Scott v. Elo
| Decision Date | 06 September 2002 |
| Docket Number | No. 01-1475.,01-1475. |
| Citation | 302 F.3d 598 |
| Parties | Cortez SCOTT, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Frank ELO, Warden, Respondent-Appellee. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit |
James Sterling Lawrence (argued and briefed), Detroit, MI, for Petitioner-Appellant.
Janet A. Van Cleve (argued and briefed), Office of the Attorney General, Habeas Corpus Division, Lansing, MI, for Respondent-Appellee.
Before: KENNEDY, SUHRHEINRICH, and BATCHELDER, Circuit Judges.
Petitioner Cortez Scott appeals the denial of his application for writ of habeas corpus. For the following reasons, we affirm the judgment of the district court.
Following a jury trial in Genesee County (Michigan) Circuit Court, petitioner Cortez Scott was convicted of first degree murder and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. The Michigan Court of Appeals summarized the underlying facts:
The record reveals that on the evening of February 16, 1994, defendant shot and killed twenty-one-year-old Tyrone Williams while they and James Crain were driving in Williams' Pontiac Grand Am in Flint. Crain testified that before the shooting he overheard the defendant say that he could rob Williams. Without warning, defendant, who was riding in the back of the car, pulled out a gun and shot Williams in the head. After defendant climbed from the back of the vehicle to the driver's seat, Crain jumped out and defendant sped away. Within an hour, Crain called 911 from a relative's house and told the operator what had happened. Crain indicated that on a previous occasion, defendant shot in Williams' direction after an argument over stereo speakers.
Flint Detective Sergeant Thomas Korabik testified that while conducting an interview at the police station that evening, defendant stated that he and Williams had problems in the past and referred to the incident regarding the stereo speakers. Defendant further stated that while riding in the Grand Am, he began thinking of the previous problems between the two, pulled out the gun, pointed it in the air, and said to Williams, "What's up now?" Defendant then lowered the gun and shot Williams in the head. Defendant explained that after Crain jumped out of the car, he continued to drive and threw the gun out of the car five houses down the road. Furthermore, defendant indicated that he had the gun in his right pants pocket before Williams picked him up that evening. Williams was found at a nearby school with gunshot wounds to the head and stomach. Blood and brain matter were discovered in the Grand Am.
People v. Scott, No. 182235, 1997 WL 33354441, at *2 (Mich.Ct.App. Jan. 21, 1997) (unpublished per curiam opinion) (footnote omitted). Scott was sentenced to life in prison without parole for the murder conviction, and a concurrent two year term for the firearm conviction. On direct appeal to the Michigan Court of Appeals, Scott raised the following claims1:
I. There was insufficient evidence presented to convict appellant of first degree murder.
II. The prosecutor's argument shifted the burden of proof to appellant which constitutes prosecutor misconduct and reversible error.
III. Appellant was denied due process of law where the record fails to include the entire portion of the prosecutor's final argument.
IV. The jury instructions were reversibly erroneous because the court did not distinguish between voluntary and involuntary manslaughter despite appellant's assertion of an accident defense.
V. Appellant was deprived of his constitutional right of effective assistance of trial counsel.
VI. The cumulative effect of the errors justify reversal for a new trial.
The Court of Appeals affirmed Scott's convictions. Scott filed a delayed application for leave to appeal with the Michigan Supreme Court. The Michigan Supreme Court vacated the opinion of the Court of Appeals with respect to the transcript issue, finding that the Court of Appeals could not resolve some of Scott's claims where a portion of the transcript of the prosecutor's closing argument was missing, and remanded for further proceedings. The Court directed that the Court of Appeals obtain a videotape or a complete transcript of the trial, or direct settlement of the record pursuant to M.C.R. 7.210(B)2 before addressing the merits of Scott's claims of prosecutor misconduct and ineffective assistance of counsel. As to all other claims, the Michigan Supreme Court denied leave to appeal. People v. Scott, 456 Mich. 931, 575 N.W.2d 549 (1998).
The appellate court found that the trial transcript omitted approximately eighteen minutes of the prosecutor's closing argument, and that no other transcript or videotape of the closing argument existed. It therefore directed the trial court to settle the record. On remand, the trial court held a hearing to determine what happened during the missing portion of the prosecutor's closing arguments. After reviewing the record of that hearing and the record on appeal, the Michigan Court of Appeals again affirmed Scott's convictions. The Michigan Supreme Court denied leave to appeal. Scott then filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, advancing the same claims he had made in the state courts. On March 8, 2001, the district court denied Scott's petition. This appeal followed.
We review the district court's legal conclusions de novo and its factual findings for clear error. DeLisle v. Rivers, 161 F.3d 370, 380 (6th Cir.1998). Scott filed his petition for federal habeas corpus relief on April 25, 2000. Thus, the 1996 amendments to 28 U.S.C. § 2254, embodied in the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act ("AEDPA"), are applicable to Scott's petition. See Lindh v. Murphy, 521 U.S. 320, 326-27, 117 S.Ct. 2059, 138 L.Ed.2d 481 (1997).
The Supreme Court recently described the standard for reviewing state court decisions under the AEDPA as follows:
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.
Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 412-13, 120 S.Ct. 1495, 146 L.Ed.2d 389 (2000). With these standards in mind, we consider each of Scott's claims in turn.
Scott's first argument is that there was insufficient evidence to convict him of first degree murder. Specifically, he contends that there was no evidence that the killing was premeditated and deliberate. In Jackson v. Virginia, the Court held that a petitioner is not entitled to habeas corpus relief based on insufficient evidence where, 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. 443 U.S. 307, 319, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979); Sanders v. Freeman, 221 F.3d 846, 856 (6th Cir.2000). This standard applies whether the evidence of guilt was direct or circumstantial. See Spalla v. Foltz, 788 F.2d 400, 402 (6th Cir.1986).
Under Michigan law, first degree murder requires a showing by the prosecution that the defendant intentionally killed the victim, and that the act of killing was premeditated and deliberate. People v. Schollaert, 194 Mich.App. 158, 486 N.W.2d 312, 318 (1992). Here, both the Michigan Court of Appeals and the district court found that the evidence supported the conviction for first degree murder. Both courts relied on evidence that Scott had placed a gun in his pocket before Williams picked him up, the testimony of Crain that Scott and Williams had a prior dispute over stereo speakers, Scott's admission that he had ill feelings toward Williams, and evidence that Scott shot Williams a second time in the stomach after leaving the scene of the first gunshot. Scott argues that there are possible alternative explanations for these occurrences, and that they do not necessarily show premeditation or deliberate killing. Under the Jackson standard, Scott's arguments in this regard are inapposite. A reasonable trier of fact could have drawn from the evidence described above the reasonable inference that Scott's decision to kill Williams was premeditated and that the act of killing was deliberate. Scott's insufficiency of the evidence claim therefore fails.
Scott's second claim is that the prosecutor improperly shifted the burden of proof at trial. He points to the prosecutor's statement during closing arguments that "there's no evidence of heat of the moment, heat of passion, of some sudden unexplainable impulse." Scott argues that this statement improperly placed the burden on Scott to show some evidence of a factor that would reduce the crime from first degree murder, rather than leaving the burden with the prosecutor to prove the elements of premeditation and deliberate killing beyond a reasonable doubt. The district court concluded that this claim was barred by procedural default and, alternatively, lacked merit.
The opinion of the Michigan Court of Appeals, the last reasoned...
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