Stewart v. Wolfenbarger

• Decision Date: 19 February 2010
• Docket Number: No. 08-2154.,08-2154.
• Citation: 595 F.3d 647
• Parties: Artemia STEWART, Petitioner-Appellee, v. Hugh WOLFENBARGER, Respondent-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

595 F.3d 647

Artemia STEWART, Petitioner-Appellee, v. Hugh WOLFENBARGER, Respondent-Appellant.

No. 08-2154.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Argued: October 14, 2009.

Decided and Filed: February 19, 2010.

ARGUED: Debra M. Gagliardi, Office of the Michigan Attorney General, Lansing, Michigan, for Appellant. William J. Hubbard, Thompson Hine LLP, Cleveland, Ohio, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Debra M. Gagliardi, Office of the Michigan Attorney General, Lansing, Michigan, for Appellant. William J. Hubbard, Frank R. DeSantis, Thompson Hine LLP, Cleveland, Ohio, for Appellee.

Before: GILMAN and GIBBONS, Circuit Judges; ANDERSON, District Judge.^*

OPINION

S. THOMAS ANDERSON, District Judge.

Artemia Stewart was convicted of second-degree murder, armed robbery, and felony firearm. Stewart was sentenced to concurrent terms of 39 to 60 years imprisonment on the murder and robbery convictions and two years on the firearm charge. After the Michigan appellate courts denied Stewart all post-conviction relief, Stewart filed a petition for federal habeas corpus relief. Holding that there was insufficient evidence to convict Stewart of second degree murder, the district court granted his petition. For the reasons set forth below, we REVERSE the judgment of the district court and REMAND the case with instructions to deny Stewart's petition for a writ of habeas corpus.

I. BACKGROUND

A. Factual background

In the early hours of November 19, 1999, Robert Pippins was murdered at his home on Mansfield Street in Detroit, Michigan. Pippins's girlfriend, Crystal Robinson, discovered Pippins on the lawn in the backyard at his house, alive but laboring to breath. Pippins had suffered five gunshot wounds and later died at the hospital. Robinson testified that Pippins sold drugs out of his house and kept a .22 caliber rifle there.

Detroit Police Officer David Archambeau was responding to a call on St. Mary's Street when he heard gun shots coming from Mansfield Street on the night in question. Archambeau observed four black males running toward him. One of the men was wearing a long coat and appeared to be clutching a rifle or gun under the coat. When the four men escaped in a Plymouth Sundance, Archambeau and his partner pursued. The Sundance pulled into an alley where the four men jumped out of the car. The three passengers fled in one direction while the driver ran south from the vehicle.

The police's inventory search of the Sundance uncovered a loaded .22 caliber rifle with the stock cut off. Robinson, Pippins's girlfriend, subsequently testified at trial that she had observed a .22 rifle in Pippins's home and identified the rifle recovered from the Sundance as Pippins's rifle. Police also discovered in the vehicle thirty-six (36) ziplock bags of suspected crack cocaine, twenty-six (26) ziplock bags of suspected marijuana, money, and a photograph that appeared to be of the driver of the vehicle with his family. The car keys pictured in the ignition of the car in the photograph matched the car keys that were in the ignition of the Sundance. Archambeau identified the man in the photograph as Michael Hadley. Police arrested Hadley and two other men, Deangelo Whitley and Deleon Tate, in connection with the murder of Robert Pippins.

At Stewart's trial, Investigator Gregory Edwards testified that Stewart was also a suspect in the Pippins murder. However, police discovered that Stewart was no longer in Detroit but had gone to Alabama some time after the murder. Stewart was eventually brought back to Michigan after being arrested on another criminal matter. Upon Stewart's return to Michigan, police questioned Stewart about the Pippins murder and obtained a signed statement from him. Stewart told police that Tate, Whitley, and Hadley were all involved in the Pippins murder. Stewart indicated that Tate ("D"), who was Stewart's cousin, and Whitley ("Chubby Skoal") had told Stewart that they were going to commit a robbery and asked to borrow Stewart's .38 caliber pistol. According to Stewart, he knew that "all they do is ride around and rob people." Stewart gave Whitley his weapon. Stewart also told police that "Little Mike" (i.e. Hadley) was with Tate and Whitley when they committed the robbery. Stewart claimed that he did not know anything about the murder until the next day when Tate and Whitley told him that they had "hit a lick" [committed a robbery]. Whitley told Stewart that they had to throw his .38 away after they had "busted this nigger because the hooks [police] were chasing them." Stewart identified a picture of Hadley and indicated that it was either Whitley or Hadley who had "smoked" Pippins.

According to Stewart, Whitley also told him that someone had stolen Whitley's car while Whitley was inside a gas station. Whitley asked Stewart to lie and say that he was with Whitley and the others on the night of the Pippins murder. Stewart told the police that he did not want to get involved and went to Alabama after police arrested Tate.

Dr. Leigh Hlavaty performed the autopsy on Pippins. At trial she testified that Pippins suffered five gunshot wounds. Dr. Hlavaty recovered four projectiles from the body, of which three were from a large caliber weapon and one was from a small caliber weapon. Dr. Hlavaty testified that the wounds were the cause of death and that the manner of death was homicide.

Officer David Pauch testified about his examination of the semi-automatic rifle and .22 long rifle bullets. He testified at trial that a cartridge case retrieved from the scene was fired from the .22 police recovered from the Sundance. Pauch also examined three bullets, which he confirmed were fired from the same weapon, either a 9mm or .38 caliber. The weapon from which those bullets were fired was not available for his examination. Officer Pauch further testified that a .22 bullet was a relatively small caliber bullet; whereas, a 9mm or .38 bullet was considered a large caliber.

B. Procedural history

Stewart was indicted on four counts, including one count of felony murder, one count of armed robbery, and one count of felony firearm. After a three-day trial in December 2001, a jury convicted Stewart of second degree murder, armed robbery, and felony firearm under an aiding and abetting theory. Stewart filed a motion for a new trial, which the trial court denied.

Stewart timely appealed to the state court of appeals, raising several issues that included sufficiency of the evidence and erroneous jury instructions. The Michigan Court of Appeals found that the evidence was sufficient to convict Stewart of second degree murder as an aider and abetter. The Michigan Supreme Court denied Stewart's application for leave to appeal.

After exhausting his state remedies, Stewart sought a writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, raising many of the same arguments previously heard in his state court appeal. The district court found no merit to any of Stewart's assignments of error except his insufficiency-of-the-evidence claim as to his second degree murder conviction. As a result, the district court granted Stewart's petition as to that claim. The district court subsequently denied the state's motion for reconsideration. This timely appeal followed.

II. ANALYSIS

A. Standard of review

This court reviews de novo a district court's decision to grant or deny a petition for a writ of habeas corpus. Joseph v. Coyle, 469 F.3d 441, 449 (6th Cir. 2006). Both this Court and the district court are bound to apply the provisions of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA) because Stewart filed his petition after AEDPA's effective date. See Woodford v. Garceau, 538 U.S. 202, 210, 123 S.Ct. 1398, 155 L.Ed.2d 363 (2003). Under AEDPA, a federal court may grant a writ of habeas corpus with respect to a "claim that was adjudicated on the merits in State court proceedings" if the state court's 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). "A state court decision is contrary to clearly established federal law if the state court applies a rule that contradicts the governing law set forth in the Supreme Court's cases or if the state court confronts a set of facts that are materially indistinguishable from a decision of the Supreme Court and nevertheless arrives at a result different from that precedent." Joseph, 469 F.3d at 449-50 (brackets, citations, and internal quotation marks omitted). On the other hand, a state court decision is an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law if it "correctly identifies the governing legal rule but applies it unreasonably to the facts of a particular prisoner's case," Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 407-08, 120 S.Ct. 1495, 146 L.Ed.2d 389 (2000), or if it "either unreasonably extends or unreasonably refuses to extend a legal principle from Supreme Court precedent to a new context." Joseph, 469 F.3d at 450 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted).

A conviction is supported by sufficient evidence if, when "viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt." Tucker v. Palmer, 541 F.3d 652, 656 (6th. Cir. 2008) (quoting Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979) (emphasis in original)). In a habeas proceeding, however, we simply cannot conduct a de novo review of the state court's application of that rule, but must review its sufficiency-of-the-evidence decision under the highly deferential standard of AEDPA. Id. Stewart can be granted habeas relief only if the Michigan Court of Appeals unreasonably applied the Jackson standard. Id. Our task is to "determine whether it was objectively unreasonable for [the state court]...