Maggett v. Middlebrooks
| Decision Date | 25 August 2022 |
| Docket Number | 4:19CV130-SA-JMV |
| Parties | LADELL MAGGETT PETITIONER v. SCOTT MIDDLEBROOKS, ET AL. RESPONDENTS |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Mississippi |
This matter comes before the court on the pro se petition of Ladell Maggett for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. The State has answered the petition the petitioner has filed a traverse, and the State has responded to the traverse. The matter is ripe for resolution. For the reasons set forth below, the instant petition for a writ of habeas corpus will be denied.
The writ of habeas corpus, a challenge to the legal authority under which a person may be detained, is ancient. Duker, The English Origins of the Writ of Habeas Corpus: A Peculiar Path to Fame, 53 N.Y.U.L.Rev. 983 (1978); Glass Historical Aspects of Habeas Corpus, 9 St. John's L.Rev 55 (1934). It is “perhaps the most important writ known to the constitutional law of England,” Secretary of State for Home Affairs v. O'Brien, A.C. 603, 609 (1923), and it is equally significant in the United States. Article I, § 9, of the Constitution ensures that the right of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, except when, in the case of rebellion or invasion, public safety may require it. Habeas Corpus, 20 Fed. Prac. & Proc. Deskbook § 56. Its use by the federal courts was authorized in Section14 of the Judiciary Act of 1789. Habeas corpus principles developed over time in both English and American common law have since been codified:
The statutory provisions on habeas corpus appear as sections 2241 to 2255 of the 1948 Judicial Code. The recodification of that year set out important procedural limitations and additional procedural changes were added in 1966. The scope of the writ, insofar as the statutory language is concerned, remained essentially the same, however, until 1996, when Congress enacted the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, placing severe restrictions on the issuance of the writ for state prisoners and setting out special, new habeas corpus procedures for capital cases. The changes made by the 1996 legislation are the end product of decades of debate about habeas corpus.
Id. Under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, a federal court may issue the writ when a person is held in violation of the federal Constitution or laws, permitting a federal court to order the discharge of any person held by a state in violation of the supreme law of the land. Frank v. Mangum, 237 U.S. 309, 311, 35 S.Ct. 582, 588, 59 L.Ed. 969 (1915).
Ladell Maggett (“Maggett” or “Petitioner”) is currently in the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections (“MDOC”) and housed at the Wilkinson County Correctional Facility in Woodville, Mississippi. On November 12, 2014, a jury convicted Maggett of capital murder (Count I) and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon (Count II) in the Second Judicial District Circuit Court of Bolivar County, Mississippi, Cause No. 2012-094-CR2. See State Court Record (“SCR”), Cause No. 2015-KA-00215-COA, Vol. 5, pp. 37-40.[1] The trial court sentenced Maggett to serve a term of life without the possibility of parole on Count I and a term of ten (10) years on Count II, under the supervision and control of the MDOC. Id.
On December 19, 2015, Maggett appealed his convictions and sentences to the Mississippi Supreme Court, raising the following eight issues, as stated by appellate counsel:
SCR, Cause No. 2015-KA-00215-COA, Brief of Appellants.[2]
On December 13, 2016, the Mississippi Court of Appeals affirmed Maggett's convictions and sentences. Maggett v State, 230 So.3d 722 (Miss. Ct. App. 2016), reh'g denied, April 25, 2017, cert. denied, Nov. 16, 2017. In affirming Maggett's convictions and sentences, the Mississippi Court of Appeals first addressed the issues raised by appellate counsel, holding that Rule 609(a) of the Mississippi Rules of Evidence (“Miss. R. Evid.”) applies to convictions less than ten (10) years old; therefore, since Christopher Anderson's convictions were more than ten (10) years old and fell under the purview of Rule 609(b), the trial court did not abuse its discretion in its ruling disallowing testimony regarding the prior convictions. Maggett, 230 So.3d at 727.
The appellate court further concluded that the trial court did not commit reversible error in overruling Maggett's motion for severance of parties and severance of counts. “This argument fails because the doctrine of retroactive misjoinder can only apply when one of the counts has been vacated or otherwise found to be invalid, and the appealing defendant was prejudiced by being tried on the supported and unsupported allegations together.” See Williams v. State, 37 So.3d 717, 725-26 (Miss. Ct. App. 2010). This scenario did not occur, as the court affirmed both counts for all of the defendants. Id.
Maggett also claimed that the indictment charging him with capital murder placed him in double jeopardy by not identifying the victim in the underlying felony of kidnapping. The court noted that this objection was not raised before the trial court, and non-jurisdictional defects may not be attacked for the first time on appeal, absent a showing of cause and actual prejudice. Id. at 728. As upholding the jury's verdict would not sanction an unconscionable injustice, the court denied relief on this issue. Id.
The state appellate court also discussed Maggett's claims that the trial court committed reversible error by not allowing him to question co-defendant Christopher Anderson (“Anderson”) with statements made by co-defendant Tresten Chatman (“Chatman”) and vice versa. The appellate court found these claims to be without merit, as witnesses for the State are not party opponents under the hearsay exception in MRE Rule 801(d)(2). Id. at 729.
The appellate court further concluded that the trial court did not commit reversible error in denying Maggett's motion for directed verdict at the close of the State's case in chief and in the denial of Maggett's motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict or motion for new trial. As the court held:
The record reflects that Chatman and Anderson were thoroughly cross-examined on their initial denials and on the inconsistencies between their testimonies at trial. The jury was also properly instructed that it should view the testimony of accomplices with ‘great care and caution,' and it still elected to convict. We cannot find the convictions here to be unsupported by sufficient evidence.
The appellate court then addressed Maggett's challenge to the trial court's refusal to admit certain cellphone records into evidence. While the trial court refused to admit the records because they were not authenticated, Maggett argued that, even if the records are not self-authenticating, they would have been admissible under the “catch all” hearsay exception found in MRE Rule 803(24). Id. at 732. The appellate court found, however, that hearsay exceptions and authentication are separate issues; thus, there was no error in the exclusion of the phone records as unauthenticated. Id.
The appellate court also addressed Maggett's argument that he did not receive a fair trial as the result of prosecutorial misconduct, particularly during the State's closing arguments. However, the Mississippi Court of Appeals found that no objections were made to questions or statements during the closing arguments of the State, and, as such, these issues were waived and barred on appeal. Id.
Finally, the Mississippi Court of Appeals found that Maggett's claim alleging prosecutorial misconduct in allowing co-defendant, Christopher Anderson, to testify “falsely” was wholly without merit as “[t]his contention is based on a purported guilty plea transcript that is not found in the record, and we cannot consider evidence outside the record.” Id. at 733.
On December 13, 2018, Maggett, pro se, filed a “Motion for Leave to Proceed in the Trial Court with a Petition for Post-Conviction Relief” (“Petition for Post-Conviction Relief”) in the Mississippi Supreme Court, Cause No. 2018-M-01727, raising the following issues, repeated here verbatim:
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