Stenberg v. Langford

• Docket Number: 22-3308-JWL
• Decision Date: 24 August 2023
• Parties: JOHN ROSS STENBERG, Petitioner, v. DONALD LANGFORD, Respondent.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Kansas

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JOHN ROSS STENBERG, Petitioner, v. DONALD LANGFORD, Respondent.

No. 22-3308-JWL

United States District Court, D. Kansas

August 24, 2023

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

JOHN W. LUNGSTRUM, UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

This matter is a petition for writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. Petitioner and state prisoner John Ross Stenberg proceeds pro se and challenges his state court convictions of rape, aggravated criminal sodomy, and aggravated indecent liberties with a child. Having considered Petitioner's claims, together with the state-court record and relevant legal precedent, the Court concludes that Petitioner is not entitled to federal habeas corpus relief and denies the petition.

Nature of the Petition

Petitioner seeks federal habeas relief from his state-court convictions of rape, aggravated criminal sodomy, and aggravated indecent liberties with a child. As Ground One, he argues that his rights under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution were violated when he received ineffective assistance from his trial counsel. (Doc. 1, p 5.) As Ground Two, Petitioner argues that his constitutional due process rights under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments were violated when law enforcement unconstitutionally coerced him into confessing. Id. at 6, 31.

Factual and Procedural Background^[1]

K.P. and A.P. are sisters. Their mother, Stacey, was married to Stenberg. K.P. and A.P. lived with Stacey and Stenberg in Cimarron, Kansas, until January 2014, when the Kansas Department for Children and Families (DCF) removed the girls from the house and sought to have them adjudicated as children in need of care. DCF placed the girls in the home of Stephanie Casanova, who was a licensed foster parent. At the time of placement, K.P. had just turned five years old, and A.P. was three years old.

About four to five months after the girls were placed with Casanova, K.P. spontaneously announced at the dinner table that Stenberg “put his pee-pee on my pee-pee.” Casanova reported K.P.'s statement by notifying the assigned social worker and calling an abuse hotline.

About a week later, A.P. disclosed at the dinner table that Stenberg had put his “pee-pee” in her mouth. K.P and A.P. then talked with each other about what Stenberg had done to them, including having them get in bed with him naked. Casanova again reported the abuse, and an investigation into the allegations was initiated.

On May 16, 2014, Casanova took both girls to a Garden City police station for forensic interviews. Bethanie Popejoy Senior Special Agent for the Kansa [sic] Bureau of Investigation assigned to the Child Victims Unit, interviewed the girls separately. The purpose of the interviews was to provide the girls an opportunity and a safe place to talk about the disclosures they already had made to Casanova. The interviews were video recorded.

K.P. told Popejoy that Stenberg had “put his pee-pee in [her] pee-pee,” terms that Popejoy already had established referred to his penis and her vagina. K.P. acted out Stenberg's movements on the floor using her body showing Popejoy how Stenberg kneeled over her and thrusted his hips so that “his privates would touch her privates.” K.P. also role-played using anatomically realistic dolls representing her and Stenberg to demonstrate what Popejoy described as the missionary intercourse position. Popejoy testified that, based on K.P.'s testimony and descriptions, she believed it would have been “nearly impossible” for Stenberg not to have penetrated K.P.'s outer vagina. K.P. told Popejoy that Stenberg engaged in the conduct described more than once, but she was not able to confirm how many times. K.P. said she was four years old when it happened.

Special Agent Popejoy then interviewed A.P., who reported that Stenberg had “put his wee-wee in [her] mouth” and “put his wee-wee in [her] pee-pee.” Popejoy had talked about anatomical terms with A.P. and understood that “weewee” referred to Stenberg's penis and “pee-pee” was A.P.'s vagina. A.P. also roleplayed Stenberg's actions with dolls representing her and Stenberg. A.P. told Popejoy that Stenberg had put his penis in her mouth “a lot of times,” but she was not able to specify how many.

On May 19, 2014, Undersheriff Jeff Sharp interviewed Stenberg about the girls' statements. At the end of the interview, which lasted almost two hours, Stenberg verbally admitted he had rubbed his penis against K.P.'s vagina and put his penis in A.P.'s mouth twice. Stenberg then signed a written confession, in which he admitted that he twice “placed [his] soft penis against [A.P.'s] lips,” that he “rubbed [his] soft penis against [K.P.] when [he] awoke from sleeping with no clothes on,” and that he “rubbed it against her vagina.”

The State charged Stenberg with one count of rape, two counts of aggravated criminal sodomy, and one count of aggravated indecent liberties with a child. K.P. and A.P. both testified at trial. The jury convicted Stenberg as charged. The district court sentenced Stenberg to life in prison with no possibility of parole for 25 years on each of the four counts, ordering counts 1 and 4 to run consecutive to counts 2 and 3.

State v. Stenberg, 2017 WL 4455307, *1-2 (Kan.Ct.App. Oct. 6, 2017) (unpublished) (Stenberg I), rev. denied April 27, 2018.

Petitioner pursued a direct appeal and, on October 6, 2017, the Kansas Court of Appeals (KCOA) affirmed his convictions and vacated part of his sentence on grounds not relevant to this federal habeas matter. See id. at *1. On April 27, 2018, the Kansas Supreme Court (KSC) denied Petitioner's petition for review. Petitioner then sought state habeas relief by filing a motion pursuant to K.S.A. 60-1507. Stenberg v. State, 2022 WL 570830 (Kan.Ct.App. Feb. 25, 2022) (unpublished opinion) (Stenberg II), rev. denied Sept. 30, 2022. The state district court held an evidentiary hearing, after which it denied the motion. Id. at *1. Petitioner appealed, and on February 25, 2022, the KCOA affirmed the denial. Id. The KSC denied Petitioner's petition for review on September 30, 2022.

On December 21, 2022, Petitioner filed in this Court a pro se petition for writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254. (Doc. 1.) As noted above, he asserts two grounds for relief: one based on ineffective assistance of trial counsel and the other based on the involuntary and coerced nature of his confession. Respondent filed his answer on June 2, 2023. (Doc. 12.) Petitioner filed his traverse on August 11, 2023. (Doc. 16.)

General Standard of Review

This matter is governed by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA). Under the AEDPA, when a state court has adjudicated the merits of a claim, a federal court may grant habeas relief only if the state court decision “was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States,” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1), or “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)(2). The Tenth Circuit has explained:

[A] state-court decision is “contrary to” the Supreme Court's clearly established precedent if it “applies a rule that contradicts the governing law set forth in [Supreme Court] cases” or if it “confronts a set of facts that are materially indistinguishable from a decision of th[e] Court and nevertheless arrives at a result different from that precedent.”

Harmon v. Sharp, 936 F.3d 1044, 1056 (10th Cir. 2019) (quoting Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 405-08 (2000)). Moreover, in this context, an “unreasonable application of” federal law “must be objectively unreasonable, not merely wrong.” White v. Woodall, 572 U.S. 415, 419 (2014) (internal quotation marks omitted).

The Court presumes that the state court's findings of fact are correct unless Petitioner rebuts that presumption “by clear and convincing evidence.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(1). See also Wood v. Allen, 558 U.S. 290, 301 (2010) (“[A] state-court factual determination is not unreasonable merely because the federal habeas court would have reached a different conclusion in the first instance.”). These standards are intended to be “difficult to meet,” Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 102 (2011), and require that state-court decisions receive the “benefit of the doubt.” Woodford v. Visciotti, 537 U.S. 19, 24 (2002). To the extent that more specific standards have been established for ineffective assistance of counsel claims and claims alleging illegally coerced confessions, they are included in the discussion section below.

Discussion

Ground One: Ineffective Assistance of Trial Counsel

In Ground One, Petitioner argues that he received ineffective assistance of trial counsel in four ways: (1) trial counsel failed to investigate seven individuals Petitioner identified as potential defense witnesses, (2) he failed to adequately prepare Petitioner to testify, (3) he failed to call an expert witness to review the victims' forensic interviews, and (4) he failed to file a motion for a departure sentence. (Doc. 1, p. 17.) Respondent asserts that Petitioner is not entitled to federal habeas relief on any of these grounds, although he does concede that Petitioner has exhausted each argument. (Doc. 12, p. 3.)

Petitioner raised these claims in his K.S.A. 60-1507 motion and they were the subject of an evidentiary hearing in the state district court, after which the state district court denied relief. Stenberg II, 2022 WL 570830, at *2-3. Specifically, the district court held: (1) trial counsel's decision not to investigate Petitioner's proposed witnesses was “sound strategy” in light of the fact he believed they could offer only character...