Matthews v. Rakiey
| Decision Date | 09 February 1995 |
| Docket Number | No. 94-2017,MCI-W,94-2017 |
| Citation | 54 F.3d 908 |
| Parties | Lloyd MATTHEWS, Plaintiff, Appellee, v. Paul RAKIEY, et al., Superintendent atalpole, Defendant, Appellant. . Heard |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit |
Linda Nutting Murphy, Asst. Atty. Gen., with whom Scott Harshbarger, Atty. Gen., Boston, MA, was on brief, for appellant.
Stephen Hrones, Boston, MA, orally, Lloyd Matthews, on brief pro se for appellee.
Before SELYA, Circuit Judge, BOWNES, Senior Circuit Judge, and STAHL, Circuit Judge.
Petitioner Lloyd Matthews was convicted in August 1987 in a Massachusetts trial court of rape, assault in a dwelling with intent to commit a felony, and indecent assault and battery. After exhausting his remedies in the state courts, Matthews sought a writ of habeas corpus in the district court pursuant to 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2254, claiming that he was denied his Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel. After referring the matter to a magistrate-judge for a report and recommendation, the district court granted the petition, and this appeal followed. For the reasons discussed below, we reverse.
A. Pretrial Events
On May 15, 1986, Brenda Barbosa, who was fourteen years old at the time, reported to Boston police that she had been attacked in her bedroom by a man with a knife earlier that morning. Later that same day, after viewing several hundred photographs in police identification books, Barbosa identified Matthews, who wears his hair in a distinctive "dreadlocks" style and was so depicted in the photograph, as the man who had attacked her. The police obtained an arrest warrant but, although they knew Matthews's address, made no immediate attempt to question him about the incident or take him into custody. Matthews was eventually arrested on May 28, 1986, when a patrolling officer who had stopped to question Matthews on the street about unrelated conduct discovered the outstanding warrant.
The incident report filed by the Boston police officer who first responded to Barbosa's call (the "incident report") contains no mention of a sexual assault. The officer's account of his interview with Barbosa, conducted within two hours of the incident, is as follows:
[T]he victim ... stated while she was sleeping the suspect entered the victim's bedroom and jumped on top of her. The victim stated the suspect had a kitchen knife and told her, "Be quiet, I don't want nothing from you, you won't get hurt." The victim further stated the suspect then pulled the victim from her bed and ordered the victim to stand in a corner then the The incident report includes a description of the alleged assailant as a black male, 5'10", black hair and brown eyes, wearing a black hat, brown leather jacket and black pants. It does not indicate whether Barbosa mentioned to the officer that her attacker had dreadlocks.
suspect ordered the victim to stand against a wall. The victim then stated the suspect started looking through the rooms on all three floors. The victim further stated the suspect then told the victim to close the door behind him when he left and not to tell anyone about him. The victim stated she complied and the suspect fled on foot to a yellow m/v then fled in an unknown direction.
Matthews was initially charged with armed assault in a dwelling with intent to commit a felony, and with breaking and entering. A probable cause hearing was conducted in Roxbury District Court on August 4, 1986. There is no transcript of the hearing in the record. Although the breaking and entering charge was dropped following the hearing, Matthews was bound over on the armed assault charge. Subsequently, grand jury proceedings were initiated on that charge as well as two new charges apparently based on Barbosa's testimony at the probable cause hearing: rape of a child with force, and indecent assault and battery on a person under 14. At the grand jury proceeding, Boston Police Detective William Ingersoll--who oversaw the photo identification procedure in which Barbosa picked out Matthews--testified as follows:
A. ... At the probable cause hearing in the Roxbury Court I was not present ... and I received a message following that hearing from the District Attorney who stated to me that during the probable cause hearing the victim--who was afraid to tell her mother and the police--that at the time during this breaking and entering and assault, the defendant did assault this young girl, again, 14 years of age.
Q. In what manner?
A. I believe it was placing the fingers to her vagina, more or less just the fingers. She did not go to the hospital to be examined. Again, she is a young Spanish girl and was ashamed even to tell the mother.
There was no complaints at that time for rape in the Roxbury District Court against him. I was unaware of this fact.
Barbosa also testified before the grand jury. Certain aspects of her account of the May 15 events were not entirely consistent with the second-hand version contained in the incident report:
A. Well, I was sleeping and I heard the bedroom door, and when I looked up I seen this man and he jumped on top of me and put me against the wall....
...
Q. Did he take anything?
A. The only thing I found missing was my leather coat, and stuff was in the first floor.
Q. Do you know whether he took that coat?
A. I don't really know, but he must have took it because I couldn't find it; I looked for it; I asked my sister if she let someone use it; she said, no.
...
Q. Now, when this man jumped on you, did he touch you in any way?
A. Yes.
Q. And what part of your body did he touch?
A. He touched me, all parts.
Q. You[r] chest and your vaginal area?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Did he put his fingers into your vagina at some time?
A. Yes.
Q. When the police came that day, did you tell the police that day?
On August 17, 1987, Matthews was brought to trial on the rape, armed assault and indecent assault charges. The prosecution called two witnesses, Barbosa and Ingersoll,
with Matthews as the only defense witness. Because we must evaluate the alleged constitutional deficiencies of counsel's performance in light of his "overall performance throughout the case," Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 689, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 2065, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984), we provide an extensive summary of the trial record.
In his opening statement, the prosecutor told the jury that immediately after Barbosa's attacker left her apartment, Barbosa ran next door "and told her sister-in-law what had happened." Despite strong evidence that Barbosa never told anyone that she had been sexually assaulted or raped until she testified at Matthews's probable cause hearing, 81 days after the incident, Matthews's trial counsel, Kenneth D'Arcy, did not challenge the prosecutor's assertions. D'Arcy made clear from the outset that instead of challenging Barbosa's allegations, he would try to show that she had mistakenly picked Matthews out of the police photograph books because of his distinctive "dreadlocks" hairstyle. D'Arcy told the jury that
Barbosa, who had reached sixteen years of age by the time of the trial, testified on direct examination that she was asleep in her bed about 8:30 a.m. on May 15, 1986, when she was awakened by a man entering her room. When she looked up, she saw the man had a knife. The man got on top of her, put the knife to her throat and told her to be quiet or he would kill her. The man touched Barbosa's breasts and put his finger inside Barbosa's vagina. Then, the man pulled Barbosa off the bed and placed her against a wall, telling her to stay there while he walked through other rooms of the house. Barbosa said he took her leather coat, although she did not say whether she saw him carry the coat away. Barbosa identified Matthews as the man who attacked her. The following exchange then ensued:
Q. You went to your sister-in-law's; did you tell her what happened?
A. Yes.
Q. Did you call the police?
A. Yes, I did.
Q. You reported this to the police, didn't you?
A. Yes.
Q. Now, at some point during the day did you have an opportunity to meet with Detective Ingersoll of the Boston Police?
A. Yes, I did.
Q. Did you go over what happened with him? Did you tell him about that?
A. Yes, I did.
Barbosa then testified as to how she picked Matthews's photograph out of the police books. She said that she got a good look at her attacker's face; that her attacker had long hair pinned up under a gray beret-like hat; and that she had described the man to police as being about five-foot-eleven with dreadlocks and a hat. Barbosa also testified that a few days after the attack, the same man came to her door and rang the doorbell. She said that she "went crazy, and ... started crying, and he just left."
In his cross-examination, D'Arcy quickly began his attempt to show that Barbosa had immediately zeroed in on the fact that the assailant had dreadlocks:
Q. This man came in, and what's the first thing you remember about his physical appearance when you saw him in your bedroom?
A. I don't really understand what you mean.
Q. What was the first physical characteristic that you saw in this man when you saw him in the bedroom and he woke you up and you were afraid; what's the first thing you recognized about him?
A. The knife.
Q. And then what about a physical characteristic? After you saw the knife, and you saw this man with the knife, what physical characteristic did you remember?
A. I still don't understand what you mean.
Q. When you describe people--
A. Yes.
Q. --you...
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