Silas v. Sec'y

• Decision Date: 15 November 2016
• Docket Number: Case No. 3:13-cv-1275-J-34MCR
• Parties: BURKE LYNTONIA SILAS, Petitioner, v. SECRETARY, FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, et al., Respondents.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Middle District of Florida

BURKE LYNTONIA SILAS, Petitioner, v. SECRETARY, FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, et al., Respondents.

Case No. 3:13-cv-1275-J-34MCR

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT MIDDLE DISTRICT OF FLORIDA JACKSONVILLE DIVISION

November 15, 2016

ORDER

I. Status

Petitioner Burke Lyntonia Silas, an inmate of the Florida penal system, initiated this action on October 22, 2013, by filing a pro se Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus (Petition; Doc. 1) under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 and a Memorandum of Law in Support of Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus (Doc. 2). In the Petition, Silas challenges a 2010 state court (Duval County, Florida) judgment of conviction for sexual battery upon a mentally defective person. Respondents have submitted a memorandum in opposition to the Petition. See Respondents' Answer in Response to Order to Show Cause and Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus (Response; Doc. 14) with exhibits (Resp. Ex.). On December 17, 2013, the Court entered an Order to Show Cause and Notice to Petitioner (Doc. 6), admonishing Silas regarding his obligations and giving Silas a time frame in which to submit a reply. Silas submitted a brief in reply. See Petitioner's Reply to Respondents' Response to Show Cause Order (Reply; Doc. 18). This case is ripe for review.

II. Procedural History

On February 11, 2009, the State of Florida, in Case No. 16-2009-CF-001558, charged Silas with sexual battery upon a mentally defective person. Resp. Ex. A at 10, Information.¹ In April 2010, Silas proceeded to trial, see Resp. Exs. E; F; G, Transcripts of the Jury Trial (Tr.), at the conclusion of which, on April 6, 2010, a jury found him guilty of sexual battery upon a mentally defective person, as charged. Id. at 397; Resp. Ex. A at 134, Verdict. On June 3, 2010, the court sentenced Silas to a term of life imprisonment. Resp. Ex. B at 201-06, Judgment; 263-89.

On December 10, 2010, Silas, with the benefit of counsel, filed a motion to correct sentencing error pursuant to Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.800(b)(2). Resp. Ex. H at 1-8. On February 8, 2011, the trial court denied his motion. Id. at 9-71.

On direct appeal, Silas, with the benefit of counsel, filed an initial brief, arguing that the circuit court erred when it: failed to conduct an adequate inquiry into Silas's request to discharge counsel (ground one), and excluded the testimony of Dr. Valente as to Silas's borderline intelligence to support the defense theory (ground two). Resp. Ex. I. As ground three, Silas asserted that hislife sentence as a habitual felony offender violated the constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. Id. The State filed an answer brief, see Resp. Ex. J, and Silas filed a reply brief, see Resp. Ex. K. On September 23, 2011, the appellate court affirmed Silas's conviction per curiam, see Silas v. State, 75 So.3d 274 (Fla. 1st DCA 2011); Resp. Ex. L, and denied his motion for rehearing on November 8, 2011, see Resp. Exs. M; N. The mandate issued on November 28, 2011. See Resp. Ex. O.

On March 15, 2012, pursuant to the mailbox rule, Silas filed a pro se motion for post-conviction relief pursuant to Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.850. See Resp. Ex. P. In his request for post-conviction relief, he asserts that counsel was ineffective because he failed to: object to the legally insufficient Information (ground one); object to his habitual felony offender sentence (ground three); and call an alibi witness (ground four). He also asserted that the court lacked subject matter jurisdiction because the Information was legally insufficient (ground two), and the evidence was insufficient for a jury to find him guilty (ground five). See id. On January 30, 2013, the court denied his Rule 3.850 motion, see Resp. Ex. Q, and denied his motion for rehearing on March 5, 2013, see Resp. Exs. R; S. Silas did not timely appeal the court's denial. See Response at 2.

On July 21, 2016, Silas filed a pro se petition for belated appeal. See http://www.1dca.org, No. 1D16-3310. The appellate courtdenied Silas's petition for belated appeal on the merits on September 13, 2016. See Silas v. State, No. 1D16-3310, 2016 WL 4766405 (Fla. 1st DCA Sept. 13, 2016). Silas's September 28, 2016 motion for rehearing remains pending. See http://www.1dca.org, No. 1D16-3310.

III. One-Year Limitations Period

The Petition appears to be timely filed within the one-year limitations period. See 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d).

IV. Evidentiary Hearing

In a habeas corpus proceeding, the burden is on the petitioner to establish the need for a federal evidentiary hearing. See Chavez v. Sec'y, Fla. Dep't of Corr., 647 F.3d 1057, 1060 (11th Cir. 2011). "In deciding whether to grant an evidentiary hearing, a federal court must consider whether such a hearing could enable an applicant to prove the petition's factual allegations, which, if true, would entitle the applicant to federal habeas relief." Schriro v. Landrigan, 550 U.S. 465, 474 (2007); Jones v. Sec'y, Fla. Dep't of Corr., No. 13-15053, 2016 WL 4474677, at *14 (11th Cir. Aug. 25, 2016). "It follows that if the record refutes the applicant's factual allegations or otherwise precludes habeas relief, a district court is not required to hold an evidentiary hearing." Schriro, 550 U.S. at 474. The pertinent facts of this case are fully developed in the record before the Court. Because this Court can "adequately assess [Silas's] claim[s] withoutfurther factual development," Turner v. Crosby, 339 F.3d 1247, 1275 (11th Cir. 2003), an evidentiary hearing will not be conducted.

V. Standard of Review

The Court will analyze Silas's claims under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d), as amended by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA). Section 2254(d) states:

An application for a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court shall not be granted with respect to any claim that was adjudicated on the merits in State court proceedings unless the adjudication of the claim -

(1) resulted in a decision that was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States; or

(2) resulted in a decision that was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding.

Thus, 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d) "bars relitigation of any claim 'adjudicated on the merits' in state court, subject only to the exceptions in §§ 2254(d)(1) and (d)(2)." Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 98 (2011). As the United States Supreme Court stated, "AEDPA erects a formidable barrier to federal habeas relief for prisoners whose claims have been adjudicated in state court." Burt v. Titlow, 134 S.Ct. 10, 16 (2013). This standard of review is described as follows:

Under AEDPA, when the state court has adjudicated the petitioner's claim on the merits, a federal court may not grant habeas relief unless the state court's decision was "contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States," 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1), or "was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding," id. § 2254(d)(2). "Under § 2254(d)(1)'s 'contrary to' clause, we grant relief only '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.'" Jones v. GDCP Warden, 753 F.3d 1171, 1182 (11th Cir. 2014) (quoting Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 413, 120 S.Ct. 1495, 146 L.Ed.2d 389 (2000)). "Under § 2254(d)(1)'s 'unreasonable application' clause, we grant relief only '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. (quoting Williams, 529 U.S. at 413, 120 S.Ct. 1495).

For § 2254(d), clearly established federal law includes only the holdings of the Supreme Court - not Supreme Court dicta, nor the opinions of this Court. White v. Woodall, - U.S. -, 134 S.Ct. 1697, 1702, 188 L.Ed.2d 698 (2014). To clear the § 2254(d) hurdle, "a state prisoner must show that the state court's ruling on the claim being presented in federal court was so lacking in justification that there was an error well understood and comprehended in existing law beyond any possibility for fairminded disagreement." Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 131 S.Ct. 770, 786-87, 178 L.Ed.2d 624 (2011). "[A]n 'unreasonable application of' [Supreme Court] holdings must be 'objectively unreasonable,' not merely wrong; even 'clear error' will not suffice." Woodall, 134 S.Ct. at 1702 (quotingLockyer v. Andrade, 538 U.S. 63, 75-76, 123 S.Ct. 1166, 155 L.Ed.2d 144 (2003)). A state court need not cite or even be aware of Supreme Court cases "so long as neither the reasoning nor the result of the state-court decision contradicts them." Early v. Packer, 537 U.S. 3, 8, 123 S.Ct. 362, 154 L.Ed.2d 263 (2002); accordRichter, 131 S.Ct. at 784.

"AEDPA thus imposes a highly deferential standard for evaluating state-court rulings and demands that state-court decisions be given the benefit of the doubt." Renico v. Lett, 559 U.S. 766, 773, 130 S.Ct. 1855, 176 L.Ed.2d 678 (2010) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). And when a claim implicates both AEDPA and Strickland, our review is doubly deferential. Richter, 131 S.Ct. at 788 ("The standards created by Strickland and § 2254(d) are both highly deferential, and when the two apply in tandem, review is doubly so." (citations and internal quotation marks omitted)). [A petitioner] must establish that no fairminded jurist would have reached the Florida court's conclusion. SeeRichter, 131 S.Ct. at 786-87; Holsey v. Warden, Ga. Diagnostic Prison, 694 F.3d 1230, 1257-58 (11th Cir. 20

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