Lottie v. Buckner

• Decision Date: 09 March 2021
• Docket Number: Case No. 4:18CV455 RLW
• Parties: JEFFERY LOTTIE, Petitioner, v. MICHELE BUCKNER, Respondent.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Missouri

JEFFERY LOTTIE, Petitioner, v. MICHELE BUCKNER,¹ Respondent.

Case No. 4:18CV455 RLW

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT EASTERN DISTRICT OF MISSOURI EASTERN DIVISION

March 9, 2021

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

This matter is before the Court on Jeffery Lottie's Petition under 28 U.S.C. §2254 for Writ of Habeas Corpus By a Person in State Custody (ECF No. 1). Because this Court has determined that Lottie's claims are inadequate on their face and the record affirmatively refutes the factual assertions upon which his claims are based, this Court decides this matter without an evidentiary hearing.²

BACKGROUND

The Missouri Court of Appeals summarized the relevant facts related to Lottie's conviction as follows:

In the early morning hours of July 11, 2020, a rap group that included [Lottie] as a member was performing at a Wentzville nightclub called Palomino Nights. About two weeks earlier, [Lottie] and Justin Simms talked on the telephone and arranged for Simms to buy marijuana from [Lottie]. [Lottie] gave Simms directions to a location in the City of St. Louis where the sale was to take place. When Simms arrived at the location, a friend of [Lottie's] named Harvion Cameron robbed Simms at gunpoint. Simms held [Lottie] responsible for the robbery, and he went to Palomino Nights on July 11 to confront [Lottie].

On July 11, Simms and [Lottie] got into an argument in the parking lot of the nightclub. [Lottie] got a gun from his car and fired multiple shots. Simms and two other people suffered gunshot wounds.

A Wentzville police officer subsequently discovered four shell casings in the parking lot of the nightclub. Three of the casings were from a nine millimeter gun and the other casing was from a .40 caliber gun.

Two nights after the nightclub shooting, on July 13, 2010, [Lottie] was at a motel in St. Charles County with Harvion Cameron (the man who robbed Simms at gunpoint about two weeks before the nightclub shooting) and Ron Rico Patton. Cameron called Daniel Brennan, and Cameron told Brennan to meet him at the Trails of Sunbrook apartment complex, which was next to the motel. Cameron, [Lottie], and Patton then left the motel room.

Later that same evening, a witness saw two men standing next to a car in the parking lot of the apartment complex and heard a popping sound. She then saw the two men run from the car and speed away. Subsequently, a St. Charles police officer saw a car parked in the "suicide lane" of a road located about two miles north of the apartment complex. The car had its right turn signal on, and the officer approached the vehicle to investigate. The officer discovered that the driver, Brennan, had been shot. Brennan was able to tell the officer that he was shot outside the apartment complex after a man he didn't know approached him with a gun and demanded money. Brennan later died as a result of the gunshot wounds. Police discovered Patton's fingerprints on Brennan's car and a nine millimeter shell casing in the parking lot of the apartment complex.

After receiving a tip on Brennan's murder, detectives searched the home of Harvion Cameron's grandparents and found two loaded nine millimeter handguns inside a floor joist. The nine millimeter shell casings found in the Palomino Nights parking lot were compared with the nine millimeter shell casing found outside theapartment complex, and the casings were determined to have been fired from the same gun. The shell casings were then compared to the nine millimeter handguns recovered from the house of Cameron's grandmother and were matched to one of those guns.

Cameron was subsequently arrested and had Brennan's phone number in his wallet. [Lottie] was also arrested. While [Lottie] was incarcerated in St. Charles County jail, [Lottie] told his cellmate that Cameron had set up the robbery of Brennan and that [Lottie] and Patton approached Brennan as he sat in his car and demanded money. [Lottie] also told his cellmate that he knew there was going to be a robbery before he arrived at the apartment complex and that the gun Patton was holding discharged when everything went awry.

(ECF No. 10-6 at 2-3).

A jury found Lottie guilty of three counts of second-degree assault, five counts of armed criminal action, one count of unlawful possession of a firearm, one count of first-degree robbery, and one count of second-degree murder. The St. Charles County Circuit Court sentenced Lottie to two life imprisonments to run consecutively, to be served in the Missouri Department of Corrections. Lottie is currently serving this sentence at the South Central Correctional Center (SCCC). See https://web.mo.gov/doc/offSearchWeb/offenderInfoAction.do (last visited 1/27/21). The warden is Michele Buckner. See https://doc.mo.gov/node/546 (last visited 1/27/21).

In his petition, Lottie alleges five grounds for relief. In his first claim, Lottie assets that the trial court erred in permitting the prosecutor to join the charges arising from the nightclub shooting and the apartment complex. (ECF No. 1 at 5). Lottie's second claim maintains that the trial court erred in refusing to instruct the jury that Lottie was acting out of self-defense. (ECF No. 1 at 6). Lottie's third claim for relief alleges that trial counsel was ineffective for failing to call Dennis Holbrook as a defense witness. (ECF No. 1 at 14). In his fifth claim, Lottie maintains that appellate counsel was ineffective for failing to raise a claim that the trial court erred in allowing Lottie's cellmate, Jerry Harvey, to testify when Harvey was acting as an agent of theState and interrogated Lottie, allegedly without providing Miranda³ warnings. (ECF No. 1 at 14).

STANDARD OF REVIEW

Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §2254, a district court "shall entertain an application for a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court only on the ground that he is in custody in violation of the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States." 28 U.S.C. §2254(a). "[A]n 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 of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding." 28 U.S.C. §2254(d). "'A state court's decision is contrary to clearly established law if it applies a rule that contradicts the governing law set forth in [Supreme Court] cases or if it confronts a set of facts that are materially indistinguishable from a [Supreme Court] decision and nevertheless arrives at a [different] result.'" Cagle v. Norris, 474 F.3d 1090, 1095 (8th Cir. 2007) (quoting Mitchell v. Esparza, 540 U.S. 12, 15-16 (2003)). The Supreme Court has emphasized the phrase "Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court," refers to "the holdings, as opposed to the dicta, of this Court's decisions," and has cautioned that §2254(d)(1) "restricts the source of clearly established law to [the Supreme] Court's jurisprudence." Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 412 (2000). "A [s]tate court unreasonably applies" federal law when it "identifies the correct governing legal rule from [the Supreme] Court'scases but unreasonably applies it to the facts of the particular state prisoner's case," or "unreasonably extends a legal principle from [the Supreme Court's] precedent to a new context where it should not apply or unreasonably refuses to extend that principle to a new context where it should apply." Williams, 529 U.S. at 407. A state court decision may be considered an unreasonable determination "only if it is shown that the state court's presumptively correct factual findings do not enjoy support in the record." Ryan v. Clarke, 387 F.3d 785, 791 (8th Cir. 2004) (citing 28 U.S.C. §2254(e)(1)).

As to Petitioner's ineffective assistance of counsel claims, he "must show 'that counsel made errors so serious that counsel was not functioning as the "counsel" guaranteed the defendant by the Sixth Amendment.'" Strong v. Roper, 737 F.3d 506, 517 (8th Cir. 2013) (quoting Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 687 (1984)). Under this standard, counsel must "'make reasonable investigations or ... make a reasonable decision that makes particular investigations unnecessary.'" Id. (quoting Strickland, 466 U.S. at 691). "'Judicial scrutiny of counsel's performance is highly deferential, indulging a strong presumption that counsel's conduct falls within the wide range of reasonable professional judgment.'" Id. (quoting Bucklew v. Luebbers, 436 F.3d 1010, 1016 (8th Cir. 2006)). The Court's review is governed by both § 2254(d) and Strickland, meaning the Court must be "'twice deferential: we apply a highly deferential review to the state court decision; the state court, in turn, is highly deferential to the judgments of trial counsel.'" Strong, 737 F.3d at 517 (quoting Nooner v. Norris, 402 F.3d 801, 808 (8th Cir.2005)); see also Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 105 (2011) (stressing the difficulty of overcoming both § 2254(d) and Strickland "when the two apply in tandem"); Forrest v. Steele, 764 F.3d 848, 853 (8th Cir. 2014) (same).

DISCUSSION

I. CLAIM ONE

In Claim One, Lottie alleges the trial court erred in permitting the prosecutor to join the charges arising from the nightclub shooting and the apartment complex shooting. (ECF No. 1 at 5). Lottie's claim that the state court improperly heard two claims in one action is not properly brought as a federal habeas action. Lottie claims that this ruling "violated Mr. Lottie's rights to due process and a fair trial, in that the two alleged instances were not part of the same transaction, a common scheme or plan, or of the...