Merrill v. Sec'y, Fla. Dep't of Corr.

• Decision Date: 21 January 2020
• Docket Number: Case No. 3:17-cv-1183-J-39JBT
• Parties: WILLIAM CARSON MERRILL, Petitioner, v. SECRETARY, FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, et al., Respondents.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Middle District of Florida

WILLIAM CARSON MERRILL, Petitioner, v. SECRETARY, FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, et al., Respondents.

Case No. 3:17-cv-1183-J-39JBT

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT MIDDLE DISTRICT OF FLORIDA JACKSONVILLE DIVISION

January 21, 2020

ORDER

I. INTRODUCTION

Through a Petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 for Writ of Habeas Corpus by a Person in State Custody (Petition) (Doc. 1), Petitioner, William Carson Merrill, challenges his state court (Flagler County) conviction for manslaughter with a firearm. He is represented by counsel. Petitioner filed a Memorandum of Law in Support of Petition Filed Under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 (Doc. 2). Respondents filed a Response to Petition (Response) (Doc. 5).¹Petitioner, through counsel, filed a Reply to Response to Petition (Doc. 8).

The Petition is timely filed. Response at 1-2. Respondents assert grounds 2, 4, 5, and 6 are unexhausted claims for relief. Id. at 19-21.

II. EVIDENTIARY HEARING

"In a habeas corpus proceeding, the burden is on the petitioner to establish the need for an evidentiary hearing." Jones v. Sec'y, Fla. Dep't of Corr., 834 F.3d 1299, 1318 (11th Cir. 2016) (citations omitted), cert. denied, 137 S. Ct. 2245 (2017). See Chavez v. Sec'y, Fla. Dep't of Corr., 647 F.3d 1057, 1060 (11th Cir. 2011) (opining a petitioner bears the burden of establishing the need for an evidentiary hearing with more than speculative and inconcrete claims of need), cert. denied, 565 U.S. 1120 (2012); Dickson v. Wainwright, 683 F.2d 348, 351 (11th Cir. 1982) (same). A petitioner must make a specific factual proffer or proffer evidence that, if true, would provide entitlement to relief. Jones, 834 F.3d at 1319 (citations omitted). Conclusory allegations will not suffice. Id.

In this case, the pertinent facts are fully developed in this record or the record otherwise precludes habeas relief;² therefore,the Court can "adequately assess [Petitioner's] claim[s] without further factual development," Turner v. Crosby, 339 F.3d 1247, 1275 (11th Cir. 2003), cert. denied, 541 U.S. 1034 (2004). Petitioner has not met his burden as the record refutes the asserted factual allegations or otherwise precludes habeas relief. Thus, the Court finds Petitioner is not entitled to an evidentiary hearing. Schriro v. Landrigan, 550 U.S. 465, 474 (2007).

III. PETITION

Petitioner raises seven grounds in the Petition: (1) the ineffective assistance of counsel for failure to inform Petitioner of all pertinent matters bearing on his choice of whether to enter an open plea to the trial court, resulting in an involuntary plea not entered knowingly or voluntarily, in violation of the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments; (2) the ineffective assistance of counsel for failure to seek recusal of the trial judge, resulting in a violation of the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments; (3) the ineffective assistance of counsel for failure to file a motion to suppress the Petitioner's cell phone and its contents, resulting in a violation of the Fourth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments; (4) the ineffective assistance of counsel for failure to object to several instances of prosecutorial misconduct during the sentencing hearing, resulting in a violation of the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments; (5) the ineffective assistance of counselfor allowing Petitioner to enter into a plea when no factual basis existed, resulting in a violation of the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments; (6) the ineffective assistance of counsel for failure to object to the reading of a statement of the victim's mother during sentencing, resulting in a violation of the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments; and (7) the cumulative effect of trial counsel's errors rendered counsel's assistance ineffective and deprived Petitioner of a fair trial.

IV. STANDARD OF REVIEW

Petitioner seeks habeas relief, claiming to be detained "in violation of the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States." 28 U.S.C. §§ 2241(c)(3). In undertaking its review, this Court must recognize that its authority to award habeas corpus relief to state prisoners "is limited-by both statute and Supreme Court precedent." Knight v. Fla. Dep't of Corr., 936 F.3d 1322, 1330 (11th Cir. 2019). The relevant statute, the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA), governs a state prisoner's federal petition for habeas corpus and limits a federal court's authority to award habeas relief. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254; Shoop v. Hill, 139 S. Ct. 504, 506 (2019) (per curiam) (recognizing AEDPA imposes "important limitations on the power of federal courts to overturn the judgments of state courts in criminal cases").

Applying the statute, federal courts may not grant habeas relief unless one of the claims: "(1)'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) '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)." Nance v. Warden, Ga. Diagnostic Prison, 922 F.3d 1298, 1300-1301 (11th Cir. 2019), petition for cert. filed, (U.S. Dec. 9, 2019) (No. 19-6918). The Eleventh Circuit recently explained,

A decision is "contrary to" clearly established federal law "if the state court arrives at a conclusion opposite to that reached by [the Supreme] Court on a question of law or if the state court decides a case differently than [the Supreme] Court has on a set of materially indistinguishable facts." Williams [v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362 (2000)] at 413, 120 S. Ct. 1495. A state court decision involves an unreasonable application of federal law "if the state court identifies the correct governing legal principle from [the Supreme] Court's decisions but unreasonably applies that principle to the facts of the prisoner's case." Id. To justify issuance of the writ under the "unreasonable application" clause, the state court's application of Supreme Court precedent must be more than just wrong in the eyes of the federal court; it "must be 'objectively unreasonable.'" Virginia v. LeBlanc, --- U.S. ----, 137 S. Ct. 1726, 1728, 198 L.Ed.2d 186 (2017)(quoting Woods v. Donald, --- U.S. ---, 135 S. Ct. 1372, 1376, 191 L.Ed.2d 464 (2015)); see alsoBell v. Cone, 535 U.S. 685, 694, 122 S. Ct. 1843, 152 L.Ed.2d 914 (2002) (explaining that "anunreasonable application is different from an incorrect one.").

Knight, 936 F.3d at 1330-31.

Thus, to obtain habeas relief, the state court decision must unquestionably conflict with Supreme Court precedent, not dicta. Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 102 (2011). If some fair-minded jurists could agree with the lower court's decision, habeas relief must be denied. Meders v. Warden, Ga. Diagnostic Prison, 911 F.3d 1335, 1351 (11th Cir. 2019), cert. denied, 140 S. Ct. 394 (2019). As noted in Richter, unless the petitioner shows the state court's ruling was so lacking in justification that there was error well understood and comprehended in existing law beyond any possibility for fair-minded disagreement, there is no entitlement to habeas relief. Burt v. Titlow, 571 U.S. 12, 19-20 (2013).

A district court is not obliged "to flyspeck the state court order or grade it." Meders, 911 F.3d at 1349. Moreover, even state court rulings for which no rationale or reasoning is provided are entitled to AEDPA deference, "absent a conspicuous misapplication of Supreme Court precedent." Id. at 1350 (citation and quotation marks omitted).

Of importance, a state court's finding of fact, whether a state trial court or appellate court, is entitled to a presumptionof correctness under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(1). But, this presumption of correctness applies only to findings of fact, not mixed determinations of law and fact. Brannan v. GDCP Warden, 541 F. App'x 901, 903-904 (11th Cir. 2013) (per curiam) (recognizing the distinction between a pure question of fact from a mixed question of law and fact), cert. denied, 573 U.S. 906 (2014).

Where there has been one reasoned state court judgment rejecting a federal claim followed by an unexplained order upholding that judgement, federal habeas courts employ a "look through" presumption: "the federal court should 'look through' the unexplained decision to the last related state-court decision that does provide a relevant rationale. It should then presume that the unexplained decision adopted the same reasoning." Wilson v. Sellers, 138 S. Ct. 1188, 1192 (2018) (Wilson).

Supreme Court precedent also limits the federal court's authority to award habeas relief. Unless pierced by one of two narrow exceptions: (1) new rules that are substantive rather than procedural, and (2) watershed rules of criminal procedure implicating the fundamental fairness and accuracy of the criminal proceeding, the rule of nonretroactivity set forth in Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288, 300-301 (1989) (plurality opinion), providing that the federal court cannot disturb a state court conviction based on a constitutional rule announced after a conviction isfinal, is applicable. Knight, 936 F.3d at 1331 (citing Schiro v. Summerlin, 542 U.S. 348, 352-53 (2004)) (quotations and citations omitted). The "threshold Teague analysis" must be conducted if properly raised by the state, and the state prisoner must clear both hurdles, deference mandated by AEDPA and the rule of nonretroactivity, to successfully obtain federal habeas relief. Knight, 936 F.3d at 1331 (citation omitted).

Thus, a state habeas petitioner is faced with two constraints, AEDPA's generally formidable barrier to habeas relief except in specified circumstances, and the general principle of nonretroactivity limiting the disturbance of a state conviction based on a constitutional rule announced after a conviction became final except in two narrow exceptions. Even if the petitioner satisfies the hurdle demanded by Supreme Court precedent, state-court judgments will not easily be set aside due to the applicability of the highly deferential AEDPA standard that is intentionally...