Petersimes v. Stephens

• Decision Date: 28 March 2016
• Docket Number: No. 3:14-cv-3220-N-BN,3:14-cv-3220-N-BN
• Parties: MARK ANTHONY PETERSIMES, Petitioner, v. WILLIAM STEPHENS, Director Texas Department of Criminal Justice Correctional Institutions Division, Respondent.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Texas

MARK ANTHONY PETERSIMES, Petitioner, v. WILLIAM STEPHENS, Director Texas Department of Criminal Justice

Correctional Institutions Division, Respondent.

No. 3:14-cv-3220-N-BN

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT NORTHERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS DALLAS DIVISION

March 28, 2016

FINDINGS, CONCLUSIONS, AND RECOMMENDATION OF THE

UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE

Petitioner Mark Anthony Petersimes, a Texas inmate, has filed an application for writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254. For the reasons explained below, the application should be denied.

Applicable Background

Toward the end of his 12-year sentence for aggravated assault of a child, the State moved to civilly commit Petitioner under the Civil Commitment of Sexually Violent Predators Act, see TEX. HEALTH & SAFETY CODE ANN. §§ 841.001-.150 (the "Act"), and, after a jury determined that Petitioner was a sexually violent predator as defined by the Act, a trial court entered a civil commitment order as to Petitioner on November 14, 2002, see Petersimes v. State, No. 05-10-00227-CR, 2011 WL 2816725, at *1 (Tex. App. - Dallas July 19, 2011, pet ref'd).

Petitioner's Section 2254 petition challenges his guilty-plea conviction for a third-degree-felony violation of his civil commitment under the Act.¹ As to this conviction, out of Dallas County, Texas, Petitioner "entered into a plea agreement with the State and pleaded guilty to violating his civil commitment order" and "also pleaded true to an enhancement paragraph" after the trial court denied his motion to quash the indictment, in which he contended that (1) the trial court lacked jurisdiction over the matter, and (2) the Act "constituted an impermissible ex post facto law and, as applied to him, violated the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution, as well as" various provisions of the Texas Constitution. Id. at *2.

Petitioner was sentenced to 20 years' incarceration; his conviction was affirmed as modified on direct appeal, see id.; and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ("CCA") refused his petition for discretionary review, see Petersimes v. State, PDR No. 1233-11 (Tex. Crim. App. June 13, 2012).

The CCA also denied Petitioner's state habeas petition as to this conviction without written order. See Ex parte Petersimes, WR-61,297-04 (Tex. Crim. App. Aug. 27, 2014); see also Dkt. No. 17-24 (action taken sheet); Dkt. No. 17-29 at 112-20 (state trial court findings of fact and conclusions of law, dated Dec. 12, 2013).

Legal Standards

Through his Section 2254 application [Dkt. No. 3], as amended, see Dkt. Nos. 12& 14, Petitioner presents some 20 claims for relief. Procedural defects prevent the Court from reviewing state court determinations (if any) as to several of those claims. But, because many of the claims that Petitioner asserts require federal review of state court adjudications, including adjudications of Sixth Amendment claims, the undersigned first sets out the following legal standards.

I. Review of Merits Adjudications

Where a state court has already rejected a claim on the merits, a federal court may grant habeas relief on that claim only if 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).

A state court adjudication on direct appeal is due the same deference under Section 2254(d) as an adjudication in a state post-conviction proceeding. See, e.g., Dowthitt v. Johnson, 230 F.3d 733, 756-57 (5th Cir. 2000) (a finding made by the TCCA on direct appeal was an "issue ... adjudicated on the merits in state proceedings," to be "examine[d] ... with the deference demanded by AEDPA" under "28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)").

A decision constitutes an "unreasonable application" of clearly established 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." Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 413 (2000). "For purposes of §2254(d)(1), an unreasonable application of federal law is different from an incorrect application of federal law.... 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, 562 U.S. 86, 101 (2011) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). "Under § 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. at 102 (internal quotation marks omitted).

The Supreme Court has further explained that "[e]valuating 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." Id. at 101 (internal quotation marks omitted). And "even a strong case for relief does not mean the state court's contrary conclusion was unreasonable." Id. at 102. The Supreme Court has explained that, "[i]f this standard is difficult to meet, that is because it was meant to be," where, "[a]s amended by AEDPA, § 2254(d) stops short of imposing a complete bar on federal court relitigation of claims already rejected in state proceedings," but "[i]t preserves authority to issue the writ in cases where there is no possibility fairminded jurists could disagree that the state court's decision conflicts with this Court's precedents," and "[i]t goes no further." Id. Thus, "[a]s a condition for obtaining habeas corpus from a federal court, a state prisoner must show that the state court's ruling on the claim being presented in federal court was solacking in justification that there was an error well understood and comprehended in existing law beyond any possibility for fairminded disagreement." Id. at 103; accord Burt v. Titlow, 134 S. Ct. 10, 16 (2013) ("If this standard is difficult to meet - and it is - that is because it was meant to be. We will not lightly conclude that a State's criminal justice system has experienced the extreme malfunctio[n] for which federal habeas relief is the remedy." (internal quotation marks and citations omitted)).

As to Section 2254(d)(2)'s requirement that a petitioner show that the state court adjudication "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," the Supreme Court has explained that "a state-court factual determination is not unreasonable merely because the federal habeas court would have reached a different conclusion in the first instance" and that federal habeas relief is precluded even where the state court's factual determination is debatable. Wood v. Allen, 558 U.S. 290, 301, 303 (2010). Under this standard, "it is not enough to show that a state court's decision was incorrect or erroneous. Rather, a petitioner must show that the decision was objectively unreasonable, a substantially higher threshold requiring the petitioner to show that a reasonable factfinder must conclude that the state court's determination of the facts was unreasonable." Batchelor v. Cain, 682 F.3d 400, 405 (5th Cir. 2012) (brackets and internal quotation marks omitted).

The Court must presume that a state court's factual determinations are correct and can find those factual findings unreasonable only where the petitioner "rebut[s] the presumption of correctness by clear and convincing evidence." 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(1); Gardner v. Johnson, 247 F.3d 551, 560 (5th Cir. 2001). This presumption applies not only to explicit findings of fact but also "to those unarticulated findings which are necessary to the state court's conclusions of mixed law and fact." Valdez v. Cockrell, 274 F.3d 941, 948 n.11 (5th Cir. 2001); see also Harrington, 562 U.S. at 98 ("[D]etermining whether a state court's decision resulted from an unreasonable legal or factual conclusion does not require that there be an opinion from the state court explaining the state court's reasoning."); Pondexter v. Dretke, 346 F.3d 142, 148 (5th Cir. 2003) ("a federal habeas court is authorized by Section 2254(d) to review only a state court's 'decision,' and not the written opinion explaining that decision" (quoting Neal v. Puckett, 286 F.3d 230, 246 (5th Cir. 2002) (en banc))).

In sum, Section 2254 creates a "highly deferential standard for evaluating state court rulings, which demands that state-court decisions be given the benefit of the doubt." Woodford v. Visciotti, 537 U.S. 19, 24 (2002). To overcome this standard, a petitioner must show that "there was no reasonable basis for the state court to deny relief." Harrington, 562 U.S. at 98.

II. Sixth Amendment Claims

The Court reviews Sixth Amendment claims concerning the alleged ineffective assistance of counsel under the two-prong test established in Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984); see also Smith v. Robbins, 528 U.S. 259, 285 (2000) ("the proper standard for evaluating [a] claim that appellate counsel was ineffective ... is that enunciated in Strickland" (citing Smith v. Murray, 477 U.S. 527, 535-36 (1986))).

Under Strickland, the petitioner must demonstrate that the performance of his attorney fell below an objective standard of reasonableness. See 466 U.S. at 687-88. To be cognizable under Strickland, trial counsel's error must be "so serious that counsel was not functioning as the 'counsel' guaranteed the defendant by the Sixth Amendment." Id. at...