United States ex rel. Logan v. Chandler
| Decision Date | 21 November 2013 |
| Docket Number | No. 12 C 6170,12 C 6170 |
| Citation | 999 F.Supp.2d 1047 |
| Parties | United States of America ex rel. Leonard Logan, Petitioner, v. Nedra Chandler, Warden, Dixon Correctional Center, Respondent. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois |
Tara Elizabeth Thompson, Loevy & Loevy, Chicago, IL, for Petitioner.
Matthew Philip Becker, Office of the Attorney General, State of Illinois, Chicago, IL, for Respondents.
On November 17, 2000, an Illinois jury convicted Leonard Logan of the first-degree murder of Timothy Jones. The trial judge sentenced Logan to a prison term of forty-five years.
Logan has petitioned this Court for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254. He argues, in nine separate claims, that he received ineffective assistance of trial and appellate counsel; he was denied his right to due process; and insufficient evidence existed to support his conviction. For the following reasons, the Court denies all of Logan's claims except claim 2, one of his claims of ineffective assistance of counsel, and orders an evidentiary hearing on that claim.
The Court begins by describing the proceedings at Logan's trial in state court.
In opening statement, the prosecutor stated that the evidence would show that on March 18, 1997, in a gas station parking lot on the south side of Chicago, Logan shot Jones in the head, killing him. The prosecutor further stated that the evidence would show that a witness to the shooting followed the shooter's vehicle in his car and was able to get the shooter's license number and call the police. The police then traced the car to Latonya Payton. The prosecutor said that Payton had given several versions of the events. Though he did not know how she would testify in court, the prosecutor said, Payton had ultimately implicated Logan. The prosecutor also said that fingerprints matching Logan's were found in Payton's apartment and in the vehicle used in the shooting and that when arrested, Logan tried to flee.
The opening statement of defense counsel Anthony Thomas focused, at the outset, on the importance of the jury listening to all the evidence and holding the prosecution to its burden of proof. He stated that the description given of the shooter did not match Logan. Thomas also promised that the jury would hear evidence of an alibi. He stated: Resp't Ex. 3 at 136. Thomas also stated that a defense witness would testify that he was present at the shooting and was himself shot by the person who shot Jones, and that Logan was not the shooter.
L.C. Robinson testified that on March 18, 1997, between approximately 11:00 and 11:30 p.m., he was driving north on Yates Boulevard in Chicago. As he passed through the intersection of Yates Boulevard and 75th Street, he saw his friend, Charles Jenkins, talking on a pay phone at an Amoco station located on the corner of that intersection. He also saw the victim, Timothy Jones, talking on another pay phone. Robinson watched as a “short, about 5'9?>, 5'7?, kind of heavy-set” African–American man got out of a sport utility vehicle (SUV) that was parked approximately twenty feet from the pay phones. Resp't Ex. 3 at 147. Robinson testified that when the man was two or three feet away from the victim, he pulled a gun from his waistband and aimed it at the victim's head. Robinson watched as the man shot the victim. He saw the victim fall to the ground and then saw the shooter fire two or three more shots at other people in the vicinity.
Robinson saw the shooter return to the SUV, get in the front passenger side, and drive away down 75th Street. Robinson made a U-turn and then followed the SUV westbound on 75th Street. He wrote down the vehicle's license plate number, called 911, and gave the 911 operator this information. Robinson followed the SUV until it turned into an alley. He then returned to the Amoco station and told police who had arrived there what he had seen.
Chicago police detective Phil Graziano testified that he traced the license plate number provided by Robinson to a Budget Rent–A–Car rental agency and determined that it was registered to a Nissan Pathfinder that had been had been rented to an L. Payton on North Winthrop in Chicago.
Latonya Payton was called by the prosecution to testify immediately after detective Graziano. She said that she had been Logan's friend for five or six years. She stated that on March 15, 1997, at Logan's request, she rented a Nissan Pathfinder and paid for it with her credit card. Logan was with her when she rented the vehicle. Logan then dropped her off and left with the vehicle. Payton said that she next saw him a few days later, when she went to his home near 36th and Federal Streets in Chicago. Logan came to her apartment a couple days later, along with another man, to help put together an entertainment center. The police came to her apartment while Logan and the other man were still there. The two men left after the police rang Payton's doorbell and announced that they were there. The police asked her whether she had rented the Pathfinder, telling her it had been involved in a hit and run accident, and she said yes. They asked her to come to the police station to answer questions, and she agreed.
Payton testified that she was “interrogated” at the police station and was asked about a homicide and who had the vehicle and when it was used. She stated that at first, she lied about who she had rented the Pathfinder for, saying this was because she had not put Logan's name on the rental. She falsely told the police that the car hadn't left her home. Payton said that after being interrogated for three hours, she admitted she had rented the vehicle for Logan, who she called “Dash.”
The prosecutor then asked Payton about March 18, 1997. She said that she worked until 5:30 p.m. and then went home. She did not see Logan until 1:30 the next morning. She denied that she was with Logan around 11:30 p.m. near 75th and Yates and stated that she did not see Logan that evening. When asked whether she knew someone called “Rodman,” Payton said that she was badgered by the police and was told by them that Rodman was the other man who helped put up the entertainment center at her home. Payton also claimed that the police told her what had happened at the crime scene and that Logan was the shooter. She said that she told the police she wasn't there.
According to Payton, the police told her that if she didn't come up with anything other than the name of who she had rented the vehicle for, she would be charged with murder. She stated that she was held for three days without food or sleep.
Payton was confronted by the prosecutor with her grand jury testimony that she had seen Logan shoot a man at the Amoco station. She replied, “That was a coerced statement ...,” Resp't Ex. 3 at 198, and she stated that two police officers had told her than unless she identified Logan as the shooter, she would be charged with murder.
At a sidebar, the prosecutor advised the trial judge that he intended to go through the process the police used to obtain Payton's statement inculpating Logan, “including use of two polygraph examinations and being confronted with the results.” Id. at 200.1 The prosecutor said he would not go into the results of the polygraph tests but wanted to bring out that after being confronted with the test results, Payton changed her story. The defense objected, arguing that the jury would erroneously believe that the test results were accurate. The judge overruled the objection and said that he would give a limiting instruction “at the time I instruct the jury on the case,” i.e. at the end of the trial. Id. at 203.
The prosecutor then elicited testimony from Payton regarding her interaction with the police on March 19. She said the police first asked her about the two men they had seen in the hallway outside her door, and she admitted that she initially falsely denied knowing them. She also said she initially lied to the police in saying that the SUV had not left her home on the night of March 18. The police then took her to the police station and interviewed her again, on the night of March 19. Payton denied telling the police that Rodman had borrowed the SUV on the night of March 18 and brought it back within twenty minutes.
Payton admitted that she was then asked to take a polygraph examination and that after the examination, she was brought back to the police station in the early morning hours of March 20. She testified that after the polygraph results were given to her, she told the police that “Dino” (evidently a nickname for Logan) and another man had been in her apartment when the police came. Payton stated that the police told her that if she didn't identify the person for whom she had rented the car, she would be charged with murder. Payton said that she told the police that she had loaned the car to Rodman on March 19. She said that she was questioned constantly throughout the night and was not able to get any sleep. She ultimately told the police, due to being threatened with a murder charge, that she had rented the vehicle for “Dash,” who she said was Logan. At some point, Payton said, the police brought her a photograph of Logan, and she identified him as the person who had the car between 11:00 p.m. on March 18 and 2:00 a.m. the next morning. She said, however, that the police were not satisfied with her story because she had said she wasn't on the scene of the shooting, so they continued to badger her and interrogate her.
Payton admitted that she agreed to take a second polygraph test on the afternoon of March 20. She denied that her story changed after she was confronted with...
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