Smith v. Trammell

• Decision Date: 16 September 2014
• Docket Number: Case No. CIV-09-293-D
• Parties: MICHAEL DEWAYNE SMITH, Petitioner, v. ANITA TRAMMELL, Warden, Oklahoma State Penitentiary, Respondent.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Oklahoma

MICHAEL DEWAYNE SMITH, Petitioner, v. ANITA TRAMMELL, Warden, Oklahoma State Penitentiary, Respondent.¹

Case No. CIV-09-293-D

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF OKLAHOMA

September 16, 2014

MEMORANDUM OPINION

Petitioner, Michael DeWayne Smith, a state court prisoner, has filed a Petition for a Writ of Habeas Corpus seeking relief pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254. Doc. 28. Petitioner, who is represented by counsel, is challenging the convictions entered against him in Oklahoma County District Court Case No. CF-2002-1329. Tried by a jury in August and September of 2003, Petitioner was found guilty of Burglary in the First Degree (Count 1), Murder in the First Degree (Counts 2 and 3), Robbery With Firearms (Count 4), and Arson in the First Degree (Count 5). On Counts 1, 4, and 5, Petitioner received an aggregate sentence of 85 years and a $25,000 fine. On Counts 2 and 3, the jury found that Petitioner was a continuing threat and that the murders were especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel, and Petitioner was sentenced to death on each count (J. Tr. 12, 91; J. Tr. 17, 68-69, 84-85).

Petitioner has presented ten grounds for relief. Doc. 28. Respondent has responded to the Petition and Petitioner has replied. Docs. 51 and 58. In addition to his Petition, Petitioner sought leave to conduct discovery relating to his Ground One. Doc. 29. The Court denied this request. Doc. 63. Petitioner has also requested an evidentiary hearing. Although Petitioner's primary contention is that his Grounds One through Four are matters of law that warrant relief without a hearing, Petitioner makes an alternative request for an evidentiary hearing on those grounds. Doc. 35. After a thorough review of the entire state court record (which Respondent has provided), the pleadings filed herein, and the applicable law, the Court finds that an evidentiary hearing is unwarranted² and that Petitioner is not entitled to the requested relief.

I. Procedural History.

In Case No. D-2003-1120, Petitioner appealed his convictions and sentences to the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals (hereinafter "OCCA"). In a published opinion, Smith v. State, 157 P.3d 1155 (Okla. Crim. App. 2007), the OCCA affirmed. Petitioner sought review of the OCCA's decision by the United States Supreme Court. His petition for writ of certiorari was denied on February 19, 2008. Smith v. Oklahoma, 552 U.S. 1191 (2008). Petitioner also filed two post-conviction applications, both of which the OCCAdenied. Smith v. State, 245 P.3d 1233 (Okla. Crim. App. 2010); Smith v. State, No. PCD-2005-142 (Okla. Crim. App. Feb. 24, 2009) (unpublished).

II. Facts.

In adjudicating Petitioner's direct appeal, the OCCA set forth a summary of the presented evidence. Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(1), "a determination of a factual issue made by a State court shall be presumed to be correct." Although this presumption may be rebutted by Petitioner, the Court finds that Petitioner has not done so, and that in any event, the OCCA's statement of the facts is an accurate recitation of the presented evidence. Thus, as determined by the OCCA, the facts are as follows:

[Petitioner] was a member of the Oak Grove Posse, a subset of the Crips gang in Oklahoma City. On November 8, 2000, three members of the Oak Grove Posse attempted to rob Tran's Food Mart in south Oklahoma City. The three robbers were Teron "T-Nok" Armstrong, Kenneth "Peanut" Kinchion, and Dewayne "Pudgy-O" Shirley. During the course of the robbery attempt, the owner of the store shot and killed Armstrong. Kinchion and Shirley were eventually arrested. [Petitioner] was not involved in the attempted robbery but had close personal ties to Armstrong.

On Friday, February 22, 2002, two days before the trial of Kinchion and Shirley was scheduled to start, [Petitioner] left his apartment in the Del Mar Apartments in Oklahoma City early in the morning. His roommate, Marcus Berry (also known as Marcus Compton), saw [Petitioner] take a .357 caliber revolver with him. [Petitioner] went first to Janet Moore's apartment looking for her son Phillip Zachary who he believed was a police informant. [Petitioner] had earlier told Berry that "snitches need to be dead."

The evidence supports the conclusion that [Petitioner] arrived at Moore's apartment sometime before 6:30 a.m. Shoe prints indicated that [Petitioner] kicked in her front door and then her bedroom door. Moore began screaming, and, at approximately 6:30 a.m., a downstairs neighbor heard arguing between a man and a woman and then a single "pop" followed by footsteps.

Later that morning around 7:30 a.m. [Petitioner] arrived at A-Z Mart, a convenience store approximately fifteen miles from the Del Mar Apartments. A-Z Mart was immediately next door to Tran's Food Mart, the site of the earlier robbery attempt where Armstrong had been killed. The clerk on duty that morning at A-Z Mart was Sarath "Babu" Pulluru. Pulluru was filling in for the store owner who was taking the day off. [Petitioner] told detectives that he emptied two pistols into Pulluru, took some money, and used bottles of Ronsonol lighter fluid to start fires in the store. [Petitioner] said he set fire to the cash register, Pulluru's body, and a back room in order to destroy evidence. Shoeprints at the scene tracked Pulluru's blood from the cash register area, where his body was found, down the aisle to where the Ronsonol lighter fluid was displayed for sale. The bloody shoe prints at the A-Z Mart were similar to the shoe prints found at Moore's apartment.

At 1:00 or 2:00 a.m. the next morning, [Petitioner] returned to his apartment and told Berry that he had killed Janet Moore. He also told Berry that he had done something else to "take care of business," that he had avenged his family.

At 3:00 or 4:00 a.m., [Petitioner] went to Sheena Johnson's apartment and told her that he had killed two people that day. During that conversation, [Petitioner] told her that he had killed Phillip Zachary's aunt because Zachary had been "snitching." Johnson had already learned of Moore's murder and told [Petitioner] that the victim was Zachary's mother, not his aunt. In response, [Petitioner] shrugged his shoulders, and said "oh well." [Petitioner] showed Johnson how he held his gun when he shot Moore and went on to say that he had also killed a person at a "chink" store. During his description of the second homicide, [Petitioner] mentioned something about one of his fellow gang members having his head blown off during a robbery. He said he would kill anyone who crossed his family. [Petitioner] also mentioned that someone had been on television "dissing" his set in regard to that robbery. Subsequently, Johnson contacted CrimeStoppers and reported the conversation. When she made that report, [Petitioner] was already in police custody on a different matter.

Three days after [Petitioner] was detained, detectives interviewed him. [Petitioner] was given Miranda warnings, waived them, and agreed to talk. During the interview, [Petitioner] first denied committing the murders, then admitted only to being present, and finally admitted committing both murders. He explained he killed both victims in retaliation for wrongs done him or his family. He told detectives he went to Moore's apartment looking for her son,

that Moore panicked and started screaming, so he had to kill her. He said he killed Pulluru in retaliation against the store owner who shot Armstrong and in retaliation for disrespectful comments about Armstrong in the press attributed to someone from the A-Z Mart Mart [sic]. According to [Petitioner], as he fired off the initial barrage of bullets, Pulluru asked "what did I do?" [Petitioner] told him: "[M]y mother-f* * * * * * little homey, my people on the set, like, bam, bam, before he died I let him know, like this is for my little homey that's dead. Bam, bam, bam." [Petitioner] also told detectives that he had disposed of the clothes he had worn during the murders, that he had wiped down Moore's apartment to eliminate fingerprints, and that he set fire to whatever he had touched in the A-Z Mart to destroy evidence.

Smith, 157 P.3d at 1160-62. Particular facts will be referenced herein as they relate to the individual grounds for relief raised by Petitioner.

III. Standard of Review.

A. Exhaustion as a Preliminary Consideration.

The exhaustion doctrine is a matter of comity. It provides that before a federal court can grant habeas relief to a state prisoner, it must first determine that he has exhausted all of his state court remedies. As acknowledged in Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U.S. 722, 731 (1991), "in a federal system, the States should have the first opportunity to address and correct alleged violations of state prisoner's federal rights." While the exhaustion doctrine has long been a part of habeas jurisprudence, it is now codified in 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b). Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b)(2), "[a]n application for a writ of habeas corpus may be denied on the merits, notwithstanding the failure of the applicant to exhaust the remedies available in the courts of the State."

B. Procedural Bar.

Beyond the issue of exhaustion, a federal habeas court must also examine the state court's resolution of the presented claim. "It is well established that federal courts will not review questions of federal law presented in a habeas petition when the state court's decision rests upon a state-law ground that 'is independent of the federal question and adequate to support the judgment.'" Cone v. Bell, 556 U.S. 449, 465 (2009) (quoting Coleman). "The doctrine applies to bar federal habeas when a state court declined to address a prisoner's federal claims because the prisoner had failed to meet a state procedural requirement." Coleman, 501 U.S. at 729-30.

C. Merits.

In accordance with the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (hereinafter "AEDPA"), the Court's authority to grant habeas corpus relief to state prisoners is limited. When a state...