Lincoln v. Cassady

• Decision Date: 11 October 2016
• Docket Number: WD 79854
• Citation: 517 S.W.3d 11
• Parties: IN RE: Rodney L. LINCOLN, Petitioner, v. Jay CASSADY, Superintendent, Jefferson City Correctional Center, Respondent.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

517 S.W.3d 11

IN RE: Rodney L. LINCOLN, Petitioner,
v.
Jay CASSADY, Superintendent, Jefferson City Correctional Center, Respondent.

WD 79854

Missouri Court of Appeals, Western District.

OPINION FILED: October 11, 2016
Motion for Rehearing and/or Transfer to Supreme Court Denied November 22, 2016
Application for Transfer Denied May 30, 2017

Sean D. O'Brien and Tricia J. Bushnell, Kansas City, MO, for Petitioner.

Stephen D. Hawke and Michael J. Spillane, Jefferson City, MO, for respondent.

Before Writ Division: Gary D. Witt, Presiding Judge, Cynthia L. Martin, Judge and Anthony Rex Gabbert, Judge

517 S.W.3d 15

Cynthia L. Martin, Judge

Rodney L. Lincoln ("Relator") has filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus requesting the vacation of his 1983 convictions of two counts of first-degree assault and of manslaughter. Relator asserts that newly discovered evidence clearly and convincingly establishes that he is actually innocent, a freestanding claim of actual innocence. Relator also claims that the preponderance of the evidence establishes either the gateway of actual innocence or of cause and prejudice, permitting review of procedurally barred claims that Relator was denied a constitutionally adequate trial.

We conclude that Relator would be unable to sustain his burden to establish the procedurally barred claims that he was denied a constitutionally adequate trial, rendering it unnecessary to determine whether Relator has sustained his burden to establish a gateway to review those claims. Because the Missouri Supreme Court has not recognized a freestanding claim of actual innocence in cases where the death penalty has not been imposed, we are not at liberty to expand Missouri habeas jurisprudence to permit consideration of the claim in this case. Accordingly, Relator's habeas petition is denied.

Factual and Procedural Background¹

On April 27, 1982, Joanne Tate was found dead in her apartment, lying face down in a pool of blood. Tate's daughters, M.D. (then age 7) and R.T. (then age 4), were found in bed, covered in blood, and with multiple stab wounds.

M.D. initially told police that "Bill" was the assailant, and offered other information about Bill's appearance, where her mother had met and spent time with Bill, and the car that Bill drove. Sometime later, M.D. identified Relator as the assailant. At trial, M.D. identified Relator as the assailant. Though Relator is not named "Bill," and did not match the other characteristics about the assailant first mentioned by M.D., M.D. explained during cross examination that she initially told people the assailant was named "Bill" because she was sick and hurt and people kept bothering her for a name.

An expert witness testified at trial that a pubic hair found on a blanket in Tate's room "matched" Relator's hair, and that he had never been involved in a case where a hair recovered from the crime scene matched to more than one person.

The jury convicted Relator of two counts of first-degree assault and of manslaughter. Relator was sentenced to a term of fifteen years' imprisonment on the manslaughter count and of life imprisonment on each assault count, with each term to run consecutively.

In 2005, Relator successively petitioned for DNA testing pursuant to section 547.035.² That testing resulted in a stipulated determination that the pubic hair which had been the subject of expert witness testimony at trial did not, in fact, belong to Relator. However, Relator's section 547.037 request to be released from prison was denied because the DNA testing did not establish Relator's innocence,

517 S.W.3d 16

as the "determinative factor" in Relator's conviction was not the expert hair match testimony, but was instead M.D.'s testimony, "the key to the convictions." Lincoln v. State , 457 S.W.3d 800, 807–08 (Mo.App.E.D.2014).

In November 2015, M.D., then 41, recanted her eyewitness identification of Relator as the assailant. M.D. claims that she was traumatized and pressured into identifying Relator as the assailant, and now believes that the assailant was a serial killer whose family owned a Volkswagen repair shop in the area of the crimes. M.D.'s initial reports to the authorities had said that the assailant worked on her mother's car and drove a Volkswagen.

Based on M.D.'s recanted testimony, Relator petitioned the Cole County Circuit Court for a writ of habeas corpus asserting his innocence and that he was deprived of a constitutionally adequate trial. On June 16, 2016, the Cole County Circuit Court denied Relator's petition.

Relator then filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus in this court. We issued our order to show cause to the State, which then filed its response to the writ petition. Relator filed a reply to the State's response.

Analysis

Rule 91.01(b) authorizes any person "restrained of liberty within this state [to] petition for a writ of habeas corpus to inquire into the cause of such restraint." "[A] writ of habeas corpus may be issued when a person is restrained of his or her liberty in violation of the constitution or laws of the state or federal government." State ex rel. Amrine v. Roper , 102 S.W.3d 541, 545–46 (Mo.banc 2003) (citing State ex rel. Nixon v. Jaynes , 63 S.W.3d 210, 214 (Mo.banc 2001) ). "Even though the interests protected by the writ are fundamental, relief is limited in order to avoid unending challenges to final judgments." Id. at 546. Entitlement to habeas relief has thus been recognized in Missouri when a "petitioner raises a jurisdictional issue, can demonstrate 'cause and prejudice,' or in extraordinary circumstances, when the petitioner can demonstrate that a 'manifest injustice' would result unless habeas relief is granted." Id. (citing Nixon , 63 S.W.3d at 215 ; State ex rel. Simmons v. White , 866 S.W.2d 443, 446 (Mo.banc 1993) ). The argument that newly discovered evidence establishes a defendant's actual innocence is a habeas theory that "turns on [ ] application of the manifest injustice standard" for habeas relief. Id.

Relator's petition for a writ of habeas corpus alleges: (1) a freestanding claim of actual innocence; (2) a claim of actual innocence as a gateway to permit review of procedurally barred claims³ that Relator was denied a constitutionally adequate trial; and (3) a claim of cause and prejudice as a gateway to permit review of procedurally barred claims that Relator was denied a constitutionally adequate trial.

Generally speaking, both a freestanding claim of actual innocence and a gateway claim of actual innocence seek habeas relief based on newly discovered evidence of innocence. Though the claims have this feature in common, they are otherwise materially distinguishable.

A freestanding claim of actual innocence presumes that a petitioner received a constitutionally adequate trial, but argues that it would nonetheless be manifestly

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unjust to continue to restrain the petitioner because newly discovered evidence clearly and convincingly shows "actual innocence that undermines confidence in the correctness of the [trial] judgment." Id. at 547–48. The newly discovered evidence supporting a freestanding claim of actual innocence must be of a nature that "no credible evidence remains from ... trial to support the conviction." Id. at 548.

In contrast, a gateway claim of actual innocence argues that a petitioner did not receive a constitutionally adequate trial, and that it would be manifestly unjust not to review procedurally barred claims to that effect, where newly discovered evidence demonstrates actual innocence by a preponderance of the evidence. Id. at 546 ; see Clay v. Dormire , 37 S.W.3d 214, 217 (Mo.banc 2000) (holding that habeas relief is available where a petitioner can show "manifest injustice or miscarriage of justice" by showing that "a constitutional violation has probably resulted in the conviction of one who is actually innocent") (quoting Schlup v. Delo , 513 U.S. 298, 327, 115 S.Ct. 851, 130 L.Ed.2d 808 (1995) ). The new evidence supporting a gateway claim of actual innocence need not negate all of the evidence admitted at trial which supports the conviction, but must permit the conclusion when considered with all available evidence that "it is more likely than not that no reasonable juror would have convicted" the defendant. Schlup , 513 U.S. at 332, 115 S.Ct. 851 (O'Connor, J., concurring).

The gateway of cause and prejudice requires a petitioner to establish that his failure to timely raise a claim on direct appeal or in a post-conviction motion was caused by "some objective factor external to the defense [that] impeded counsel's efforts to comply with the State's procedural rule." Nixon , 63 S.W.3d at 215 (quoting Murray v. Carrier , 477 U.S. 478, 488, 106 S.Ct. 2639, 91 L.Ed.2d 397 (1986) ). "To establish the 'prejudice' necessary to overcome procedural default, a petitioner ... bears the burden of showing, not merely that errors at his trial created possibility of prejudice, but that they 'worked to his actual and substantial disadvantage, infecting his entire trial with error of constitutional dimensions."' Id. at 215–16 (quoting United States v. Frady , 456 U.S. 152, 170, 102 S.Ct. 1584, 71 L.Ed.2d 816...