Martinez v. Coyne-Fague

• Jurisdiction: United States,Federal
• Parties: Gerardo E. MARTINEZ, Petitioner, v. Patricia A. COYNE-FAGUE, Respondent.
• Citation: 646 F.Supp.3d 345
• Decision Date: 13 December 2022
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Rhode Island
• Docket Number: 1:21-cv-00191-JJM-PAS

646 F.Supp.3d 345

Gerardo E. MARTINEZ, Petitioner, v. Patricia A. COYNE-FAGUE, Respondent.

No. 1:21-cv-00191-JJM-PAS

United States District Court, D. Rhode Island

Signed December 13, 2022

Camille A. McKenna, Rhode Island Public Defender, Providence, RI, for Petitioner.

Virginia M. McGinn, Attorney General's Office, Providence, RI, for Respondent.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

JOHN J. MCCONNELL, JR., Chief United States District Judge.

Before the Court is Respondent Patricia A. Coyne-Fague's ("State") Motion to Dismiss (ECF No. 5) Gerardo E. Martinez's Petition for a Writ of Habeas Corpus (ECF No. 1). In his Petition, Mr. Martinez asserts that he was deprived of his right to effective assistance of counsel in violation of the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. ECF No. 1 at 17.¹ The State argues that Mr. Martinez's Petition should be dismissed because he cannot meet his burden to show that the state court's decision was "contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of clearly established Federal law." ECF No. 5 at 3, 6 (citing 28 U.S.C. § 2254 (d)(1)).

I. BACKGROUND

In 2007, a jury convicted Mr. Martinez of the first-degree murder of his girlfriend, Lindsay Burke, and driving a motor vehicle without consent of the owner. ECF No. 5-3 at 1.² The jury further found that the murder had been committed with both aggravated battery and torture of the victim. Id. at 2.³ Mr. Martinez moved for a new trial, which the court denied. ECF No. 1-2 ¶ 10. After a hearing during which Mr. Martinez's attorney ("trial counsel") presented mitigation evidence from Ronald M. Stewart, M.D., the trial justice sentenced Mr. Martinez to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. ECF No. 5-3 at 2. The Rhode Island Supreme Court ("RISC") affirmed the conviction and sentence. State v. Martinez, 59 A.3d 73, 95 (R.I. 2013).⁴ Mr. Martinez did not seek further review. ECF No. 1 at 3.

Mr. Martinez then applied for post-conviction relief in the trial court, alleging ineffective assistance of trial counsel. ECF No. 5-3 at 1; see also ECF No. 1-2 at 7. After hearing, the Rhode Island Superior Court denied his application. ECF No. 5-3 at 29. Mr. Martinez filed a petition for certiorari to review the post-conviction court's denial of relief, which the RISC denied in a brief order. ECF No. 6-4.

Mr. Martinez timely filed this habeas Petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1). ECF No. 1.⁵ The State now moves to dismiss the Petition, arguing that Mr. Martinez has failed to state a claim upon which he would be entitled to relief. ECF No. 5 at 3.

II. STANDARD OF REVIEW

Habeas Standard

The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 ("AEDPA") limits this Court's review of state convictions and sentences. Carpio v. Wall, 269 F. Supp. 3d 4, 6 (D.R.I. 2017). Thus, habeas corpus relief serves as a " 'guard against extreme malfunctions in the state criminal justice systems' not a substitute for ordinary error correction through appeal." Id. (quoting Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 102-03, 131 S.Ct. 770, 178 L.Ed.2d 624 (2011).

When a state court has adjudicated a claim on the merits, a federal court may grant habeas corpus relief only if the state court's 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]n unreasonable application of federal law is distinguished from an incorrect application of federal law." Carpio, 269 F. Supp. 3d at 9 (quoting Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 410, 120 S.Ct. 1495, 146 L.Ed.2d 389 (2000)) (alteration in original). An incorrect application is "contrary to clearly established law if the state court applies a rule that contradicts the governing law set forth by the Supreme Court or confronts a set of facts that are materially indistinguishable from a decision of [the Supreme Court] and nevertheless arrives at a result different from [its] precedent." Hensley v. Roden, 755 F.3d 724, 731 (1st Cir. 2014) (alterations in original) (internal quotation marks omitted). An unreasonable application occurs "if the state court identifies the correct governing legal principle from the Supreme Court's then-current decisions but unreasonably applies that principle to the facts of the prisoner's case." Id. Pursuant to § 2254(d), "a habeas court must determine what arguments or theories supported . . . the state court's decision; and then it must ask whether it is possible fairminded jurists could disagree that those arguments or theories are inconsistent with the holding in a prior decision of the [U.S. Supreme] Court." DeCiantis v. Wall, 868 F. Supp. 2d 1, 5 (D.R.I. 2012) (alterations in original), aff'd, 722 F.3d 41 (1st Cir. 2013); see also Norton v. Spencer, 351 F.3d 1, 8 (1st Cir. 2003) ("If it is a close question whether the state decision is in error, then the state decision cannot be an unreasonable application." (quoting McCambridge v. Hall, 303 F.3d 24, 36 (1st Cir. 2002))). "The upshot of the AEDPA habeas regime is that 'when the last state court to decide a prisoner's federal claim explains its decision on the merits in a reasoned opinion . . . a federal habeas court simply reviews the specific reasons given by the state court and defers to those reasons if they are reasonable.' " Porter v. Coyne-Fague, 35 F.4th 68, 75 (1st Cir. 2022) (quoting Wilson v. Sellers, — U.S. —, 138 S. Ct. 1188, 1192, 200 L.Ed.2d 530 (2018)).⁶ " '[E]valuating whether a rule application was unreasonable requires considering the rule's specificity,' such that '[t]he more general the rule, the more leeway courts have in reaching outcomes in case-by-case determinations.' " Porter, 35 F.4th at 75 (quoting Yarborough v. Alvarado, 541 U.S. 652, 664, 124 S.Ct. 2140, 158 L.Ed.2d 938 (2004)) (second alteration in original). However, "[t]he Supreme Court has recognized that even a general standard may be applied in an unreasonable manner." Bebo v. Medeiros, 906 F.3d 129, 134 (1st Cir. 2018) (internal quotation marks omitted).

The second scenario justifying habeas relief is if the state court adjudication led to "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)(2). Though this means that a federal court will be taking a closer look at a state court's findings of fact, the fundamental principle of deference to those findings still applies.

Hensley, 755 F.3d at 731. "Factual determinations by state courts are presumed correct absent clear and convincing evidence to the contrary, § 2254(e)(1), and a decision adjudicated on the merits in a state court and based on a factual determination will not be overturned on factual grounds unless objectively unreasonable in light of the evidence presented in the state-court proceedings, § 2254(d)(2)." Miller-El v. Cockrell, 537 U.S. 322, 340, 123 S.Ct. 1029, 154 L.Ed.2d 931 (2003).⁷ "This demanding showing cannot be made when '[r]easonable minds reviewing the record might disagree' about the finding in question." Porter, 35 F.4th at 75 (quoting Brumfield v. Cain, 576 U.S. 305, 314, 135 S.Ct. 2269, 192 L.Ed.2d 356 (2015)). "That said, '[e]ven in the context of federal habeas, deference does not imply abandonment or abdication of judicial review.' " Porter, 35 F.4th at 75 (quoting Brumfield, 576 U.S. at 314, 135 S.Ct. 2269 (alteration in original).

Ineffective Assistance of Counsel Standard

The standard for analyzing a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel stems from Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984), which provides a two-pronged test for evaluating such claims. Kholi v. Wall, CA No. 14-307-JJM-LDA, 2015 WL 567148 at *4 (D.R.I. Feb. 10, 2015). Under the "performance prong" of the Strickland test, Mr. Martinez must show his counsel "made errors so serious that counsel was not functioning as the 'counsel' guaranteed the defendant by the Sixth Amendment." Strickland, 466 U.S. at 687, 104 S.Ct. 2052. Under the "prejudice prong," Mr. Martinez must show that "the deficient performance prejudiced the defense." Id. "The benchmark for judging any claim of ineffectiveness must be whether counsel's conduct so undermined the proper functioning of the adversarial process that the trial cannot be relied on as having produced a just result." Id. at 686, 104 S.Ct. 2052.

When evaluating ineffective assistance of counsel claims, the RISC employs a standard "identical to the one set forth by the Supreme Court of the United States in Strickland v. Washington." Tassone v. State, 42 A.3d 1277, 1284 (R.I. 2012) (internal citation omitted); see also Brown v. Moran, 534 A.2d 180, 182 (R.I. 1987) (summarizing Strickland standard); ECF No. 5-3 at 18 (citing Brown, 534 A.2d at 182).

III. DISCUSSION

In the state post-conviction proceeding, Mr. Martinez raised the same claims he presents in this Court: That he received ineffective assistance of counsel because trial counsel 1) failed to obtain qualified experts to testify for the defense at trial, 2) failed to pursue a diminished-capacity defense, and 3) failed to present a defense for the jury to consider. ECF No. 5-3 at 3; ECF No. 1-2, App. F at 8, 13.⁸ As the post-conviction hearing justice stated, "[c]entral to these overlapping claims is one issue: Whether trial counsel was ineffective by deciding to forego a defense of diminished capacity." ECF No. 5-3 at 4; see also id. ("The gravamen of Petitioner's argument is that his trial counsel should have presented such a defense because it would have negated the requisite intent for first-degree murder. [Trial counsel's] decision not to do so, according to Petitioner, resulted in Petitioner's first-degree murder conviction."); ECF...