Smith v. Klee

• Decision Date: 01 June 2012
• Docket Number: Case No. 11-12481
• Parties: ANTHONY SMITH, Petitioner, v. PAUL KLEE, Respondent,
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Michigan

ANTHONY SMITH, Petitioner,

v.PAUL KLEE, Respondent,

Case No. 11-12481

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT EASTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN NORTHERN DIVISION

Dated: June 1, 2012

Honorable Thomas L. Ludington

OPINION AND ORDER DENYING THE PETITION FOR WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS

AND DECLINING TO ISSUE A CERTIFICATE OF APPEALABILITY OR LEAVE TO

APPEAL IN FORMA PAUPERIS

Petitioner, Anthony Smith, confined at the Gus Harrison Correctional Facility in Adrian, Michigan, has filed a pro se application for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254. Petitioner was convicted by a jury in the Wayne County Circuit Court of two counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct, Mich. Comp Laws § 750.520b(1)(a); and one count of second-degree criminal sexual conduct, Mich. Comp Laws 750.520c(1)(a). Petitioner was sentenced to six years, nine months to sixteen years, six months imprisonment on the first-degree criminal sexual conduct charges, and five to fifteen years in prison on the second-degree criminal sexual conduct charge. It is difficult to discern Petitioner's habeas claims, but it appears that Petitioner is contending that he was deprived of a fair trial when the trial court admitted prior bad acts evidence and that the verdict was against the great weight of the evidence. Petitioner may also be attempting to raise additional claims. The respondent has filed an answer to the petition, asserting that the claims lack merit or are procedurally defaulted. The Court agrees that Petitioner's claims are either meritless or procedurally defaulted, and the petition will be denied.

I.

Petitioner was convicted of the offenses following a jury trial in the Wayne County Circuit Court. This Court recites verbatim the relevant facts relied upon by the Michigan Court of Appeals, which are presumed correct on habeas review pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(1). See Wagner v. Smith, 581 F.3d 410, 413 (6th Cir. 2009):

Defendant was convicted of sexually assaulting his daughter when she was 10 or 11 years old. The victim testified that on two separate occasions when she was in the fourth grade, defendant came into the bedroom, pulled down her pants and underwear, and penetrated her vagina with his penis. During one of the incidents, defendant also touched her chest under her shirt. At trial, the victim's stepsister, LL, testified that she formerly lived with defendant when she was between the ages of 11 or 12 years old and 15 years old. LL testified that defendant exposed his penis to her on three occasions while they lived together. The trial court admitted the evidence under MRE 404(b)(1). ¹

People v. Smith, 282 Mich. App. 191, 193-94; 772 N.W. 2d 428 (2009).

Petitioner's conviction was affirmed on appeal. Id., lv. den. 485 Mich. 933; 773 N.W. 2d 728 (2009)(Table).

Petitioner subsequently filed a motion for a new trial, which was construed by the trial court as a post-conviction motion for relief from judgment and denied. People v. Smith, No. 05-5879-01 (Wayne County Circuit Court, June 16, 2010). There is no indication that Petitioner ever appealed the order denying his post-conviction motion to the Michigan Court of Appeals or the Michigan Supreme Court.

Petitioner then filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus with the United States District Court, which was dismissed without prejudice because Petitioner had failed to exhaust his state courtremedies with respect to several of the claims that he raised in that petition. See Smith v. Bell, U.S.D.C. No. 2:10-CV-13015(E.D. Mich. August 16, 2010)(Murphy, J.).

Petitioner has once again filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus. As mentioned above, it is difficult to decipher Petitioner's claims from his petition and other pleadings. It appears that Petitioner seeks habeas relief on the following two grounds:

I. The trial court erred in admitting prior bad acts evidence at trial.

II. Whether Petitioner's conviction went against the great weight of the evidence.

Although it is unclear whether Petitioner is seeking habeas relief on these claims in his petition, Petitioner does make the following allegations in the body of his petition and the other pleadings that he has filed with this Court:

I. Trial counsel was ineffective for waiving the preliminary examination and for failing to investigate whether L.L.'s father was having an affair with L.S.

II. The trial judge was biased against Petitioner.

III. The trial court failed to provide the trial transcripts to appellate counsel to perfect the appeal.

IV. Petitioner was deprived of his right to present a defense.

V. Petitioner was deprived of the effective assistance of appellate counsel.

II. Standard of Review

28 U.S.C. § 2254(d), as amended by The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), imposes the following standard of review for habeas cases:

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 anunreasonable 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.

A decision of a state court 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, 405-06 (2000). An "unreasonable application" occurs when "a state court decision unreasonably applies the law of [the Supreme Court] to the facts of a prisoner's case." Id. at 409. A federal habeas court may not "issue the writ simply because that court concludes in its independent judgment that the relevant state-court decision applied clearly established federal law erroneously or incorrectly." Id. at 410-11.

The Supreme Court has explained that "[A] federal court's collateral review of a state-court decision must be consistent with the respect due state courts in our federal system." Miller-El v. Cockrell, 537 U.S. 322, 340 (2003). The "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, 130 S. Ct. 1855, 1862 (2010) ((quoting Lindh v. Murphy, 521 U.S. 320, 333, n.7 (1997); Woodford v. Viscotti, 537 U.S. 19, 24 (2002) (per curiam)). "[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, 131 S. Ct. 770, 786 (2011) (citing Yarborough v. Alvarado, 541 U.S. 652, 664 (2004)).

III. Discussion

A. Claim # 1. The prior bad acts evidence claim.

Petitioner first argues that evidence of three prior incidents of indecent exposure on his part towards L.L. was admitted solely to establish Petitioner's propensity to commit the charged offenses, in violation of Michigan Rule of Evidence 404(b). Petitioner further alleges that this evidence was also more prejudicial than probative and hence should not have been admitted under Mich. Comp. Laws §768.27a.

It is "not the province of a federal habeas court to reexamine state-court determinations on state-court questions." Estelle v. McGuire, 502 U.S. 62, 67-68 (1991). A federal court is limited in federal habeas review to deciding whether a state court conviction violates the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States. Id. Thus, errors in the application of state law, especially rulings regarding the admissibility of evidence, are usually not questioned by a federal habeas court. See Seymour v. Walker, 224 F. 3d 542, 552 (6th Cir. 2000).

Petitioner's claim that the state court violated Michigan Rule of Evidence 404(b) or any other provision of state law by admitting evidence of his prior indecent exposures against L.L. is non-cognizable on habeas review. See Bey v. Bagley, 500 F 3d 514, 519 (6th Cir. 2007); Estelle, 502 U.S. at 72 (Supreme Court's habeas powers did not permit Court to reverse state court conviction based on their belief that the state trial judge erred in ruling that prior injury evidence was admissible as bad acts evidence under California law); Dowling v. United States, 493 U.S. 342, 352-53 (1990) (admission at defendant's bank robbery trial of "similar acts" evidence that he had subsequently been involved in a house burglary for which he had been acquitted did not violate due process). The admission of this "prior bad acts" or "other acts" evidence against Petitioner at his state trial doesnot entitle him to habeas relief, because there is no clearly established Supreme Court law which holds that a state violates a habeas petitioner's due process rights by admitting propensity evidence in the form of "prior bad acts" evidence. See Bugh v. Mitchell, 329 F. 3d 496, 512 (6th Cir. 2003); see also Adams v. Smith, 280 F. Supp. 2d 704, 716 (E.D. Mich. 2003). Given the lack Supreme Court authority on the issue of whether a state court violates a habeas petitioner's due process rights by the admission of evidence to establish Petitioner's propensity to commit criminal acts, the Michigan Court of Appeals' rejection of Petitioner's claim was not an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law. See Wright v. Van Patten, 552 U.S. 120, 126 (2008); Carey v. Musladin, 549 U.S. 70, 77 (2006).

To the extent that Petitioner contends that evidence of the prior indecent exposures should have been excluded under M.R.E. 403 for being more prejudicial than probative, he likewise would not be entitled to habeas relief. Appraisals of the...