Roscoe v. Horton
| Decision Date | 28 August 2019 |
| Docket Number | Case No. 2:16-cv-11133 |
| Parties | SHANE ROSCOE, Petitioner, v. CONNIE HORTON, Respondent. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Michigan |
HONORABLE STEPHEN J. MURPHY, III
Petitioner Shane Roscoe ("Petitioner"), a state inmate confined at the Chippewa Correctional Facility in Kincheloe, Michigan, seeks habeas corpus relief pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254. Petitioner was convicted after a jury trial in Washtenaw County Circuit Court and now challenges his convictions for first-degree, felony murder, Mich. Comp. Laws § 750.316(1)(b), safe breaking, Mich. Comp. Laws § 750.531, breaking and entering a building with intent to commit a larceny, Mich. Comp. Laws § 750.110, and assaulting, resisting, or obstructing a police officer, Mich. Comp. Law § 750.81d. Before the Court are Petitioner's amended petition and recent motion for a stay of this case while he pursues additional state remedies. For the reasons below, the Court will deny Petitioner's motions for a stay and to amend the petition.
People v. Roscoe, 303 Mich. App. 633, 638-39 (2014).
The evidence at trial also established that, at 4:14 a.m. on the day of the crimes, Aiden called the 911 operator and stated that someone in the parking lot of the dealership needed assistance. ECF 14-12, PgID 1067. Aiden and Petitioner subsequently went to Petitioner's home in Pinckney, Michigan.
Later that same day, Petitioner informed his wife Kimberly that he and Aiden had gone to the dealership and tried to rob the place, but something had gone terribly wrong. He explained that Sam, the security guard, had confronted Aiden in the parking lot of the dealership and that he (Petitioner) had hit the guard twice on the back of the head with a brick. Petitioner also stated that he and Aiden took a cell phone from the dealership, and after Aiden called 911, they threw the cell phone out the window of Petitioner's truck. Aiden later got rid of the things that the two men took from the dealership by placing the things in a dumpster in the Detroit area. ECF 14-13, PgID 1097-98.
Meanwhile, at approximately 5:15 a.m. that same day, an employee of the dealership arrived for work and saw the injured victim stumble out of nearby trees. The employee called the police, and when paramedics arrived at the scene, the victim stated that he had been run over by a vehicle. ECF 14-11, PgID 905, 924, 927, 929.
During an investigation of the crimes, the police interviewed and photographed employees of the dealership, and on August 23, 2006, a detective went to the hospital and spoke with the victim. The detective showed the victim forty-one photographs of current and former employees of the dealership, because the victim had previously said that his attackers were current or former mechanics at the dealership. Out of those forty-one photographs, the victim isolated five photographs, including the photographs of Petitioner, Aiden, an employee named Kurt Kuehne, and two other men. The victim informed the police that Petitioner and Koehne definitely were his attackers and that Aiden could have been one of his attackers. ECF 14-13, PgID 1144-46; ECF 14-14, PgID 1152. The police eventually eliminated Kuehne as a suspect. ECF 14-14, PgID 1152.
The victim died in the hospital on September 14, 2006, while the investigation was ongoing. Id. at 1153. Petitioner was briefly taken into custody, but then released and not charged with anything. ECF 14-13, PgID 1090. In 2011, Petitioner and his wife Kimberly divorced.1 Kimberly then informed the police about Petitioner's involvement in the crimes at the dealership. Id., PgID 1093-94.
Petitioner was subsequently charged with open murder, safe breaking, breaking and entering a building with intent to commit a larceny, and two counts of resisting and obstructing a police officer. The last two counts arose from Petitioner's attempts to avoid being handcuffed after he was taken into custody on August 24, 2006, and placed in an interview room at the Washtenaw County Sheriff's Department. ECF 14-12, PgID 1045, 1047-49, 1071-73.
Petitioner was tried in Washtenaw County Circuit Court in 2012. There was no physical evidence (fingerprints, shoe impression, DNA, murder weapon, or stolen items) linking him to the crimes. The primary evidence against him on the murder, breaking-and-entering, and safe breaking charges came from his ex-wife Kimberly and the detectives who spoke with the murder victim in the hospital. Petitioner did not testify or present any witnesses. His defense was that he was not guilty, that he was at home during the commission of the crimes at the car dealership, that Kimberly was a bitter ex-wife and a liar, and that the prosecution had not proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt.
On the first count, the trial court instructed the jury on premeditated murder, felony murder, second-degree murder, and voluntary manslaughter. On June 8, 2012, the jury found Petitioner guilty of felony murder, safe breaking, breaking and entering a building with intent to commit a larceny, and one count of resisting and obstructing a police officer. The jury acquitted Petitioner of premeditated murder and one additional count of resisting and obstructing a police officer.
The trial court sentenced Petitioner to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for the murder. The court also sentenced Petitioner as a fourth habitual offender to concurrent terms of nineteen to fifty years in prison for the safe-breaking conviction, twelve years, eight months to twenty years in prison for the breaking-and-entering conviction, and one to two years in prison for the resisting-and-obstructing conviction.
In an appeal as of right, Petitioner argued through counsel that the admission of the victim's hearsay statements deprived him of a fair trial and his right of confrontation, that counsel's failure to object to the hearsay on constitutional grounds deprived him of effective assistance, and that the admission of "other acts" evidence deprived him of due process. In a pro se supplemental brief, Petitioner argued that the trial court's failure to disqualify itself was a structural error, that the prosecutor's misconduct deprived him of due process and a fair trial, and that the trial court violated his right to an impartial jury and fair trial by not dismissing an alternate juror by random draw. The Michigan Court of Appeals rejected Petitioner's claims and affirmed his convictions in a published opinion. See Roscoe, 303 Mich. App. at 633. The Michigan Supreme Court denied leave to appeal. See People v. Roscoe, 497 Mich. 946 (2014).
On September 25, 2015, Petitioner filed a motion for relief from judgment, in which he argued that his trial attorney had an actual conflict of interest and that the trial court abused its discretion by appointing counsel with an actual conflict of interest. ECF 14-18. While that motion was pending in the state trial court, Petitionerfiled his habeas corpus petition, ECF 1, and a motion to stay the federal proceeding while he continued to pursue state remedies, ECF 3. On May 17, 2016, the Court granted Petitioner's motion for a stay, held this case in abeyance, and administratively closed the case. ECF 6.
On July 18, 2016, the Washtenaw County Circuit Court denied Petitioner's motion for relief from judgment, ECF 14-19, and on December 28, 2016, the Michigan Court of Appeals denied his application for leave to appeal the trial court's decision. See People v. Roscoe, No. 334281 (Mich. Ct. App. Dec. 28, 2016), ECF 14-20, PgID 1588. Subsequently, Petitioner filed an application for leave to appeal in the Michigan Supreme Court, which denied the application on November 29, 2017. People v. Roscoe, 501 Mich. 925 (2017).
Petitioner then returned to the Court and filed a motion to lift the stay, ECF 8, a motion to amend his petition, ECF 9, and an amended petition, ECF 10. On February 27, 2018, the Court granted Petitioner's motions to lift the stay and to amend the petition and ordered Respondent to file an answer to the allegations in the amended petition. ECF 11. On June 14, 2018, Respondent filed a response to the amended petition with the state-court record, ECF 13,14, and on July 13, 2018, Petitioner filed a reply, ECF 13-15. Finally, on July 9, 2019, Petitioner filed another motion to stay the federal proceeding. ECF 16.
The Court may not grant habeas relief to a state prisoner unless his claims were adjudicated on the merits and the state court adjudication was "contrary to" orresulted in an "unreasonable application of" clearly established Supreme Court law. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1).
The Supreme Court has held that a state court's decision is contrary to "clearly established law if it 'applies a rule that contradicts the governing law set forth in [Supreme Court cases]' or if it 'confronts a set of facts that are materially indistinguishable from a decision of Court and nevertheless arrives at a result different from [this] precedent.'" Mitchell v. Esparza, 540 U.S. 12, 15-16 (2003) (quoting Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 405-06 (2000)).
The state court unreasonably applies Supreme...
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