Miles v. Jordan

• Decision Date: 24 February 2021
• Docket Number: No. 19-5340,19-5340
• Citation: 988 F.3d 916
• Parties: Terrance MILES, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Scott JORDAN, Warden, Respondent-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

988 F.3d 916

Terrance MILES, Petitioner-Appellant,

v.Scott JORDAN, Warden, Respondent-Appellee.

No. 19-5340

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Argued: January 29, 2021

Decided and Filed: February 24, 2021

Rehearing En Banc Denied April 19, 2021

ARGUED: Ilana B. Gelfman, JONES DAY, Boston, Massachusetts, for Appellant. Thomas A. Van De Rostyne, OFFICE OF THE KENTUCKY ATTORNEY GENERAL, Frankfort, Kentucky, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Louis K. Fisher, Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, JONES DAY, Washington, D.C., for Appellant. James C. Shackelford, OFFICE OF THE KENTUCKY ATTORNEY GENERAL, Frankfort, Kentucky, for Appellee.

Before: COOK, GRIFFIN, and LARSEN, Circuit Judges.

GRIFFIN, Circuit Judge.

Petitioner Terrance Miles claims that the Kentucky Supreme Court erred in adjudicating his federal speedy-trial and ineffective-assistance claims. The district court disagreed and denied his habeas corpus petition. Because the district court appropriately deferred to the Kentucky Supreme Court's reasonable resolutions of Miles's claims, we affirm.

I.

A Kentucky jury convicted Miles of murder, wanton endangerment, tampering with physical evidence, and being a persistent felony offender in the second degree. Miles v. Commonwealth , No. 2007-SC-000298-MR, 2009 WL 160435, at *1 (Ky. Jan. 22, 2009). The Kentucky Supreme Court summarized the facts of his crimes:

On the night of February 27, 2005, Michael Teasley, a bouncer at Club 502, was shot and killed outside the club as he attempted to clear the parking lot after the club had closed. Earlier that same evening, after another bouncer had removed Terrance Miles from the club for smoking marijuana, Miles and Teasley got into a fight. Teasley's wife, Crystal, who also worked at the club, testified that after the fight, Miles grinned and said to her husband, "you might have whipped my ass, but I'm going to get you."

Officer Frank Hill of the Louisville Metro Police Department, who was working extra security for the club while off duty, observed the fight between Teasley and Miles. While Hill did not witness the actual shooting, he heard the gunshots and then looked in the direction of the gunshots and saw a male running across the parking lot dressed in all dark clothing and wearing a toboggan hat. Officer Hill testified that the man he observed running across the parking lot was the same man who had been fighting with Teasley earlier in the night. Hill gave chase in his patrol car with the assistance of another bouncer and at one point located the suspect behind a dumpster in back of the club. However, Hill eventually lost sight of the suspect.

A number of items were collected from the crime scene, including a black toboggan hat and a cell phone. The number of the cell phone matched the number Miles gave to Enterprise Rent–a–Car when he switched his rental vehicle the day after the murder.

Id . In March 2005, Miles was indicted for Teasley's murder and other charges related to the shooting. Id . At that time, he was already in custody on unrelated state charges. Eight months after Miles's indictment, law enforcement sent the toboggan hat recovered at the crime scene to a lab for DNA testing. Id . at *2.

Before trial, the prosecutor requested, and the state trial court granted, several continuances. The prosecutor asked for these delays because the lab had not yet returned the DNA results for the hat. In the prosecutor's view, these results were a "vital piece of evidence which could prove to be either inculpatory or exculpatory." Id . Miles's counsel did not initially object to the delay and at one point agreed that the results were a "crucial piece of evidence." Id . But Miles himself filed a speedy-trial motion and told the court that he viewed the DNA testing as a "stall tactic." The state court denied Miles's pro se motion and others filed by his counsel as the delay continued for about a year after Miles's initial pro se objection. Eventually, the testing results arrived and showed that the hat was "negative for Miles’ DNA." Id . at *1.

Miles's trial began approximately twenty-one months after he was indicted. Id . at *2. On appeal, two evidentiary aspects of the trial—a gun and Miles's nicknames—are at issue. Regarding the gun, the prosecutor told the jury in his opening statement that, during a search of Miles's apartment, the police "found a gun under [his] mattress, which ... was not the same gun used in the murder, but [Miles] did, in fact, have a gun." Moreover, during trial, the prosecutor repeatedly referenced this gun, but also reiterated that it was not connected to the nightclub shooting. For example, when the police officer in charge of the investigation testified, the following exchange occurred:

Q. Well, let's talk about that hand gun real quick. Was that hand gun sent off for testing?

A. Yes, it was.

Q. And did it match the bullets?

A. No, it did not.

...

Q. That is not the gun that was used to shoot Michael Teasley?

A. No, it was not.

Defense counsel also emphasized that the gun was not used in the murder. During his cross examination of the officer-in-charge, he asked "[D]oes that gun have anything, anything to do with this case?" The officer responded, "It doesn't now, no." And during his closing argument, defense counsel reiterated that the gun was "[c]ompletely unrelated to the case." Although defense counsel did not object to the prosecutor's references to the gun, he successfully opposed a motion to admit a picture of the gun into evidence.

With respect to the nicknames, the prosecutor's closing argument repeatedly referenced Miles's two nicknames, "Cat Daddy" and "Old Gangsta," which he had elicited from a defense witness during cross-examination.¹ Defense counsel did not object to the prosecutor's use of the nicknames. All told, the prosecutor used "Cat Daddy" six times and "Old Gangsta" four times. The prosecutor used both nicknames when arguing that Miles had killed Teasley because Teasley had "disrespected" him by throwing him out of "his" club:

• "They're not going to kick him out. This is his club. This is Cat Daddy, Old Gangsta.... He's angry."

• "That night, he was embarrassed in front of a lot of people on his turf. Okay. What's his state of mind? He's known as Cat Daddy there. He's known by Old Gangsta."

• "[This case is] about Mike Teasley. He's a loving father, husband, and son. And he was killed because Cat Daddy got his feelings hurt."

He also used both nicknames to downplay the significance of the hat's negative DNA test:

• "He wants to make a big deal about that hat. Saying we want to distance ourselves from the hat. I would, if I thought the hat played any role at all.... It's covered in leaves. It's covered in crusty old dirt. Do you think the Old Gangsta Cat Daddy's going to be wearing this thing to the club?"

Finally, the prosecutor used both nicknames to generically refer to Miles:

• "What do you know about Cat Daddy? You know he's 5, 10. You know he's got a lean build."

• "The evidence points to the man with the black on, the man that had the motive, the man that fits the identification to a tee. Points to Cat Daddy. It points to the Old Gangsta. Who done it? He's sitting right there."

After a two-and-a-half-day trial, the jury convicted Miles of all charges. Id . Miles appealed to the Kentucky Supreme Court, arguing, among other things, that the 21-month delay between his indictment and trial violated his Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial. Applying the four-factor test established in Barker v. Wingo , 407 U.S. 514, 92 S.Ct. 2182, 33 L.Ed.2d 101 (1972), the Kentucky Supreme Court "adjudge[d] that Miles was not denied his right to a speedy trial in this case," and affirmed his convictions. Miles , 2009 WL 160435, at *3, *7.²

Miles then sought relief in collateral proceedings. In a habeas corpus petition filed in Kentucky state court, Miles argued that his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to object to the prosecutor's references to the gun found at his apartment and to the prosecutor's use of his nicknames. After an evidentiary hearing, the trial court denied his petition. The Kentucky Court of Appeals reversed, concluding that these failures—collectively and in conjunction with other errors—constituted ineffective assistance of counsel. Miles v. Commonwealth , No. 2012-CA-001240-MR, 2014 WL 4177446 (Ky. Ct. App. Aug. 22, 2014). The Kentucky Supreme Court granted discretionary review and reversed the Kentucky Court of Appeals, concluding that there was not a reasonable probability that the verdicts would have been different if his counsel had objected to the gun or nickname references. Commonwealth v. Miles , Nos. 2014-SC-000580-DG & 2015-SC-000321-DG, 2017 WL 5504212, at *3–5 (Ky. Mar. 23, 2017). After exhausting state-court remedies, Miles unsuccessfully petitioned the District Court for the Western District of Kentucky for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254.

II.

"This Court reviews de novo the legal conclusions involved in the district court's decision to deny the writ under § 2254, and reviews for clear error its findings of fact." Reiner v. Woods , 955 F.3d 549, 554 (6th Cir. 2020) (citation omitted). Under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 ("AEDPA"), we can overturn a state conviction for an issue adjudicated on the merits only if the relevant state-court decision was (1) "contrary to ... clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States;" (2) "an unreasonable application of[ ] clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States;" or (3) "based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented." 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d).

To prevail under the "contrary to" clause, Miles must show that the state court "arrive[d] at a conclusion opposite to that reached by [the Supreme] Court on a question of law" or that it "confront[ed] facts that are materially indistinguishable from a relevant Supreme Court pr...