King v. MacEachern

• Citation: 665 F.3d 247
• Decision Date: 02 December 2011
• Docket Number: No. 10–2095.,10–2095.
• Parties: Michael KING, Petitioner, Appellant, v. Duane J. MacEACHERN, Superintendent, Respondent, Appellee.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (1st Circuit)

665 F.3d 247

Michael KING, Petitioner, Appellant,

v.Duane J. MacEACHERN, Superintendent, Respondent, Appellee.

No. 10–2095.

United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit.

Heard July 28, 2011.Decided Dec. 2, 2011.

Andrew S. Crouch, for petitioner-appellant.

David E. Rhinesmith, Assistant Attorney General, Criminal Bureau, with whom Martha Coakley, Attorney General, was on brief for respondent-appellee.

Before TORRUELLA, BOUDIN, and THOMPSON, Circuit Judges.

TORRUELLA, Circuit Judge.

Convicted of armed robbery, assault and battery, and intimidation of a witness, Petitioner–Appellant Michael King (“King”) appeals from the federal district court's denial of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus. King v. MacEachern, No. 08–10373, 2010 WL 3258870 (D.Mass. Aug. 17, 2010). King's principal claim is that there was insufficient evidence to support his armed robbery and witness intimidation convictions. For the following reasons, we affirm.

I. Background ¹

A. Midnight Robbery at the Mart

On September 9, 2003, Michael Jacques (“Jacques”), a clerk at DB Mart, a convenience store located in Springfield, Massachusetts, was working the 5:00 p.m. to 12:00 a.m. shift alone. At approximately 11:30 p.m., King, a regular customer at the mart, entered and left. At midnight, Jacques, having completed his shift, began to close the store. While in the process of closing, King returned. King knocked on the now-locked doors and asked to be let in so he could look for a pager he claimed to have left behind during his earlier visit. Following a brief conversation, Jacques opened the door and assisted King in searching the aisles for the missing pager. The pager never surfaced. Jacques asked King to leave, recommending that he return in the morning to speak with the mart's manager.

Without warning, King punched Jacques on the left side of his face. King then tackled Jacques, placed him in a “choke hold,” and knocked him to the floor and up against his bicycle, which Jacques had parked inside the store. King then tried to open the cash register. On seeing Jacques begin to get up from the floor, King warned, “I'm going to blow a hole in your head if you get up and move.” Jacques, taking King at his word, resumed his prior position on the floor. He did not see King with a gun or other weapon.

King ordered Jacques to tell him how to open the cash register; Jacques complied. King removed approximately $1,400 from the cash register, took Jacques's bicycle, and before leaving, asked Jacques where the videotapes from the store's security camera were located. Jacques told him they were in the manager's office and that he did not have access to them. King warned that “[i]f he saw [Jacques] on 22 News [a Springfield television program] he was going to come back and kill [him], [his] whole family, [his] buddy Ben, all of that.” King, 866 N.E.2d at 941. King then left, taking Jacques's bicycle.

Several minutes later, Jacques got up from the floor and called the police. Officers arrived on the scene and searched the surrounding area, but to no avail; they did not find an individual matching King's description. Further investigation, however, proved fruitful. On September 11, 2003—one day after the robbery—police apprehended King and arrested him. No weapon was found on his person or in the nearby area at the time of arrest.

B. Indictment and Conviction

A grand jury indicted King for two counts of armed robbery, Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 265, § 17 (1998); one count of assault and battery, Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 265, § 13A (2002); and one count of intimidation of a witness, Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 268, § 13B (2010). A jury trial was held, at which the trial judge merged the two armed robbery charges. The jury convicted King of all three charges. The court sentenced King to a term of not more than six years and not less than five years for the armed robbery conviction, and to two concurrent one-year terms for the assault and battery and intimidation of a witness convictions.

C. Challenging the Conviction: Seeking Appellate and Habeas Relief

King first appealed his conviction to the MAC. See King, 866 N.E.2d 938. He raised three arguments: (1) the trial judge improperly denied King's motion for a required finding of not guilty as to the armed robbery charge because there was insufficient evidence showing he was in possession of a weapon at the time of the robbery; (2) the trial judge wrongly denied King's motion for a required finding of not guilty as to the intimidation of a witness charge because the evidence did not show he intimidated a person furnishing information to a criminal investigator; and (3) the trial judge improperly broadened the scope of the witness intimidation statute in administering the jury instructions. The MAC affirmed King's convictions. King, 866 N.E.2d at 940.

Addressing each argument, the MAC held that (1) the evidence at trial established that King threatened to shoot the victim, that he was arrested a day later without a weapon, and thus, the jury's inference that King actually had a weapon when he threatened Jacques was not improper, id. at 943–44; (2) King construed the witness intimidation statute too narrowly; the jury, in evaluating the evidence and the circumstances in which King's statement was made, rationally could have determined that King intended to intimidate Jacques from providing an official investigating authority information related to the robbery, id. at 944–45; and (3) the trial judge's instructions were proper ² as the witness intimidation statute does not require that a victim actually be in the process of furnishing information when threatened. King, 866 N.E.2d at 945–46.

King then turned to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (“SJC”) to challenge the MAC's determinations, filing an application for leave to obtain further appellate review (“ALOFAR”). He raised two arguments. He first asserted that the MAC erred in holding that a defendant may be convicted of armed robbery based solely on a statement that he would “blow a hole” in a victim's head, with no additional direct or circumstantial evidence confirming the existence of a weapon at the scene of the alleged crime. Second, he argued that the MAC “too broadly interpret[ed] the witness intimidation statute's ‘criminal investigator’ prong to include an instance where a defendant warned a victim not to speak with the television broadcast media.” The SJC denied King's ALOFAR. Commonwealth v. King, 449 Mass. 1108, 871 N.E.2d 491 (2007).

Thereafter, a federal district court evaluated King's habeas petition pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254, considering only the two issues submitted before the SJC, i.e., whether the state court's decision constituted an unreasonable application of federal law because there was insufficient evidence showing either that he was armed with a dangerous weapon at the time of the alleged armed robbery, or that he intimidated a person furnishing information to a criminal investigator.³ The court ultimately denied relief, holding the MAC had not unreasonably applied clearly established Supreme Court precedent.⁴ It subsequently granted a certificate of appealability as to King's remaining two claims, i.e., insufficient evidence to support the armed robbery and witness intimidation charges. King v. MacEachern, No. 08–10373–NMG, 2010 WL 5373933, at *1 (D.Mass. Dec. 20, 2010).

II. Discussion

Just as a builder cannot lay his first brick without a blueprint, we begin our analysis by sketching the applicable framework for federal habeas review of state-court convictions. We then address each of King's constitutional claims in turn.

A. Standard of Review

A habeas petitioner asserting an unreasonable application of federal law claim stands at the base of a very steep mountain, which we scale alongside him—ever mindful that our accompanying alpinist is on different footing than most appellees and must surmount “ ‘a substantially higher threshold’ for obtaining relief than de novo review.” Renico v. Lett, ––– U.S. ––––, 130 S.Ct. 1855, 1862, 176 L.Ed.2d 678 (2010) (quoting Schriro v. Landrigan, 550 U.S. 465, 473, 127 S.Ct. 1933, 167 L.Ed.2d 836 (2007)) (noting this “substantially higher threshold” in the context of a habeas petitioner's unreasonable application of federal law claim under § 2254(d)(1)). We begin our ascent.

“We review the district court's denial of habeas relief de novo.” Shuman v. Spencer, 636 F.3d 24, 30 (1st Cir.2011) (quoting Lynch, 438 F.3d at 44). In conducting this review, the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (“AEDPA”) mandates that we remain highly deferential towards the state court's decision if it adjudicated the relevant claim on the merits. See Clements v. Clarke, 592 F.3d 45, 52 (1st Cir.2010); Rashad v. Walsh, 300 F.3d 27, 34 (1st Cir.2002) (citing Lindh v. Murphy, 521 U.S. 320, 322, 336, 117 S.Ct. 2059, 138 L.Ed.2d 481 (1997)). Because King's claim was adjudicated on the merits by the state court, we may only grant relief if the state court proceeding:

(1) 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

(2) 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).

King's underlying claim is one of insufficient evidence, calling upon a federal constitutional rule derived from the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and set forth in Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979). See Sivo v. Wall, 644 F.3d 46, 50 (1st Cir.2011).⁵ Specifically, King asserts that the state court's decision constituted an unreasonable application of Jackson because the Commonwealth failed to prove by sufficient evidence that he was armed with a dangerous weapon at the time of the alleged armed robbery, or that he intimidated a...