Kaprelian v. Tegels
| Decision Date | 20 December 2017 |
| Docket Number | Case No. 14-C-618 |
| Parties | TIMOTHY J. KAPRELIAN, Petitioner, v. LIZZIE TEGELS, Respondent. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Wisconsin |
DECISION AND ORDER DENYING PETITION FOR WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS
This is a case for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254. Petitioner Timothy J. Kaprelian, who is representing himself, is incarcerated in a Wisconsin state prison serving a 50 year sentence imposed after he pleaded no contest to two counts of second-degree sexual assault/use of force and one count of false imprisonment, in violation of Wis. Stat. §§ 940.225(2)(a) and 940.30. As explained in the screening order entered earlier in this case, the petitioner makes seven claims: (1) he should be permitted to withdraw his pleas because they were not knowing, intelligent, and voluntary; (2) the judge who presided over the state trial court proceedings was biased against him; (3) the prosecution fabricated evidence and withheld exculpatory evidence in violation of Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963); (4) the trial court erred by denying his motion to suppress evidence; (5) his trial counsel provided constitutionally deficient representation; (6) his appellate counsel provided constitutionally deficient representation; and (7) the trial court sentenced him based on inaccurate information. For the reasons explained below, the court denies the petition.
BACKGROUND
On July 1, 2006, police arrived at a home that the petitioner shared with the victim (his roommate and former girlfriend), acting on information the police received from the victim's sister. The night before, the petitioner had held the victim captive while he battered and sexually assaulted her for hours. He videotaped portions of the assault. The victim allowed the officers to enter the home, and they found the petitioner asleep in a bedroom. The officers arrested the petitioner. The victim then gave the officers permission to search the home without a warrant, and the officers proceeded to gather evidence, including the videotape documenting portions of the petitioner's abuse of the victim.
In the Circuit Court of Racine County, Wisconsin, represented by counsel, the petitioner moved to suppress the evidence seized during the search of the home. He claimed that the victim did not have actual or apparent authority to consent to the officer's search of the home, and that she did not consent to the extensive search and seizure of property that the police conducted. The trial court concluded that the victim's consent and exigent circumstances justified the warrantless search. After the trial court denied the petitioner's motion to suppress, he pleaded no contest to the charges of false imprisonment and second-degree sexual assault.
After he was sentenced, and still represented by counsel, the petitioner appealed his sentence to the Wisconsin Court of Appeals, which affirmed his sentence. The Wisconsin Supreme Court denied the petitioner's petition for review. Thereafter, proceeding without a lawyer, the petitioner filed numerous postconviction motions under Wis. Stat. § 974.06. The trial court denied all of the petitioner's § 974.06 motions, resulting in two separate appeals. State v. Kaprelian, Nos. 2012AP396 and 2013AP1239 (Wis. Ct. App.). In the first appeal, the petitioner argued that the trial court judge should have recused himself due to bias, that his motions alleged sufficient facts to entitle him to an evidentiary hearing on his claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, that his sentence was based on incorrect information contained in the presentence investigation report, and that he wasfraudulently induced to enter his no contest pleas. See generally ECF No. 19-10. In the petitioner's second appeal, he argued that he should have been allowed to withdraw his no contest pleas and that the trial judge should have recused himself from hearing the petitioner's motion to withdraw his plea due to bias. See generally ECF No. 19-21. The Wisconsin Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court's orders denying the petitioner's § 974.06 motions, and the Wisconsin Supreme Court denied review of the appellate court's decisions. The petitioner then filed his habeas petition in this court.
ANALYSIS
The court concludes that the petitioner cannot obtain habeas relief on any of his claims. This court cannot review the merits of many of the petitioner's claims, because those claims were procedurally defaulted in the state court system. The petitioner procedurally defaulted a number of his claims by failing to give the state courts adequate information with which to adjudicate the claims he made in his first set of § 974.06 motions, and by failing to present other claims in his first set of § 974.06 motions. The court concludes that none of the petitioner's non-procedurally defaulted claims have merit.
State prisoners are required to "exhaust" the remedies available to them in the state court system before a federal district court will consider the merits of constitutional claims in a federal habeas petition. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b)(1)(A); Dressler v. McCaughtry, 238 F.3d 908, 912 (7th Cir. 2001) (). A federal district court cannot address the merits of the constitutional claims raised in a federal habeas petition "unlessthe state courts have had a full and fair opportunity to review them." Farrell v. Lane, 939 F.2d 409, 410 (7th Cir. 1991) (citation omitted).
"A petitioner must raise his constitutional claims in state court 'to alert fairly the state court to the federal nature of the claim and to permit that court to adjudicate squarely that federal issue.'" Weddington v. Zatecky, 721 F.3d 456, 465 (7th Cir. 2013) (quoting Villanueva v. Anglin, 719 F.3d 769, 775 (7th Cir. 2013)). A petitioner exhausts his constitutional claim when he has presented it to the highest state court for a ruling on the merits. O'Sullivan v. Boerckel, 526 U.S. 838, 845 (1999); Arrieta v. Battaglia, 461 F.3d 861, 863 (7th Cir. 2006). Once the state's highest court has had a full and fair opportunity to evaluate the merits of the claim, a prisoner is not required to present it again to the state courts. Humphrey v. Cady, 405 U.S. 504, 516 n.18 (1972).
Even if a petitioner exhausts review of his constitutional claim in the state courts, it is possible that a federal habeas court cannot review the claim on the merits because of a "procedural default." A criminal defendant "procedurally defaults" his claim—and loses his right to federal habeas review—if the last state court that issued judgment "'clearly and expressly' states that its judgment rests on a state procedural bar." Harris v. Reed, 489 U.S. 255, 263 (1989) (quoting Caldwell v. Mississippi, 472 U.S. 320, 327 (1985)). There can be several kinds of state procedural bars, including, but not limited to, failing "to raise a claim of error at the time or in the place that state law requires." Trevino v. Thaler, 569 U.S. 413, 421 (2013).
If the state procedural bar is independent and adequate to support the decision, a federal § 2254 petition does not provide a defendant who has procedurally defaulted his claim in state courtanother chance to litigate that defaulted claim in federal court. This doctrine is based on fairness, and, consistent with the exhaustion requirement, the principle that in a federal system, "the States should have the first opportunity to address and correct alleged violations of state prisoner's federal rights." Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U.S. 722, 731 (1991). The Coleman court explained that "a habeas petitioner who has failed to meet the State's procedural requirements for presenting his federal claims has deprived the state courts of an opportunity to address those claims in the first instance." Id. at 732. If the independent and adequate state ground doctrine did not exist, state prisoners could "avoid the exhaustion requirement by defaulting their federal claims in state court," and then litigating those claims on the merits for the first time in federal district court. Id. After all, "[a] habeas petitioner who has defaulted his federal claims in state court meets the technical requirements for exhaustion; there are no state remedies any longer 'available' to him." Id. "The independent and adequate state ground doctrine ensures that the States' interest in correcting their own mistakes is respected in all federal habeas cases" by preventing evasion of the exhaustion requirement. Id.
Under the "independent and adequate state ground" doctrine, a constitutional claim cannot be raised in a federal habeas petition if "a state-law default prevent[ed] the state court from reaching the merits of a federal claim . . . ." Ylst v. Nunnemaker, 501 U.S. 797, 801 (1991) (emphasis added). "[W]hen a petitioner fails to raise his federal claims in compliance with relevant state procedural rules, the state court's refusal to adjudicate the claim ordinarily qualifies as an independent and adequate state ground for denying federal review." Cone v. Bell, 556 U.S. 449, 465 (2009). A state ground is independent "when the court actually relied on the procedural bar as an independent basis for its disposition of the case." Thompkins v. Pfister, 698 F.3d 976, 986 (7th Cir. 2012) (quotingKaczmarek v. Rednour, 627 F.3d 586, 592 (7th Cir. 2010)). A state law ground is "adequate" "when it is a firmly established and regularly followed state practice at the time it is applied." Id.
When determining if a state ground is adequate, this court does not...
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