Small v. Secretary, Florida Department of Corrections

• Decision Date: 26 July 2021
• Docket Number: 3:18-cv-571-TJC-JRK
• Court: U.S. District Court — Middle District of Florida
• Parties: JAMALE EUGENE SMALL, Petitioner, v. SECRETARY, FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, et al., Respondents.

JAMALE EUGENE SMALL, Petitioner, v. SECRETARY, FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, et al., Respondents.

No. 3:18-cv-571-TJC-JRK

United States District Court, M.D. Florida, Jacksonville Division

July 26, 2021

ORDER

TIMOTHY J. CORRIGAN United States District Judge

I. Status

Petitioner an inmate of the Florida penal system, initiated this case by filing a pro se Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus Under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. Doc. 1. He is challenging a state court (Duval County, Florida) judgment of conviction for tampering with a witness and burglary of an occupied dwelling. He is serving a twelve-year term of incarceration. Respondents have responded. See Doc. 5; Response.^[1] Petitioner filed a notice advising that he did not wish to reply, and instead relies on his assertions and claims as stated in the Petition. See Doc. 7. This case is ripe for review.

II. Governing Legal Principles

A. Standard of Review

The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA) governs a state prisoner's federal habeas corpus petition. See Ledford v. Warden, Ga. Diagnostic & Classification Prison, 818 F.3d 600, 642 (11th Cir. 2016), cert. denied, 137 S.Ct. 1432 (2017). “‘The purpose of AEDPA is to ensure that federal habeas relief functions as a guard against extreme malfunctions in the state criminal justice systems, and not as a means of error correction.'” Id. (quoting Greene v. Fisher, 565 U.S. 34, 38 (2011)).

The first task of the federal habeas court is to identify the last state court decision, if any, that adjudicated the petitioner's claims on the merits. See Marshall v. Sec'y Fla. Dep't of Corr., 828 F.3d 1277, 1285 (11th Cir. 2016). The state court need not issue an opinion explaining its rationale for the state court's decision to qualify as an adjudication on the merits. See Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 100 (2011). When the state court's adjudication on the merits is unaccompanied by an explanation,

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. But the State may rebut the presumption by showing that the unexplained affirmance relied or most likely did rely on different grounds than the lower state court's decision, such as alternative grounds for affirmance that were briefed or argued to the state supreme court or obvious in the record it reviewed.

Wilson v. Sellers, 138 S.Ct. 1188, 1192 (2018).

When a state court has adjudicated a petitioner's claims on the merits, a federal court cannot grant habeas relief unless the state court's adjudication of the claim was “contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States, ” or “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)(1), (2). A state court's factual findings are “presumed to be correct” unless rebutted “by clear and convincing evidence.” Id. § 2254(e)(1).

AEDPA “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) (internal quotation marks omitted). “A 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) (internal quotation marks omitted). “It bears repeating that even a strong case for relief does not mean the state court's contrary conclusion was unreasonable.” Id. [at 102] (citing Lockyer v. Andrade, 538 U.S. 63, 75 (2003)). The Supreme Court has repeatedly instructed lower federal courts that an unreasonable application of law requires more than mere error or even clear error. See, e.g., Mitchell v. Esparza, 540 U.S. 12, 18 (2003); Lockyer, 538 U.S. at 75 (“The gloss of clear error fails to give proper deference to state courts by conflating error (even clear error) with unreasonableness.”); Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 410 (2000) (“[A]n unreasonable application of federal law is different from an incorrect application of federal law.”).

Bishop v. Warden, GDCP, 726 F.3d 1243, 1253-54 (11th Cir. 2013) (internal citations modified).

III. Petitioner's Claim and Analysis

Petitioner raises one claim for relief. He argues that the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress all evidence of the burglary victim's, Camille Price, pretrial identifications of Petitioner. Doc. 1-1 at 1. According to Petitioner, trial counsel, on behalf of Petitioner, sought to suppress this identification evidence because it was obtained through impermissibly suggestive means that caused “a substantial likelihood of irreparable misidentification.” Id. Petitioner asserts that the trial court violated his constitutional rights when it allowed the state to present such evidence.

Petitioner's initial brief filed on direct appeal summarizes the relevant facts. See Resp. Ex. S. On the morning of April 23, 2015, Price was alone in her apartment when she noticed a small white SUV parked sideways in the parking lot in front of her home. Two men she had never seen before got out of the vehicle. The driver was wearing a bullet proof vest and was holding a handgun. The man with the gun approached Price's sliding glass door and began to hit the glass with the butt of the weapon. Price asked the men what they wanted, to which they replied that they were looking for her safe. Eventually, the force from hitting the glass caused the door to “pop” open and the two men came inside and walked to the back of Price's apartment. Price ran outside and called for help. As she sought help, the two men left, got back into the SUV, and drove away, but Price managed to write down the license plate number before they left.

Price then called 911 and told the police what happened. Price learned that the SUV belonged to Jamale Small. This information prompted Price to conduct an independent internet search using the name, leading her to find a picture of Petitioner on the Florida Department of Corrections website. She recognized that Petitioner was one of the men who came into her home. Sometime later, Officer Blankenship showed Price a photo of Petitioner and Price positively identified the photo as the one of the burglars. Later, police presented a photo spread to Price and she again picked Petitioner's photo as one of the men who participated in the burglary. In a second photo spread, Price picked Gregory Wallace, Petitioner's brother, as the second individual who participated in the burglary. Petitioner was then arrested.

Following Petitioner's arrest, trial counsel, on behalf of Petitioner, moved to suppress Price's out-of-court identifications of Petitioner and any future in-court identification of Petitioner. Resp. Ex. A at 44-49. According to trial counsel, Price's identification of Petitioner resulted from officers' “unduly suggestive procedures, ” and thus violated Petitioner's due process rights. Id. at 45. He argued that Officer Blankenship's first photo presentation to Price only consisted of a single photo of Petitioner, “which in essence deliberately focuses [on] [Petitioner] and is therefore impermissibly suggestive.” Id. at 47. He also contended that the single-photo identification of Petitioner tainted the later multi-photo lineup because Price was already drawn to Petitioner's photograph. Id.

The trial court conducted an evidentiary hearing on the motion to suppress. Resp. Ex. E at 436-94. During the hearing, Price testified about the details of the burglary. Id. She stated it was daylight outside, about 10:30 a.m., when the suspects approached her sliding glass door. She got a clear view of both suspects as they were right in front of her. Id. at 442. Price testified that the first man was around twenty-years old, six feet, “had a low haircut, he had on a bulletproof vest, and he had a gun with a little round barrel. The second gentleman was maybe six feet and he had long dreads.” Id. Price explained that once the individual with the gun popped the door open, the men walked inside directly in front of her. Id. at 443. According to Price, the men were inside her apartment for about four minutes and during that time, she got a good look at their faces. Id. at 444. She had a brief conversation with the men about a safe, during which she was watching their faces. Id. Price stated she ran outside to get help and at that time, she saw the men leave in a vehicle and managed to write down the tag number. Id. at 444-45.

According to Price, she called the police who arrived and took her statement including the tag information. Id. at 445. While the police were at her apartment, Price said she heard the police radio call out an address for an individual named “Small.” Id. at 445. Price stated that later that day, she called the jail twice to inquire about whether the burglars had been arrested. Id. at 446. During one of those calls, Price gave an officer her incident number and the officer then provided Price with the name “Jamale Small” and advised her that no one had yet been arrested. Id. at 446. Price then used Petitioner's full name to search the FDOC website and found Petitioner's photo. Id. at 446-47. Price testified that when she saw the photo, she was “100 percent” certain that it was the same man who broke into her apartment wearing a bullet proof vest and wielding a gun. Id. at 447-48. Price explained that four days later, on April 27, she met with Blankenship who showed Price the same FDOC photograph of...