Thompson v. Steele

• Decision Date: 11 March 2020
• Docket Number: Case No. 4:17-CV-00278-SPM
• Parties: DEVARICK THOMPSON, Petitioner, v. TROY STEELE, Respondent.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Missouri

DEVARICK THOMPSON, Petitioner, v. TROY STEELE, Respondent.

Case No. 4:17-CV-00278-SPM

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT EASTERN DISTRICT OF MISSOURI EASTERN DIVISION

March 11, 2020

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

This matter is before the undersigned on the petition of Missouri state prisoner Devarick Thompson ("Petitioner") for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254. (Doc. 1). The parties have consented to the jurisdiction of the undersigned United States Magistrate Judge pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 636(c)(1). (Doc. 6). For the following reasons, the petition will be denied.

I. FACTUAL BACKGROUND

In its ruling on Petitioner's direct appeal, the Missouri Court of Appeals summarized the facts of this case as follows:

The facts established at trial, viewed in the light most favorable to the verdict, as are follows. On the evening of June 15, 2010, Laverta and Ike Boykins (Mrs. and Mr. Boykins, respectively) allowed Thompson¹ and several other individuals to stay overnight at their home. In the morning, Mrs. Boykins awoke to find Thompson walking into her bedroom with Joey Richmond (Richmond)² walking behind him and pointing a handgun at Thompson's back. Richmond accused Thompson of stealing guns owned by Richmond, and demanded to know where Thompson had put them.

During Richmond's interrogation of Thompson, one-by-one, the other occupants of the house came into the Boykins' bedroom. Richmond forced eachperson to sit on the floor and wait while he continued questioning Thompson. After holding the group in the bedroom, Richmond moved all the individuals to the living room so that Mrs. Boykins could get dressed. Mrs. Boykins eventually left the house to go to work. Before she left, Richmond apologized to Mrs. Boykins, told her he did not intend to kill anyone, and asked her not to go to the police. Mrs. Boykins went immediately to a police station and reported the incident. The officers responded to the apparent hostage situation by asking Mrs. Boykins to fill out a report.

When Mrs. Boykins returned home later that day she saw all the same people sitting around and talking peaceably in her living room. Richmond eventually left the home with two of the people in the house to go to a liquor store. None of the occupants, including Thompson, left the house while Richmond was away. While Richmond was gone, Thompson stated that he would kill Richmond if he returned. Richmond returned shortly thereafter with the same two people, plus a third individual. Richmond did not have a gun, but two of the people with him had guns in their waistbands. The group of people began drinking the alcohol Richmond purchased from the liquor store. As the group sat in the living room, Richmond stood up and walked into the kitchen to again apologize to Mrs. Boykins. While Richmond stood with his back to the living room, Thompson retrieved a gun from beneath the couch cushions where he was sitting, walked behind Richmond, and shot him twice in the back. After Richmond fell to the ground, Thompson shot him again in the head, kicked him, spit on him, and said "I told you I was going to get you." Thompson then fled the house.

The State charged Thompson with first-degree murder and armed criminal action. Thompson testified in his own defense at trial. Thompson testified that Richmond was armed at the time Thompson shot him, that Richmond never left the house to go to the liquor store, and that Thompson shot Richmond in self-defense believing his life was in danger. A jury found Thompson guilty of both counts, and the trial court entered a judgment accordingly.

Resp't Ex. C, at 2-3.

In his direct appeal, Petitioner asserted five claims. Resp't Ex. A, at 15-19. The Missouri Court of Appeals found that Petitioner had waived appellate review of four of the claims; as to the other claim, the Missouri Court of Appeals found that Petitioner had failed to preserve the issue, reviewed it for plain error, and found no plain error. Id. at 12-14.The Court of Appeals therefore affirmed the judgment of the trial court. Resp't Ex. C, at 14.

In his amended motion for post-conviction relief, filed through appointed counsel, Petitioner asserted several claims of ineffective assistance of trial counsel, each of which wasdenied by the motion court after an evidentiary hearing. Resp't Ex. M, at 17-18, 32-38. On appeal from the denial of the amended motion for post-conviction relief, Petitioner asserted three claims of ineffective assistance of trial counsel: (1) ineffective assistance of trial counsel based on the failure to object to certain aspects of Mrs. Boykins's and Mr. Mintz's testimony; (2) ineffective assistance of trial counsel based on the failure to raise timely objections and request a curative instruction when the prosecutor asserted during oral argument that that Petitioner's killing of the victim was a "gangland killing"; and (3) ineffective assistance of trial counsel based on the cumulative effect of those errors. Resp't Ex. E, at 10-13. The Missouri Court of Appeals denied all three claims and affirmed the judgment of the motion court. Resp't Ex. H.

In the instant pro se petition, Petitioner indicates that he is raising two claims: "trial court error" (Ground One) and "ineffective assistance of counsel" (Ground Two). However, each purported ground actually contains multiple claims. Reading the petition broadly, Petitioner raises five claims under Ground One:³ (1A) the trial court plainly erred in giving Instruction 12, self-defense, without a modification instructing the jury on the appearance doctrine, because the defense could not properly argue that Petitioner was acting in self-defense if there was an apparent factual situation that was misleading to him; (1B) the trial court plainly erred in admitting into evidence State's Exhibit 9, the .357 Colt identified in the sewer by Edro Odum; (1C) the trial court abused its discretion in overruling defense counsel's objection after the prosecutor improperly called the murder a "gangland killing"; (1D) the trial court abused its discretion in overruling defense counsel's request for a mistrial after an emotional outburst in the courtroom by the victim'sfamily; and (1E) the trial court abused its discretion in overruling defense counsel's objections to audiotape evidence regarding Petitioner's incarceration. In Ground Two, Petitioner appears to assert five additional claims: (2A) ineffective assistance of trial counsel based on the failure to offer a modified self-defense instruction; (2B) ineffective assistance of trial counsel based on the failure to object to the admission of State's Exhibit 9, the gun recovered from the sewer of the City of St. Louis; (2C) ineffective assistance of trial counsel based on trial counsel's agreement to proceed with the trial after an outburst from one of the victim's family members; (2D) ineffective assistance of trial counsel based on trial counsel's failure to offer a timely objection to the prosecutor's closing arguments describing the crime as a "gangland killing" with no evidence to support Petitioner's involvement in a gang; and (2E) ineffective assistance of trial counsel based on counsel's failure to object to certain aspects of Mrs. Boykin's testimony and Mr. Mintz's testimony.⁴

II. LEGAL STANDARDS

A. Legal Standard for Reviewing Claims on the Merits

Federal habeas review exists only as a "guard against extreme malfunctions in the state criminal justice systems, not a substitute for ordinary error correction through appeal." Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 102-03 (2011) (quotation marks omitted). Accordingly, "federal habeas courts are constrained by the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA) to exercise only a limited and deferential review of underlying state court decisions." White v. Kelley, 824 F.3d 753, 756 (8th Cir. 2016) (quoting Sera v. Norris, 400 F.3d 538, 542 (8th Cir. 2005)). Under AEDPA, a federal court may not grant habeas relief to a state prisoner with respectto any claim that was adjudicated on the merits in the state court proceedings unless the state court's adjudication of a claim "(1) resulted in a decision that was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States; or (2) resulted in a decision that 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). A state court decision is "contrary to" clearly established Supreme Court precedents "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 [the Supreme Court's] precedent." Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 405-06 (2000); see also Brown v. Payton, 544 U.S. 133, 141 (2005). A state court decision involves 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, 529 U.S. at 407-08; see also Bell v. Cone, 535 U.S. 685, 694 (2002). "Finally, a state court decision involves an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the state court proceedings only if it is shown that the state court's presumptively correct factual findings do not enjoy support in the record." Jones v. Luebbers, 359 F.3d 1005, 1011 (8th Cir. 2004) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted); see also Rice v. Collins, 546 U.S. 333, 338-39 (2006) (noting that state court factual findings are presumed correct unless the habeas petitioner rebuts them through clear and convincing evidence) (citing 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(1)).

B. Legal Standard for Procedurally Defaulted Claims

To preserve a claim for federal habeas...