Milam v. Director
| Decision Date | 16 August 2017 |
| Docket Number | CIVIL ACTION NO. 4:13-CV-545 |
| Parties | BLAINE KEITH MILAM, #999558, Petitioner, v. DIRECTOR, TDCJ-CID, Respondent. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Texas |
BLAINE KEITH MILAM, #999558, Petitioner,
v.
DIRECTOR, TDCJ-CID, Respondent.
CIVIL ACTION NO. 4:13-CV-545
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS SHERMAN DIVISION
August 16, 2017
JUDGE RON CLARK
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER OF DISMISSAL
Petitioner Blaine Keith Milam, a death row inmate confined in the Texas prison system, filed the above-styled and numbered petition for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254. He is challenging his capital murder conviction and death sentence imposed by the 4th Judicial District Court of Rusk County, Texas, in Cause Number CR09-066, in a case styled the State of Texas v. Blaine Keith Milam. The court finds that Mr. Milam's petition should be denied.1
On May 27, 2010, Mr. Milam was convicted of the capital murder of thirteen-month-old Amora Bain Carson, in violation of Tex. Penal Code § 19.03(a)(8). The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ("TCCA") affirmed the conviction and death sentence. Milam v. State, No. AP-76379, 2012 WL
Page 2
1868458 (Tex. Crim. App. May 23, 2012) (unpublished). The mandate was issued on June 19, 2012. He did not file a petition for a writ of certiorari.
Mr. Milam filed an application for a writ of habeas corpus in State court on May 21, 2012. On March 18, 2013, the trial court adopted the State's proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law. A recommendation was made to deny relief. The TCCA subsequently denied relief based on the trial court's findings and conclusions and on its own review. Ex parte Milam, No. WR-79322-01, 2013 WL 4856200, at *1 (Tex. Crim. App. Sept. 11, 2013) (unpublished).
Mr. Milam began the present proceedings on September 20, 2013. He filed a skeletal petition on September 10, 2014. The final petition (Dkt. #14) was filed on October 9, 2014. The Director filed an answer (Dkt. #22) on March 9, 2015. Mr. Milam did not file a reply.
The opinion of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals summarized the factual background of the case as follows:
A. The State's Guilt-Stage Evidence.
At 10:37 a.m. on December 2, 2008, [Mr. Milam] called 911, and the first thing he said was, "My name is Blaine Milam, and my daughter, I just found her dead." Rusk County Patrol Sergeant Kevin Roy arrived at [Mr. Milam's] trailer home outside Tatum twenty minutes later. Two ambulances were already there. EMTs were standing in the doorway of the master bedroom, where [Mr. Milam] and Jesseca Carson were kneeling on the floor. Sgt. Roy saw "an infant laying on the floor not moving, not breathing, bruised. The baby was laying on its back, and the face of the baby was just one large bruise." He thought that the circular bruises he saw on the child's body were caused by a Coke can. He did not recognize them as human bite marks.
After lead investigator Sergeant Amber Rogers arrived, Sgt. Roy took [Mr. Milam] aside to talk while Sgt. Rogers talked to Jesseca. [Mr. Milam] told Sgt. Roy that he and Jesseca had left Amora alone in the trailer and walked up the road to meet a man named Clark who was going to clear some land for him. They were gone about an hour, and, when they came back, they found "the baby in that condition." [Mr. Milam] was calm, collected, and cooperative. After the interviews, Sgt. Roy read the pair their Miranda rights. He told them that, when the crime-scene investigation was done, they would be taken to the Sheriff's office for more questioning and collection of their clothes.
Page 3
Shortly thereafter, Kenny Ray, a Texas Ranger, arrived and noticed Jesseca and [Mr. Milam] embracing. To Ranger Ray, the two looked like "grieving parents," not suspects. Ranger Ray conducted an hour-long interview with [Mr. Milam] in the front seat of his patrol car. [Mr. Milam] told the ranger that authorities were "more than welcome" to search his car and home. [Mr. Milam] denied involvement in Amora's death. He also gave Ranger Ray names of possible suspects and said that whoever did this should "be hung." In that recorded interview, [Mr. Milam] explained that Jesseca was his fiancee and that Amora was Jesseca's child, but that they both lived with him and he was "raising that baby."
[Mr. Milam] then told Ranger Ray the same story that he had told Sgt. Roy. He added that, when he and Jesseca got home, they found Amora, not in her crib, but in a hole in the floor in the bathroom that he was remodeling. [Mr. Milam] said Amora had a blood ring around her mouth, and "it looked like she had been biting the insulation." She was still breathing, so they called 911. [Mr. Milam] later told Ranger Ray that Jesseca called 911 before they found Amora, and that when they found her, she was dead.
Ranger Ray's tone eventually became accusatory. He told [Mr. Milam] that he knew he was lying, that no one would believe his story, and that everyone would think he had beat the baby because he was the only male in the house. [Mr. Milam] again denied any involvement in Amora's death and offered to take a polygraph test. Finally, Ranger Ray told [Mr. Milam] that he was free to go, meaning that he was free to get out of the patrol car, but not to leave the scene. By then, Ranger Ray considered [Mr. Milam] a suspect.
The ranger also interviewed Jesseca. At first she "was crying and acting very distraught," but then there was a "pretty drastic" change in her demeanor. She referred to Amora as "that baby" and told Ranger Ray an "extremely bizarre story."
The medical examiner gave Amora's cause of death as homicidal violence, due to multiple blunt-force injuries and possible strangulation. He detailed her injuries: facial abrasions and bruises; twenty-four human bite marks; bruises, scrapes, and abrasions from head to toe; bleeding underneath the scalp; extensive fracturing to the back of the skull; bleeding between the brain and the skull; a laceration to the brain tissue as well as swelling, bleeding, and bruising; bleeding around the optic nerves; bleeding in the eyes and around the jugular vein; fractures to the right arm and leg; eighteen rib fractures; a tear to the liver; and extensive injury to the genitals. There were no old injuries suggesting a pattern of abuse.
The investigation quickly poked holes in [Mr. Milam's] story. Shane and Dwight Clark, of Clark Timber, denied any meeting with [Mr. Milam] on December 2nd. Crystal Dopson, manager of the Insta-Cash Pawn Shop in Henderson, said that, shortly after she opened the shop on December 2nd, Jesseca and [Mr. Milam] came in and pawned an electric chain saw and an air impact tool. Surveillance video showed the two in the pawn shop for about fifteen minutes. Surveillance video from the Exxon in Henderson picked them up shortly thereafter. Also, [Mr. Milam] had called his sister, Teresa Shea, that morning before 9:30 a.m., crying and saying that he had "found Amora dead." Teresa told him to call 911, but [Mr. Milam] did not do so until 10:37 a.m.
Page 4
On December 11th, investigators conducted a second search of [Mr. Milam's] trailer and determined that the south end of the trailer, rather than the master bedroom, was probably the crime scene. They found blood-spatter stains, consistent with blunt force trauma, near the south bedroom. Among the items collected from the south bedroom were: blood-stained bedding and baby clothes; blood-stained baby diapers and wipes; a tube of Astroglide lubricant; and a pair of jeans with blood stains on the lap. DNA testing later showed that Amora's blood was on these items.
On December 13th, [Mr. Milam's] sister, Teresa, went to see [Mr. Milam] in jail. That night, she told her aunt that she "was needing to find a way to get back out to the trailer in Tatum" because "Blaine had told her that she needed to go out there to the trailer to get some evidence out from underneath of it." The aunt called Sgt. Rogers and told her that "she needed to get out to the trailer immediately, that Teresa was wanting to go out there to get some evidence out from underneath the trailer."
Sgt. Rogers immediately obtained a search warrant, crawled under the trailer, and discovered a pipe wrench inside a clear plastic bag. The pipe wrench had been shoved down "a hole in the floor of the master bathroom." Forensic analysis revealed components of Astroglide on the pipe wrench, the diaper Amora had been wearing, and the diaper and wipes collected from the south bedroom.
Dr. Robert Williams, a forensic odontologist, compared the bite marks found on Amora's body with bite dentition models obtained from [Mr. Milam], Jesseca, and [Mr. Milam's] brother Danny Milam. Dr. Williams testified that, to "a reasonable degree of dental certainty," [Mr. Milam's] dentition matched eight bite marks on Amora. He could exclude Jesseca from all but one of the bite marks, and he could exclude Danny from all of the bite marks.
Shirley Broyles, the nurse at the Rusk County Jail, testified that [Mr. Milam] called for her one day in January. She found him crying in his cell. He handed her a written request to talk to Sgt. Rogers, and told Ms. Broyles: "I'm going to confess. I did it. But Ms. Shirley, the Blaine you know did not do this. My dad told me to be a man, and I've been reading my Bible. Please tell Jesseca I love her."
B. The Defense Guilt-Stage Evidence.
[Mr. Milam's] defense focused on Jesseca as the murderer. The defense called Heather Carson, Jesseca's mother, who said that Jesseca and [Mr. Milam] starting [sic] dating around January 2008 and got engaged a few months later. Jesseca moved in with [Mr. Milam] and his parents that spring. When Jesseca turned eighteen, she received an insurance settlement from her father's 2001 death. Heather noticed an immediate change in Jesseca; she became withdrawn and stopped caring about her appearance. Jesseca started harassing Heather with telephone calls. When Heather learned that Jesseca was making serious and unfounded allegations against her, she stopped talking to her.
Page 5
Lisa Taylor testified...
To continue reading
Request your trial