Slack v. Parish

• Decision Date: 09 May 2022
• Docket Number: 20-CV-10546
• Parties: TERRENCE ANTHONY SLACK, #174085, Petitioner, v. L. PARISH, Respondent.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Michigan

TERRENCE ANTHONY SLACK, #174085, Petitioner, v. L. PARISH, Respondent.

No. 20-CV-10546

United States District Court, E.D. Michigan, Southern Division

May 9, 2022

OPINION AND ORDER DENYING THE PETITION FOR A WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS, DENYING A CERTIFICATE OF APPEALABILITY, AND DENYING LEAVE TO PROCEED IN FORMA PAUPERIS ON APPEAL

Bernard A. Friedman Senior United States District Judge

I. Introduction

This is a pro se habeas case brought pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254. Michigan prisoner Terrence Anthony Slack (''petitioner'') was convicted of first-degree criminal sexual conduct (''CSC1''), MICH. COMP. LAWS' 750.520b following a jury trial in the Wayne County Circuit Court. He was sentenced, as a fourth habitual offender, MICH. COMP. LAWS' 769.12, to 35 to 70 years imprisonment in 2017. In his pleadings, the petitioner raises claims concerning the admission of other acts testimony, the admission of the victim's identification testimony, the conduct of the prosecutor, and the validity of his sentence. For the following reasons, the Court denies the habeas petition. The Court also denies a certificate of appealability as well as leave to proceed in forma pauperis on appeal.

II. Facts and Procedural History

The petitioner's conviction arises from his rape of a 16-year-old girl in a Detroit alley in 1998. The Michigan Court of Appeals described the relevant facts, which are presumed correct on federal habeas review, 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(1); Wagner v. Smith, 581 F.3d 410, 413 (6th Cir. 2009), as follows:

Following a jury trial, defendant was convicted of sexually assaulting a 16-year-old female in an alley in Detroit on the night of January 4, 1998. During trial, the victim testified that she was travelling home after work when a man attempted to converse with her at a bus stop. The victim stated that she did not acknowledge him and that she did not believe he boarded the bus when it arrived. However, after riding and getting off the bus, the victim noticed that the same man who spoke to her at the bus stop was following her. The man quickly approached the victim from behind and jabbed something hard in her side. When the victim attempted to run away, the man grabbed her from behind, put his hand over her mouth, and forced her into an alley. The man then removed the victim's pants and raped her. Before fleeing, the man threatened to kill the victim if she moved. The victim reported the incident to the police and went to a hospital, where a sexual assault examination was performed and DNA samples were collected from a vaginal swab.

In 2015, defendant was identified as a suspect of the sexual assault through the Combined Offender DNA Index System. Forensic testing revealed that defendant's DNA matched the DNA recovered from the victim in 1998, leading to defendant's arrest and prosecution. When interviewed in 2015, the victim was not able to identify defendant as the perpetrator from a photographic array, nor was she able to identify him during the preliminary examination. During trial, however, she testified that defendant ''looks like an older version of the man I seen that night ....[w]ho assaulted me''. Defendant was ultimately convicted of CSC I.

People v. Slack, No. 337135, 2018 WL 6184900, *1 (Mich. Ct. App. Nov. 27, 2018) (unpublished).

Following his conviction and sentencing, the petitioner filed an appeal of right with the Michigan Court of Appeals raising the following claims:

I. The trial court erred by not allowing him to show that the prosecutor used MRE 404b evidence of a crime for which he was previously tried and acquitted.

II. The trial court erred in allowing the victim to testify that he looked like an older version of the perpetrator even though she could not specifically identify him.

III. The prosecutor committed misconduct by arguing to the jury that the victim had ''no reason to lie'' about what occurred.

IV. The court should remand for correction of his judgment of sentence as it erroneously imposes lifetime electronic monitoring which was not man Dated: the time the crime was committed in 1998.

The Michigan Court of Appeals granted the petitioner relief on the sentencing claim, but denied relief on the other claims and affirmed his conviction. Id. at *1-6. The petitioner filed an application for leave to appeal with the Michigan Supreme Court, which was denied in a standard order. People v. Slack, 503 Mich. 1020, 925 N.W.2d 870 (2019).

The petitioner thereafter filed his federal habeas petition essentially raising the same claims presented to the state courts on direct appeal of his conviction. The respondent filed an answer to the habeas petition asking that it be denied.

III. Standard of Review

The ''ntiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (''AEDPA''), codified at 28 U.S.C. § 2241 et seq., sets forth the standard of review that federal courts employ when considering habeas petitions brought by prisoners challenging their state court convictions. The AEDPA provides in relevant part:

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.

28 U.S.C. §2254(d).

AA state court's decision is' contrary to' . . . clearly established law if it' applies a rule that contradicts the governing law set forth in [Supreme Court cases]' or if it' confronts a set of facts that are materially indistinguishable from a decision of [the Supreme] Court and nevertheless arrives at a result different from [that] precedent''' Mitchell v. Esparza, 540 U.S. 12, 15-16 (2003) (per curiam) (quoting Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 405-06 (2000)); see also Bell v. Cone, 535 U.S. 685, 694 (2002).

A[T]he' unreasonable application' prong of' 2254(d)(1) permits a federal habeas court to' grant the writ if the state court identifies the correct governing legal principle from [the Supreme] Court but unreasonably applies that principle to the facts of petitioner's case.'' Wiggins v. Smith, 539 U.S. 510, 520 (2003) (quoting Williams, 529 U.S. at 413); see also Bell, 535 U.S. at 694. However, A[i]n order for a federal court to find a state court's application of [Supreme Court] precedent 'unreasonable,' the state court's decision must have been more than incorrect or erroneous. The state court's application must have been 'objectively unreasonable.''' Wiggins, 539 U.S. at 520-21 (citations omitted); see also Williams, 529 U.S. at 409. AAEDPA 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 (2010) (quoting Lindh, 521 U.S. at 333, n. 7; Woodford v. Viscotti, 537 U.S. 19, 24 (2002) (per curiam)).

The United States Supreme Court has held that Aa state court's determination that a claim lacks merit precludes federal habeas relief so long as 'fairminded jurists could disagree' on the correctness of the state court's decision.'' Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 101 (2011) (citing Yarborough v. Alvarado, 541 U.S. 652, 664 (2004)). The Supreme Court has emphasized ''that even a strong case for relief does not mean the state court's contrary conclusion was unreasonable.'' Id. (citing Lockyer v. Andrade, 538 U.S. 63, 75 (2003)). A habeas court ''must determine what arguments or theories supported or . . . could have supported, the state court's decision; and then it must ask whether it is possible fairminded jurists could disagree that those arguments or theories are inconsistent with the holding in a prior [Supreme Court] decision.'' Id. Thus, in order to obtain federal habeas relief, a state prisoner must show that the state court's rejection of a claim Awas so lacking in justification that there was an error well understood and comprehended in existing law beyond any possibility for fairminded disagreement.'' Id.; see also White v. Woodall, 572 U.S. 415, 419-20 (2014). Federal judges ''are required to afford state courts due respect by overturning their decisions only when there could be no reasonable dispute that they were wrong.'' Woods v. Donald, 575 U.S. 312, 316 (2015).

Section 2254(d)(1) limits a federal court's review to a determination of whether the state court's decision comports with clearly established federal law as determined by the Supreme Court at the time the state court renders its decision. Williams, 529 U.S. at 412; see also Knowles v. Mirzayance, 556 U.S. 111, 122 (2009) (noting that the Supreme Court Ahas held on numerous occasions that it is not 'an unreasonable application of clearly established Federal law' for a state court to decline to apply a specific legal rule that has not been squarely established by this Court'') (quoting Wright v. Van Patten, 552 U.S. 120, 125-26 (2008) (per curiam)); Lockyer, 538 U.S. at 71-72. Section 2254(d) ''does not require a state court to give reasons before its decision can be deemed to have been 'adjudicated on the merits.''' Harrington, 562 U.S. at 100. Furthermore, it ''does not require citation of [Supreme Court] cases Bindeed, it does not even require awareness 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 (2002); see also Mitchell, 540 U.S. at 16.

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