United States v. Stokes
| Decision Date | 29 October 2015 |
| Docket Number | No. 14 C 9485,14 C 9485 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff, v. CHARLES STOKES (78869-004), Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois |
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
Petitioner Charles Stokes ("Stokes") was convicted by a federal jury in June 2010 on a charge of traveling in foreign commerce for the purpose of engaging in a sex act with a minor, a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2423(b). He was sentenced to 180 months in prison, the statutory maximum. Stokes has moved to vacate his conviction and sentence pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2255. He presents six alleged bases for relief: (1) counsel was ineffective because he had insufficient time to prepare for trial; (2) the prosecutors engaged in "knowing use of false testimony"; (3) the indictment was constructively amended at trial; (4) this court lacked jurisdiction to hear the charges against him; (5) the court improperly applied U.S.S.G. § 2G2.1 in his case; and (6) the court "did not consider the defendant[']s 3553(a) factors." Stokes has also moved for the court to recuse [8] from reviewing his § 2255 motion on the basis of bias. For the reasons explained here, the motion for recusal [8] is denied, and Stokes's § 2255 petition [1] is dismissed. The court declines to grant a Certificate of Appealability on any issue.
Except where noted, the following facts are drawn from the Seventh Circuit's opinion affirming Petitioner's conviction and sentence. United States v. Stokes, 726 F.3d 880, 885-87 (7th Cir. 2013).
Stokes served as a teacher in Florida's Miami-Dade public-school system for more than a decade. In February 2000, Stokes pleaded no contest to a charge of misdemeanor battery for indecent touching of two of his male students. A Florida court suspended Stokes's sentence and placed him on probation. Shortly thereafter, Stokes requested—and was granted—permission to complete his probation in Thailand. Less than a month after entering his guilty plea, Stokes moved to Thailand, settling in the city of Pattaya, approximately 90 miles southeast of Bangkok on the Gulf of Thailand.
Within two weeks of touching down in his new home, Stokes began seeking out boys for sex. His modus operandi involved enticing runaways and other boys from the streets to his home, ostensibly to play video games. But, once there, Stokes would engage in sex acts with them, often memorializing those acts with a digital camera. During his time in the country, he also frequently hired young male prostitutes. This behavior continued undetected for several years. Outside of a three-week trip to the United States starting in late December 2001, Stokes resided continuously in Thailand from March 2000 until his extradition in 2007. While there, he supported himself by teaching English as a second language.
In December 2002, Immigration and Customs Enforcement ("ICE") agents based in Thailand received a tip that Stokes had been fired from a teaching job in Bangkok for indecently touching male students. The agents opened an investigation and learned that this was the second time that Stokes had been dismissed from a Thai school for similar allegations. Based on this information, ICE sought the help of the Royal Thai Police. Thai officers eventually obtained a warrant authorizing a search of Stokes's home "to locate and seize any illegal items." (Search Warrant, Ex. 3 to Def.'s Mem. in Support of Mot. to Suppress, R. 108, United States v. Stokes, No. 07 CR 590, N.D. Ill.)
Early in the morning of October 9, 2003, ICE agents and the Royal Thai Police executed the warrant at Stokes's home. They recovered a digital camera, multiple compact discs, and acomputer. The devices contained, in total, more than 6,000 images of Stokes's sexual encounters with adolescent and prepubescent boys.
Despite the voluminous evidence recovered by authorities, Stokes was not arrested until July 2006, nearly three years after the search. Another year passed before Thailand granted the United States' extradition request and Stokes returned to Miami to face a charge of violating 18 U.S.C. § 2423(c). That provision makes it a crime for U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents to travel in foreign commerce and engage in illicit sexual conduct. As prosecutors soon realized, however, that particular subsection of § 2423 was not enacted until after Stokes had departed the United States for Thailand and therefore did not apply to his conduct. Prosecutors dropped that charge, but Stokes was transferred to the Northern District of Illinois where he was indicted on three counts of violating 18 U.S.C. § 2251A(b)(2)(A), a child-trafficking statute. Prosecutors later dismissed these charges as well, however, and finally indicted Stokes on a single count of violating 18 U.S.C. § 2423(b), which at the time of Stokes's March 2000 emigration to Thailand prohibited traveling in interstate or foreign commerce for the purpose of engaging in a sexual act with a person under 18. See 18 U.S.C. § 2423(b) (effective Oct. 30, 1998 to Nov. 2, 2002).
Stokes moved to suppress the evidence recovered in the 2003 search of his home in Thailand. This court denied the motion, United States v. Stokes, 710 F. Supp. 2d 689 (N.D. Ill. 2009), and the case proceeded to trial before a jury. At trial, the government introduced testimony from the ICE agents involved in the investigation and from two Thai boys who were sexually assaulted by Stokes. One of the victims was a "street kid nicknamed 'Ice'," who was 11 years old when Stokes first lured him to his home. 726 F.3d at 887. Ice testified that Stokes subjected him to various sex acts and gave him money on some 20 different occasions. The other victim, nicknamed "Note," also was 11 when he first went home with Stokes. He testified to a similar pattern of sexual abuse perpetrated by Stokes.
Finally, the government introduced a representative sample of the 6,000 photographic images recovered during the search of Stokes's home. The photographs depicted Stokes engaged in various sex acts with Thai boys, including Ice and Note. An ICE agent testified that approximately 70 different boys appear in the images, 60 of whom appeared to be under 16. Of those, half appeared to be under the age of 12, and the youngest looked to be about 7. Hundreds of these photos were transferred from Stokes's camera to compact discs in the months immediately before and after his brief trip to the United States at the end of 2001.
The jury found Stokes guilty and this court sentenced him to the statutory maximum penalty of 15 years in prison. The Seventh Circuit upheld both the conviction and sentence on appeal. Stokes filed this § 2255 motion [1] in November 2014, raising five different grounds for relief. He later added a sixth [6]. He has also asked this court to recuse itself from the consideration of his § 2255 motion [8]. The government filed a response [16] to which Stokes has replied [20].
Stokes argues that this court should recuse itself from consideration of his § 2255 motion based on "the fervent possibility [of] personal bias and prejudice." (Mot. for Recusal, R. 8, at 1.) In support of his motion, Stokes points to several comments made by this court throughout Stokes's trial and sentencing as well as statements made by the court in an unrelated case involving a different defendant charged with a similar crime. (Id. at 2-12.)
Section 455(a) of the Judicial Code, 28 U.S.C. § 455(a), requires a judge to disqualify herself in any proceeding in which her impartiality might reasonably be questioned. Section 455(b)(1) requires disqualification when the judge has an actual personal bias or prejudice concerning a party, or personal knowledge of disputed evidentiary facts. Stokes's motion to recuse invokes both theories.
The relevant question for purposes of § 455(a) disqualification is whether "the judge's impartiality might reasonably be questioned by a well-informed, thoughtful observer rather than to a hypersensitive or unduly suspicious person." O'Regan v. Arbitration Forums, Inc., 246 F.3d 975, 988 (7th Cir. 2001) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). The standard is an objective one: In re Sherwin-Williams Co., 607 F.3d 474, 477-78 (7th Cir. 2010).
The appropriate standard of proof for a claim of recusal predicated on actual prejudice is similar: "whether a reasonable person would be convinced that the judge is biased." United States v. Balistrieri, 779 F.2d 1191, 1201 (7th Cir. 1985). To justify recusal under this theory, a party must file an affidavit that includes definite and particular facts about circumstances that would convince a reasonable person that the judge is prejudiced. Tezak v. United States, 256 F.3d 702, 717 (7th Cir. 2001) (citing 28 U.S.C. § 144). "[J]udicial rulings alone almost never constitute a valid basis for a bias or partiality motion." Liteky v. United States, 510 U.S. 540, 555 (1994). Rather, "[b]ias against a litigant must . . . arise from an extrajudicial source." Hook v. McDade, 89 F.3d 350, 355 (7th Cir. 1996). Opinions formed by the judge on the basis of facts introduced or events occurring in the course of the current proceedings do not constitute a basis for a bias or partiality motion unless they display a deep-seated antagonism that would make fair judgment impossible. Liteky, 510 U.S. at 555.
The Seventh Circuit has stated that "the negative bias or prejudice from which the law of recusal protects a party must be grounded in some personal animus or malice that the judge harbors...
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