Roberts v. Ballard

• Decision Date: 30 September 2014
• Docket Number: CIVIL ACTION NO. 1:13-23245
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of West Virginia
• Parties: BENNY RAY ROBERTS, Plaintiff, v. DAVID BALLARD, Warden, Mount Olive Correctional Complex, Defendant.

BENNY RAY ROBERTS, Plaintiff, v. DAVID BALLARD, Warden,Mount Olive Correctional Complex, Defendant.

CIVIL ACTION NO. 1:13-23245

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF WEST VIRGINIA AT BLUEFIELD

September 30, 2014

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

By Standing Order, this matter was referred to United States Magistrate Judge Dwane L. Tinsley for submission of findings of fact and recommendations regarding disposition pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(B). Whereupon, Magistrate Judge Tinsley submitted his Findings and Recommendation ("PF&R") to the court on August 22, 2014, in which he recommended that this court grant defendant's motion for summary judgment, deny plaintiff's Petition for a Writ of Habeas Corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, and dismiss this matter from the court's docket.

In accordance with the provisions of 28 U.S.C. § 636(b), plaintiff was allotted fourteen days plus three mailing days in which to file any objections to Magistrate Judge Tinsley's Findings and Recommendations. By Order entered on September 4, 2014, the court granted plaintiff's motion for an extension of time to file his objections. On September 17, 2014, plaintiff filed timely objections to the magistrate judge's Findings and Recommendation. With regard to plaintiff's objections, this court has conducted a de novo review of the record.

Under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, Roberts is entitled to federal habeas relief only if he "is in custody in violation of the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States." 28 U.S.C. § 2254(a). Section 2254(d) provides that when the issues raised in a § 2254 petition were raised and considered on the merits in State court habeas proceedings, federal habeas relief is unavailable unless the State court's decision:

(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.

In Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362 (2000), the Supreme Court stated that under the "contrary to" clause in § 2254(d)(1), a federal habeas Court may grant habeas relief "if the State court arrives at a conclusion opposite to that reached by this Court on a question of law or if the State court decides a case differently than this Court has on a set of materially indistinguishable facts." Williams, 529 U.S. 362, 412-13 (2000). A federal habeas court may grant relief under the "unreasonable application" clause of § 2254(d)(1) where the State court identified the appropriate Supreme Court precedent but unreasonably applied the governing principles. Id. In determining whether the State court's decision was contrary to, or was an unreasonable application of, Supreme Court precedent,all factual determinations by the State court are entitled to a presumption of correctness. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e).

A state court's decision is "contrary to" clearly established federal law when it "applies a rule that contradicts the governing law set forth" by the United States Supreme Court, or "confronts a set of facts that are materially indistinguishable from a decision of [the Supreme] Court and nevertheless arrives at a result different from [that] precedent." Williams, 529 U.S. at 405-06. A state court's decision involves an "unreasonable application" of clearly established federal law under § 2254(d)(1) "if the state court identifies the correct governing legal rule from . . . [the] Court's cases but unreasonably applies it to the facts of the particular state prisoner's case." Id. at 407. "The state court's application of clearly established federal law must be 'objectively unreasonable,' and '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.'" Robinson v. Polk, 438 F.3d 350, 355 (4th Cir. 2006) (quoting Williams, 529 U.S. at 411). Moreover, when "assessing the reasonableness of the state court's application of federal law, the federal courts are to review the result that the state court reached, not whether [its decision] [was] wellreasoned." Wilson v. Ozmint, 352 F.3d 847, 855 (4th Cir. 2003) (quotation marks omitted).

Against this backdrop, the court has carefully considered plaintiff's objections and reviewed the record de novo. The court concludes that all of Roberts' objections to the PF&R are without merit. Given that Roberts' objections mirror his arguments considered and rejected by the magistrate judge, it would serve no useful purpose for the court to address each of Roberts' objections and go through the exercise of reiterating the findings of fact and conclusions which are already set forth in Magistrate Judge Tinsley's comprehensive and well-reasoned PF&R. Accordingly, the court OVERRULES Roberts' objections for the same reasons stated in the PF&R. The court will, however, separately address a few points raised in plaintiff's objections.

A. Sufficiency of the evidence to prove felony murder

As the Supreme Court has said, "evidence is sufficient to support a conviction whenever, ‘after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.'" Parker v. Matthews, 132 S. Ct. 2148, 2153 (2012) (quoting Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319 (1979) (emphasis in original). Under this "deferential federal standard," a federal habeas court should not "unduly impinge[] on the jury's role as factfinder." Coleman v. Johnson, 132 S. Ct. 2060, 2064 (2012).

Jackson leaves juries broad discretion in deciding what inferences to draw from the evidence presented at trial, requiring only that jurors draw reasonable inferences from basic facts to ultimate facts. This deferential standard does not permit the type of fine-grained factual parsing in which the Court of Appeals engaged.

* * *

The jury in this case was convinced, and the only question under Jackson is whether that finding was so insupportable as to fall below the threshold of bare rationality. The state court of last review did not think so, and that determination in turn is entitled to considerable deference under AEDPA.

Id. at 2064-65.

On October 10, 2008, a jury found Roberts guilty of felony murder in connection with the death of Losey Lee Bennett. Roberts contends that he was improperly convicted of felony murder because the victim's death was not due to any act on his part but, rather, resulted from the victim being removed from life support some days later. Therefore, the petitioner asserts that the victim did not die during the commission of either a robbery or a breaking and entering.

In West Virginia, the elements to sustain a conviction for felony murder are: " (1) the commission of, or attempt to commit, one or more of the enumerated felonies; (2) the defendant's participation in such commission or attempt; and (3) the death of the victim as a result of injuries received during the course of such commission or attempt." State v. Williams,305 S.E.2d 251, 267 (W. Va. 1983)(emphasis added). In State v. Jenkins, the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia upheld a conviction of felony murder where the victim was removed from life support. 229 W. Va. 415 (2012), The Jenkins Court held that "it is sufficient if the initial wound caused the death indirectly through a chain of natural causes." Id. at 262; see also State v. Durham, 195 S.E.2d 144, 149 (W. Va. 1973) ("It is sufficient if the initial wound caused the death through a chain of natural causes.").

At the trial, Dr. Zia Sabet, a Deputy Chief Medical Examiner with the State of West Virginia, testified about the victim's cause of death. See Exhibit 20 at 505-16. According to her:

Q: What was the mechanism, what caused the death? What was the mechanism of death?

A: If you have bleeding. . . bleeding alone, even without fractures, sometimes with shaking baby we have movement of the head without any fracture but you have subdural subarachnoid hemorrhage, because if you have enough blood it pushes the brain, the brain there's no place for the brain to try to compound say, or try to escape from this pressure so it pushes the base of the brain and causes herniation. Brain tissue goes

to the host when the lower part or base of the skull. That's called a brain herniation. And that is the cause of this.

Q: That is the mechanism of death. Do you have an opinion as to the cause of death, uh, as listed in your report?

A: Multiple blunt force injuries. Because as I mentioned we have four impact[s] to the head with fractures, subarachnoid and subdural hemorrhage. And these are cause of permeation of the base of the brain. As you know the respiration and heart beat centers on the medulla, if you have pressure on that area it stops. So we have enough pressure on that area that caused death.

Q: In your opinion, was the manner of death a homicide?

A: Yes. When you have that much injury, the cause of death is homicide.

Id. at 514-15. Furthermore, numerous courts have concluded that removal of a victim from life support is not an intervening cause of death sufficient to relieve one from criminal liability. See, e.g., Anderson v. Ignacio, No. 3:98-cv-00655-ECR-VPC, 2011 WL 294388, *4-5 (D. Nev. Jan. 26, 2011) (holding that victim'sremoval from life support did not relieve defendant of criminal responsibility); Ray v. Commonwealth of Kentucky, No. 2005-SC-0241-MR, 2006 WL 2708537, *1 (Ky. Sept. 21, 2006) ("As it has been held by almost all, if not all, other jurisdictions that have been presented with this questions, the lawful decision to withdraw artificial life support from a loved one is simply not an independent, intervening cause of death sufficient to relieve one of causal liability. . . ."...