Midyette v. Raemisch

• Decision Date: 26 April 2018
• Docket Number: Civil Action No. 16-cv-01083-CMA
• Parties: MOLLY MIDYETTE, Applicant, v. RICK RAEMISCH, Executive Director, Colorado Department of Corrections, and CYNTHIA COFFMAN, Attorney General, State of Colorado, Respondents.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Colorado

MOLLY MIDYETTE, Applicant, v. RICK RAEMISCH, Executive Director,

Colorado Department of Corrections, and

CYNTHIA COFFMAN, Attorney General, State of Colorado, Respondents.

Civil Action No. 16-cv-01083-CMA

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLORADO

April 26, 2018

District Judge Christine M. Arguello

ORDER DENYING PETITION FOR HABEAS CORPUS

The matter before the Court is an Application for a Writ of Habeas Corpus Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254 filed by Applicant through counsel. (Doc. # 1.) The Court has determined it can resolve the Application without a hearing. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(2); Fed. R. Governing Section 2254 Cases 8(a).

I. BACKGROUND

Applicant was convicted of three counts of child abuse resulting in death. See (Doc. # 9-2) (People of the State of Colo. v. Midyette, No. 11CA2441, 3 (Colo. App. May 15, 2014.) In the Colorado Court of Appeals' denial of Applicant's Colorado Rule of Criminal Procedure 35(c) postconviction motion, the Colorado Court of Appeals summarized the underlying facts of the criminal case as follows:

Defendant and her husband brought their infant son to the hospital with seizure-like behavior, gray coloring, and a hardening soft spot on his head. The child died one week later after having been taken off of life support. The medical providers suspected child abuse and contacted the Boulder County Department of Social Services. While defendant and her husband were still at the hospital, a social worker told them that a dependency and neglect case would be filed.

After the coroner ruled the cause of death to be a brain injury from nonaccidental trauma, a grand jury indicted defendant and her husband for felony child abuse resulting in death. The indictment was returned fourteen months after the child had died. Defendant was charged only on the theory that although her husband had harmed the child, she was responsible because she had seen obvious indicators of abuse but had failed to remove the infant from the abusive situation or otherwise protect him.

Defendant and her husband were tried separately, with defendant's trial taking place first. A jury convicted her on three counts of child abuse resulting in death.

(Doc. # 9-2 at 2-3.)

On May 16, 2016, Magistrate Judge Gordon P. Gallagher directed Respondents to file a Pre-Answer Response and to address the affirmative defenses of timeliness under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d), and exhaustion of state court remedies under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b)(1)(A), if Respondents intended to raise either or both in this action. (Doc. # 3.) Respondents filed a Pre-Answer Response on July 5, 2016. (Doc. # 9.) Applicant did not reply to the Response. The Court reviewed the Pre-Answer Response and filed an Order to Dismiss in Part and for Answer on December 13, 2016. (Doc. # 14.) In the December 13 Order, the Court determined that two of Applicant's four claims, Claims One and Four, were procedurally defaulted and barred from federal habeas review. (Id. at 7.)

Respondents were directed to file an answer in compliance with Rule 5 of the Rules Governing Section 2254 Cases that fully addresses the merits of Claims Two and Three, (id.), which they did on February 9, 2017 (Doc. # 19). Applicant was granted twoextensions of time to reply. (Doc. ## 21, 23.) Applicant filed a Reply on May 11, 2017. (Doc. # 24.) After reviewing the Application, the Answer, the Reply, and the state court record, the Court concludes that the Application should be denied and the case dismissed with prejudice for the following reasons.

II. HABEAS CLAIMS

The remaining claims for review on the merits, Claims Two and Three, are as follows:

(2) Trial counsel, Mr. Truman, had insufficient time to prepare and failed to i.) object to experts' testimonies; ii) distinguish between medical and legal child abuse; and iii.) object to a statement made by the prosecution during closing; and

(3) Co-counsel failed to state the theory of defense during opening statement and stated family and friends would be called at trial to testify on Applicant's behalf, which was not done, and Mr. Truman did not present a theory of defense until closing argument, at which time he called Applicant a liar.

(Doc. # 14 at 2.)

III. LEGAL STANDARDS

Section 2254(d) provides that a writ of habeas corpus may not be issued with respect to any claim that was adjudicated on the merits in state court, unless the state court adjudication:

(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).

The Court reviews claims of legal error and mixed questions of law and fact pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1). See Cook v. McKune, 323 F.3d 825, 830 (10th Cir.2003). The threshold question pursuant to § 2254(d)(1) is whether Applicant seeks to apply a rule of law that was clearly established by the Supreme Court at the time her conviction became final. See Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 390 (2000). The "review under § 2254(d)(1) is limited to the record that was before the state court that adjudicated the prisoner's claim on the merits." Cullen v. Pinholster, 563 U.S.170, 181 (2011). "Finality occurs when direct state appeals have been exhausted and a petition for writ of certiorari from this Court has become time barred or has been disposed of." Greene v. Fisher, 565 U.S. 34, 39 (2011) (citing Griffith v. Kentucky, 479 U.S. 314, 321 n.6 (1987)).

Clearly established federal law "refers to the holdings, as opposed to the dicta, of [the Supreme] Court's decisions as of the time of the relevant state-court decision." Williams, 529 U.S. at 412. Furthermore,

clearly established law consists of Supreme Court holdings in cases where the facts are at least closely-related or similar to the case sub judice. Although the legal rule at issue need not have had its genesis in the closely-related or similar factual context, the Supreme Court must have expressly extended the legal rule to that context.

House v. Hatch, 527 F.3d 1010, 1016 (10th Cir. 2008).

If there is no clearly established federal law, that is the end of the Court's inquiry pursuant to § 2254(d)(1). See id. at 1018. If a clearly established rule of federal law is implicated, the Court must determine whether the state court's decision was contrary to or an unreasonable application of that clearly established rule of federal law. See Williams, 529 U.S. at 404-05.

A state-court decision is contrary to clearly established federal law if: (a) "the state court applies a rule that contradicts the governing law set forth in Supreme Court cases"; or (b) "the state court confronts a set of facts that are materially indistinguishable from a decision of the Supreme Court andnevertheless arrives at a result different from [that] precedent." Maynard [v. Boone], 468 F.3d [665,] 669 [(10th Cir. 2006)] (internal quotation marks and brackets omitted) (quoting Williams, 529 U.S. at 405). "The word 'contrary' is commonly understood to mean 'diametrically different,' 'opposite in character or nature,' or 'mutually opposed.' " Williams, 529 U.S. at 405 (citation omitted).

A state court decision involves an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law when it identifies the correct governing legal rule from Supreme Court cases, but unreasonably applies it to the facts. Id. at 407-08. Additionally, we have recognized that an unreasonable application may occur if the state court either unreasonably extends, or unreasonably refuses to extend, a legal principle from Supreme Court precedent to a new context where it should apply. Carter [v. Ward], 347 F3d. [860,] 864 [10th Cir. 2003] (quoting Valdez [v. Ward, 219 F.3d [1222] 1229-30 [10th Cir. 2000]).

House, 527 F.3d at 1018.

The Court's inquiry pursuant to the "unreasonable application" clause is an objective one. See Williams, 529 U.S. at 409-10. "[A] federal habeas court may not issue the writ simply because that court concludes in its independent judgment that the relevant state-court decision applied clearly established federal law erroneously or incorrectly. Rather that application must also be unreasonable." Id. at 411. "[A] decision is 'objectively unreasonable' when most reasonable jurists exercising their independent judgment would conclude the state court misapplied Supreme Court law." Maynard, 468 F.3d at 671. In addition,

evaluating whether a rule application was unreasonable requires considering the rule's specificity. The more general the rule, the more leeway courts have in reaching outcomes in case-by-case determinations. [I]t is not an unreasonable application of clearly established Federal law for a state court to decline to apply a specific legal rule that has not been squarely established by [the Supreme] Court.

Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 101 (2011) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). The Court "must determine what arguments or theories supported or . . . couldhave supported[ ] the state court's decision" and then "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 Supreme] Court." Id. at 102. "[E]ven a strong case for relief does not mean the state court's contrary conclusion was unreasonable." Id. (citation omitted). "Section 2254(d) reflects the view that habeas corpus is a guard against extreme malfunctions in the state criminal justice systems, not a substitute for ordinary error correction through appeal." Id. at 102-03 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).

Under this standard, "only the most serious misapplications of Supreme Court precedent will be a basis for relief under § 2254." Maynard, 468 F.3d at 671. Furthermore,

[a]s a condition for obtaining habeas corpus relief from a federal court, a

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