Raygoza v. Hulick

• Decision Date: 25 January 2007
• Docket Number: No. 05-2340.,05-2340.
• Citation: 474 F.3d 958
• Parties: Christopher RAYGOZA, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Don HULICK, Respondent-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

474 F.3d 958

Christopher RAYGOZA, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Don HULICK, Respondent-Appellee.

No. 05-2340.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued February 7, 2006.

Decided January 25, 2007.

Leonard C. Goodman, Chicago, IL, for Petitioner-Appellant.

Anderson M. Gansner, Office of the Attorney General, Chicago, IL, for Respondent-Appellee.

Before BAUER, RIPPLE, and WOOD, Circuit Judges.

WOOD, Circuit Judge.

Although this case comes to us on an appeal from a denial of collateral relief, at base it is a "who-dun-it." Christopher Raygoza was convicted in state court for first-degree murder and attempted murder, but he had an alibi. More than that, he had ten available alibi witnesses, most of whom were not related to him, but his attorney made little effort to investigate his alibi, called only one of those witnesses at trial, and failed to offer telephone records that would have corroborated Raygoza's defense. The state courts rejected Raygoza's claim that he had received constitutionally ineffective assistance of counsel, and the district court concluded that federal habeas corpus relief was unavailable. We conclude that counsel failed to meet minimum performance standards and that his actions (or lack thereof) prejudiced Raygoza. We therefore reverse.

I

On June 4, 1997, at approximately 9:45 in the evening, two teenagers were shot at DeArco's Pizzeria, on the southwest side of Chicago. One of them, Miguel Macias, was killed, and the other, Hugo Munoz, was badly injured. According to eyewitnesses, a person flashing gang signs and indicating that he was a "United Latino killer" entered the pizzeria. Macias and Munoz were members of a gang called the United Latino Organization (ULO). After that person left the restaurant, another young man returned with a gun and opened fire. Three members of the ULO who were present at the time identified Raygoza as the gunman and Leslie Matos as the person who first walked into the pizzeria. In addition, Raul Quezada, a young member of the rival Latin Soul street gang, to which Raygoza and Matos belonged, testified that he was at the pizzeria that evening serving as a lookout. Quezada testified that Raygoza, whom he knew as "Froggy," was the shooter.

Other witnesses also supported the State's case. According to the facts as the Illinois Appellate Court recounted them, Matos stood in the doorway of the pizzeria as the violence was unfolding and shouted "kill him, kill him, shoot him." Three witnesses identified the shooter as having a blond pony-tail — a description that matched Raygoza at the time. Other people also testified that someone who looked like Raygoza was on the scene. Jennifer Calatayud testified that she saw Matos and Raygoza outside a party at 62nd Street and Sacramento Avenue around 8 pm. Matos told her that he had "something to do" and would meet her in about 15 minutes. She waited, and he showed up about an hour later, out of breath. He told her that "the boys" had shot someone at the pizza place on California (DeArco's). Later, Raygoza and Matos were identified in photographic arrays and lineups as the guilty parties, and they were arrested and charged with first-degree murder and attempted murder, among other things.

Raygoza's account of his actions that evening is completely different: if true, then the police arrested the wrong person for Macias's murder. That evening, Raygoza's mother, Maria Raygoza, celebrated her 40th birthday with friends and family at their home in the far-north suburb of Highland Park, Illinois. According to Mapquest (a popular internet site), Highland Park is approximately 35 miles away from the scene of the shooting, see http://www.mapquest.com; the website estimates that it would take 52 minutes to drive from the center of Highland Park to West 62nd Street and South California Avenue. A total of nine people, including Christopher, were in the Raygoza home that evening. The next morning, on June 5, Maria took Christopher along with her to an errand at the Daley Center in downtown Chicago; later, he went to the southwest side, where his family had lived until December 1996, to see his girlfriend Desiree Moyet. In the early evening, Raygoza called his mother at her office and told her that there had been a shooting in the area and that he was afraid that he might be "pinpointed" for it.

His fears were realized two days later, on June 7, after detectives received a tip that "Froggy" was involved in the shooting. On June 11, a detective had a telephone conversation with Attorney Wendy Morgan, who was Maria Raygoza's boss; Attorney Morgan identified herself as Christopher's attorney. On his behalf, she agreed to an interview between Christopher and the police at her office; the meeting was to take place on June 17. Events overtook these plans when the police arrested Raygoza on the evening of June 12 at his home in Highland Park, without notifying Morgan.

After his arrest, Raygoza was subjected to a marathon interrogation by the detectives, who refused his requests to consult with his mother or with counsel. Notes from the state's attorney indicate that Raygoza initially said that he was at home on the evening of June 4 with family and friends, but that later he admitted that he had been present at the shooting and that "Lucky" had done it. His story changed again, twice: first he asked if he could say that "Shadow" was the shooter, and eventually, at 10:55 the next morning (some 13 hours into the interrogation), he signed a statement written out by the state's attorney confessing that he was the guilty party. The state trial court suppressed this confession on the ground that the detectives had violated Raygoza's Sixth Amendment right to counsel. The trial proceeded nevertheless. Raygoza, represented by Attorney Thomas Brandstrader, waived his right to a jury.

At the trial, the state called several witnesses who identified Raygoza as the shooter, although they had not known him before the incident. Quezada testified that he was acting as a lookout, and that "Froggy" (Raygoza) had told him to watch for police. Quezada did not witness the shooting itself; when he heard shots from inside the pizzeria, he ran away. Although Calatayud testified that she had seen Raygoza at a party near the pizzeria that evening, police reports indicate that she initially told the police that he had not been there. She changed her story two years later — a fact Brandstrader knew.

Brandstrader conducted almost no cross-examination of the state's witnesses, including Calatayud. He did not call any of the other people who had been at the party, even though their names were in the police report. Although, when it came time for the defense case, Brandstrader raised the defense of alibi, he said only that Raygoza was at home in Highland Park at the time "with his mother, Maria Raygoza . . ., Desiree Moyet . . ., and Noemi Cordova." He never mentioned any of the other guests, nor did he mention the fact that Morgan had called Maria's house during the evening to talk to her and Christopher had answered the telephone. Brandstrader called only one defense witness, Moyet. In his closing argument, the prosecutor hammered on the skimpiness of the evidence supporting Raygoza's alibi: "[W]here is Alexis? Where is mom? Where is his brother? Where is the blond lady? Where is the sister?" The trial court found Raygoza guilty. In doing so, the judge too commented on the fact that Raygoza had only one alibi witness, and a biased one at that (his girlfriend).

After the verdict but before sentencing, Raygoza hired a new lawyer. This attorney filed a motion for new trial based on ineffective assistance of counsel, and attached affidavits of seven alibi witnesses who had been available to testify at trial but had not been called. New counsel also submitted other corroborating evidence, including telephone records and train tickets. The trial judge held a hearing on the motion, but even before the hearing began he expressed skepticism about the value of the proceeding. Seven witnesses testified, all supporting Raygoza's alibi. They were (1) Maria Raygoza, (2) Vincent Raygoza, Christopher's 15-year-old brother, (3) Crystal Raygoza, his 13-year-old sister, (4) Noemi Cordova, a friend of Maria's who had spoken to Christopher several times before arriving at the home and then had seen him there, (5) Luisi Paredes, Cordova's 14-year-old son, (6) Wendy Morgan, and (7) Rodney Adams, Morgan's husband, who confirmed that Morgan had spoken on the telephone at 9:15 pm on June 4 to Christopher (a fact he knew because he recognized Christopher's voice when he answered the telephone). Other witnesses to the murder testified that Eduardo Lerma ("Lucky") was the one who shot Macias and Munoz, to retaliate for an earlier shooting of Lerma, a Latin Souls member, by a ULO member. Lerma and Raygoza bore a strong physical resemblance to one another.

The State responded with evidence about a woman named Chloe Gavin, who was a former friend and landlord of Maria Raygoza, who turned out to be a con artist. Gavin was also at the birthday party at the Raygoza home. Morgan had helped an investigator put together a timeline of events relating to Gavin. The prosecutor believed that this timeline was a disguised script for the alibi witnesses. The timeline stretched from October 17, 1996, to June 1, 1998, and thus covered a great deal of territory beyond June 4, 1997.

Attorney Brandstrader explained his decision to call only one alibi witness at the hearing. The first time he ever spoke to Moyet was on the day she testified. He did not want to call Maria because "mothers are always alibis." Although he met with Maria Raygoza approximately 30 times prior to the trial, he somehow never asked her about her activities around the time of the shooting, and so he never learned that June 4 was her birthday, that she had invited friends over, and that she had taken Christopher to the...