Phillips v. Cain

• Decision Date: 08 September 2014
• Docket Number: CIVIL ACTION NO. 13-5868 SECTION: "J" (1)
• Parties: HENRY PHILLIPS v. N. BURL CAIN, WARDEN
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Louisiana

HENRY PHILLIPS v. N. BURL CAIN, WARDEN

CIVIL ACTION NO. 13-5868 SECTION: "J" (1)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT EASTERN DISTRICT OF LOUISIANA

September 8, 2014

REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION

This matter was referred to this United States Magistrate Judge for the purpose of conducting a hearing, including an evidentiary hearing, if necessary, and submission of proposed findings of fact and recommendations for disposition pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(B) and (C) and, as applicable, Rule 8(b) of the Rules Governing Section 2254 Cases in the United States District Courts. Upon review of the record, the Court has determined that this matter can be disposed of without an evidentiary hearing. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(2). Therefore, for all of the following reasons, IT IS RECOMMENDED that the petition be DISMISSED WITH PREJUDICE.

Petitioner, Henry Phillips, is a state prisoner incarcerated at the Louisiana State Penitentiary, Angola, Louisiana. On October 19, 2009, he was convicted of purse snatching underLouisiana law.¹ On November 9, 2009, he was sentenced to a term of ten years imprisonment.² On December 2, 2009, he was found to be a third offender,³ and he was then resentenced as such to a term of life imprisonment on January 20, 2010.⁴ The Louisiana Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal affirmed his conviction and sentence on February 17, 2011,⁵ and the Louisiana Supreme Court denied his related writ application on October 7, 2011.⁶

On or about October 29, 2012, petitioner filed an application for post-conviction relief with the state district court.⁷ That application was denied on December 11, 2012.⁸ His relatedwrit applications were then likewise denied by the Louisiana Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal on January 30, 2013,⁹ and by the Louisiana Supreme Court on July 31, 2013.¹⁰

On or about September 9, 2013, petitioner filed the instant federal application seeking habeas corpus relief.¹¹ The state concedes that the application is timely filed.¹²

I. Standards of Review

The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 ("AEDPA") comprehensively overhauled federal habeas corpus legislation, including 28 U.S.C. § 2254. Amended subsections 2254(d)(1) and (2) contain revised standards of review for pure questions of fact, pure questions of law, and mixed questions of both. The amendments "modified a federal habeas court's role in reviewing state prisoner applications in order to prevent federal habeas 'retrials' and to ensure that state-court convictions are given effect to the extent possible under law." Bell v. Cone, 535 U.S. 685, 693 (2002).

As to pure questions of fact, factual findings are presumed to be correct and a federal court will give deference to the state court's decision unless it "was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding." 28U.S.C. § 2254(d)(2); see also 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(1) ("In a proceeding instituted by an application for a writ of habeas corpus by a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court, a determination of a factual issue made by a State court shall be presumed to be correct. The applicant shall have the burden of rebutting the presumption of correctness by clear and convincing evidence.").

As to pure questions of law and mixed questions of law and fact, a federal court must defer to the state court's decision on the merits of such a claim unless that decision "was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States." 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1). Courts have held that the "'contrary to' and 'unreasonable application' clauses [of § 2254(d)(1)] have independent meaning." Bell, 535 U.S. at 694.

Regarding the "contrary to" clause, the United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has explained:

A state court decision is contrary to clearly established precedent if the state court applies a rule that contradicts the governing law set forth in the [United States] Supreme Court's cases. A state-court decision will also be contrary to clearly established precedent if the state court confronts a set of facts that are materially indistinguishable from a decision of the [United States] Supreme Court and nevertheless arrives at a result different from [United States] Supreme Court precedent.

Wooten v. Thaler, 598 F.3d 215, 218 (5th Cir. 2010) (internal quotation marks, ellipses, brackets, and footnotes omitted).

Regarding the "unreasonable application" clause, the United States Supreme Court has held: "[A] state-court decision is an unreasonable application of our clearly establishedprecedent if it correctly identifies the governing legal rule but applies that rule unreasonably to the facts of a particular prisoner's case." White v. Woodall, 134 S. Ct. 1697, 1706 (2014). However, the Supreme Court cautioned:

Section 2254(d)(1) provides a remedy for instances in which a state court unreasonably applies this Court's precedent; it does not require state courts to extend that precedent or license federal courts to treat the failure to do so as error. Thus, if a habeas court must extend a rationale before it can apply to the facts at hand, then by definition the rationale was not clearly established at the time of the state-court decision. AEDPA's carefully constructed framework would be undermined if habeas courts introduced rules not clearly established under the guise of extensions to existing law.

Id. (citations and quotation marks omitted). Therefore, when the Supreme Court's "cases give no clear answer to the question presented, let alone one in [the petitioner's] favor, it cannot be said that the state court unreasonably applied clearly established Federal law." Wright v. Van Patten, 552 U.S. 120, 126 (2008) (quotation marks and brackets omitted). The Supreme Court has also expressly cautioned that "an unreasonable application is different from an incorrect one." Bell, 535 U.S. at 694. Accordingly, a state court's merely incorrect application of Supreme Court precedent simply does not warrant habeas relief. Puckett v. Epps, 641 F.3d 657, 663 (5th Cir. 2011) ("Importantly, 'unreasonable' is not the same as 'erroneous' or 'incorrect'; an incorrect application of the law by a state court will nonetheless be affirmed if it is not simultaneously unreasonable.").

While the AEDPA standards of review are strict and narrow, they are purposely so. As the United States Supreme Court has held:

[E]ven a strong case for relief does not mean the state court's contrary conclusion was unreasonable.

If this standard is difficult to meet, that is because it was meant to be. As amended by AEDPA, § 2254(d) stops short ofimposing a complete bar on federal court relitigation of claims already rejected in state proceedings. It 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. It goes no farther. 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. As 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 so lacking in justification that there was an error well understood and comprehended in existing law beyond any possibility for fairminded disagreement.

Harrington v. Richter, 131 S. Ct. 770, 786-87 (2011) (citations omitted; emphasis added); see also Renico v. Lett, 559 U.S. 766, 779 (2010) ("AEDPA prevents defendants - and federal courts - from using federal habeas corpus review as a vehicle to second-guess the reasonable decisions of state courts.").

The Supreme Court has expressly warned that although "some federal judges find [28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)] too confining," it is nevertheless clear that "all federal judges must obey" the law and apply the strictly deferential standards of review mandated therein. White v. Woodall, 134 S. Ct. 1697, 1701 (2014).

II. Facts

On direct appeal, the Louisiana Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal summarized the facts of this case as follows:

The victims, Tracie and Jason Socha, visitors from San Diego, California, were in New Orleans on March 21, 2009 to attend a friend's wedding. That morning, after they finished breakfast, they stopped at a McDonalds located on St. Charles Avenue to purchase a milkshake. Mr. Socha gave his wallet to his wife. She entered McDonalds while he waited outside. After she made her order andpaid the cashier, Mrs. Socha placed the wallet on the counter while she waited for her change. She may have had a finger on the wallet. At the very least, her hand was next to the wallet. A man then came up from behind her and grabbed the wallet. Mrs. Socha ran out of McDonalds after the man and called to her husband. The Sochas caught up with him when he stopped next to a bright blue bicycle. Mr. and Mrs. Socha attempted to talk the man into taking only the cash from the wallet and giving the wallet back to them. At first, the man declined. He also moved his hand towards the waist of his pants and asked them whether they wanted to be shot. Mr. Socha continued to talk to the man despite the threat. After a minute or two, the man took a twenty dollar bill that was clipped to the outside of the wallet and threw the wallet to the ground. The man then got on his bicycle and left. Employees of McDonalds followed the man on his bicycle to a house located a block behind the McDonalds on Carondelet Street.

Sergeant Young responded to the call and met with Mr. and Mrs. Socha in the parking lot of McDonalds. The sergeant then took them to the house on Carondelet Street where they could see the blue bicycle parked out front. A door on one of the apartments at the house was partially opened. Sergeant Young called for backup. Once Sergeant

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