Seino v. Ladouceur
| Decision Date | 19 September 2022 |
| Docket Number | Civil Action 19-40101-TSH |
| Parties | CARLOS A. SEINO, Petitioner, v. KRISTIN LADOUCEUR, SUPERINTENDENT, NORTH CENTRAL CORRECTIONAL INSTITUION AT GARDNER, Respondent. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Massachusetts |
HILLMAN, S.D.J.
Carlos A. Seino (“Seino” or “Petitioner”) filed a Petition Under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 For Writ Of Habeas Corpus By A Person In State Custody (Docket No 1)(“Petition”) against Kristin Ladouceur Superintendent, North Central Correctional Institution Gardner, MA (“Respondent”). Petitioner was convicted in Massachusetts Superior Court of Murder in the first degree (felony-murder) and armed robbery. He is serving a sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole on the murder conviction. He asserts the following three grounds for relief:
On September 19, 2006, a Norfolk County grand jury returned an indictment charging Petitioner with first-degree murder (on a theory of felony murder) and armed robbery. On June 8, 2008, the Commonwealth filed several motions in limine including the following: (1) to admit the testimony of a substitute medical examiner; (2) to admit the testimony of substitute witnesses from the Massachusetts State Police Crime Laboratory; (3) to allow Dr. Robin Cotton to testify as a substitute DNA analyst; and (4) to use and admit charts of DNA test results. The trial judge ruled that the substitute witnesses would be allowed to testify based on their own opinions.
A jury trial commenced on June 1, 2008, and on June 19, 2008, the jury returned a verdict finding Petitioner guilty of armed robbery and first-degree felony murder. The trial judge sentenced him to a state-prison term of life on the first-degree murder conviction with a concurrent state-prison term of a minimum of five years and a maximum of seven years on the armed robbery conviction. Petitioner timely filed a notice of appeal on June 27, 2008. In accordance with the schedule set by the SJC, Petitioner his brief in support of his appeal on February 10, 2017[1], raising the following issues: (1) the trial court committed reversible error when it allowed multiple substitute witnesses to testify to the factual findings contained in (a) an autopsy report and a death certificate, and (b) DNA test reports, none of which were authored by any of the testifying witnesses; and (2) the trial court committed reversible error when it allowed a DNA expert to opine that the petitioner's DNA profile matched that of a sample from the victim's clothing, where said expert was not affiliated with the lab that tested the sample and where the only testimony as to authenticity of the DNA results in question was erroneously admitted through hearsay testimony by a substitute expert who had not performed the DNA testing.
On December 13, 2017, after the SJC had heard oral argument on his direct appeal, Petitioner filed a motion for a new trial. In his motion for a new trial, Petitioner raised the following issues: (1) he was deprived of the effective assistance of counsel where trial counsel (a) failed to object to the introduction of the lab reports authored by non-testifying experts, resulting in the loss of his constitutional right to confrontation; (b) failed to have Petitioner's DNA expert, for whom trial counsel had requested court funding multiple times, attend the exhaustive DNA testing by the Commonwealth on the only DNA samples found to have matched Petitioner; (c) failed to call at trial both a pathologist and a blood-spatter expert to challenge the expert testimony of the Commonwealth's experts, after trial counsel had requested court funding for said pathologist and blood-spatter expert; and (d) failed to present any evidence showing the pattern of DNA mishandling by the state lab at the time DNA tests were being conducted in the case; (2) the prosecution violated Petitioner's constitutional due process rights under Brady v. Maryland when (a) an investigator for the Massachusetts State Police (“MSP”), in direct contravention of the department's own policy, deliberately destroyed his handwritten investigation notes, thereby depriving the petitioner of potentially exculpatory evidence; and (b) the QPD lost a photograph that officers took of Petitioner's wounded hand when interrogating him at the police station. Petitioner also presented other claims pro se pursuant to Commonwealth v. Moffett, 383 Mass. 201, 208, 418 N.E.2d 585 (1983) (), specifically, ineffective assistance of counsel for improperly stipulating to police diligence in the investigation; failing to investigate alibi witnesses in a timely way; and employing an investigator with a conflict of interest. On May 8, 2018, the SJC affirmed Petitioner's convictions and denied the motion for a new trial. On July 29, 2019, Petitioner filed the instant Petition.
Facts[2]
In the spring of 2002, Seino moved into an apartment with two roommates in Quincy, Massachusetts. By August of that year, he was significantly behind on the rent. On August 2, Seino's roommate warned him that he would be asked to move out if he did not pay the total amount that he owed by the following day. Seino paid a portion of the amount owed to his roommate before going out for the evening.
That night, the victim spent several hours at a local Quincy bar, where he cashed two checks for a total of $603 and put the money in his jeans' pocket. At the bar, the victim drank several beers, played Keno and darts, and socialized. The victim, who appeared to be drunk, bought drinks for patrons and “flaunt[ed]” his money such that one of his friends urged him to “put [it] away.” He spent approximately eighty dollars while at the bar that night.
Seino arrived at the bar at approximately midnight. He saw some people he knew and observed the victim (whom he did not know) staggering around with Keno tickets. He stayed for between twenty and thirty minutes, leaving at approximately 12:30 a.m. The victim left the bar when it closed, around 1 a.m., traveling by foot. At approximately 1:30 a.m., Seino woke up his roommate and gave him the remaining money owed in cash. Later that morning, the roommate observed Seino in front of the television listening to the Quincy public access channel, which was broadcasting the police scanner.
The victim's lifeless body was discovered at approximately 7 a.m. on a walkway behind the Quincy public library with contusions to his nose and the back of his head. Although his wallet was still on his person, most of the cash was missing. Investigators took samples from Seino's clothing, including a snippet from the left front jeans pocket and a snippet from the front of the victim's shirt, both of which had bloodstains. The DNA extracted from the jeans pocket sample was a mixture that matched the DNA profiles of both the victim and Seino. The DNA extracted from the bloodstain on the victim's shirt matched only Seino's profile.
Seino testified at trial and offered weak alibi evidence to demonstrate that he did not have the opportunity to commit the crime. More specifically, he testified that he visited several bars in succession after leaving the bar where the victim had been present. The SJC found, however, that even taking Seino at his word, he could have done all that he claimed and still committed the crime. Seino also suggested another individual committed the crime and speculated that blood from a cut on his hand ended up on the victim's clothing via incidental contact at the bar.
The Autopsy and Death Certificate Evidence.
Dr Richard Evans, who did not perform the autopsy testified regarding the cause of the victim's death. In doing so he referred to statements/conclusions in the autopsy report and the death certificate, neither of which he authored.
Facts Surrounding Analysis of the DNA Evidence.
Red-brown stains found on the front left pocket of the victim's jeans and on the front of the victim's shirt were determined to be bloodstains. A snippet of each item was prepared for DNA analysis, and the resulting profiles were compared to Seino's DNA profile.[3] The DNA profile from the bloodstain on the jeans pocket was developed at a Cellmark Diagnostics (“Cellmark”) laboratory in Maryland (“Cellmark-Maryland”). That laboratory's former director Dr. Robin Cotton, testified that the DNA found on the jeans was a mixture of two profiles-- the victim was one potential contributor to the DNA sample, and the second contributor was a man.[4]When Seino's DNA became available (i...
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