Smith v. Nagy

• Decision Date: 15 June 2020
• Docket Number: No. 18-1751,18-1751
• Citation: 962 F.3d 192
• Parties: Keith Bernard SMITH, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Noah NAGY, Warden, Respondent-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

962 F.3d 192

Keith Bernard SMITH, Petitioner-Appellant,

v.Noah NAGY, Warden, Respondent-Appellee.

No. 18-1751

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Argued: April 29, 2020

Decided and Filed: June 15, 2020

Rehearing Denied July 1, 2020

ARGUED: Wesley R. Abrams, VORYS, SATER, SEYMOUR AND PEASE LLP, Cincinnati, Ohio, for Appellant. Daniel Ping, OFFICE OF THE MICHIGAN ATTORNEY GENERAL, Lansing, Michigan, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Wesley R. Abrams, Nathan L. Colvin, VORYS, SATER, SEYMOUR AND PEASE LLP, Cincinnati, Ohio, for Appellant. Daniel Ping, John S. Pallas, OFFICE OF THE MICHIGAN ATTORNEY GENERAL, Lansing, Michigan, for Appellee.

Before: COLE, Chief Judge; SILER and CLAY, Circuit Judges.

OPINION

COLE, Chief Judge.

Keith Bernard Smith, a Michigan prisoner, appeals the denial of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. He argues that he is entitled to relief because: (1) the state court should have granted him a post-trial evidentiary hearing to determine whether the jury improperly relied on certain prejudicial information in rendering its verdict; (2) there was insufficient evidence to convict him; and (3) the state and district courts erred in refusing to consider new evidence that supports his innocence. Because none of Smith's claims provides us a basis for exercising our limited authority to grant habeas relief to a state prisoner, we affirm the denial of the petition.

I.

On the morning of February 15, 2008, Detroit police discovered Annette Ralston, a 58-year-old woman, dead in the bedroom of her home. Ralston had suffered several stab wounds to the head and groin area, slash wounds to the face, and blunt-force wounds to the back of the head. A severed carotid artery was likely the immediate cause of death. Ralston also exhibited multiple "defensive-type" cuts and bruises on her hands and wrists, and she was clutching long brown hair, which was never matched to any particular person. Blood was found throughout Ralston's house.

Four days after the discovery of Ralston's body, police arrested Keith Smith and charged him with three crimes in connection with Ralston's death: first-degree felony murder, first-degree premeditated murder, and assault with intent to commit armed robbery. At the time that the police arrested Smith, they also seized Smith's van and other personal belongings, including a pair of eyeglasses. The van and eyeglasses were processed for blood evidence, but none was recovered. No knives or other weapons were recovered from Smith. Overall, there was no physical evidence linking Smith to Ralston's death.

At Smith's trial, two of Smith's acquaintances—Shayne Dennis and Latoya Evans—testified that Smith had come over to their house two days after the discovery of Ralston's body. At some point during the conversation, Smith admitted that he had "done something very bad" and proceeded to confess to killing a woman "at a safe house." (R. 12-4, PageID 428–29.) Smith conveyed that he had intended to rob the safe house. To that end, he dropped off the victim's son somewhere else and went back to the house with the victim, where he ended up killing her while trying to force her to open a safe located in the bedroom. Evans recalled that Smith had identified the victim as "a fifty year old white lady." (Id. , PageID 514.)

Lawanda Baytops, Ralston's housemate, also testified at Smith's trial. Baytops told the jury about a "big" jewelry box that Ralston kept in her bedroom, which was "shaped like a safe" but did not have a lock. (R. 12-3, PageID 325, 350.) Baytops remembered seeing the jewelry box still in Ralston's bedroom on the morning Ralston's body was discovered. Baytops also recalled that Smith was at the house with Ralston and Ralston's son on the evening before Ralston's body was discovered. Ralston's son, James White, confirmed that Smith was at the house that evening and that, later, Smith drove White to his foster home.

The jury convicted Smith of first-degree felony murder and assault with intent to commit armed robbery but acquitted him of first-degree premeditated murder. Before sentencing, however, one juror approached defense counsel and reported that he and other jurors had changed their vote from "not guilty" to "guilty" based on a belief that Smith would receive a relatively light sentence for felony murder. Smith moved for a new trial or an evidentiary hearing, but the state trial judge declined to grant either. The trial judge then sentenced Smith to the mandatory sentence of life imprisonment without possibility of parole for the felony-murder conviction, see Mich. Comp. Laws § 750.316(1), and a concurrent sentence of five to forty years’ imprisonment for the assault conviction. Smith appealed to the Michigan Court of Appeals, challenging both the sufficiency of the evidence used to convict him and the trial judge's denial of an evidentiary hearing and new trial. The Michigan Court of Appeals rejected Smith's arguments on the merits and affirmed his convictions. People v. Smith , 2009 WL 3837414, at *2, *4–5 (Mich. Ct. App. Nov. 17, 2009) (per curiam). The Michigan Supreme Court denied Smith's pro se application for discretionary review on March 29, 2010, in a summary order. People v. Smith , 485 Mich. 1130, 779 N.W.2d 813 (2010) (mem.).

On January 13, 2011, Smith, acting pro se, filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. Subsequently, in March 2012, Smith moved, and the district court agreed, to hold the petition in abeyance while Smith returned to state court to exhaust additional claims.

Smith filed a motion for relief from judgment in the state trial court on June 18, 2012, which was denied in November 2012. Smith did not appeal. In March 2013, Smith filed a second motion for relief from judgment in the state trial court. Relevant here, this motion included a claim for a new trial based on an affidavit that was signed in October 2012. The affiant, Latoya Evans's brother Robert Evans, attested that he spoke with Latoya Evans and Shayne Dennis on the day that Smith allegedly confessed. Robert Evans stated that, according to his sister and Dennis, Smith had not confessed to any crime but rather only said that the police wanted to speak with him. Latoya Evans and Shayne Dennis, however, had thought that they might receive a reward for providing information and resolved to "figure out how to get that money if they could." (R. 41-3, PageID 1046.) The state court declined to consider the merits of Smith's claim for a new trial based on the affidavit, holding that the claim was procedurally barred on state-law grounds because Smith failed to establish that the affidavit's allegations were discovered after he filed his first motion for relief from judgment.

Rather than appealing the state trial court's decision, Smith filed a motion for a judgment nunc pro tunc vacating the order denying his first motion for relief from judgment, asserting that the first motion was filed by a prison paralegal without his knowledge and that he never received the court orders denying either of his motions for relief from judgment. The state trial court denied the motion. Smith filed a delayed appeal, which the Michigan Court of Appeals denied "for lack of merit in the grounds presented." People v. Smith , No. 331894 (Mich. Ct. App. June 27, 2016) (order). On October 24, 2017, the Michigan Supreme Court denied review in a summary order. People v. Smith , 501 Mich. 901, 902 N.W.2d 419 (2017) (mem.).

Having exhausted his state remedies, Smith returned to the district court and amended his habeas petition in December 2017 to add new claims, including one based on the affidavit of Robert Evans. On June 12, 2018, the district court denied the amended petition. Like the Michigan Court of Appeals, the district court rejected Smith's challenges to the denial of an evidentiary hearing and to the sufficiency of the evidence. The district court construed Smith's claim based on Robert Evans's affidavit to be an actual innocence claim and rejected it as well, holding that the affidavit by itself was not sufficient to support a freestanding actual innocence claim. Although the district court denied the amended petition, it granted a certificate of appealability on all claims. This timely appeal followed.

In this court, Smith filed a pro se brief and moved for appointment of counsel. The warden responded. We granted Smith's motion for appointment of counsel, and a second round of briefing followed.

II.

In habeas proceedings, we review de novo the district court's legal conclusions and mixed determinations of law and fact. Bennett v. Brewer , 940 F.3d 279, 286 (6th Cir. 2019). We typically review the district court's factual findings for clear error, but when the district court bases its factual determinations only on trial transcripts and court records—making no credibility determination or other apparent finding of fact on its own—we review the district court's factual conclusions de novo. Id. ; see also Ramonez v. Berghuis , 490 F.3d 482, 486 (6th Cir. 2007) ; Dando v. Yukins , 461 F.3d 791, 796 (6th Cir. 2006).

That said, the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 ("AEDPA") constrains our review of state-court decisions in habeas cases. Under AEDPA, a claim that was "adjudicated on the merits" in the state court may not be a basis for habeas relief unless its adjudication:

(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).

The "contrary to" and "unreasonable application" clauses of 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1) have "independent meaning." Williams v. Taylor , 529 U.S. 362, 404–05, 120 S.Ct....