Ramonez v. Berghuis
| Decision Date | 18 June 2007 |
| Docket Number | No. 06-1852.,06-1852. |
| Parties | Patrico RAMONEZ, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Mary BERGHUIS, Respondent-Appellee. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit |
ARGUED: Jacqueline J. McCann, State Appellate Defender Office, Detroit, Michigan, for Appellant. Raina I. Korbakis, Office of the Attorney General, Lansing, Michigan, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Jacqueline J. McCann, State Appellate Defender Office, Detroit, Michigan, for Appellant. Raina I. Korbakis, Office of the Attorney General, Lansing, Michigan, for Appellee.
Before: DAUGHTREY and MOORE, Circuit Judges; SHADUR, District Judge.*
Patrico Ramonez ("Ramonez") appeals the district court's denial of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus naming his custodian, Mary Berghuis ("Berghuis"), as respondent. Ramonez is in custody pursuant to a conviction in Michigan state court. As he did on direct appeal, Ramonez argues that his trial counsel W. Frederick Moore ("Moore") failed to investigate and call at trial three witnesses to the alleged crime, Charles Tames ("Charles"), Rene Tames ("Rene") and Joel "Big Bun" Hackett ("Hackett"). Ramonez asserts that Moore's performance was thus constitutionally deficient, prejudicing his defense in violation of the Sixth Amendment ().
Both the state trial court and the Michigan Court of Appeals found that Moore's representation of Ramonez met the constitutional standard for effective assistance of counsel set out by Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984). Because it is clear that the Michigan Court of Appeals' application of the Strickland standard for a defense counsel's duty to investigate was unreasonable, we reverse the judgment of the district court and remand with instructions to grant a conditional writ of habeas corpus.
On March 13, 2001 a Michigan state jury convicted Ramonez of third-degree home invasion (Mich. Comp. Laws § 750.110a(4)),1 assault with intent to do great bodily harm (id. § 750.84) and aggravated stalking (id. § 750.411h). Those convictions arose from a complaint by Christina Fox ("Fox"), Ramonez's ex-girlfriend and mother of two of his children.
Fox testified at trial2 that at 4:30 or 5 a.m. April 21, 2000 she and the two children were asleep in the living room of her house when she heard a knock on the door. After cracking the front door, Fox saw that it was Ramonez knocking. As her relationship with Ramonez had been violent and they had separated some years earlier, Fox became frightened upon seeing Ramonez and attempted to slam the door shut. Ramonez, however, forced the door open, knocking Fox to the ground in the process.
According to Fox, she then found herself lying on the floor between the foyer and the living room, where Ramonez pinned her down, began to strangle her and threatened her life. By kicking Ramonez, Fox was able to free herself and take off running for the front door before he punched her again, knocking her over. Fox was nonetheless able to make it out to her front porch. Once outside she encountered Charles, Rene and Hackett at the bottom of the stairs to her porch. Attempting to flee, Fox lost her footing and fell on the stairs. Ramonez again pinned her to the ground, while one of the other three covered her mouth to muffle her screaming. Finally the altercation ended after Fox saw lights go on nearby, and the four men let her go and drove away.3
After the prosecution rested, Ramonez and Moore brought before the judge their disagreement as to Moore's decision not to call any witnesses on Ramonez's behalf and Ramonez's intention to testify despite Moore's advice. Ramonez wanted to call Charles, Rene and Hackett to testify to his story of what happened that day. Ramonez complained that he had told Moore about those witnesses months earlier, but Moore had failed to communicate with them.4 Moore stated that it was his strategic decision not to call any witnesses, and the judge decided he was disinclined to interfere with counsel's judgment.
With no other witnesses in his defense, Ramonez felt compelled to testify on his own behalf. Ramonez testified that on the day in question he did go to Fox's house to check on his children. He claimed that Fox voluntarily invited him into her house, but once inside Ramonez did not see his kids and, believing that Fox appeared to be high, he became angry. Ramonez then pushed her against a wall—but he denied choking her—and Fox took off running out the front door. She then fell on the front steps, where Rene attempted to help her to her feet. Fox then ran off.
After the jury's guilty verdict, the trial court sentenced Ramonez to concurrent terms of 2 to 10 years for the home invasion conviction, 12 to 20 years for the assault charge and 2 to 10 years for the aggravated stalking conviction. Ramonez appealed on ineffective assistance of counsel grounds, asserting Moore's failure to investigate and to call Rene, Charles and Hackett. To facilitate the evaluation of that claim, the Michigan Court of Appeals remanded the case to the district court for an evidentiary hearing.
At the hearing Moore testified that he was aware of Rene, Charles and Hackett prior to trial, but he never made contact with them. Moore defended his decision not to call them based on what he characterized as his trial strategy to focus on the action inside Fox's home. He believed that the three witnesses could not testify to that action because they were never inside the house. Moore's plan had been to rely on cross-examination to point out discrepancies in Fox's story and discredit her testimony. Even so, Moore did attempt to reach Charles (but only Charles) just three or four days before trial, but he did not succeed in speaking with him—the two simply exchanged phone messages.
Each of Charles, Rene and Hackett testified at that hearing. Charles is Ramonez's son, Rene his stepson and Hackett an acquaintance of the three other men from work. Each testified that the three were driving in a car with Ramonez on the night in question, ultimately arriving at Fox's house. There was some inconsistency in their testimony: Rene remembered stopping at a bar first, while Charles did not remember if they made any other stops and Hackett's recollection was that they did not make any other stops. Each then testified that he observed Ramonez go up to Fox's front door, where Fox then invited him inside (each affirmatively stated that Ramonez did not force his way into the house).
All three witnesses testified that even from their vantage point in the car they could see the interaction between Ramonez and Fox inside the house through the doorway—only Hackett allowed that he may have lost sight of them for some two minutes. Each said that he witnessed yelling and a physical altercation between Fox and Ramonez, but that Ramonez did not choke or punch Fox. All testified that the three men got out of the car and went up to Fox's porch where the altercation was continuing outside the house. Their stories differed somewhat as to what then occurred outside the house, with Hackett simply saying that Fox ran off, Rene remembering Fox falling and one of them helping her up and Charles remembering having words with Fox and attempting to help her off the ground before she fled. All three affirmed that they would have been willing to testify even if the prosecutor had threatened to charge them as accessories to the crime.
At the conclusion of the hearing the trial court denied the motion for a new trial on ineffective assistance of counsel grounds. Applying state law that mirrors the two-step Strickland analysis, the court found Moore's decision not to call the witnesses reasonable because of his trial strategy to focus on what occurred inside the house and his expectation that the witnesses could not offer competent testimony in that regard, due to what he thought was their limited vantage point outside the house. And as to prejudice, the trial court found that Hackett "was not a particularly helpful witness" and that Rene was an "incredible witness," so that the witnesses' testimony could not have changed the outcome of the trial.
As to Ramonez's ineffective assistance of counsel claims, the Michigan Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court's judgment on essentially the same reasoning (other claims made at the state level are not the subject of this federal habeas effort). Ramonez's application for leave to appeal to the Michigan Supreme Court was denied, making that intermediate appellate court opinion the final state court decision on his claims. On the ensuing collateral attack under 28 U.S.C. § 2254,5 the district court below rejected Ramonez's petition for a writ of habeas corpus, finding that the Michigan Court of Appeals' decision was at least a reasonable application of Strickland. On August 14, 2006 the district court granted Ramonez's motion for a certificate of appealability to this Court.
We review de novo a district court's denial of a writ of habeas corpus (Dando v. Yukins, 461 F.3d 791, 795-96 (6th Cir. 2006)). And where as here the district court has reviewed only trial transcripts and other court records, any factual determinations by the district court are also reviewed de novo (id.).
Federal court examination of a habeas petition by a prisoner in custody pursuant to a state court judgment is circumscribed by AEDPA, in this instance more specifically under this part of Section 2254(d):
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,...
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