Smith v. Bagley

• Decision Date: 31 March 2014
• Docket Number: CASE NO. 1:00 CV 1961
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Ohio
• Parties: RAYMOND SMITH, Petitioner, v. MARGARET BAGLEY, Warden, Respondent.

RAYMOND SMITH, Petitioner, v. MARGARET BAGLEY, Warden, Respondent.

CASE NO. 1:00 CV 1961

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT NORTHERN DISTRICT OF OHIO EASTERN DIVISION

March 31, 2014

JUDGE LESLEY WELLS

MEMORANDUM OF OPINIONAND ORDER

This matter is before the Court upon Petitioner Raymond Smith's ("Petitioner" or "Mr. Smith") Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus, filed pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254. Through this petition, Mr. Smith challenges the constitutionality of his conviction, rendered by an Ohio court. (ECF No. 44.) The Respondent, Warden Margaret Bagley ("Respondent"), filed a Return of Writ. (ECF No. 71.) Mr. Smith filed a Traverse, and Respondent, a Sur-Reply. (ECF Nos. 127 and 131, respectively.) For the following reasons, the Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus is denied.

I. Factual History

On March 8, 1995, a Lorain County, Ohio, grand jury indicted Mr. Smith for the aggravated murder of Ronald Lally. The grand jury also separately indicted Mr. Smith's son Daniel ("Danny") Smith and Stanley Jalowiec for Mr. Lally's murder. The indictment charged Mr. Smith with one count of murder with prior calculation and design pursuant to Ohio Revised Code § 2903.01(A). Italso included a firearm specification under Ohio Revised Code § 2941.141, and a capital specification under Ohio Revised Code § 2929.04(A)(8), alleging that Mr. Smith purposely killed Mr. Lally in order to prevent him from testifying against him in a separate criminal proceeding. (ECF No. 122-1, 12.) Mr. Smith entered a plea of not guilty to all charges. (Id. at 17.)

The Ohio Supreme Court set out the following factual history, as adduced by the evidence presented at trial, upon considering Mr. Smith's direct appeal of his conviction and sentence:

On the morning of January 19, 1994, a partially clad male body was found in a Cleveland cemetery. Two weeks later, the body was identified as that of Ronald Lally of Elyria. Over a year later, defendant-appellant, Raymond Smith, and two others including his son, Danny Smith, were indicted for aggravated murder, a firearm specification, and a death penalty specification, alleging that Lally was purposely killed to prevent his testimony in a separate criminal proceeding. Subsequently, a jury found appellant guilty as charged, and he was sentenced to death.

In June 1993, Ronald Lally contacted the Elyria police and advised them that he wanted to reform himself and stop doing drugs. He felt the best way he could do that was to turn in his supplier. Lally signed an agreement with Elyria Police Detective Alan L. Leiby to become a confidential informant for the Elyria Police Department. On June 7, 1993, with Leiby's assistance, Lally was wired with a hidden monitoring device and made a controlled drug buy of crack cocaine from Danny and appellant. As a result of the controlled buy, police arrested Danny and appellant in August 1993 and charged them with aggravated drug trafficking. Both cases were eventually set for trial on January 19, 1994.

Lally's fiancée, Sandra Williams, testified that on September 7, 1993, Danny approached her in her yard. Danny said he knew where Lally was and told her that Lally would feel "real bad" if anything happened to her or to members of Lally's family. Danny also told Williams that he knew where Lally's parents lived and that it would be a shame if their trailer happened to get blown up.

On the afternoon of September 15, 1993, Police Officer John Homoki responded to a disturbance call at the Mr. Hero's restaurant on Middle Avenue in Elyria. As he pulled into the Mr. Hero's parking lot, Homoki noticed Stan Jalowiec turn around and walk away from the area. He then saw Lally and Danny talking in front of the store doorway. Lally appeared to be extremely upset.

Lally hurried across the lot to Homoki's cruiser and told Homoki: "John, these guys are going to fuck me up." Lally explained that he was a police informant, that hehad bought drugs from these individuals, and that they had threatened to kill him. Homoki yelled over to Jalowiec to stand by, and then approached Danny, who said excitedly while pointing to Lally: "That punk ass bitch * * * is going to get his." Danny then denied that he was threatening Lally. Consequently, Homoki asked Lally if he wanted to pursue charges for intimidation, but Lally declined, saying that he just wanted to get out of the area.

A few months before January 1994, Danny approached Terry Hopkins and asked him to "kill somebody," but Hopkins declined. Danny told Hopkins that he wanted the person killed "because he had informed the police of his doings."

Brian Howington, a nephew of Joann Corrine Fike, knew appellant through his visits to his aunt's house. On the evening of January 18, 1994, Howington went with Jalowiec to a couple of bars in his aunt's car, a Chrysler LeBaron convertible. Jalowiec asked Howington to take him to "a friend's house," and the pair went to Lally's apartment on Middle Avenue. There, they smoked crack cocaine with Lally and his roommate. Around 10:00 p.m., the group went over to the aunt's house, "partied some more and shot some pool." Jalowiec received a message or a page on his beeper, and he asked Howington if he could borrow the aunt's LeBaron. At first, Howington said no, but after Jalowiec pleaded with him repeatedly, Howington relented and let him borrow the LeBaron. According to Howington, Jalowiec and Lally left the aunt's house at around midnight.

Around 11:00 p.m., Sharon Hopkins went to Razzle's bar in Elyria with her brother Terry Hopkins, appellant and his two sons, Michael and Danny Smith, and several other people including Stan Jalowiec. The group stayed at Razzle's until it closed, and then went to eat at Mom's Open Kitchen until around 2:45-3:00 a.m. However, Jalowiec was not with the group at Mom's Open Kitchen. After leaving Mom's Open Kitchen, Sharon Hopkins rode in a car driven by Danny that included Michael and appellant. The car went past the railroad tracks on Middle Avenue whereupon appellant and Michael Smith got out of the car and walked over to a barn in the woods. Danny drove the car back across the tracks and into a parking lot where he parked the car with the lights off.

Around five to ten minutes later, a LeBaron convertible went past the parking lot, over to where appellant and Michael were dropped off. Shortly thereafter, the LeBaron drove back across the tracks and proceeded north towards town. Danny then followed the LeBaron in his car and signaled the driver to pull over. Danny ducked down in the driver's seat, and Sharon Hopkins noticed that Jalowiec was driving the LeBaron and that there were three other people in the vehicle. However, Sharon could not identify the other occupants of the LeBaron. Danny then drove away and dropped Sharon off at her apartment.

At around 3:30 that January morning, Terry Hopkins arrived at Danny'sapartment after the group had left Mom's Open Kitchen. Danny was there and appeared to be "nervous, bothered." Danny said "he was sick." He also said "they did it." Thereafter, Terry left and went to his sister's apartment.

After daybreak, Terry returned to Danny's apartment and found appellant, Danny, and Michael there with Jalowiec. While Terry Hopkins could not recall who specifically made what statement, he believed that Jalowiec said that "they had killed the guy." Moreover, "[t]hey said that they had shot the victim and they had run him over with a car and stepped on him and stabbed him with something * * *." According to Terry, "they were bragging about it."

At approximately 5:00 or 6:00 a.m. that same morning, appellant and Jalowiec returned the LeBaron convertible to Fike. According to Fike, the weather that morning was extremely cold and the car was covered with ice. According to Howington, the car was frozen because Jalowiec and appellant had just washed it. Fike noticed some blood in the car and also noticed that Jalowiec's knuckles were bleeding. But appellant and Jalowiec told Fike that there had been a fight behind Mom's Open Kitchen.

At approximately 9:55 a.m. on January 19, Cleveland Police Detective Michael Beaman answered a call reporting that a male body had been found on a driveway in a cemetery on Quincy Avenue in Cleveland. The partially clad and bloody body was lying face down on a cemetery roadway. The victim's shirt and coat were lying nearby on a snow mound, but there was no identification on or near the victim. Approximately two weeks later, Lally's family contacted Cleveland police about their missing relative from Elyria. Subsequently, members of the Lally family came to the Cuyahoga County Coroner's Office and identified the victim as Ron Lally. As a result of Lally's death, the aggravated trafficking charges against appellant and Danny Smith scheduled for trial on January 19 were dismissed.

Deputy coroner Dr. Heather N. Raaf, who performed the autopsy on Lally, concluded that Lally died from a non-fatal bullet wound to the head, and blows to the head causing brain injuries and a skull fracture. Dr. Raaf also noted that Lally had been cut in the neck with a knife. Dr. Raaf stated that if Lally was "not quite dead" when he was left in the cemetery, exposure to the cold would probably have contributed to his death in combination with the injuries he sustained. Dr. Raaf estimated the time of death to be somewhere between 2:30 a.m. and 8:30 a.m. on January 19.

The murder remained unsolved for several months. However, in June 1994, Danny Smith contacted Detective Leiby, hoping to make a deal on other criminal charges he was facing. Danny told Leiby that he would make a statement about his father (appellant) and the Lally homicide. Danny indicated that his father would not tell him the "whole story" of the Lally homicide, and that Leiby would have to speak with appellant directly. At one point, Danny offered to "wear a wire and talk to his father concerning the homicide."

On July 5, 1994, Leiby and two other detectives interviewed appellant on audiotape at Elyria

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