Woods v. Sec'y, Fla. Dep't of Corr.

• Decision Date: 19 May 2020
• Docket Number: Case No. 3:17-cv-707-J-34PDB
• Court: U.S. District Court — Middle District of Florida
• Parties: THOMAS LEE WOODS, Petitioner, v. SECRETARY, FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, et al., Respondents.

THOMAS LEE WOODS, Petitioner, v. SECRETARY, FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, et al., Respondents.

Case No. 3:17-cv-707-J-34PDB

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT MIDDLE DISTRICT OF FLORIDA JACKSONVILLE DIVISION

May 19, 2020

ORDER

I. Status

Petitioner Thomas Woods, an inmate of the Florida penal system, initiated this action on June 14, 2017,¹ by filing a Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 (Petition; Doc. 1). In the Petition, Woods challenges a 2013 state court (Duval County, Florida) judgment of conviction for trafficking in cocaine while armed with a firearm and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Woods raises three grounds for relief. See Petition at 6-33.² Respondents have submitted an answer in opposition to the Petition. See Respondent's Answer to Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus (Response; Doc. 20) with exhibits (Resp. Ex.). Woods filed a brief in reply. See Petitioner's Reply Brief (Reply; Doc. 26). This case is ripe for review.

II. Relevant Procedural History

On May 5, 2011, the State of Florida (State) charged Woods by way of Information with trafficking in cocaine while armed with a firearm (count one) and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon (count two). Resp. Ex. B1 at 9-10. Woods entered a negotiated plea of guilty on June 2, 2011, and agreed to provide substantial assistance in other criminal cases in exchange for a sentencing range of eight to fifteen years if Woods' cooperation led to the filing of prosecutable criminal cases, twelve to twenty years if Woods cooperated but no prosecutable criminal cases arose from his assistance, or twenty to thirty years if he violated the terms of his plea agreement. Id. at 18-22. On March 11, 2013, Woods, through counsel, filed a motion to withdraw his plea, alleging his former counsel did not give him a meaningful opportunity to read and review the plea agreement, which left him unaware of the details and consequences of his plea. Id. at 51-52. On May 21, 2013, the circuit court denied Woods' motion to withdraw his plea, id. at 68-72, and subsequently sentenced Woods to a term of incarceration of thirty years in prison, with ten and fifteen-year minimum mandatories to run concurrently with each other, as to count one and fifteen years in prison, with a three-year minimum mandatory, as to count two. Id. at 54-62. The circuit court ordered the sentence imposed on count two to run concurrently with the sentence imposed on count one. Id. at 59.

Woods appealed his convictions and sentences to Florida's First District Court of Appeal (First DCA). Id. at 98. With the assistance of counsel, Woods filed an initial brief, in which he argued that the circuit court abused its discretions when it denied his motion to withdraw plea. Resp. Ex. B2. The State filed an answer brief. Resp. Ex. B3. On January 31, 2014, the First DCA per curiam affirmed Woods' conviction and sentences, withoutissuing a written opinion, Resp. Ex. B4, and issued the Mandate on February 18, 2014. Resp. Ex. B5.

On September 16, 2014, Woods filed a pro se motion for postconviction relief pursuant to Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.850. Resp. Ex. C1 at 1-32. The circuit court dismissed this motion as facially insufficient and granted Woods leave to amend. Id. at 39-40. Woods filed three separate amended motions for postconviction relief pursuant to Rule 3.850 (Rule 3.850 Motions). Id. at 41-57, 61-81, 88-108. In doing so, Woods raised four allegations of ineffective assistance of counsel and one ground of newly discovered evidence in his Rule 3.850 Motions. Id. Woods alleged that his counsel was ineffective for failing to: (1) inform him of the possibility of an entrapment defense prior to entry of his guilty plea; (2) move to dismiss based on entrapment; (3) investigate and present an entrapment defense; and (4) investigate the State's evidence as to count one. Id. Woods also alleged newly discovered evidence that the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) made no reports in this case. Id. The circuit court denied the Rule 3.850 Motions on July 6, 2016. Id. at 114-21. Woods appealed, and the First DCA per curiam affirmed the denial of relief on November 7, 2016. Resp. Ex. C2. Woods moved for rehearing, Resp. Ex. C3, which the First DCA denied on December 29, 2016. Resp. Ex. C4. The First DCA issued its Mandate on January 17, 2017. Resp. Ex. C5.

III. One-Year Limitations Period

This proceeding was timely filed within the one-year limitations period. See 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d).

IV. Evidentiary Hearing

In a habeas corpus proceeding, the burden is on the petitioner to establish the need for a federal evidentiary hearing. See Chavez v. Sec'y, Fla. Dep't of Corr., 647 F.3d 1057, 1060 (11th Cir. 2011). "In deciding whether to grant an evidentiary hearing, a federal court must consider whether such a hearing could enable an applicant to prove the petition's factual allegations, which, if true, would entitle the applicant to federal habeas relief." Schriro v. Landrigan, 550 U.S. 465, 474 (2007); Jones v. Sec'y, Fla. Dep't of Corr., 834 F.3d 1299, 1318-19 (11th Cir. 2016), cert. denied, 137 S. Ct. 2245 (2017). "It follows that if the record refutes the applicant's factual allegations or otherwise precludes habeas relief, a district court is not required to hold an evidentiary hearing." Schriro, 550 U.S. at 474. The pertinent facts of this case are fully developed in the record before the Court. Because the Court can "adequately assess [Woods's] claim[s] without further factual development," Turner v. Crosby, 339 F.3d 1247, 1275 (11th Cir. 2003), an evidentiary hearing will not be conducted.

V. Governing Legal Principles

A. Standard of Review

The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA) governs a state prisoner's federal petition for habeas corpus. See Ledford v. Warden, Ga. Diagnostic & Classification Prison, 818 F.3d 600, 642 (11th Cir. 2016), cert. denied, 137 S. Ct. 1432 (2017). "'The purpose of AEDPA is to ensure that federal habeas relief functions as a guard against extreme malfunctions in the state criminal justice systems, and not as a means of error correction.'" Id. (quoting Greene v. Fisher, 565 U.S. 34, 38 (2011) (quotation marks omitted)). As such, federal habeas review of final state courtdecisions is "'greatly circumscribed' and 'highly deferential.'" Id. (quoting Hill v. Humphrey, 662 F.3d 1335, 1343 (11th Cir. 2011) (quotation marks omitted)).

The first task of the federal habeas court is to identify the last state court decision, if any, that adjudicated the claim on the merits. See Marshall v. Sec'y, Fla. Dep't of Corr., 828 F.3d 1277, 1285 (11th Cir. 2016). The state court need not issue a written opinion explaining its rationale in order for the state court's decision to qualify as an adjudication on the merits. See Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 100 (2011). Where the state court's adjudication on the merits is unaccompanied by an explanation, the United States Supreme Court has instructed:

[T]he federal court should "look through" the unexplained decision to the last related state-court decision that does provide a relevant rationale. It should then presume that the unexplained decision adopted the same reasoning.

Wilson v. Sellers, 138 S. Ct. 1188, 1192 (2018). The presumption may be rebutted by showing that the higher state court's adjudication most likely relied on different grounds than the lower state court's reasoned decision, such as persuasive alternative grounds that were briefed or argued to the higher court or obvious in the record it reviewed. Id. at 1192, 1196.

If the claim was "adjudicated on the merits" in state court, § 2254(d) bars relitigation of the claim unless the state court's decision (1) "was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States;" or (2) "was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding." 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d); Richter, 562 U.S. at 97-98. The Eleventh Circuit describes the limited scope of federal review pursuant to § 2254 as follows:

First, § 2254(d)(1) provides for federal review for claims of state courts' erroneous legal conclusions. As explained by the Supreme Court in Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 120 S. Ct. 1495, 146 L.Ed.2d 389 (2000), § 2254(d)(1) consists of two distinct clauses: a "contrary to" clause and an "unreasonable application" clause. The "contrary to" clause allows for relief only "if the state court arrives at a conclusion opposite to that reached by [the Supreme] Court on a question of law or if the state court decides a case differently than [the Supreme] Court has on a set of materially indistinguishable facts." Id. at 413, 120 S. Ct. at 1523 (plurality opinion). The "unreasonable application" clause allows for relief only "if the state court identifies the correct governing legal principle from [the Supreme] Court's decisions but unreasonably applies that principle to the facts of the prisoner's case." Id.

Second, § 2254(d)(2) provides for federal review for claims of state courts' erroneous factual determinations. Section 2254(d)(2) allows federal courts to grant relief only if the state court's denial of the petitioner's claim "was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding." 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(2). The Supreme Court has not yet defined § 2254(d)(2)'s "precise relationship" to § 2254(e)(1), which imposes a burden on the petitioner to rebut the state court's factual findings "by clear and convincing evidence." SeeBurt v. Titlow, 571 U.S. ---, ---, 134 S. Ct. 10, 15, 187 L.Ed.2d 348 (2013); accordBrumfield v. Cain, 576 U.S. ---, ---, 135 S. Ct. 2269, 2282, 192 L.Ed.2d 356 (2015). Whatever that "precise relationship" may be, "'a state-court factual determination is not unreasonable merely because the federal habeas court

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