Schultze v. Quarterman
| Decision Date | 30 September 2008 |
| Docket Number | Civil Action No. H-08-0230. |
| Citation | 622 F.Supp.2d 439 |
| Parties | Eric Vaughn SCHULTZE, TDCJ # 1085880, Petitioner, v. Nathaniel QUARTERMAN, Director, Texas Department of Criminal Justice-Correctional Institutions Division, Respondent. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Southern District of Texas |
Richard E. Wetzel, Attorney at Law, Austin, TX, for Petitioner.
Carrie Elizabeth Parsons, Office of the Attorney General for the State of Texas, Austin, TX, for Respondent.
Eric Vaughn Schultze (TDCJ # 1085880) is an inmate incarcerated in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice—Correctional Institutions Division (collectively, "TDCJ"). Schultze has filed a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, seeking a federal writ of habeas corpus to challenge his state court felony conviction. The respondent has filed an answer, arguing that Schultze is not entitled to relief. (Doc. # 8). Schultze has filed a response. (Doc. # 10). After considering all of the pleadings, the state court records, and the applicable law, the Court denies relief and dismisses this case for reasons that follow.
A state grand jury returned an indictment against Schultze, accusing him of aggravated sexual assault in Brazos County cause number 28691-361. That indictment alleged that Schultze acted in concert with two co-defendants, Valin Thomas Klock and Scott Alan Zunker, to sexually assault a young woman while she was unconscious and physically unable to resist. The assault occurred on or about July 1, 2000, at a house located at 3311 Bahia Street in College Station, Texas. Schultze shared that residence with several other individuals.1 The young men memorialized the sexual assault by videotaping the incident. The videotape was given to the police during an investigation into the alcohol-related death of one of Schultze's house mates, John Hickman. The videotape contained footage of Hickman on the night that he died. Klock, who also resided at 3311 Bahia Street, gave the tape to a friend, Jana French, who turned it over to police to determine if there was any illegal activity associated with Hickman's death.
The videotape, which depicts Schultze, Klock, and Zunker repeatedly and cruelly violating the unconscious victim constitutes conclusive proof that an aggravated sexual assault took place. The trial court admitted the videotape following a two-day suppression hearing. After viewing the videotape's vulgar contents during a joint trial of all three defendants, a jury in the 361st District Court of Brazos County, Texas, found them all guilty as charged of aggravated sexual assault. After a week-long punishment proceeding, the same jury sentenced Schultze to 30 years' imprisonment.2
On direct appeal, Schultze argued that the videotape depicting the aggravated sexual assault was wrongfully admitted at trial in violation of Texas law. Schultze argued further that the prosecutor made objectionable comments during closing argument and that the trial court erred by excluding a witness during the punishment proceeding. The intermediate court of appeals rejected all of Schultze's arguments and affirmed the conviction after making the following findings of fact based on the evidence at trial:
Background
On November 19, 2000, College Station Police Department Detective Chad Harkrider was called to investigate the alcohol-related death of John Hickman at 3311 Bahia in College Station. When he arrived at the scene and discovered there were numerous people to interview, he contacted College Station Police Sergeant Chuck Fleeger for assistance. [Schultze] and Klock were two of the people interviewed in connection with Hickman's death. During the course of the investigation, Detective Harkrider received an anonymous tip that there was a videotape of Hickman made on the night he died.
On March 27, 2001, Jana French, a friend of Klock's, provided the College Station Police Department with a videotape she had obtained from Klock. Fleeger watched the videotape and discovered that, in addition to depicting Hickman the night that he died, 18 minutes and 45 seconds of the tape showed three men sexually assaulting an unconscious female. Fleeger recognized [Schultze] and Klock as two of the three assailants because he had recently interviewed them in connection with Hickman's death. He later determined the identities of the complainant3 and the third assailant, Zunker.
The sexual assault4 began with Zunker and [Schultze] entering a room where Klock was having sexual intercourse with the complainant, who appeared to be unconscious and physically unable to resist. [Schultze], while manning the video camera said, "in her fucking cunt," and Zunker attempted to insert a baseball in the complainant's vagina. Zunker manned the video camera while [Schultze] inserted the handle of a toilet plunger into the complainant's vagina. [Schultze] told Zunker, "Make sure you get this on tape." When the plunger handle was inserted into the complainant's vagina, she moaned and said, and continued to struggle. The three men laughed throughout the entire sexual assault. At one point, Zunker lit a cigarette and burned the complainant's vagina with the lit cigarette. Zunker then, mockingly, said, and he proceeded to flick ashes onto the complainant's buttocks. Zunker and Klock also inserted a screwdriver and other objects into the complainant's vagina. The men continued to laugh as they performed these various acts on the unconscious complainant, with [Schultze] declaring, "this is fucking hilarious" at one point during the assaults.
Police officers arrested [Schultze], Klock, and Zunker the day after Sergeant Fleeger received the videotape. Also on that day, police officers searched the house at 3311 Bahia and found a video camera and a camera bag that contained another videotape. This second videotape showed [Schultze] urinating on an unconscious Hickman.
During his investigation, Fleeger determined that the sexual assault occurred in July 2000, seven or eight months before the videotape was discovered.
Schultze v. State, 177 S.W.3d 26, 30-31 (Tex.App.-Houston [1st Dist.] 2005) (op. on rehearing) (footnotes in original). Thereafter, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals refused Schultze's petition for discretionary review.
Schultze challenged his conviction further by filing a state habeas corpus application under Article 11.07 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure. In that application, Schultze argued that his conviction should be set aside because he was denied effective assistance of counsel at his trial. Schultze argued that his trial attorney failed to do the following: (1) to call Schultze as a witness during the pretrial suppression hearing; (2) to file a motion in limine and object to opinions offered by the police and prosecutor that the videotape depicted an "aggravated sexual assault"; and (3) to request a jury instruction on the lesser included offense of sexual assault. The state habeas corpus court, which also presided over the trial, entered detailed findings of fact and concluded that Schultze was not entitled to relief. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals agreed and denied relief based on lengthy findings and conclusions of law made by the trial-level habeas court. See Ex parte Schultze, No. 68,096-01 at 297-315 (Tex. Crim.App. Oct. 10, 2007).
Schultze now seeks a federal writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 to challenge his state court conviction. Schultze contends that he is entitled to relief for the following reasons: (1) he was denied effective assistance of counsel; (2) the prosecutor violated his right to due process by making improper comments during closing argument of the punishment phase of his trial; and (3) the trial court denied him due process by depriving him of the opportunity to present testimony from a witness during the punishment proceeding. The respondent argues that Schultze is not entitled to relief on any of his claims under the governing federal habeas corpus standard of review set forth below.
Federal review of the pending habeas corpus petition is subject to the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (the "AEDPA"), Pub.L. No. 104-132, 110 Stat. 1214 (1996). See Lindh v. Murphy, 521 U.S. 320, 336, 117 S.Ct. 2059, 138 L.Ed.2d 481 (1997) (). Embodying the principles of federalism, comity, and finality of judgments, the AEDPA "substantially restricts the scope of federal review of state criminal court proceedings." Montoya v. Johnson, 226 F.3d 399, 404 (5th Cir.2000). Specifically, the federal habeas corpus statutes amended by the AEDPA, codified at 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d), set forth a "highly deferential standard for evaluating state-court rulings, ..., which demands that state court decisions be given the benefit of the doubt." Woodford v. Visciotti, 537 U.S. 19, 24, 123 S.Ct. 357, 154 L.Ed.2d 279 (2002) (internal citation omitted).
The federal habeas corpus statutes require applicants for relief to first present their claims in state court and to exhaust all state court remedies through proper adjudication. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b). To the extent that the petitioner's claims were adjudicated on the merits in state court, the AEDPA standard applies. If a claim has not been adjudicated on the merits in state court, federal review is procedurally barred if the last state court to consider the claim expressly and unambiguously based its denial of relief on a state procedural default. See Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U.S. 722, 729, 111 S.Ct. 2546, 115 L.Ed.2d 640 (1991); Amos v. Scott, 61 F.3d 333, 338 (5th Cir.1995). The procedural default rule also prevents habeas...
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