McFadden v. Graham
| Decision Date | 25 August 2019 |
| Docket Number | No. 1:18-cv-00865-MAT,1:18-cv-00865-MAT |
| Parties | RONEL MCFADDEN, Petitioner, v. HAROLD D. GRAHAM, Respondent. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Western District of New York |
Proceeding pro se, Ronel McFadden ("McFadden" or "Petitioner") commenced this habeas corpus action pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254 challenging the constitutionality of his detention in Respondent's custody. McFadden is incarcerated pursuant to a judgment entered on March 7, 2013, in New York State, Monroe County Court (Piampiano, J.), following a jury verdict convicting him of one count of Rape in the First Degree (New York Penal Law ("P.L.") § 130.35(1)) and two counts of Criminal Sexual Act in the First Degree (P.L. § 130.50 (1)).
The conviction here at issue stems from unlawful sexual conduct against an adult female ("the victim") which allegedly occurred on or about May 3, 2006, at the victim's home in Rochester, New York. On September 13, 2006, the Monroe County District Attorney's Office received DNA information connecting McFadden to the alleged crime. However, he was not arrested and incarcerated until June 6, 2012, almost six years later. An indictment was returned on June 15, 2012, charging McFadden with one count of Rape in the First Degree (P.L. § 130.35(1)) and two counts of Criminal Sexual Act in the First Degree (P.L. § 130.50(1)).
Trial counsel filed a motion to dismiss the indictment on the ground that pre-indictment delay had resulted in a violation of due process. Monroe County Court Judge James J. Piampiano ("the trial court") ordered a hearing pursuant to People v. Singer, 44 N.Y.2d 241 (1978), to determine "whether the nearly six year delay in arresting and indicting [McFadden] was unreasonable and a violation of [his] due process rights, or whether it was a determination made in good faith to defer commencement of the prosecution for sufficient reasons." SR.80-83.1
At the Singer hearing, the prosecution called Assistant District Attorney Caroline Edwards-Morrison ("ADA Morrison"), who had been assigned to this matter. In reviewing the file, ADA Morrison found a letter dated September 13, 2006, from the Monroe County Public Safety Laboratory indicating a match between the DNA obtained from the victim's rape kit and the DNA sample from McFadden in the CODIS DNA database. These DNA results led to thedismissal of a prosecution against D.F., another individual who had previously been indicted for the crime.
However, ADA Morrison did not take steps to prosecute McFadden immediately, citing a very large case load and the need to prioritize indicted cases, those requiring immediate grand jury action or those, unlike McFadden's that were subject to a statute of limitations. She did not contact the victim until March 2011, scheduling an appointment with her in June 2011. However, the victim failed to attend this meeting. ADA Morrison's subsequent attempts to contact her were unsuccessful.
Trial counsel called the victim as a witness. She testified that the Monroe County District Attorney's Office had informed her in 2006 that the case against D.F. was being dismissed. It was not until March 2011, that she learned of the DNA match between her assailant and McFadden. She made the appointment to meet with ADA Morrison in June 2011, but did not keep the appointment because of some other things that were going on in her life. She contacted the District Attorney's office again in April of 2012.
McFadden also testified at the hearing. He stated that he lived in Monroe County continuously since 2006. He was arrested "a few" times during that period and was on probation in 2012, when investigators approached him in connection with this matter.
Following post-hearing briefing, the trial court denied the motion to dismiss. See SR.90-97. After making factual findings, thetrial court analyzed the pre-indictment delay pursuant to the five-factor test set forth in People v. Taranovich, 37 N.Y.2d 442 (1975), considering (1) the extent of delay, (2) the reason for delay, (3) the nature of underlying charges, (4) the extent of any pretrial incarceration, and (5) whether or not the defense had been impaired by delay. The trial court concluded that the third, fourth, and fifth factors weighed against dismissal because the charges were indisputably serious, McFadden had not been incarcerated until his arrest in June 2012, and McFadden had failed to establish any impairment of the defense. SR.95-96. With respect to the first two factors, the trial court determined that the reason for the delay—the District Attorney's Office's "practical, case-handling order of priority"—constituted good cause for the delay between 2006 and 2012. SR.96-97. Accordingly, the trial court denied McFadden's motion to dismiss the indictment.
At trial, the victim testified that on May 2, 2006, she worked until approximately 8:00 p.m. She then returned home to her two-bedroom, second-story apartment, where she lived alone with her infant son. T.365, 377-79. After putting her son to bed, the victim folded laundry and watched television in the living room until falling asleep with the lights and television on. T.379-80. Sheawoke sometime later when she "felt like there was another presence . . . watching [her]" in the room. T.380.2
Upon opening her eyes, she observed that the lights and television were off and a man was kneeling by her feet. T.380. She described the man as an five-foot-seven African-American male with big lips, wearing a black hooded sweatshirt with the hood up. T.401. The victim asked the man who he was and attempted to get up and pull his hood back; he shushed her and told her everything was going to be okay. T.381. He then pushed her back onto the couch and ripped her pants down to her knees. T.381. After unsuccessfully trying to insert his penis into her vagina, the man pulled her pants down further, ripping her underwear. T.382. He got back on top of the victim and inserted his penis into her vagina, keeping his right forearm across her "neck and the top part of [her] chest." T.382-83. The victim could see what appeared to be a steak knife in the assailant's right hand. T.384-85. While he was raping her, the man stated, "I've wanted this since we were ten years old." T.384. The man also told the victim he would kill her son if she screamed or cried. T.384.
The victim asked the man to stop but did not fight back out of fear that he would kill her son. T.384-85. She turned her face to the left and looked out the window because she "didn't want to lookin his face." T.384. Eventually, the attacker removed his penis from her vagina and performed oral sex on her while inserting his finger into her anus. T.385-86. He then reinserted his penis into the victim's vagina but took it out and "stood in front of [her] with his penis in [her] face and told [her] to kiss it." T.386. The victim complied, and as she did, the man shoved his penis down her throat. T.386. After he removed his penis from her mouth, he announced that he wanted "to see [the victim] smile." T.387. The victim faked a smile and the rapist instructed her to put a blanket over her head and count to 100. T.387. The victim started counting but stopped at 50 and removed the blanket, thinking the man had left. T.387. He punched her in the left side of the forehead with a closed fist, stating, "[N]ow, bitch, count to 200." T.387-88. The victim complied and waited a few minutes before taking the blanket off. After seeing that the man was now out of her apartment, the victim grabbed a knife from the kitchen. She then gathered up her infant son from his bedroom and ran down the street to her grandmother's house to call the police. T.388-89, 392.
The police responded to the 911 call at approximately 12:55 a.m. on May 3, 2006. T.355-57, 465, 474. The officers met with the victim for approximately one hour before going to the hospital. T.466-68. After she was brought to the hospital, the victim underwent a sexual assault forensic examination. T.394-95, 443-45.
Initially, the victim told police she did not know the identity of her attacker. T.396. However, after thinking about what the rapist had said about "want[ing] this since he was ten years-old," the victim gave police the name of a potential suspect. She testified that she knew three African-American males when she was ten years-old, but one was more light-skinned than her assailant and another had been shot a couple of months before the attack. The victim accordingly provided the name of the third man, D.F., through a "process of elimination." T.396-97. The victim later testified before the grand jury that she was certain that D.F. was the rapist based on his voice and because she had faith in the police investigation. T.398-99, 415-16. D.F. was indicted for the rape, but the indictment was dismissed in September 2006, after DNA testing of the sperm recovered from the victim's vagina excluded D.F. as a suspect. T.405-06; 560-62. That DNA sample was uploaded into a database allowing investigators to obtain an "investigational lead."3 T.287-88; 562.
McFadden was not arrested for this crime until June 6, 2012, when he volunteered to accompany an investigator from the District Attorney's Office to the Public Safety Building for an interview. T.490-91. After waiving his rights, McFadden gave a recorded interview in which he denied knowing thevictim, being in her house, or committing the crimes. McFadden also consented to give a buccal swab of his DNA. T.506.
DNA testing of McFadden's buccal swab yielded a positive match with the sperm sample recovered from inside the victim's vagina such that the odds of selecting an unrelated individual with the same DNA profile would be less than one in 36.6 quintillion. T.562, 571. A quintillion is a one followed by 18 zeros; 36.6 quintillion is approximately 5 billion times the...
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