Williams v. Brooks
| Decision Date | 07 June 2006 |
| Docket Number | Civil Action No. 04-5619. |
| Citation | 435 F.Supp.2d 410 |
| Parties | Mitchell Sterling WILLIAMS, Petitioner, v. Marylin BROOKS, et al., Respondents. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Pennsylvania |
Mark E. Cedrone, Cedrone & Janove, Philadelphia, PA, for Petitioner.
J. Hunter Bennett, District Atty's Office, Philadelphia, PA, for Respondents.
Petitioner Mitchell Sterling Williams ("Williams") petitions this court for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254. I referred the petition to the magistrate for a Report and Recommendation ("R & R") in accordance with 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(B). The magistrate's R & R recommends that I deny the petition. Petitioner filed timely objections. I agree with the magistrate's recommendation to deny the petition. I write separately, however, because I do not find untimeliness to bar Williams's claims, find two of them procedurally defaulted on different grounds, and reject the third on the merits.
On May 9, 1997, a jury convicted Williams of second-degree murder, burglary, and possessing an instrument of crime. (Verdict Sheet 5/9/97.) The charges arose from the February 8, 1996 death of Helecia Whittle ("Whittle"), Williams's former girlfriend, who died from injuries sustained in a fall from her fourth floor balcony.
Whittle's sister Anessia Whittle ("Anessia") testified for the prosecution. She was staying with Whittle the week of her death, because Whittle "was afraid of [Williams], she didn't want to be home alone." (Tr. 5/6/97 at 74.) The sisters were in Whittle's apartment together the night of February 8, 1996. Anessia testified that Whittle received two phone calls from Williams that night, asking if anyone was with her, and Whittle told him nobody was there. (Id. at 77-78.) Anessia testified that after she and Whittle fell asleep, they were awakened by noise in the kitchen. When Anessia went to get something to drink from the kitchen, she saw an arm coming through the window, and told Williams "Don't come in." (Tr. at 79.) She testified that neither she nor Whittle ever gave Williams permission to be in the apartment that night. (Id. at 89.)
Anessia testified that after she told Williams not to come in, she and her sister sat in the bedroom and heard a knocking on the wall, and then again heard noise at the kitchen window. (Id. at 80-81.) Anessia followed Whittle to the kitchen, where she saw Williams at the sink and Whittle telling him to get out of the apartment. (Id. at 82.) Anessia testified that Williams asked Whittle again who was in her apartment, and when Whittle said `her sister was there, Williams turned and moved toward Anessia holding a two-pronged fork at her eye level. (Id. at 82.) At that point, Whittle went out onto the balcony, and Williams ran after her. Anessia saw them "in a real tight bundle" with Whittle leaning against the metal railing on the balcony, and she heard Whittle say "No no." (Id. at 84-85.) Anessia testified that because she was having trouble dialing 911, she ran into the hallway of the apartment building for help, and as she walked back toward the balcony, she "hear[d] a thump." (Id. at 86.) She testified that she saw Williams flee down the stairs. (Id.)
Medway cross-examined Anessia, eliciting that Williams had lived with Whittle in the apartment from around Thanksgiving until just before January, 1996. (Id. at 92.) On cross-examination, Anessia said that the second time she went into the kitchen, Williams "had a foot and an arm inside that apartment" and Whittle was "literally trying to get him out" by pushing him back out the window (Id. at 103-04.) Anessia testified that when Williams came into the kitchen window, she did not see anything in his hands. She also said that she had never seen the two-pronged fork before and it was definitely not Whittle's. (Id. at 119-120.) She did not see Williams strike Whittle. (Id. at 137.) She did not see the fork in his hands after he approached her with it in the kitchen. (Id. at 148.)
Criminal Evidence Specialist Richard Henderson testified about the crime scene. (Tr. 5/6/97 at 18-69.) On direct examination by the prosecution, he showed the jury photos of two red stains on the stairwell at the second floor. (Id. at 36-37.) He testified that samples of the blood were submitted to the crime lab for blood typing, but the amount was insufficient to determine type. (Id. at 45.) Dr. Edwin Lieberman: Assistant Medical Examiner, testified about Whittle's autopsy.1 (Tr. 5/7/97 at 46-58.) He testified that when he performed the autopsy, he found "numerous blunt force injuries, as well as several paired puncture wounds." (Id. at 48.) There were three pairs of puncture wounds on or near her left shoulder, one set one-half inch deep, one set five-eighths inch deep, and one set one and a quarter inches deep. (Id. at 49-51.) Dr. Lieberman testified that the force of the puncture wounds could have caused Whittle to tumble over the balcony railing, and his opinion to a reasonable degree of medical certainty was that the cause of her death was homicide. (Id. at 57-58.)
After Medway called five witnesses at trial who testified about Williams's good reputation for being "a peaceable, truthful, honest and law-abiding citizen"2 (Tr. 5/8/97 at 5-19), Williams took the stand. He testified that his relationship with Whittle did not end until the first week in February 1996, and that he lived with her from November 1995 until then. (Id. at 21-22.) Williams said that he called Whittle on the evening of February 8,1996, and made plans with her to drop off the key he still had to the front door of her apartment building and to talk about when he could pick up his bed. (Id. at 26-27.) He was working an evening shift, so he arrived at her building between 12:30 and 1:00 a.m. (Id. at 27.) Williams testified that he used the key to the building's front door, but when he knocked on the door of Whittle's apartment, he received no answer. (Id. at 28.)
At that point, Williams testified, he went around to the kitchen window, knocked, opened the window, stuck his head in, and yelled that he had come to give her the key. (Id.) He testified that when he started to go through the window, Whittle stabbed him in the leg. (Id. at 29.) Williams stated that the heard Whittle say "Don't come in here," and he told her "it was me, Mitchell." (Id.) After Whittle stabbed him, Williams came through the window and they "wrestled and tussled" before she ran to the balcony. (Id. at 30.) Medway questioned him on what happened next:
Q. And when she ran away from you, what did you do?
A. I followed behind her and asked her, as I came to her in the hallway, why did she stab me, and as I came toward her, she said "No, no," and went backward; as she went backwards, she went over to the balcony and fell off the railing.
(Id. at 32.) Williams also gave his explanation of the puncture wounds:
Q. Where did the stabbing take place?
A. Inside the apartment, in the kitchen.
Q. Were you trying to injure her in any way when you stabbed her?
A. No.
Q. Why is it that you stabbed her?
A. Well, when she stabbed me in my leg, my anger over aggressive me [sic], and I tried to protect myself, so I grabbed the first thing I felt, and I used it.
Q. Okay. So, you were hurt and angered by being stabbed; is that correct?
A. Yes, Sir.
Q. Okay. Did you push her over the balcony?
A. No, Sir.
Q. Did you want her to go over the balcony?
A. No, Sir.
Q. Did you want to kill her?
A. No, Sir.
(Id. at 33-34.) Williams testified that he was eight or ten feet away from Whittle when she fell over the balcony. (Id. at 36.) Williams also denied approaching Anessia with the two-pronged fork. (Id. at 34.) He said that he had seen the fork before in the apartment and it was not his. (Id. at 45-46.)
Williams testified that his friend was waiting for him in the friend's car, and Williams told him that he "had a little fight, little quarrel." (Id. at 40.) Williams asked to go to the hospital, but left after an hour because it was crowded and there were too many police there. (Id.) He testified that he did not need stitches and the wound healed, but he still has "the mark." (Id. at 72.) In his closing argument, Medway argued that the blood on the stairway was evidence that Williams was wounded the way he said he was. (Id. at 101-102, 107.)
On cross-examination, Williams explained in greater detail why he came through the window, and admitted that he was an intruder:
Q. Well, did you ever crawl through the window before?
A. Yes.
Q. Okay, and did you ever crawl through the window with anybody else there?
A. Yes, her.
Q. So, this is the method of entry you use in your apartment when you're alone, that's what I'm asking you?
A. No.
Q. When you can't get into this apartment, you go in through this window, right?
A. Well, the situation what happened before is we left our keys at the apartment, rushing out to go to work, and as we got downstairs, we remembered that, so as we came back upstairs, the maintenance man had fixed the window and never replaced it, so I told her to go through the window that way.
Q. So, she knows that you can come through the window, right?
A. Yes.
Q. She knew that night that you did not have a key to her apartment, right?
A. Yes.
Q. So, you're saying that you had this prearranged meeting with her, right, at this time, and she's known before that you had gone through the window, but for some unknown reason, this night she thinks you're an intruder; is that what you're saying to this jury?
A. Yes.
Q. You were an intruder, weren't you? A. Yes, I was an intruder into her apartment.
(Id. at 64-66.)
The trial judge instructed the jury on possession of an instrument of crime, burglary, first degree murder, second degree murder, third degree murder, and voluntary manslaughter. (Id. at...
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