United States ex rel. Newman A. Newman v. Rednour

• Decision Date: 25 March 2013
• Docket Number: Case No. 08–cv–4240.
• Citation: 917 F.Supp.2d 765
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America ex rel. Melvin A. NEWMAN, Petitioner, v. Dave REDNOUR , Warden, Menard Correctional Center, Respondent.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois

917 F.Supp.2d 765

UNITED STATES of America ex rel. Melvin A. NEWMAN, Petitioner,

v.Dave REDNOUR ¹, Warden, Menard Correctional Center, Respondent.

Case No. 08–cv–4240.

United States District Court,

N.D. Illinois,

Eastern Division.

Nov. 8, 2012.

Memorandum Granting Stay in Part March 25, 2013.

Steven Andrew Drizin, Joshua Alan Tepfer, Laura Hepokoski Nirider, Thomas F. Geraghty, Northwestern University Bluhm Legal Clinic, Chicago, IL, for Petitioner.

Erica R. Seyburn, Chicago, IL, for Respondent.

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

ROBERT M. DOW, JR., District Judge.

Following a jury trial, Melvin Newman was found guilty of fatally shooting Andy Dent in July 2001 and sentenced to a 47–year prison term. After launching an unsuccessful direct appeal of the verdict, Newman mounted a similarly unsuccessful collateral attack on his conviction in state court. Using the procedures called for in the Illinois Post–Conviction Act (725 ILCS 5/122–1(a)(1)), he raised three arguments. Only one of those arguments is pressed in this federal case, so there is no need to recount the others here.

Newman's remaining argument is that his lawyer failed to investigate and raise the issue of Newman's fitness to stand trial, despite having received a two-inch-thick stack of diagnoses and other records from Newman's mother and learning that Newman went to a “special school.” Those records included a document from the U.S. Social Security Administration (“SSA”) confirming that Newman had been found disabled in 1995 on the basis of mental retardation. Another document, an evaluation from a psychologist, stated that Newman had an IQ of 62, “yield[ing] a * * * national percentile rank of 1.”

On June 21, 2006, the state trial court dismissed Newman's post-conviction claims without holding an evidentiary hearing. The Illinois Appellate Court affirmed in a split decision, with Justice Wolfson dissenting on the ground that Newman had made a substantial showing of a constitutional violation and thus was entitled to an evidentiary hearing. After exhausting his post-conviction remedies in the Illinois state courts, Newman filed a habeas corpus petition in federal court alleging ineffective assistance of counsel [1].

On September 21, 2010, 2010 WL 3780988, this Court issued an Order [31] concluding that Newman had established a prima facie case that his lawyer's representation fell below the constitutional minimum and that Newman suffered prejudice as a result. Accordingly, the Court granted Newman's request for an evidentiary hearing, which it held in the spring of 2011 [60, 61]. A few weeks after the hearing, on April 4, 2011, the Supreme Court issued its decision in Cullen v. Pinholster, ––– U.S. ––––, 131 S.Ct. 1388, 179 L.Ed.2d 557 (2011), changing the landscape that applies to ineffective assistance of counsel habeas cases and limiting the circumstances in which district courts may hold evidentiary hearings and when they may consider evidence produced at those hearings.

At the time of the post-hearing briefing, there was considerable uncertainty in regard to the proper application of Pinholster. However, the Seventh Circuit's recent opinion in Mosley v. Atchison, 689 F.3d 838 (7th Cir.2012), provided clear guidance to district judges on how to proceed in a habeas case in the post-Pinholster world. Applying Mosley, the Court first assesses whether Newman has properly established a case under § 2254(d) looking only at the record before the state court. If Newman is successful under § 2254(d), the Court then may consider the additional evidence presented at the federal evidentiary hearing to determine whether Newman is entitled to relief.

I. Legal Standard

Federal courts are authorized to issue habeas corpus relief for persons in state custody pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254, as amended by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (“AEDPA”). Section 2254(d) states:

An application for a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court shall not be granted with respect to any claim that was adjudicated on the merits in State court proceedings unless the adjudication of the 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.Under § 2254(d), “federal courts are usually limited to deferential review of the reasonableness, rather than absolute correctness, of a state court decision.” Mosley, 689 F.3d at 844. For purposes of reasonableness review, “a state prisoner must show that the state court's ruling on a claim being presented in federal court was so lacking in justification that there was an error well understood and comprehended in existing law beyond any possibility for fair-minded disagreement.” Harrington v. Richter, ––– U.S. ––––, 131 S.Ct. 770, 786–87, 178 L.Ed.2d 624 (2011). “Where the state court's decision is ‘contrary to’ federal law, that decision is not entitled to usual AEDPA deference and is therefore reviewed de novo with the reviewing court applying the correct legal standard.” Mosley, 689 F.3d at 844 (citing Martin v. Grosshans, 424 F.3d 588, 592 (7th Cir.2005)).

Federal review of a claim governed by § 2254(d) “is limited to the record that was before the state court that adjudicated the claim on the merits.” Pinholster, 131 S.Ct. at 1398. “It would be strange to ask federal courts to analyze whether a state court's adjudication resulted in a decision that unreasonably applied federal law to facts not before the state court.” Id. at 1399. Therefore, under § 2254(d) “evidence later introduced in federal court is irrelevant.” Id. at 1400. If, however, § 2254(d) does not bar relief, then an evidentiary hearing may be needed to determine if the petitioner is being held in violation of the Constitution. Mosley, 689 F.3d at 844 (citing Pinholster, 131 S.Ct. at 1412 (Breyer, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part)).

II. Analysis

Newman claims that his trial lawyer rendered constitutionally ineffective assistance of counsel. To succeed on that claim, Newman must show (1) that counsel's performance fell below an objective standard of reasonableness and (2) that he was prejudiced as a result. See Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 687, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984) (establishing the familiar two-part “performance” and “prejudice” test for ineffective assistance of counsel claims). Although in this case an evidentiary hearing was held before the Supreme Court decided Pinholster, the Court must decide whether the state court's decision was contrary to or an unreasonable application of federal law based only on the evidence available to the state court when it made its decision. See Mosley, 689 F.3d at 844 n. 1.

A. Section 2254(d)

1. Post–Conviction State Court Proceedings

Newman originally raised his ineffective assistance claim in state trial court pursuant to the Illinois Post–Conviction Act (725 ILCS 5/122–1(a)(1)). The trial court denied Newman's claim in an oral ruling. Rather than addressing whether it was unreasonable for Newman's lawyer to decline to investigate his client's mental condition, the trial judge primarily discussed whether there was enough information available to the trial court such that it should have held a competency hearing on its own motion. To the extent that the trial judge made a finding that Newman was fit to stand trial, the court's conclusions rested on a simplistic rationale:

As to fitness, I personally had conversations with Mr. Newman; and I'm not inexperienced in this matter. And his responses were correct. If he was drooling or if his eyes were going someplace, counsel, I assure you, I would have sua sponte asked for a fitness hearing. His responses were appropriate. In fact, it wasn't a yes-or-no matterwhen I asked him about the second degree murder instruction. He replied no.

June 2006 Order at 17–18 (emphasis added); compare Am. Psychiatric Ass'n, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 46 (4th ed. 1994) (“DSM–IV”) (diagnostic criteria for mental retardation are (a) significantly subaverage intellectual functioning, (b) deficits in adaptive functioning in two of eleven specified areas, and (c) onset before age 18). No witness was called to testify in the state trial court, and Newman's trial lawyer does not appear to have responded to the ineffective assistance allegation even in a subsequently filed affidavit. The trial court suggested that Newman's answer of “no” to a question that did not call for a “yes” or “no” answer was evidence that Newman had given an “appropriate” response to the Court's question. June 2006 Order at 18.

Newman appealed the decision to dismiss his petition without an evidentiary hearing to the Illinois Appellate Court. In a 2–to–1 decision, the Appellate Court affirmed the lower court, ruling that the “defendant has failed to demonstrate that a bona fide doubt as to [Newman's] fitness to stand trial existed at the time of trial.” People v. Newman, No. 1–06–1977, slip op. at 10 (Ill.App.Ct. Sept. 4, 2007). The Appellate Court did not reach the question of whether Newman's trial counsel's performance was constitutionally deficient; rather, it addressed only the issue of whether Newman suffered any prejudice as a result. Compare id. at 7 (“Where a defendant fails to show prejudice, the reviewing court need not determine whether the test of deficient performance was met”), with id. at 8–11 (reasoning that prejudice can be found only if there was, at the time of trial, bona fide doubt about fitness and concluding that no doubt about fitness existed). The court concluded that an expert report (the “Kavanaugh Report”), which indicated that Newman had an IQ within the “extremely low range” ...