Morrow v. Curtin

Decision Date28 November 2012
Docket NumberCase Number 10-13572
CourtU.S. District Court — Eastern District of Michigan
PartiesLEON JAMES MORROW, Petitioner, v. CINDI CURTIN, Respondent.

Honorable Marianne O. Battani

OPINION AND ORDER (1) DENYING PETITION FOR WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS,
(2) DECLINING TO ISSUE A CERTIFICATE OF APPEALABILITY, AND (3) DENYING
PERMISSION TO PROCEED IN FORMA PAUPERIS ON APPEAL

This is a habeas corpus action brought by a state prisoner pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254. Petitioner was convicted after a jury trial in the Wayne Circuit Court of second-degree murder, MICH. COMP. LAWS § 750.317, and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. MICH. COMP. LAWS § 750.227b. The court sentenced Petitioner to 20-to-30 years for the murder conviction and a consecutive two years for the firearm conviction. The petition will be denied because none of the seven claims raised by Petitioner have merit. The Court will also deny Petitioner a certificate of appealability and permission to proceed in forma pauperis on appeal.

Background

This Court recites verbatim the relevant facts relied upon by the Michigan Court of Appeals, which are presumed correct on habeas review pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(1). See Wagner v. Smith, 581 F.3d 410, 413 (6th Cir. 2009):

Defendant was convicted of killing Ronald Guevara during a fight following an earlier altercation between defendant, Carlos Flemister andGuevara as they played basketball. After the initial altercation, in which defendant and Flemister got the best of Guevara, Guevara and a group of men approached the covered porch of a house on which defendant, Flemister and others were standing, and a fight ensued. No one in Guevara's group was armed. During the fight, defendant pulled a gun from his waistband and fired a single, fatal shot into Guevara's forehead.

People v. Morrow, 2009 Mich. App. LEXIS 708, *1 (Mich. Ct. App. Mar. 26, 2009).

Following his conviction and sentence, Petitioner filed an appeal of right in the Michigan Court of Appeals. His appointed appellate counsel filed a brief that raised three claims:

I. Was the evidence insufficient to support the conviction of second-degree murder and has Appellant been denied due process of law.
II. Was defense trial counsel constitutionally ineffective in failing to request a jury instruction on imperfect self-defense reducing second-degree murder to voluntary manslaughter and in failing to request a jury instruction that Appellant had no duty to retreat from the enclosed porch before using deadly force in self-defense.
III. Whether the trial court violated Appellant's due process rights by introducing twelve close-up photographs of the decedent's body where the danger of unfair prejudice due to the gruesomeness of the photograph substantially outweighed any probative value.

Petitioner also filed his own supplemental pro se brief that raised an additional four claims:

I. Defendant-appellant is entitled to a new trial, when the Prosecutor charged the appellant with second-degree murder in a case, when the appellant was entitled to a perfect self-defense.
II. Defendant-appellant is entitled to a new trial (a) when members of the jury began deliberating the case by speaking with the victim's family members, and (b) the trial judge failed to provide the jury with instruction for drug addict witness and co-conspirator witness.
III. The defendant was denied a fair trial when the prosecutor elicited testimony from a witness that the defendant was in jail, therefore, denying appellant his due process right to a fair trial.
IV. Defendant-appellant is entitled to a new trial when the errors presented here infringed upon the appellant's right under the Reasonable Doubt Clause.

The Michigan Court of Appeals affirmed Petitioner's convictions in an unpublished Opinion. Id.

Petitioner filed an application for leave to appeal in the Michigan Supreme Court. His application raised the same seven claims that he presented to the Michigan Court of Appeals. The Michigan Supreme Court denied the application for leave to appeal by form order. People v. Morrow, 485 Mich. 865 (2009) (table).

Petitioner then filed the present habeas petition, raising the same claims he presented to the state courts during his direct appeal.

Standard of Review

28 U.S.C. § 2254(d), as amended by The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), imposes the following standard of review for habeas cases:

An application for a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court shall not be granted with respect to any claim that was adjudicated on the merits in State court proceedings unless the adjudication of the claim-
(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.

A decision of a state court 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, 405-06 (2000). An"unreasonable application" occurs when "a state court decision unreasonably applies the law of [the Supreme Court] to the facts of a prisoner's case." Id. at 409. 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." Id. at 410-11.

The Supreme Court has explained that "[A] federal court's collateral review of a state-court decision must be consistent with the respect due state courts in our federal system." Miller-El v. Cockrell, 537 U.S. 322, 340 (2003). The "AEDPA thus imposes a 'highly deferential standard for evaluating state-court rulings,'and 'demands that state-court decisions be given the benefit of the doubt.'" Renico v. Lett, 130 S. Ct. 1855, 1862 (2010) ((quoting Lindh v. Murphy, 521 U.S. 320, 333, n. 7 (1997); Woodford v. Viscotti, 537 U.S. 19, 24 (2002)(per curiam)). "[A] state court's determination that a claim lacks merit precludes federal habeas relief so long as 'fairminded jurists could disagree' on the correctness of the state court's decision." Harrington v. Richter, 131 S. Ct. 770, 786 (2011) (citing Yarborough v. Alvarado, 541 U.S. 652, 664 (2004)). The Supreme Court has emphasized "that even a strong case for relief does not mean the state court's contrary conclusion was unreasonable." Id. (citing Lockyer v. Andrade, 538 U.S. 63, 75 (2003). Furthermore, pursuant to § 2254(d), "a habeas court must determine what arguments or theories supported or...could have supported, the state court's decision; and then it must 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.

"[I]f this standard is difficult to meet, that is because it was meant to be." Harrington, 131 S. Ct. at 786. Although 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d), as amended by the AEDPA, does notcompletely bar federal courts from relitigating claims that have previously been rejected in the state courts, it preserves the authority for a federal court to grant habeas relief only "in cases where there is no possibility fairminded jurists could disagree that the state court's decision conflicts with" the Supreme Court's precedents. Id. Indeed, "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. (citing Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 332, n. 5 (1979))(Stevens, J., concurring in judgment)). Thus, a "readiness to attribute error [to a state court] is inconsistent with the presumption that state courts know and follow the law." Woodford, 537 U.S. at 24. Therefore, in order to obtain habeas relief in federal court, a state prisoner is required to show that the state court's rejection of his claim "was so lacking in justification that there was an error well understood and comprehended in existing law beyond any possibility for fairminded disagreement." Harrington, 131 S. Ct. at 786-87.

Discussion
A. Sufficiency of the Evidence

Petitioner's first claim asserts that insufficient evidence was presented at trial to sustain his conviction for second-degree murder. He does not dispute the sufficiency of the evidence presented to establish his identity as the shooter. Rather, he claims that the prosecutor did not prove that acted with malice. Respondent asserts that the the Michigan Court of Appeals reasonably rejected this claim during Petitioner's appeal of right.

Sufficient evidence supports a conviction if "after viewing the evidence in light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essentialelements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt." Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319 (1979) (emphasis added). In evaluating a sufficiency of the evidence claim, the court views both direct evidence and circumstantial evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, drawing all available inferences and resolving all issues of credibility in favor of the fact-finder's verdict. United States v. Rayborn, 495 F.3d 328, 337-38 (6th Cir. 2007). A federal habeas court may not overturn a state court decision which rejects a sufficiency of the evidence claim, simply because the federal court disagrees with the state court's resolution of that claim. Instead, a federal court may grant habeas relief only if the state court decision was an objectively unreasonable application of the Jackson...

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