1.) Also before the Court are Respondent's Motion for Summary Judgment (Doc. No. 5) and Petitioner's motions for an evidentiary hearing (Doc. No. 9) and for discovery (Doc. Nos. 10, 15).

I. BACKGROUND

Petitioner is a prisoner of the State of North Carolina, who, on March 13, 2012, was convicted after a jury trial in Mecklenburg County Superior Court of first-degree burglary and larceny after breaking and entering.¹ He subsequently admitted attaining habitual felon status. Judgement was consolidated for sentencing, and Petitioner was sentenced to 151-191 months imprisonment. The North Carolina Court of Appeals summarized the State's evidence:

On the evening of 20 October 2008, Tracy Thompson was alone and asleep in her townhome on North Church Street in Charlotte, North Carolina. Before going to bed at around 9:30 p.m., Ms. Thompson had dead-bolted the front door and left the light on in the hallway outside her bedroom. After she had fallen asleep at about10:00 p.m., Ms. Thompson was awakened by a pounding sound, but she fell back to sleep.

At around 10:30 p.m., Brandon Phillips was a passenger in an automobile parked on North Church Street. Mr. Phillips was talking to a coworker when he noticed two individuals, one wearing a black hoodie and the other wearing a gray hoodie, on the street. Thinking the pair looked suspicious, Mr. Phillips and his coworker sat back in the car and watched them. They saw the two individuals walk up to a townhouse, and the one wearing a gray hoodie, who was taller, kicked the door two or three times until the door came open. Both of the individuals ran into the townhouse.

Sometime after that, Ms. Thompson was awakened by a loud crash, a flash of light, and her bedroom door being flung open. She saw a thin black male in his forties wearing a light-colored hoodie and dark pants. Ms. Thompson could see the intruder's face because the hallway light illuminated his face and he was only three to five feet away from her. Ms. Thompson screamed, told the man she had a gun, and threatened to kill him. The intruder turned and walked back toward the hallway. Ms. Thompson then opened the window, kicked out the screen, screamed out the window for help, and called 911.

Still sitting outside, Mr. Phillips saw Ms. Thompson, heard her scream for help, and watched the two individuals run from her townhouse. The two ran down North Church Street toward Discovery Place with Mr. Phillips and his companion in their car following slowly behind them. Mr. Phillips called 911 while keeping the two intruders in sight. As the two individuals continued down Church Street, the man wearing the gray hoodie took off the hoodie. The two individuals then made a right turn onto 6th Street and crossed that street.

At that point, Officer Marvin Bell, an off-duty officer with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, who had heard the call regarding the break-in and gone to the area, saw what he believed to be two men crossing 6th Street. Officer Bell was looking at their backs and could not see either person's face, although he believed them to be the two suspects based upon the descriptions of their clothing that had come over the radio. Officer Bell lost sight of the two as they turned a corner.

Officer Benjamin Roldan and another officer, who were responding to the breaking and entering call, saw two individuals matching the description of the suspects walk across 6th Street and detained them. At that point, Mr. Phillips identified the two people as the individuals who had broken into and fled from Ms. Thompson's townhouse. Mr. Phillips noted that the gray hoodie had disappeared sometime between the time the two intruders had turned the corner and the police had arrived. It turned out that the person wearing a black hoodie was female while the otherindividual was male. Officer Roldan searched the two suspects and recovered a cell phone, charger, and digital camera.

Meanwhile, Ms. Thompson informed Officer Patrick Mulhall, who arrived at her home, that her cell phone was missing. Officer Mulhall called the cell phone's number, and Officer Roldan answered—the cell phone he had retrieved from the suspects was Ms. Thompson's phone.

Ms. Thompson was then taken to 6th and Poplar Streets where she saw two individuals standing in a parking lot. The area was well lit, and she was taken within 15 feet of the two suspects. She identified defendant as the person who had entered her bedroom. After identifying defendant, Ms. Thompson traveled with police down an alley through which the two suspects had traveled. Ms. Thompson noticed a light colored hoodie sweatshirt in a bush that looked like the one defendant was wearing when he kicked in her bedroom door.

. . . At trial, Ms. Thompson testified that she was 100 percent sure that defendant was the man who had broken into her townhouse and that she had not forgotten his face.

State v. Jones, 750 S.E.2d 920, 2013 WL 5231986 at *1-2 (N.C. Ct. App. Sept. 17, 2013).

The North Carolina Court of Appeals found no error on direct review. See id. at *7. It does not appear from the record or the amended Petition and its attachments that Petitioner sought further review in the North Carolina Supreme Court.

On or about April 7, 2014, Petitioner filed a pro se motion for appropriate relief ("MAR") in the Mecklenburg County Superior Court. (Resp't's Ex. 5, Doc. Nos. 6-6 & 6-7.) The state court summarily denied the MAR, stating that it "fail[ed] to show an entitlement to relief upon any of the grounds set forth in N.C.G.S. 15A-1415(b)." (Order Den. MAR, Resp't's Ex. 6, Doc. No. 6-8.) On or about June 9, 2014, Petitioner filed a pro se certiorari petition in the North Carolina Court of Appeals (Resp't's Ex. 7, Doc. No. 6-9), which was denied on June 17, 2014 (Order Den. Cert. Pet., Resp't's Ex. 9, Doc. No. 6-11.) On or about June 13, 2014, Petitioner filed a pro se MAR in the North Carolina Court of Appeals (Resp't's Ex. 10, Doc. No. 6-12), which was dismissed on July 2, 2014 (Order Den. MAR, Resp't's Ex. 11, Doc. No. 6-13.)

On July 31, 2014, Petitioner filed the instant habeas petition, with exhibits, in federal district court. (Doc. Nos. 1, 1-1, & 1-2.) On August 14, 2014, Petitioner filed an amendment to his Petition to add an equal protection claim. (Doc. No. 2.) After conducting an initial review required by Rule 4 of the Rules Governing Section 2254 Cases in the United States District Courts, this Court ordered Respondent to file a response to the amended Petition. Respondent filed a Response (Doc. No. 4) and a Motion for Summary Judgment (Doc. No. 5). Petitioner subsequently filed a response to the Motion for Summary Judgment (Doc. No. 11), a Memorandum of Support (Doc. No. 13), and an affidavit (Doc. No. 17). Additionally, he filed the instant motion for an evidentiary hearing (Doc. No. 9) and motions for discovery (Doc. Nos. 10. 15).

On October 22, 2014, Petitioner through counsel from N.C. Prisoner Legal Services Inc., filed an MAR in the Mecklenburg County Superior Court, raising a claim of ineffective assistance of trial counsel for stipulating to an incorrect prior record level at sentencing. (Resp't's Exhibit 12, Doc. No. 6-14.) On August 6, 2015, Respondent filed a notice in this Court that Petitioner, through counsel, had withdrawn the MAR. (Doc. No. 18.) These matters are now ripe for review.

II. STANDARD OF REVIEW

A. Summary Judgment

Summary judgment is appropriate in those cases where there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact, and it appears that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c)(2); United States v. Lee, 943 F.2d 366, 368 (4th Cir. 1991). Any permissible inferences to be drawn from the underlying facts must be viewed in the light most favorable to the party opposing the motion. Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co., Ltd. v. Zenith RadioCorp., 475 U.S. 574, 587-88 (1986). Where, however, the record taken as a whole could not lead a rational trier of fact to find for the non-moving party, disposition by summary judgment is appropriate. Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248-49 (1986).

B. The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996

Review of Petitioner's claims that were adjudicated on their merits by the state courts is limited by the deferential standard set forth in the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 ("AEDPA"), 28 U.S.C. § 2254. § 2254(d), as construed by the Supreme Court in Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 374-91 (2000). This Court may grant habeas relief on claims of constitutional error adjudicated on their merits in state court only if that adjudication "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," § 2254(d)(1), or "was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding," § 2254(d)(2).

A decision is "contrary to" Supreme Court precedent if "the state court applies a rule that contradicts the governing law set forth in [Supreme Court] cases" or "confronts facts that are materially indistinguishable from a relevant Supreme Court precedent and arrives at [an opposite result]." Williams, 529 U.S. at 405. A state court unreasonably applies federal law when it "identifies the correct governing legal rule from th[e Supreme] Court's cases but unreasonably applies it to the facts of the particular . . . case." Williams, 529 U.S. at 407. A state court's determination that a claim fails on its merits cannot be overturned by a federal habeas court "so long as 'fairminded...