Stock v. Rednour

• Decision Date: 03 September 2010
• Docket Number: No. 09-2560.,09-2560.
• Citation: 621 F.3d 644
• Parties: Joseph A. STOCK, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Dave REDNOUR, Warden, Respondent-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

621 F.3d 644

Joseph A. STOCK, Petitioner-Appellant,

v.Dave REDNOUR, Warden, Respondent-Appellee.

No. 09-2560.

United States Court of Appeals,Seventh Circuit.

Argued April 5, 2010.

Decided Sept. 3, 2010.

Sarah O'Rourke Schrup, Attorney, David R. Pekarek Krohn (argued), Northwestern University School of Law, Chicago, IL, for Petitioner-Appellant.

Garson S. Fischer, Attorney (argued), Office of the Attorney General, Chicago, IL, for Respondent-Appellee.

Before EASTERBROOK, Chief Judge, and BAUER and WOOD, Circuit Judges.

WOOD, Circuit Judge.

On June 20, 1997, Connie Wagner was found brutally murdered in her home in Palatine, Illinois. Wagner's wrist had been bound with a telephone cord and she had been stabbed more than 180 times. She appeared to have struggled with her assailant or assailants. Joseph Stock, Wagner's former boyfriend, became the prime suspect. Three months after the murder, Stock's friend Alfonso Najera told the police that four days after the murder Stock had confessed to killing Wagner. Inexplicably, the police left the ostensibly violent Stock on the streets for more than three years after learning of his purported confession, arresting him only in February 2001. Further complicating matters, none of the physical evidence found in Wagner's home pointed to Stock; the clothes he wore the day of the murder bore no traces of blood; and Stock voluntarily went to the police station to assist with the investigation on the day after the murder and, at that time, showed no indications of a struggle.

It was undisputed that Wagner was involved in drugs and was in debt to drug dealers with gang affiliations, and her neighbors reported seeing a Hispanic man driving slowly down her street before the murder. Still, relying primarily on Najera's tip, Stock was charged and convicted in 2002 of first-degree murder.

Our task is not to pass judgment on the facts surrounding the crime and the investigation. We concede readily that some suggest Stock's innocence, while others seem quite consistent with his guilt. Rather, we must decide whether this is one of the cases in which a federal court may issue a writ of habeas corpus to someone convicted in state court, given the standards set forth in the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (“AEDPA”), 28 U.S.C. § 2254. AEDPA tightly constrains our review. Stock argues that his right to cross-examine the witnesses against him was unconstitutionally constrained; in particular, he believes that the trial court's evidentiary decisions prevented him from effectively challenging Najera's testimony. We conclude, however, that the Illinois court reviewing Stock's conviction did not unreasonably apply clearly established federal law, because the testimony he intended to elicit was inconclusive for the purpose of impeachment. We therefore affirm the decision of the district court to dismiss his petition.

I

On the evening before the murder, Wagner told Stock that she was moving to Texas. This marked the end of a dating relationship that had lasted for several months. The state's theory of the case was that Stock, angry with Wagner over the break-up, used a copy of her key to enter the house, killed her, changed into her brother's clothes, and drove off in her car. The last of those steps was supported by the fact that Stock's fingerprints were found in his ex-girlfriend's car. As noted above, the physical evidence discovered in Wagner's home-hair, fingerprints, and footprints-did not inculpate Stock.

Central to the state's case was the testimony of Najera. Najera's testimony is also the subject of this appeal, and so we review it in detail here. Najera testified that four days after the murder, Stock called him and said that he murdered Wagner because he was angry. After a few months, Najera went to the police and relayed this story. He signed a statement, written by a prosecutor, outlining the conversation. He also agreed to participate in a recorded telephone call with Stock in which he would try to elicit another confession. The recorded conversation did not go as the state had anticipated. Stock made a number of unsolicited, exculpatory statements during the call; Najera ignored some and affirmed others. Najera also failed to mention the confession explicitly. The closest that Najera came to confronting Stock was the following exchange:

Stock: I mean shit-you still believe me, don't you?

Najera: Yeah, I believe you, dude. I believe you, man. I just want to make sure that you didn't say something to anybody else and they come to court and then.

Stock: That what?

Najera: You didn't tell anybody else-you know what I'm saying? Cause they come to court and then I look like, you know.

Stock: Tell anybody what?

Najera: Anything. I mean did they subpoena anybody else?

Stock believes that his exclamation, “Tell anybody what?” shows that he never confessed to Najera and thus did not know what his friend cautioned against “tell[ing] anybody else.” Najera's repeated failures to challenge Stock's denials, according to Stock, further undermine Najera's claim that Stock confessed to him before the phone call.

Knowing that Najera would testify about the confession, Stock planned to use the recordings to impeach Najera, by showing that Najera neither challenged Stock's exculpatory statements nor followed through on his promise to obtain confirmation of Stock's confession. Before trial, the state filed a motion in limine to bar the introduction of the recorded conversation as hearsay. It argued that the out-of-court conversation was nothing but “self-serving statements by an accused” and thus inadmissible hearsay, citing People v. Patterson, 154 Ill.2d 414, 182 Ill.Dec. 592, 610 N.E.2d 16 (1992). Stock argued that he did not intend to use the statements to prove the truth of the matter asserted, i.e. his innocence, but to impeach Najera by omission. The trial court concluded that the recorded conversations were inadmissible hearsay. At the same time, however, the judge said that if Najera denied that he failed to confront Stock about the confession during the call, then the defense could question Najera about the substance of the call, although it could not introduce the actual recorded conversation. At the state's request, the trial court later clarified its ruling, permitting the introduction of Najera's “tell anybody else” statement to rebut the defense's contention that he did not raise the issue with Stock, but still prohibiting the defense from introducing Stock's “Tell anybody what?” response. In short, the court decided that the defense could confront Najera about his failure to raise the confession during the recorded call, but in that case, the state could introduce Najera's allusion to the supposed confession, and the defense could not respond with Stock's potentially exculpatory response. At trial, the defense cross-examined Najera extensively about a range of issues, but stayed away from the recorded conversation.

As noted earlier, Stock was convicted of first-degree murder. He was sentenced to 90 years' imprisonment. Stock appealed his conviction to the Illinois Court of Appeals, raising five issues including the Confrontation Clause claim that forms the basis of his § 2254 petition. Stock argued that the restrictions placed on the cross-examination of Najera by the trial court violated his right guaranteed by the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to confront his accuser. The appellate court quoted Delaware v. Fensterer, 474 U.S. 15, 106 S.Ct. 292, 88 L.Ed.2d 15 (1985), for the proposition that “the Confrontation Clause guarantees an opportunity for effective cross-examination, not cross-examination that is effective in whatever way, and to whatever extent, the defense might wish.” Id. at 20, 106 S.Ct. 292. (In this connection, the appellate court appeared to ignore a series of Supreme Court cases, discussed in further detail below, holding that certain limitations on cross-examination are unconstitutional.) The court also discussed the propriety of the evidentiary decision under Illinois law, noted the discretion given to trial courts under state law to reach evidentiary decisions, and commented that, even if the decision was in error, any error would have been harmless. The appellate court affirmed Stock's conviction and sentence, and the Illinois Supreme Court denied his petition for leave to appeal.

Finding no remedy in the state courts, Stock turned to the federal courts and to the writ of habeas corpus. The United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois concluded that Stock satisfied the threshold procedural requirements for the § 2254 petition, but concluded that the merits of Stock's claim did not clear the high bar for relief-Stock did not establish that the Illinois appellate court unreasonably applied clearly established federal law when it rejected his Confrontation Clause claim. On this basis, the district court denied Stock's petition for a writ of habeas corpus. At Stock's request, the district court certified his request for a certificate of appealability.

II

Our review of Stock's petition is governed by AEDPA, 28 U.S.C. § 2254, which permits a federal court to issue a writ of habeas corpus only if the state court reached a decision on the merits of a claim, and that decision was either “contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States,” id. § 2254(d)(1), or “was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding,” id. § 2254(d)(2). Stock brings his petition under § 2254(d)(1). Whether the state court's decision was contrary to or an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law “is a mixed question of law and fact that we traditionally also review de novo but with a grant of deference to any reasonable state court decision.”...