Cameron v. Smith

ALLAN CAMERON, Petitioner,

v.JOSEPH T. SMITH, Respondent.

11 Civ. 5100 (BMC)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT EASTERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK

Dated: December 21, 2011

MEMORANDUM DECISION AND ORDER

COGAN, District Judge.

Petitioner brings this habeas corpus proceeding under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 challenging his conviction for first degree murder arising out of the fatal shooting of a police officer. The shooting occurred when petitioner, while driving his car without a license, ran a red light and an unmarked police car gave chase when he refused to pull over. Shots were fired from petitioner's car and one of the officers in the pursuing car was killed. The car was found in a garage near the apartment where petitioner's girlfriend lived, and petitioner was arrested at the apartment about five hours after the shooting. Additional facts will be set forth below as they pertain to each point of error that petitioner raises here.

The petition contains three points of error. In Points I and II, petitioner challenges the admission of his post-arrest self-inculpatory statements on four grounds: (1) the police constructively arrested him without a warrant in an apartment by coercing or threatening him to come out into the hall, thus rendering his statements inadmissible; alternatively, (2) he made one statement after he had invoked his right to counsel, which statement therefore should have been suppressed; (3) when petitioner moved for a pretrial hearing to suppress his statements on theground that they were obtained after the police arrested him without probable cause, the trial court improperly denied that portion of his motion without a hearing; and (4) when new facts emerged at trial showing that there was no probable cause for his arrest, his trial counsel was ineffective for not renewing his motion to suppress the statements on that ground. In addition to these suppression points, petitioner asserts, in Point III of the petition, that he was denied due process when the trial court prohibited his counsel from cross-examining a police officer as to the use of the murder weapon in an unrelated shooting.

This decision considers Points I and III of the petition. Point II shall be addressed following additional submissions by the parties as described below.

I. The Payton Issue

In a pretrial motion, petitioner sought to exclude all post-arrest statements alleging, inter alia, that his arrest was in violation of the rule set forth in Payton v. N.Y., 445 U.S. 573, 100 S. Ct. 1371 (1980). In that case, the Supreme Court held that under the Fourth Amendment, police may not effectuate an arrest within a person's home in the absence of an arrest warrant. Petitioner conceded that he was arrested in the hallway of his girlfriend's apartment - a public place - and not in the apartment itself, but contended that the police presence in and around the apartment building was so inherently coercive that it compelled his departure from the apartment and thus he was "constructively arrested" in the apartment.¹

In a detailed written decision after an extensive evidentiary hearing, the hearing court rejected this claim, holding in essence that petitioner had no knowledge of the extent of the police presence in the building and that the police took no action to threaten or coerce him toleave the apartment; they merely told him to come out into the hall because they wanted to speak to him. The Appellate Division affirmed this ruling on the merits, holding that "[t]here was no violation of Payton . . . when the police, without making any threats, directed the defendant to come out of the apartment and arrested him in the hallway," and the Court of Appeals denied leave to appeal. People v. Cameron, 74 A.D.3d 1223, 905 N.Y.S.2d 619 (2d Dep't) (citations omitted), leave to appeal denied, 15 N.Y.3d 892, 912 N.Y.S.2d 580 (2010) (table).

It appears that petitioner cannot pursue this claim as it is non-cognizable on federal habeas corpus review. In Stone v. Powell. 428 U.S. 465, 494, 96 S. Ct. 3037 (1976), the Supreme Court held that federal habeas corpus review is unavailable for Fourth Amendment claims, of which Payton is one, where the petitioner has had the opportunity to fully litigate the claim in state court: "[W]here the State has provided an opportunity for full and fair litigation of a Fourth Amendment claim, a state prisoner may not be granted federal habeas corpus relief on the ground that evidence obtained in an unconstitutional search or seizure was introduced at his trial." Id. The basis for the Court's ruling was that in the habeas context, "the contribution of the exclusionary rule, if any, to the effectuation of the Fourth Amendment is minimal, and the substantial societal costs of application of the rule persist with special force." Id. at 494-95.

Based upon Stone, the Second Circuit has held that habeas review of decisions implicating the exclusionary rule is limited to situations in which "the state provides no corrective procedures at all to redress Fourth Amendment violations," or where there is a corrective procedure "but in fact the defendant is precluded from utilizing it by reason of an unconscionable breakdown in that process." Gates v. Henderson, 568 F.2d 830, 840 (2d Cir. 1977) (en banc). Courts have repeatedly recognized that New York provides an adequate corrective procedure for Fourth Amendment claims. See, e.g., Capellan v. Riley, 975 F.2d 67,70-72 (2d Cir. 1992); Guzman v. Greene, 425 F. Supp. 2d 298, 318 (E.D.N.Y. 2006); Crispino v. Allard, 378 F. Supp. 2d 393, 412 (S.D.N.Y. 2005). Thus, district courts within the Circuit have almost uniformly declined to hear Payton claim on habeas review. See, e.g., Benton v. Brown. 537 F. Supp. 2d 584, 591 (S.D.N.Y. 2008); Daily v. N.Y., 388 F. Supp. 2d 238, 249 (S.D.N.Y. 2005); Long v. Donnelly, 335 F. Supp. 2d 450, 457-59 (S.D.N.Y. 2004).²

Petitioner has not complained about the process he received here. The state court held an extensive evidentiary hearing on his motion and rendered a lengthy, reasoned written decision rejecting the claim on the merits, and the Appellate Division expressly addressed and rejected it on appeal. It therefore appears that the claim may not be raised again on habeas corpus review.³ However, because petitioner has not had an opportunity to address this point, the Court will provide him with the opportunity to do so, as described below.

II. The Miranda Issue

Petitioner was provided with and acknowledged his Miranda rights after his arrest (although he declined to sign a waiver form) but nevertheless did not invoke his rights and proceeded to answer questions from detectives, making several inculpatory statements in an interrogation that lasted several hours. He then requested a lawyer and the detectives terminated the questioning. Several hours later, as petitioner was awaiting transport from the police precinctto arraignment, he asked Detective Platt, a detective who had previously interrogated him and who was going to transport him, what he was being charged with and what evidence the police had against him. The detective outlined the evidence, which was strong, including the fact that petitioner's girlfriend had told police that she had taken a gun from petitioner and thrown it out the apartment window, and that the police had recovered a gun in that vicinity.

A few minutes later, petitioner, Detective Platt, and other detectives left in a police car for central booking. After several minutes of silence in the car, petitioner then asked if the gun used in the crime had been recovered, and after a brief pause, stated that "My fingerprints were not on the gun."⁴ Detective Platt replied, "Not when you wiped them off with baby wipes." Petitioner then stated, with obvious reference to his girlfriend, "Did that [expletive deleted] tell you everything?"

As part of its written decision arising from the same evidentiary hearing described above, the suppression court ruled as follows:

The first statement about the gun and the fingerprints was clearly voluntary; it was not in response to police questioning and was not prompted by [the Detective's] response to the defendant's earlier questions at the Precinct, which were not calculated to obtain any additional statements. Thus, even though this statement was made after the defendant had asserted his right to counsel, it was wholly voluntary and may be admitted a trial. The subsequent statement, however, must be suppressed as it was made in direct response to [the Detective's] confrontational reply, which was, in this court's estimation, calculated to get a response. As such, the reply was not voluntary and must be suppressed.

(emphasis in original). The Appellate Division affirmed this ruling on the merits, holding that "the record supports the Supreme Court's finding that the defendant's statement was spontaneousand not the result of any improper police conduct or questioning." Cameron, 74 A.D.3dat 1224, 905 N.Y.S.2d at 620.

Because the Appellate Division affirmed the hearing court's decision on the merits, its decision is entitled to deferential review under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d). That statute provides that federal habeas corpus relief is only available if the state court decision "was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States," or "was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding." Id. The Supreme Court has recently clarified that this standard of review is extremely narrow, intended only as "a 'guard against extreme malfunctions in the state criminal justice systems,' not a substitute for ordinary error correction through appeal." Harrington v. Richter. — U.S. —, 131 S. Ct. 770, 786 (2011) (quoting Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 332 n.5, 99 S. Ct. 2781 (1979) (Stevens, J., concurring)). State court decisions must "be given the benefit of...