Soto v. Siekfer
| Decision Date | 30 November 2021 |
| Docket Number | 3:21-cv-167 |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Ohio |
| Parties | TRAVIS SOTO, Petitioner, v. SHERIFF BRIAN SIEKFER, Respondent. |
DONALD C. NUGENT JUDGE.
This matter comes before the Court upon the Report and Recommendation of Magistrate Judge Jonathan D. Greenberg addressing Petitioner Travis Soto's request for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2241. (ECF No 18.) Petitioner timely filed objections to the Report and Recommendation, and Respondent filed a Response. (ECF Nos 20, 21.) Upon a de novo review of the portions of the Report and Recommendations to which Petitioner objects see Fed. R. Civ. P. 72(b), the Court finds that the conclusions of the Report and Recommendations should be ADOPTED. Mr. Soto's petition is DENIED.
In 2006, the State of Ohio charged Petitioner with involuntary manslaughter and child endangerment in connection with the death of his two-year-old son. (ECF No. 18, PageID.735.) Mr. Soto initially claimed that his son died in an ATV accident. (Id. at PageID.734-35.) Mr. Soto entered into a plea agreement with the state, by which Mr. Soto agreed to plead guilty to child endangerment and the state agreed to dismiss the involuntary manslaughter charge. (Id. at PageID.735.) The trial court accepted the plea and sentenced Mr. Soto to five years in prison; he was released in 2011. (Id.)
In 2016, Mr. Soto voluntarily appeared at the Putnam County Sheriffs Department. (Id. at PageID.736.) He confessed to lying about the ATV accident. (Id.) Mr. Soto stated that he beat his son to death and staged evidence to support his story about an ATV accident. (Id.) He made this unsolicited confession because he became religious while incarcerated. (Id.)
The state then charged Mr. Soto with aggravated murder, murder, felonious assault, kidnapping, and tampering with evidence. (Id.) The trial court denied Mr. Soto's motion to dismiss the indictment on double jeopardy grounds. (Id.) Mr. Soto took an interlocutory appeal. (Id.) Petitioner initially succeeded at the intermediate state appellate court, but the Ohio Supreme Court reversed the Ohio Court of Appeals, concluding that double jeopardy did not bar the prosecution. (Id. at PageID.737-38.) The Supreme Court of the United States denied Petitioner's request for a writ of certiorari. (Id. at PageID.738.) Mr. Soto is being held in detention at the Putnam County Jail while awaiting trial. (Id. at PageID.734.)
Petitioner filed this request for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2241. (Id. at PageID.738.) Mr. Soto claims that his pretrial detention violates the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. (Id.)
The Magistrate Judge determined that Petitioner's request should be denied. (Id. at PageID.759.) The Magistrate Judge noted that the Double Jeopardy Clause only bars a second prosecution if (1) the defendant was already prosecuted for that crime (or a lesser included offense); and, (2) jeopardy attached in the first prosecution. (Id. at PageID.739-40.)
The Magistrate Judge noted that jeopardy did attach to the child endangerment charge when Petitioner pleaded guilty to it in 2006. (Id. at 740.) But the Ohio Supreme Court held that child endangerment was not a lesser included offense of murder or aggravated murder, so the child endangerment conviction does not bar the current prosecution. State v. Soto, 2019-Ohio-4430, 158 Ohio St.3d 44, 48. As the Magistrate Judge noted, federal courts are bound to accept such an interpretation of state law by the state's high court. (ECF No. 18, PageID.740 n.2 (citing Bradshaw v. Rickey, 546 U.S. 74, 78 (2005)).)
Involuntary manslaughter, however, is a lesser included offense of murder. (Id. at PageID.740 (citing State v. Thomas, 40 Ohio St.3d 213, 215-16 (1988)).) Thus, the Magistrate Judge determined that double jeopardy is implicated if jeopardy attached to the 2006 involuntary manslaughter charge. (Id.)
The issue is whether jeopardy attaches to a charge that is dismissed pursuant to a plea agreement when a defendant pleads guilty to another charge in the indictment. The Magistrate Judge noted the lack of binding authority on this issue. (Id. at PageID.741.) The Magistrate Judge concluded that Petitioner failed to demonstrate that jeopardy attached to the dismissed involuntary manslaughter charge. (Id.) The Magistrate Judge then noted that most circuits have adopted one of two approaches. (Id. at PageID.748.) Some federal circuits categorically hold that jeopardy does not attach to charges dismissed pursuant to a guilty plea. (Id.) Other circuits hold that jeopardy only attaches if the charges were dismissed after coming before the finder of fact in some manner. (Id. at PageID.752.) Under either approach, Mr. Soto's double jeopardy challenge fails.
Petitioner objects on two grounds. First, Petitioner objects to the Magistrate Judge's conclusion that Petitioner has not shown that jeopardy attaches to charges dismissed as part of a plea agreement. Second, Petitioner objects to the Magistrate Judge's characterization and application of law in other federal circuits.
Petitioner first argues that the Magistrate Judge took a case-by-case approach that failed to recognize the "doctrine of finality" expressed throughout the Supreme Court's double jeopardy jurisprudence. (ECF No. 20, PageID.2-3.) But the Magistrate Judge did recognize and address the "constitutional policy of finality." (ECF No. 18, PageID.9, 15.) As the Magistrate Judge correctly noted, finality is not the ultimate consideration. This Court cannot ignore the Supreme Court's instruction that double jeopardy is not implicated unless jeopardy attached in the first proceeding. United States v. Martin Linen Supply Co, 430 U.S. 564, 569 (1977) ().
Mr. Soto takes issue with the Magistrate Judge's construction of United States v. Jorn. 400 U.S. 470 (1971). Mr. Soto argues that the Magistrate Judge distinguished Jorn because there the trial court dismissed the initial charges, whereas here the prosecution voluntarily dismissed the involuntary manslaughter charge. But that is not the distinction that the Magistrate Judge drew. Instead, the Magistrate Judge noted that the charges in Jorn were dismissed after "trial had commenced." (ECF No. 18, PageID.742 (citing Jorn, 400 U.S. at 480).) This distinction is critical because jeopardy attaches once a jury is empaneled. Serfass v. United States, 420 U.S. 377, 388 (1975). Here, the involuntary manslaughter charge was dismissed before trial, so Jorn is not instructive.
Petitioner next argues that the Magistrate Judge misapplied the prohibition against "repeated attempts to convict an individual for an alleged defense." Burks v. United States, 437 U.S. 1, 11 (1978) (quoting Green v. United States, 355 U.S. 184, 187 (1957)). Mr. Soto continues his quotation of Burks, "The constitutional prohibition against double jeopardy was designed to protect an individual from being subjected to the hazards of trial and possible conviction more than once for an alleged offense." Id. (quoting Green, 355 U.S. at 187) (emphasis added). But Mr. Soto's argument fails on its own terms. He was never "subjected to the hazards of trial" on the manslaughter charge. As the Magistrate Judge noted, unlike Mr. Soto's, Mr. Burks's case went to trial. (ECF No. 18, PageID.742 (citing Burks, 437 U.S. at 2-3).)
Mr. Soto also argues that the Magistrate Judge failed to give effect to Brown v. Ohio, which prohibits "dividing a single crime into a series of temporal or spatial units." 432 U.S 161, 169 (1977) (emphasis added). Again, the dispositive language is contained within Petitioner's own quotation: "a single crime." Id. As the Magistrate Judge noted, the defendant in Brown stole a car for nine days; the state obtained separate convictions for joyriding and auto theft concerning two different days of the nine-day period. Id. at 162-64. The Court applied the Blockburger test and held that the two offenses "constitute the same statutory offense within the meaning of the Double Jeopardy Clause." Id. at 168 (internal quotations omitted). Brown concerns spatial or temporal divisions of a "single crime," not multiple crimes committed during a single act-such as child endangerment and murder. See Soto, 158 Ohio St.3d at 48 (). And Brown, which concerned two separate convictions, speaks only to spatial or temporal divisions to which jeopardy attaches. As the Magistrate Judge correctly noted, Brown says nothing about whether jeopardy attached to a previous charge that was dismissed as part of a plea agreement.
In his discussion of Brown and elsewhere, Mr. Soto argues that the State had all the evidence necessary to bring a murder charge in 2006. In fact, Mr. Soto argues, the trial judge cited much of this evidence in Mr. Soto's 2006 sentencing hearing. But even if this is true, Petitioner has not shown why the State's delay in bringing charges would raise constitutional concerns. The Double Jeopardy Clause prohibits successive prosecution, not delayed prosecution, which reinforces the Magistrate Judge's conclusion that the relevant question is whether jeopardy attached to the dismissed involuntary manslaughter charge. Whether the state could have subjected Petitioner to the hazards of trial in 2006 is a different inquiry from whether it did.
Petitioner argues that the Magistrate Judge did not properly apply Hoag v. New Jersey, which suggested that a state could not "attempt 'to wear the accused out by a multitude of cases...
To continue reading
Request your trial