Robinson v. Sec'y, Dep't of Corr.

Decision Date06 February 2020
Docket NumberCASE NO. 8:14-cv-1652-T-23JSS
PartiesCHARLES ROBINSON Applicant, v. SECRETARY, Department of Corrections, Respondent.
CourtU.S. District Court — Middle District of Florida
ORDER

Charles Robinson applies for the writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 (Doc. 23) and challenges the validity of his state conviction for manslaughter, for which conviction Robinson serves twenty-two years imprisonment followed by three years of probation. Numerous exhibits ("Respondent's Exhibit ___") support the response. (Doc. 64) The respondent admits the application's timeliness. (Doc. 64, p. 15) Robinson also moves for judgment on the pleadings. (Doc. 80)

FACTS1

The victim, Luscious Smith, hired Robinson and Leon Martin to help him move furniture from Chicago to the Tampa area in a tractor trailer truck. On August 3, 2003, Robinson went to the police and asked to speak to an officer "because there had been a murder and he thought they might be looking forhim." (Respondent's Exhibit 5, p. 3) Robinson advised the police that he and the victim had gotten into an altercation and that the victim was dead. Robinson led the police to a truck, in which they found the victim dead. The police discovered blood on the victim and inside the truck. Also, the police discovered a fire extinguisher next to the victim. Forensic testing showed the victim's blood and DNA on the fire extinguisher. A stain on Robinson's shorts matched the victim's DNA. DNA from fingernail scrapings from the victim matched Robinson's DNA. The victim suffered several injuries, including fractures to his upper and lower jaws, cheek bones, and nasal bones. The medical examiner opined that the victim died from blunt force trauma to his head and face.

Robinson was arrested and charged with second-degree murder. Before trial Robinson successfully moved to suppress certain of his statements to the police. Robinson elected to waive his right to a jury trial and proceeded to a bench trial. The trial judge found Robinson guilty of the lesser-included offense of manslaughter, a second-degree felony. The trial judge concluded that the fire extinguisher used to kill the victim was a deadly weapon. Consequently, the trial judge applied a state sentencing enhancement and reclassified the offense of conviction from a second-degree felony to a first-degree felony. Robinson serves twenty-two years imprisonment followed by three years of probation.

STANDARD OF REVIEW

The Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 ("AEDPA") governs Robinson's application. Wilcox v. Florida Dep't of Corr., 158 F.3d 1209, 1210(11th Cir. 1998), cert. denied, 531 U.S. 840 (2000). Section 2254(d), which creates a highly deferential standard for federal court review of a state court adjudication, states in pertinent part:

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, 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, 412-13 (2000), the Supreme Court interpreted this deferential standard:

In sum, § 2254(d)(1) places a new constraint on the power of a federal habeas court to grant a state prisoner's application for a writ of habeas corpus with respect to claims adjudicated on the merits in state court. Under § 2254(d)(1), the writ may issue only if one of the following two conditions is satisfied — the state-court adjudication resulted in a decision that (1) "was contrary to . . . clearly established Federal Law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States" or (2) "involved an unreasonable application of . . . clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States." Under the "contrary to" clause, a federal habeas court may grant the writ 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. Under the "unreasonable application" clause, a federal habeas court may grant the writ if the state court identifies the correct governing legal principle from this Court's decisions but unreasonably applies that principle to the facts of the prisoner's case.

"The focus . . . is on whether the state court's application of clearly established federal law is objectively unreasonable, . . . an unreasonable application is different from an incorrect one." Bell v. Cone, 535 U.S. 685, 693 (2002). "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, 562 U.S. 86, 103 (2011). See White v. Woodall, 572 U.S. 415, 427 (2014) ("The critical point is that relief is available under § 2254(d)(1)'s unreasonable-application clause if, and only if, it is so obvious that a clearly established rule applies to a given set of facts that there could be no 'fairminded disagreement' on the question . . . .") (citing Richter); Woods v. Donald, 575 U.S. 312, 316 (2015) ("And an 'unreasonable application of' those holdings must be objectively unreasonable, not merely wrong; even clear error will not suffice.") (quoting Woodall, 572 U.S. at 419). Accord Brown v. Head, 272 F.3d 1308, 1313 (11th Cir. 2001) ("It is the objective reasonableness, not the correctness per se, of the state court decision that we are to decide."). The phrase "clearly established Federal law" encompasses only the holdings of the United States Supreme Court "as of the time of the relevant state-court decision." Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. at 412.

The purpose of federal review is not to re-try the state case. "The [AEDPA] 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 convictionsare given effect to the extent possible under law." Bell v. Cone, 535 U.S. at 694. A federal court must afford due deference to a state court's decision. "AEDPA prevents defendants — and federal courts — from using federal habeas corpus review as a vehicle to second-guess the reasonable decisions of state courts." Renico v. Lett, 559 U.S. 766, 779 (2010). See also Cullen v. Pinholster, 563 U.S. 170, 181 (2011) ("This is a 'difficult to meet,' . . . and 'highly deferential standard for evaluating state-court rulings, which demands that state-court decisions be given the benefit of the doubt' . . . .") (citations omitted). When the last state court to decide a federal claim explains its decision in a reasoned opinion, a federal habeas court reviews the specific reasons as stated in the opinion and defers to those reasons if they are reasonable. Wilson v. Sellers, 138 S. Ct. 1188, 1192 (2018) ("[A] federal habeas court simply reviews the specific reasons given by the state court and defers to those reasons if they are reasonable."). When the relevant state-court decision is not accompanied with reasons for the decision, the federal court "should 'look through' the unexplained decision to the last related state-court decision that does provide a relevant rationale [and] presume that the unexplained decision adopted the same reasoning." Wilson, 138 S. Ct. at 1192. "[T]he State may rebut the presumption by showing that the unexplained affirmance relied or most likely did rely on different grounds than the lower state court's decision . . . ." Wilson, 138 S. Ct. at 1192.

In a per curiam decision without a written opinion the state appellate court on direct appeal affirmed Robinson's conviction and sentence. (Respondent's Exhibit 8) In another per curiam decision without a written opinion the stateappellate court affirmed the denial of Robinson's subsequent Rule 3.850 motion for post-conviction relief. (Respondent's Exhibit 14) The state appellate court's per curiam affirmances warrant deference under Section 2254(d)(1) because "the summary nature of a state court's decision does not lessen the deference that it is due." Wright v. Moore, 278 F.3d 1245, 1254 (11th Cir.), reh'g and reh'g en banc denied, 278 F.3d 1245 (2002), cert. denied sub nom Wright v. Crosby, 538 U.S. 906 (2003). See also Richter, 562 U.S. at 99 ("When a federal claim has been presented to a state court and the state court has denied relief, it may be presumed that the state court adjudicated the claim on the merits in the absence of any indication or state-law procedural principles to the contrary."), and Bishop v. Warden, 726 F. 3d 1243, 1255-56 (11th Cir. 2013) (describing the difference between an "opinion" or "analysis" and a "decision" or "ruling" and explaining that deference is accorded the state court's "decision" or "ruling" even absent an "opinion" or "analysis").

As Pinholster, 563 U.S. at 181-82, explains, review of the state court decision is limited to the record that was before the state court:

We now hold that review under § 2254(d)(1) is limited to the record that was before the state court that adjudicated the claim on the merits. Section 2254(d)(1) refers, in the past tense, to a state-court adjudication that "resulted in" a decision that was contrary to, or "involved" an unreasonable application of, established law. This backward-looking language requires an examination of the state-court decision at the time it was made. It follows that the
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