Shellito v. Sec'y, Fla. Dep't of Corr.

• Decision Date: 30 July 2020
• Docket Number: Case No. 3:18-cv-868-J-39JRK
• Parties: MICHAEL WAYNE SHELLITO, Petitioner, v. SECRETARY, FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, et al., Respondents.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Middle District of Florida

MICHAEL WAYNE SHELLITO, Petitioner, v. SECRETARY, FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, et al., Respondents.

Case No. 3:18-cv-868-J-39JRK

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT MIDDLE DISTRICT OF FLORIDA JACKSONVILLE DIVISION

July 30, 2020

ORDER

I. INTRODUCTION

Petitioner Michael Wayne Shellito is serving a term of life in prison without the possibility of parole for the offense of first degree murder.¹ Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus Under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 (Petition) (Doc. 1). Through counsel, he is challenging his state court (Duval County) conviction for murder. Respondents filed State's Answer in Response to Order to Show Cause (Response) (Doc. 13).² Petitioner countered with his Reply to Response to Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus (Reply) (Doc. 16).

II. EVIDENTIARY HEARING

"In a habeas corpus proceeding, the burden is on the petitioner to establish the need for an evidentiary hearing." Jones v. Sec'y, Fla. Dep't of Corr., 834 F.3d 1299, 1318 (11th Cir. 2016) (citations omitted), cert. denied, 137 S. Ct. 2245 (2017). See Chavez v. Sec'y, Fla. Dep't of Corr., 647 F.3d 1057, 1060 (11th Cir. 2011) (opining a petitioner bears the burden of establishing the need for an evidentiary hearing with more than speculative and inconcrete claims of need), cert. denied, 565 U.S. 1120 (2012); Dickson v. Wainwright, 683 F.2d 348, 351 (11th Cir. 1982) (same). A petitioner must make a specific factual proffer or proffer evidence that, if true, would provide entitlement to relief. Jones, 834 F.3d at 1319 (citations omitted). Conclusory allegations will not suffice. Id.

In this case, the pertinent facts are fully developed in this record or the record otherwise precludes habeas relief;³ therefore, the Court can "adequately assess [Petitioner's] claim[s] without further factual development," Turner v. Crosby, 339 F.3d 1247, 1275 (11th Cir. 2003), cert. denied, 541 U.S. 1034 (2004).Petitioner has not met his burden as the record refutes the asserted factual allegations or otherwise precludes habeas relief. Thus, the Court finds Petitioner is not entitled to an evidentiary hearing. Schriro v. Landrigan, 550 U.S. 465, 474 (2007).

III. PETITION

Petitioner lists three grounds for habeas relief:

GROUND ONE: The State withheld evidence which was material and exculpatory in nature and/or presented false evidence in violation of Mr. Shellito's Constitutional rights.

GROUND TWO: Mr. Shellito was denied the effective assistance of counsel at the guilt phase of the capital proceedings, in violation of the Sixth, Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.⁴

GROUND THREE: Mr. Shellito was absent from critical stages of the trial in violation of his Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. Appellate Counsel's failure to raise this claim was deficient performance which denied Mr. Shellito effective assistance of counsel on direct appeal.

Petition at 16, 22, 33.

Petitioner asks that his judgment and sentence be reversed. Id. at 37. He contends habeas relief is warranted based on his expressed grounds for relief. Reply at 14.

IV. HABEAS REVIEW

In this case, Petitioner claims he is detained "in violation of the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States." 28 U.S.C. § 2241(c)(3). The Court recognizes its authority to award habeas corpus relief to state prisoners "is limited-by both statute and Supreme Court precedent." Knight v. Fla. Dep't of Corr., 936 F.3d 1322, 1330 (11th Cir. 2019), petition for cert. filed, (U.S. Apr. 20, 2019) (No. 19-8341). The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) governs a state prisoner's federal petition for habeas corpus and "prescribes a deferential framework for evaluating issues previously decided in state court[,]" Sealey v. Warden, Ga. Diagnostic Prison, 954 F.3d 1338, 1354 (11th Cir. 2020) (citation omitted), limiting a federal court's authority to award habeas relief. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254; Shoop v. Hill, 139 S. Ct. 504, 506 (2019) (per curiam) (recognizing AEDPA imposes "important limitations on the power of federal courts to overturn the judgments of state courts in criminal cases"). As such, federal courts may not grant habeas relief unless one of the claims: "(1)'was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined bythe Supreme Court of the United States,' or (2) 'was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding.' 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)." Nance v. Warden, Ga. Diagnostic Prison, 922 F.3d 1298, 1300-1301 (11th Cir. 2019), cert. denied, 140 S. Ct. 2520 (2020).

In Knight, the Eleventh Circuit explained:

A decision is "contrary to" clearly established federal law "if the state court arrives at a conclusion opposite to that reached by [the Supreme] Court on a question of law or if the state court decides a case differently than [the Supreme] Court has on a set of materially indistinguishable facts." Williams [v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362 (2000)] at 413, 120 S. Ct. 1495. A state court decision involves an unreasonable application of federal law "if the state court identifies the correct governing legal principle from [the Supreme] Court's decisions but unreasonably applies that principle to the facts of the prisoner's case." Id. To justify issuance of the writ under the "unreasonable application" clause, the state court's application of Supreme Court precedent must be more than just wrong in the eyes of the federal court; it "must be 'objectively unreasonable.'" Virginia v. LeBlanc, --- U.S. ----, 137 S. Ct. 1726, 1728, 198 L.Ed.2d 186 (2017)(quoting Woods v. Donald, --- U.S. ---, 135 S. Ct. 1372, 1376, 191 L.Ed.2d 464 (2015)); see alsoBell v. Cone, 535 U.S. 685, 694, 122 S. Ct. 1843, 152 L.Ed.2d 914 (2002) (explaining that "an unreasonable application is different from an incorrect one.").

Knight, 936 F.3d at 1330-31.

To obtain habeas relief, the state court decision must unquestionably conflict with Supreme Court precedent, not dicta. Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 102 (2011). If some fair-minded jurists could agree with the lower court's decision, habeas relief must be denied. Meders v. Warden, Ga. Diagnostic Prison, 911 F.3d 1335, 1351 (11th Cir.), cert. denied, 140 S. Ct. 394 (2019). Therefore, unless the petitioner shows the state-court's ruling was so lacking in justification that there was error well understood and comprehended in existing law beyond any possibility for fair-minded disagreement, there is no entitlement to habeas relief. Burt v. Titlow, 571 U.S. 12, 19-20 (2013).

This Court must accept that a state court's finding of fact, whether a state trial court or appellate court, is entitled to a presumption of correctness under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(1). "The state court's factual determinations are presumed correct, absent clear and convincing evidence to the contrary." Sealey, 954 F.3d at 1354 (quoting 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(1)). This presumption of correctness, however, applies only to findings of fact, not mixed determinations of law and fact. Brannan v. GDCP Warden, 541 F. App'x 901, 903-904 (11th Cir. 2013) (per curiam) (recognizing the distinction between a pure question of fact from a mixed question of law and fact), cert. denied, 573 U.S. 906 (2014).

Where there has been one reasoned state court judgment rejecting a federal claim followed by an unexplained order upholding that judgement, federal habeas courts employ a "look through" presumption: "the federal court should 'look through' the unexplained decision to the last related state-court decision that does provide a relevant rationale. It should then presume that the unexplained decision adopted the same reasoning." Wilson v. Sellers, 138 S. Ct. 1188, 1192 (2018) (Wilson).

The reviewing federal court's habeas corpus consideration of a petition under AEDPA is a guard against extreme malfunctions in the state criminal justice systems, not a mechanism for ordinary error correction. Richter, 562 U.S. at 102-103 (citation and quotation marks omitted). As noted in Sealey, 954 F.3d at 1354 (citations omitted), when reviewing whether there has been an unreasonable application of federal law, "[t]he key word is 'unreasonable,' which is more than simply incorrect." Consequently, state-court judgments will not easily be set aside due to the applicability of the highly deferential AEDPA standard that is intentionally difficult to meet. See Richter, 562 U.S. at 102. Although a high hurdle, this high standard does not impose a complete bar to issuing a writ, but it severely limits those occasions to those "where there is no possibility fairmindedjurists could disagree that the state court's decision conflicts" with Supreme Court precedent. Id.

V. INEFFECTIVE ASSISTANCE OF COUNSEL

Petitioner raises claims of both ineffective assistance of trial counsel and ineffective assistance of appellate counsel. To prevail on a Sixth Amendment claim of ineffective assistance of trial counsel, he must satisfy the two-pronged test set forth in Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 688 (1984), requiring that he show both deficient performance (counsel's representation fell below an objective standard of reasonableness) and prejudice (there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different). See Brewster v. Hetzel, 913 F.3d 1042, 1051-52 (11th Cir. 2019) (reviewing court may begin with either component).

The two-part Strickland standard applies to Petitioner's claim of ineffective assistance of appellate counsel as well:

An ineffective assistance of appellate counsel claim is "governed by the same standards applied to trial counsel under Strickland." Brooks v. Comm'r, Ala. Dep't of Corr., 719 F.3d 1292, 1300 (11th Cir. 2013) (internal quotation marks omitted). To show a meritorious Sixth Amendment claim of ineffective assistance of appellate counsel, a petitioner must demonstrate (1) deficient

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