Watkins v. Bennett

• Decision Date: 26 September 2012
• Docket Number: No. 9:06-cv-00895-JKS,9:06-cv-00895-JKS
• Parties: JUDSON WATKINS, Petitioner, v. FLOYD BENNETT,1 Superintendent, Elmira Correctional Facility, Respondent.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of New York

JUDSON WATKINS, Petitioner, v. FLOYD BENNETT,¹ Superintendent, Elmira Correctional Facility, Respondent.

No. 9:06-cv-00895-JKS

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK

Date: September 26, 2012

MEMORANDUM DECISION

Judson Watkins, a state prisoner appearing pro se, filed a Petition for a Writ of Habeas Corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. Watkins is currently in the custody of the New York Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, incarcerated at the Elmira Correctional Facility. Respondent has answered. Watkins has not replied.

I. BACKGROUND/PRIOR PROCEEDINGS

In his first trial, Watkins was convicted by an Onondaga County Court jury of petit larceny (N.Y. Penal Law § 155.25), but the jury was unable to reach a verdict with respect to charges of Rape in the First Degree (N.Y. Penal Law § 130.35[3]) and endangering the welfare of a child (N.Y. Penal Law § 260.10[1]).² Upon retrial before a different jury, Bennett was convicted of the rape and child endangerment charges. In July 2002 the Onondaga County Court sentenced Watkins as a persistent felony offender to a prison term of twenty-five years to life.The Appellate Division, Third Department, affirmed Watkins's convictions and sentence, and the New York Court of Appeals denied leave to appeal on June 30, 2005.³ In February 2005, while his appeal was pending, Watkins appearing pro se filed a motion to set aside his sentence under N.Y. Criminal Procedure Law § 440.20 ("CPL § 440.20 motion") in the Onondaga County Court. The County Court denied the motion in a reasoned decision, and the Appellate Division denied leave to appeal on July 31, 2006. On August 25, 2006, Watkins filed a pro se motion to set aside the judgment and vacate the sentence under N.Y. Criminal Procedure Law § 440.10 ("CPL § 440.10 motion) and CPL § 440.20 in the Onondaga County Court. The County Court denied the motion on procedural grounds. The Appellate Division affirmed, and the New York Court of Appeals denied leave to appeal on February 23, 2011.⁴ Watkins timely filed his Petition for relief in the Western District on June 26, 2006, which was transferred to this Court on July 27, 2006. Watkins filed his Amended Petition with leave of court on September 7, 2006. Upon Watkins's motion, the proceeding was stayed from November 28, 2006, through August 9, 2011, to permit Watkins to exhaust his state-court remedies.

The facts underlying Watkins's conviction, as recited by Respondent:

B. The Trial

1. The People's Case

In May 2001, Zinella Davis lived at 113 Amherst Avenue in Syracuse, New York with [Watkins], her boyfriend, and her four children, including JHW, who was 10 years old at the time (T: 278-79). In mid-May, JHW was sleeping in her bedwhen she was awakened by [Watkins], who was naked (T: 221, 223-26). [Watkins] climbed on top of JHW, pulled down her panties, and penetrated her vagina with the "private" part of his body between his legs. "Yucky stuff" came out of [Watkins's] "private" part before he stopped (T: 227-29, 233). JHW did not immediately tell her mother about what [Watkins] had done because she was scared (T: 230-31). Davis ended her relationship with [Watkins] when she found him in JHW's bedroom (T: 288, 290).

On May 29, 2001, Davis brought JHW to the Emergency Room at University Hospital, where JHW told Dr. Lindsey Stastler, a pediatric resident, that [Watkins] had raped her (T: 280). Dr. Stasler referred JHW to the hospital's care clinic headed by Dr. Ann Botash, director of the Child Abuse Referral and Evaluation Program, and an expert in the field of pediatrics and child sexual trauma, examined JHW (T: 255, 257-58, 261-62). Using a colposcope—a large microscope attached to a videotape recorder—Dr. Botash made a videotape of JHW's genital area. Dr. Botash compared the videotape to a videotape from a pelvic examination of JHW done in 1999, and found a change in JHW's hymen. The hymeneal tissue was missing at the five o'clock and six o'clock position, which is the area that is most likely to be damaged during a sexual assault (T: 261-62, 265, 269). Dr. Botash concluded that JHW sustained a penetrating trauma to her vagina that had healed (T: 270).

On May 29, 2001, Detective Fox interviewed JHW at the police station (T: 306-07). Later that day, Police Officers David Mathewson and DeCaro located [Watkins] at 112 Redfield Place, in an attic crawl space (T: 320-21).

On June 6, 2001, while Davis was washing clothes at the laundromat, she found a pair of JHW's underwear, which was "very crusty and had a stain" on the crotch (T: 281-82, 285). After speaking with JHW, Davis put the underwear in a plastic bag and gave it to the police (T: 282-83). The underwear was submitted to the forensic center for analysis (T: 309). On November 9, 2001, Detective Fox obtained a DNA sample from JHW, and on November 13, 2001, he obtained a DNA sample from [Watkins] (T: 309-11).

Kathleen Hum, a scientist at the Center for Forensic Science, performed a serological analysis of JHW's underwear and found semen on the inner crotch. She cut out three small parts and submitted it for DNA testing (T: 336, 338). Sheila Gentile, a senior DNA biology scientist at the Center for Forensic Scientist, who was accepted as an expert in DNA testing, found that her analysis of the semen from JHW's underwear did not exclude [Watkins] as the source of the semen. She stated that the DNA profile found had a probability of being found randomly in 1 out of 248 trillion African Americans (T: 356-58, 361, 363).

2. [Watkins's] Case

[Watkins], Sandra Soriano, and Tashia Godly-Hall testified on behalf of the defense. Soriano, the mother of four of [Watkins's] children, testified that [Watkins] was at her home on May 29, 2001, when two police officers arrived looking for him (T: 378-79). [Watkins] had come to her house about 30 minutes before the police got there (T: 381). After a 15-minute search of her home, the officers arrested [Watkins] (T: 379).

According to Soriano, within three months of the trial, [Watkins] had written her letters asking for her help. In one letter, [Watkins] told her, "work with me on this one, not against me" (T: 384). One of the letters instructed Soriano to visit [Watkins] if she wanted money. In one letter, [Watkins] said he loved her and wanted to marry her (T: 385). When she received the letters she felt threatened because she was trying to end her relationship with [Watkins] (T: 385).

[Watkins] testified that he had been in a relationship with Zinetta Davis for about 1½ years (T: 389). [Watkins] testified that during his relationship with Davis, she would at times masturbate him, and then wipe him off with a towel or rag. He said that he did not see the items that Davis used to wipe him (T: 394-95). [Watkins] claimed that his relationship with Davis ended because he had gotten into a fight with Davis's brother. He denied that Davis broke up with him after seeing her [sic] in JHW's bedroom (T: 401-02). [Watkins] denied that he was in JHW's bedroom on May 29, 2001, and claimed not to remember testifying at his first trial that he was in JHW's bedroom (T: 402, 418-19).

He claimed that about three weeks before he was arrested on May 29, 2001, he and Davis stayed at the home of his cousin, Tashia Godly-Hall for about two weeks, while Davis's children stayed with their grandmother (T: 392-94).

Godly-Hall testified that she went out of town for six days beginning about May 20, 2001. She gave her house key to [Watkins], and twice spoke to him when she called her house while she was gone (T: 422-23).⁵

II. GROUNDS RAISED/DEFENSES

In his Amended Petition, Watkins raises seventeen grounds: (1) the trial court admitted DNA evidence without first determining the reliability of the techniques used; (2) the trial court admitted evidence of the victim's underwear even though there were gaps in the chain of custody; (3) retrial on the rape and child endangering charges violated Watkins's double jeopardy rights; (4) the prosecutor failed to provide Rosario⁶ material to the defense in a timely manner; (5) the trial court committed various evidentiary errors; (6) the verdict was not supported by legally sufficient evidence and was against the weight of the evidence; (7) the prosecutorcommitted misconduct by referring to evidence of the sexual abuse charges, of which Watkins had been acquitted in his first trial; (8) the trial court improperly denied a mistrial based on the prosecutor's misconduct; (9) the trial court abused its discretion in denying Watkins's request to appoint a defense DNA expert; (10) the trial court improperly denied a motion to dismiss the indictment on speedy trial grounds; (11) Watkins's sentence as a persistent felony offender violated his Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial and due process as set forth in Apprendi:⁷ (12) cumulative error based upon the first eleven grounds; (13) retrial on the rape and child endangering charges violated the Double Jeopardy Clause; (14) the trial court improperly based its adjudication as a persistent felony offender on a prior felony conviction that was subsequently reversed on appeal; (15) Watkins was denied the effective assistance of trial counsel because his trial attorney failed to (a) investigate his competency to stand trial, (b) preserve the double jeopardy claim, and (c) preserve the challenge to his adjudication and sentence as a persistent felony offender; (16) he was denied the effective assistance of counsel in that counsel failed to (a) challenge the legality of his arrest, (b) request handwriting samples to challenge evidence that he had written letters to the victim, (c) investigate and present certain witnesses, (d) ensure his appearance before the grand jury, (e) preserve his claim that the trial court improperly admitted evidence of the victim's underwear, and (f) argue that the 90-day delay the People received for DNA testing was includable for purposes of the speedy trial claim; and (17) the trial court improperly...