Knight v. Davids

• Decision Date: 27 November 2019
• Docket Number: Civil No. 2:17-CV-11469
• Parties: JEROME KNIGHT, Petitioner, v. JOHN DAVIDS, Respondent.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Michigan

JEROME KNIGHT, Petitioner, v. JOHN DAVIDS,¹Respondent.

Civil No. 2:17-CV-11469

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT EASTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN SOUTHERN DIVISION

November 27, 2019

HONORABLE DENISE PAGE HOOD CHIEF UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

OPINION AND ORDER DENYING THE PETITION FOR A WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS, DECLINING TO ISSUE A CERTIFICATE OF APPEALABILITY, AND GRANTING PETITIONER LEAVE TO APPEAL IN FORMA PAUPERIS

Jerome L. Knight, ("Petitioner"), confined at the Ionia Correctional Facility in Ionia, Michigan, filed a pro se petition for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254.Petitioner challenges his convictions for first-degree premeditated murder, M.C.L.A. 750.316(1)(a), and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, M.C.L.A. 750.227b(1).For the reasons that follow, the petition for a writ of habeas corpus is DENIED WITH PREJUDICE.

I.Background

Petitioner was convicted following a jury trial in the Wayne County Circuit Court, in which he was jointly tried with co-defendantGregory Rice.This Court recites verbatim the relevant facts regarding petitioner's conviction from the Michigan Court of Appeals' opinion affirming his conviction, since they are presumed correct on habeas review.SeeWagner v. Smith, 581 F.3d 410, 413(6th Cir.2009):

In these consolidated appeals, defendants' convictions arise from the November 24, 1998 shooting death of Yahnica Hill, who shared a child with defendant Knight.As further explained in section IV.A., infra, both defendants were originally convicted of the same offenses in 1999, but after a series of appeals, their convictions were vacated and they were retried in 2013.

The prosecution presented evidence at trial to establish that by the spring of 1998, Hill and Knight's relationship had become "[v]ery shaky," due in part to custody disputes over their child, and that Hill obtained a personal protection order (PPO) against Knight.On or about September 5, 1998, Knight told Hill, after seeing her at a nightclub, that he"hate[d]" her and was "going to kill" her.

Rodney Coleman, an acquaintance of Knight's, testified that in August or September 1998, Knight asked him if he would "do a girl for a G," which Coleman understood to mean murder a woman for $1,000.At the time, Coleman did not know whom Knight wanted killed; Coleman testified that he did not agree to kill anyone.

Around October 13, 1998, Knight asked Coleman to bail defendant Rice, a mutual friend, out of jail.Coleman agreed to have Marlynda Mattison-Coleman, his then-girlfriend, bail Rice out of jail with money she obtained from Knight.Knight gaveMattison-Coleman $700 for the bail, plus approximately $70 in additional fees that Rice needed to pay before his release.While Coleman, Mattison-Coleman, and Knight were en route to bail Rice out of jail, Knight revealed that Hill was the woman with whom he was "having issues" in regard to a custody dispute over their child and Coleman understood that Hill was the person Knight wanted to have killed.

By late-November 1998, Knight and Hill's relationship soured further.On or about November 22, 1998, Hill held a birthday party for their minor child and did not invite Knight; this upset Knight.The next day, November 23, 1998, Knight picked up the minor child from daycare without permission.Hill contacted the police, but by the time they responded to the complaint, they informed Hill that they would not do anything, either because Knight's visitation started early the next day and they did not want to disrupt the child, or because Knight's visitation had already started.Hill and some friends were outside of Knight's house at the time.According to Edward Petty, one of Hill's acquaintances, Knight later drove down the street and yelled, "I'll kill you, bitch" to Hill.

That same evening, at approximately 9:30 p.m., Knight left Hill a voicemail message in which he stated, "Na na na na na, bitch, you'll never see [your child] again, na na na na na na."Upon hearing the message, one of Hill's friends recommended that she contact the police.

The following morning, Hill's body was discovered with multiple gunshot wounds.Her body was a few feet from her automobile, which was still running.Her purse was inside the vehicle, undisturbed.Detroit Police Sergeant David Babcock testified that if this had been a carjacking or robbery, he would have expected to see the contents of Hill's purse strewn about the car.

Coleman testified that on the morning of Hill's murder, Rice came to his home.Rice told Coleman that "he did it" and that he"shot the girl in her face."According to Coleman, Rice flagged down "the woman" in the street to get her to pull her car over tothe side of the road.When she did, he waited until she turned her head toward the interior of the vehicle and shot her.Rice told Coleman that the shooting occurred on "the east side" of the city and that he shot the woman that night or earlier that morning.According to Coleman, Rice shot the woman "for money."Rice never named the woman whom he had shot, but Coleman "put two and two together" afterwards and began to believe that Rice had shot Hill at the bidding of Knight.

Coleman did not initially tell anyone what he had heard, including the police, but later told his aunt, Stephanie Harris, about what Rice had told him.Harris testified that Coleman told her the shooting was motivated by a custody dispute.Coleman also told Harris that Rice shot a woman on the "east side" while she was in an automobile that matched the description of Hill's automobile.

At trial, the prosecution's theory of the case was that Knight secured money to bail Rice out of jail and that, in exchange, Rice agreed to kill Hill.The jury convicted both defendants as indicated above.

People v. Knight, No. 320631, 2015 WL 5657382, at *1-2(Mich. Ct. App.Sept. 24, 2015)(internal footnote omitted).

The conviction was affirmed.Id., lv. den.499 Mich. 916, 877 N.W.2d 878(2016).

Petitioner seeks a writ of habeas corpus on the following grounds:

I.Mr. Knight's conviction for first degree murder should be reversed, and the charges ordered dismissed with prejudice, as the prosecution failed to present constitutionally sufficient evidence to prove Mr. Knight's identity as a perpetrator of the homicides.

II.The trial court reversibly erred in overruling Mr. Knight's objection to testimony from Stephanie Harris as to an allegedprior consistent statement made to her by Rodney Coleman, as that evidence was inadmissible under MRE 801(d)(l)(b), and highly prejudicial to Mr. Knight as it improperly bolstered Mr. Coleman's testimonial credibility.

III.The trial court reversibly erred in barring the defense from presenting evidence of the allegations Ms. Hill[] made against Christopher Bennett when she obtained a personal protection order against him, where the court previously had ruled that Ms. Hill's allegations against Mr. Knight were admissible as relevant to her state of mind.

IV.The trial judge reversibly erred in overruling a defense objection to the reading of the prior recorded testimony of the medical examiner, as the prosecution failed to subpoena the witness and made an inadequate showing that this witness was unavailable under MRE 804(b)(l), and thus the use of the recorded testimony violated Mr. Knight's constitutional right to confrontation.

II.Standard of Review

28 U.S.C. § 2254(d), as amended byThe Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), imposes the following standard of review for habeas cases:

An application for a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court shall not be granted with respect to any claim that was adjudicated on the merits in State court proceedings unless the adjudication of the claim-

(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 ofthe evidence presented in the State court proceeding.

A state court's decision is "contrary to" clearly established federal law if the state court arrives at a conclusion opposite to that reached by the Supreme Court on a question of law or if the state court decides a case differently than the Supreme Court has on a set of materially indistinguishable facts.Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 405-06(2000).An "unreasonable application" occurs when "a state court decision unreasonably applies the law of [the Supreme Court] to the facts of a prisoner's case."Id. at 409.A federal habeas court may not "issue the writ simply because that court concludes in its independent judgment that the relevant state-court decision applied clearly established federal law erroneously or incorrectly."Id. at 410-11.

The Supreme Court explained that "[A]federal court's collateral review of a state-court decision must be consistent with the respect due state courts in our federal system."Miller-El v. Cockrell, 537 U.S. 322, 340(2003).The "AEDPA thus imposes a 'highly deferential standard for evaluating state-court rulings,' and 'demands that state-court decisions be given the benefit of the doubt.'"Renico v. Lett, 559 U.S. 766, 773(2010)((quotingLindh v. Murphy, 521 U.S. 320, 333, n. 7(1997);Woodford v. Viscotti, 537 U.S. 19, 24(2002)(per curiam))."[A] statecourt's determination that a claim lacks merit precludes federal habeas relief so long as 'fairminded jurists could disagree' on the correctness of the state court's decision."Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 101(2011)(citingYarborough v. Alvarado, 541 U.S. 652, 664(2004)).To obtain habeas relief in federal court, a state prisoner is required to show that the state court's rejection of his claim "was so lacking in justification that there was an error well understood and comprehended in existing law beyond any possibility...