Williams v. Williams
Citation | 232 F.Supp.3d 1318 |
Decision Date | 08 February 2017 |
Docket Number | CV 415–292 |
Parties | Jarnard M. WILLIAMS v. Warden Stanly WILLIAMS |
Court | U.S. District Court — Southern District of Georgia |
After an independent review of the record, the Court concurs with the Magistrate Judge's Report and Recommendation, to which objections have been filed. Accordingly, the Report and Recommendation of the Magistrate Judge is adopted as the opinion of the Court.
So ORDERED, this 8th day of February, 2017.
Following affirmance of his conviction for, inter alia , felony murder, Williams v. State , 290 Ga. 533, 540, 722 S.E.2d 847 (2012), Jarnard M. Williams unsuccessfully sought state habeas relief, doc. 14–22,1 certificate of probable cause to appeal denied , doc. 14–23, and now petitions this Court for federal habeas relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. Doc. 1. Sentenced to life plus twenty years, Williams , 290 Ga. at 540 n. 1, 722 S.E.2d 847, Williams' core claim is that his prosecutor violated her Brady /Giglio2 duty. After a thorough review of the record, the Court finds that the State court misapplied controlling Supreme Court precedent and unreasonably concluded that the state prosecutor had not made a side deal regarding the future prosecution of a key state witness when, in truth, not only had such a promise been made, but the prosecutor deliberately concealed that promise from the jury. Williams has shown, therefore, that he is entitled to federal habeas relief from his conviction.
Petitioner's Brady claim pivots on the testimony of Isaac Kemp Fitzgerald, the prosecution's star witness who vacillated when asked to positively identify Williams as one of the men who assaulted the group that he was in. As noted above in footnote 2, this claim is fact and context-sensitive, necessitating detailed factual recitation and case-comparisons. Williams has no quarrel with the Georgia Supreme Court's recitation of the facts:
Williams , 290 Ga. at 533–35, 722 S.E.2d 847 (emphasis added).
That court ruled that sufficient evidence supported petitioner's conviction. Williams , 290 Ga. at 535, 722 S.E.2d 847. Williams does not challenge that. Instead, "raising the same claims raised in his state habeas corpus petition," doc. 21 at 2, he recapitulates the Brady and ineffective assistance of counsel (IAC) claims resolved against him on his direct and collateral appeals. Docs. 1 & 21. Those claims must be reviewed under The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA).
The AEDPA bars federal courts from granting habeas relief to a state petitioner on a claim that was adjudicated on the merits in state court unless the state court's adjudication:
28 U.S.C. § 2254(d).
The case law has fleshed out these statutory terms. On the "facts" prong, § 2254(d)(2), the Court Jones v. Sec'y Fla. Dept. of Corr. , 834 F.3d 1299, 1311 (11th Cir. 2016). That's a tough showing to make: Id. ( ).
McCartney v. Sec'y, Fla. Dept. of Corr. , 662 Fed.Appx. 664, 668, 2016 WL 5349213 at *4 (11th Cir. Sept. 26, 2016) (footnote omitted). "[A] state court's decision must be not merely wrong but so wrong that no reasonable judge could have reached that decision." Dassey v. Dittmann , 201 F.Supp.3d 963, 986, 2016 WL 4257386 at *18 (E.D. Wis. Aug. 12, 2016) (citing Woods v. Donald , ––– U.S. ––––, 135 S.Ct. 1372, 1376, 191 L.Ed.2d 464 (...
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