Taylor v. Cassady

• Decision Date: 22 September 2016
• Docket Number: Case No. 4:13 CV 960 RWS
• Parties: JAMES N. TAYLOR, Petitioner, v. JAY CASSADY and CHRIS KOSTER, Respondents.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Missouri

JAMES N. TAYLOR, Petitioner, v. JAY CASSADY and CHRIS KOSTER,¹ Respondents.

Case No. 4:13 CV 960 RWS

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT EASTERN DISTRICT OF MISSOURI EASTERN DIVISION

September 22, 2016

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

Petitioner James N. Taylor seeks federal habeas relief from a state court judgment entered after a jury trial. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254. For the reasons set forth below, the Petition and Petitioner's request for an evidentiary hearing will be denied.

I. Background

The State of Missouri charged Petitioner, as a prior and persistent offender, with committing on May 24, 2007, six felonies: forcible rape in violation of Mo. Rev. Stat. Section 566.030 (Count I); armed criminal action in violation of Mo. Rev. Stat. Section 571.015 (Count II); forcible sodomy in violation of Mo. Rev. Stat. Section 566.060 (Counts III and IV); kidnapping in violation of Mo. Rev. Stat. Section 565.110 (Count V); and, first-degree assault in violation of Mo. Rev. Stat. Section 565.050 (Count VI).² These charges stemmed from an incident occurring in the City of St. Louis, in which Petitioner assaulted V.W.³

At trial in April 2009, the State introduced as exhibits, among other items, a knife and a box cutter seized at the crime scene;⁴ pictures of the crime scene;⁵ pictures of V.W. and of Petitioner taken after the assault;⁶ Petitioner's written consents to swab him for DNA material, as well as the results of those swabs;⁷ and the results of V.W.'s examination at the hospital.⁸ The State also presented the testimony of eight witnesses: V.W.; three investigating police officers; two employees of the police department's crime lab who prepared the DNA material for examination and analyzed that material; and two nurses, one who had swabbed Petitioner for DNA and one who had examined and cared for V.W.⁹ In addition to his testimony,¹⁰ Petitioner introduced, among other exhibits, the parties' stipulation that, prior to the incident, V.W. had been diagnosed with and treated for schizophrenia.¹¹

V.W. testified that she knew Petitioner from the neighborhood and asked him to help her move some large items out of her apartment. She let him in the apartment building through a back entrance because he was "banned" from her building.¹² She described the subsequent night-time assault in her apartment as including Petitioner making her lick his chest, the use of "Vaseline," Petitioner placing his penis in V.W.'s vagina, and other conduct of a sexual nature; Petitioner repeatedly beating V.W.'s head with his hands; Petitioner refusing to allow V.W. to use the bathroom, and V.W. urinating and defecating on the floor; and Petitioner strangling V.W. until she became unconscious.¹³ V.W. first reported the assault and rape to Officer Ernest Greenlee of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department ("Department"), who was in the lobby of her apartment building when she arrived after she awakened and crawled from her apartment while Petitioner slept there.¹⁴ Officer Greenlee called an ambulance and described V.W. as having "blood on her face, coming from her nose and mouth" and as appearing "like she was pretty upset and afraid."¹⁵

Michael Herzberg, a detective with the Department, observed at V.W.'s apartment a knife, "an overturned bottle of petroleum jelly[, . . . a]nd a large brown stain on the carpet next to some white towels."¹⁶ After visiting the crime scene, Detective Herzberg talked with V.W. at the hospital.¹⁷ Detective Herzberg showed V.W. a photo array, and V.W. identified Petitioner as the person who had assaulted her.¹⁸

Kathryn Howard, an emergency room nurse, completed a physical examination and a sexual assault examination of V.W.¹⁹ In relevant part, Ms. Howard testified that V.W. had "physical injuries" and "genital trauma."²⁰ More specifically, Ms. Howard's examination of V.W. revealed that V.W. had:

bleeding inside her vagina, as well as some abrasions inside her vagina, as well as on her cervix . . .

[and m]ultiple abrasions, lots of bruises. [V.W.] had scleral hemorrhaging in her eyes, which basically means that she had a lot of popped blood vessels in her eyes. She had bruising all over her body.²¹

(Footnote added.)

During Detective Herzberg's later interview of Petitioner at the police station, Petitioner consented to the swabbing of his body for DNA material, and his cheeks, hands, and chest were swabbed.²² Two employees of the Department's Crime Lab, Jenna Oakes-Smith, a forensic biologist, and Sarah Custis, a DNA analyst, testified about the preparation and testing of material for DNA analysis.²³ Ms. Custis stated she found, to a reasonable degree of scientific certainty, a mixture of Petitioner's and V.W.'s DNA on a swab from Petitioner's right breast.²⁴ Additionally, she found no DNA of Petitioner on the box-cutter found in V.W.'s apartment, and found insufficient information to make a conclusive determination about DNA, other than V.W.'s DNA, on the handle of the knife found in V.W.'s apartment.²⁵

The trial court denied Petitioner's motions for acquittal at the close of the State's evidence and at the close of all the evidence,²⁶ and, outside the presence of the jury, concluded that Petitioner was a prior and persistent offender.²⁷ The jury found Petitioner guilty of forcible rape (Count I), kidnapping (Count V), and first-degree assault (Count VI); and not guilty of the other three charged offenses, armed criminal action (Count II) and forcible sodomy (Counts III and IV).²⁸ After trial, the trial court denied Petitioner's supplemented motion for acquittal or, in the alternative, for a new trial.²⁹ The trial court sentenced Petitioner, as a prior and persistent offender, to a twenty-year term of imprisonment for forcible rape, to run consecutively to two concurrent ten-year terms of imprisonment for kidnapping and first-degree assault.³⁰

In his timely direct appeal, Petitioner challenged his conviction on the grounds the trial court violated his right to due process under the Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution by: (1) overruling his motion for judgment of acquittal on the kidnapping charge on sufficiency grounds; and (2) overruling his objections to the State's leading questions during V.W.'s direct examination with respect to the allegations of forcible rape.³¹ Petitioner also contended that the trial court violated his rights under the Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments by overruling his objections to State voir dire questions that sought to assess whether members of the jury panel were able to consider Petitioner's guilt based on testimony alone, despite the State's intention to introduce physical evidence.³²

The Missouri Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment, and described the circumstances of the incident as follows:

On May 24, 2007, V.W. was in the process of moving out of her eighth floor apartment because police had ordered her building to close. She stopped packing in order to buy liquor at a convenience store, and encountered [Petitioner] on her way home. The two knew each other in passing from the neighborhood, and V.W. asked [Petitioner] to return to her apartment and help her move a desk. [Petitioner] had been banned from V.W.'s building, so V.W. snuck him in the back door to avoid the 24-hour police surveillance.

Once in her apartment, V.W. began drinking the brandy she had purchased at the store. [Petitioner] told her to take her clothes off. V.W. testified that [Petitioner] proceeded to punch her in the head repeatedly and strangle her, causing her to suffer broken ribs and teeth and extensive hemorrhaging. According to V.W.'s testimony, [Petitioner] raped her and tried to have oral and anal sex with her, but was unable to climax. When V.W. lost control of her bowels as a result of the beatings, she testified that [Petitioner] would not let her use the bathroom. V.W. also testified that [Petitioner] made her lick his chest, and threatened her with a knife. She eventually passed out and awoke later to find [Petitioner] sleeping on the couch.

V.W. crawled to the door and made her way to the lobby via the fourth floor elevator. She made contact with Officer Ernest Greenlee in the lobby at approximately 6:30 a.m. Officer Greenlee observed blood on V.W.'s face and requested an ambulance. When more officers arrived on the scene, they went to V.W.'s apartment and found [Petitioner] sleeping naked on the floor. The officers seized a hunting knife and box cutter from V.W.'s apartment, and took multiple swabs from [Petitioner].

V.W. went to the hospital where emergency room nurse Kathryn Howard ("Howard") performed a sexual assault exam. During the exam, Howard noticed bleeding and abrasions on the inside of V.W.'s vagina in addition to other genital trauma. Howard observed bleeding in V.W.'s eyes that was consistent with strangulation.

State v. Taylor, No. ED93334, Opinion at 1-2 (Mo. Ct. App. filed May 4, 2010).³³ After Petitioner's unsuccessful efforts to transfer the case to the Missouri Supreme Court, the Missouri Court of Appeals issued its mandate on September 8, 2010.³⁴

Following his direct appeal, Petitioner timely filed a pro se motion for post-conviction relief ("PCR motion") presenting seventeen ineffective-assistance-of-trial-counsel claims and a claim that the State withheld certain evidence. Pet'r PCR Mot., filed Nov. 22, 2010.³⁵ Through appointed counsel, Petitioner filed an amended PCR motion, including a request for an evidentiary hearing. Pet'r Am. PCR Mot., filed Mar. 1, 2011.³⁶ Petitioner expressly incorporated into his amended PCR motion all claims presented in his pro se PCR motion,³⁷ and set forth three additional claims that his trial attorney provided ineffective assistance of counsel in violation of his rights under the Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments. Id. at 3-8.³⁸

For the first additional claim in his amended PCR motion, Petitioner contended his trial attorney violated Petitioner's rights to a fair and impartial jury, to the effective...