Campbell v. Nines

1

SEBASTIAN A. CAMPBELL Petitioner, v. WARDEN JEFF NINES, and THE ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE STATE OF MARYLAND Respondents.

Civil Action No. 1:21-cv-3127-LKG

United States District Court, D. Maryland

July 18, 2024

MEMORANDUM OPINION

LYDIA KAY GRIGGSBY UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

Self-represented Petitioner, Sebastian A. Campbell, filed a Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254 challenging his 2017 conviction in the Circuit Court for Montgomery County, Maryland for second degree rape and sexual abuse of a minor. ECF No. 1. Respondents filed an Answer arguing Campbell's claims are procedurally defaulted or lack merit. ECF No. 8. Campbell responded. ECF Nos. 25, 26. Campbell has also filed a Motion for an Evidentiary Hearing (ECF Nos. 29, 31, 34), which Respondents oppose. ECF No. 30.

For the reasons that follow, the Petition and Campbell's Motion for an Evidentiary Hearing (ECF No. 29) and Motion for an Extension of Time (ECF No. 34) shall be DENIED, and a certificate of appealability shall not issue.

I. BACKGROUND

A. Trial

On May 18, 2017, Campbell was indicted in the Circuit Court for Montgomery County on two counts of sexual abuse of a minor and four counts of second-degree rape. ECF No. 9-1 at 6971. Ata series of pretrial hearings, Campbell waived his right to counsel and invoked his right to self-representation. ECF No 9-3, 9-4, 9-6. After a trial by jury held on August 14-17 2017, Campbell was found guilty as charged. ECF Nos. 9-8, 9-9, 9-10, 9-11, 9-12.

The following facts were adduced at trial^[1]:

[Seventeen-year-old, T.B.] testified that in February of 2012, she moved to Maryland and lived with her father [Campbell], in an apartment located at 37 Maryland Avenue, Rockville Montgomery County, Maryland. She also testified that she resided at the Maryland Avenue apartment along with [Campbell's] live-in girlfriend, Azeb Tesema and her little brother Christian Campbell. [T.B.] explained to the jury that [Campbell's] girlfriend, Azeb Tesema, agreed to [Campbell's] family, including [T.B.], move into her apartment in Rockville, Maryland. [T.B] further explained that Azeb Tesema also goes by another name, Aliyah Tiruneh.

At trial, [T.B] was asked, on direct, by the State “Did there come a time that your dad touched you inappropriately?” [T.B.] answered “Yes” and then described the first incident where [T.B.] “woke up to [Campbell] pulling my pants down.” [T.B.] also stated that [Campbell] “placed his hands over my mouth” and “then he raped me.” She explained that she was “almost 12” at this time. The State then asked [T.B.] what she meant when she stated that [Campbell] raped you? [T.B.] responded by stating “he stuck his penis in me [vagina].” [T.B.] then described, in detail, how the rape “hurt,” and that I was “bleeding for a day.” In order to stop the bleeding, [T.B.] testified she was forced to “use pads” until it was controlled. [T.B.] also stated that this was the first time that she ever had sex.

[T.B.] also described the last time [Campbell] raped her at Aliyah Tiruneh's apartment, located at 37 Maryland Avenue, Rockville, Montgomery County, Maryland. Specifically, [T.B.] testified that she “woke up to get a midnight snack and [Campbell] came from the master bedroom and walked into the kitchen with her.” “[Campbell] then bent me [her] over the counter, pulled my shorts down, and stuck his penis in me.” [T.B.] was then asked, “how often did your father do that to you while you lived at 37 Maryland Avenue?” [T.B.] replied that [Campbell] raped her “at least twice a week.”

[T.B.] also stated that [Campbell] “made me perform oral sex” around the time they moved to a new Gaithersburg apartment at 725 Fallsgrove. [T.B.] went onto explain that [Campbell] repeatedly raped her at the 725 Fallsgrove apartment. Specifically, [Campbell] first raped her at 725 Fallsgrove when “my brother had been sent to school and Aliyah was at work.” [Campbell] continued to rape her about “twice a week” at the 725 Fallsgrove apartment. [T.B.] further testified that [Campbell] never enrolled her into the Montgomery County Public School system while she lived in Montgomery County, Maryland. Specifically, [T.B.] testified that she did not interact with friends or other people her age because [Campbell] secluded her in the apartment. The only activity that [Campbell] allowed [T.B.] to do was playing video games inside the apartment.

The State next asked [T.B.] “Did there come a time that you realized you were pregnant?” [T.B.] answered “Yes” and that she “did not realize until months after the fact when [she] had missed [her] period for the second or third month in a row.” [T.B.] added that she told [Campbell] and “he went to the store and brought home a pregnancy test, which came back positive.” After the positive pregnancy test, [Campbell] made [T.B.] wear baggy shirts so that Aliyah would not discover that she was pregnant. [T.B.] also testified that [Campbell's] actions did not stop with his knowledge that she was pregnant. She explained that [Campbell] continued to rape [her], even when she was pregnant.

[T.B.'s] testimony then turned to the birth of her daughter, [P.C.]. She testified that her daughter, [P.C.], was bom on August 21, 2013. She explained to the jury that whenever she was at the hospital, [Campbell], her Father, directed her “use a fake name every time [she] went to the hospital.” Specifically, [Campbell] instructed [T.B.] to use the name “Toni Campbell” at the hospital. The State then asked [T.B.] “do you know somebody named Toni Campbell?” [T.B.] responded, “[Campbell's] mom.” [Campbell] also told the hospital staff that he was either “my father or grandfather.”

The State also asked [T.B.] “when you received emails from [Campbell], after he left Maryland, and you continued to live in Maryland, did you use a different name in those emails?” [T.B.] stated “yes” and that she used “the email address...tonicampbell@gmail.com.” The State then asked [T.B.] if [Campbell] ever raped her outside of the Montgomery County apartments. [T.B.] responded, in the affirmative, testifying that [Campbell] sometimes raped her “in his car's backseat.” [T.B.] was next asked if she ever told anybody about [Campbell] raping her in the apartments or car. [T.B.] responded “no” because [Campbell] told her not to tell anyone. The State then asked [T.B.] if she “ever tried to fight back” against [Campbell] when he was raping her. [T.B.] stated that she did attempt to resist, but “[Campbell] would assault me.” [T.B.] further explained that she stopped resisting because “I was tired of the assaults” by [Campbell],

Later in her trial testimony, [T.B.] described a time that she moved back to a group home in Michigan. Specifically, in May of 2016, [T.B.] was a passenger in the group home's van, traveling to drop off students at school. During this time, [T.B.] observed that a car was following the van and eventually realized that [Campbell] was driving the car. During this incident, [T.B.] next observed that [Campbell] was motioning to her to get out of the moving van and come with him. [T.B.] refused to go with [Campbell] and [Campbell] drove off. This incident served as the catalyst for [T.B.] deciding to tell the Director of the Michigan group home that [Campbell] had raped her and was her daughter's father.

Following [T.B.'s] disclosure of [Campbell's] actions that occurred in Montgomery County, Maryland, a Detective from Montgomery County Police Department travelled to Detroit, Michigan, to interview [T.B.] and collect DNA samples from her and her child, [P.C.]. Each of the DNA samples were swab samples taken from their mouths.

After [T.B.] completed her direct testimony, [Campbell], representing himself, commenced his cross-examination of [T.B.]. At the outset of his crossexamination, [Campbell] asked [T.B.] “I took you from Michigan, brought you to Maryland, and sexually assaulted you, and stole your virginity?” [T.B.] responded “yes” and said that she came to Maryland with him in order to “get away from the foster home” that she was staying in. [T.B.] also stated that she trusted [Campbell] because he “portrayed [himself] as a good dude.” [Campbell] then asked, “were you being held hostage?” and [T.B.] responded that “yes”, she was held hostage. [Campbell] then asked [T.B.] if she said, “that I was sexually assaulting you twice a week for a year, right?” [T.B.] responded “yes”, and was next asked “was there a time, as a result of those sexual assault, you became pregnant?” [T.B.] responded “yes” and further responded to [Campbell's] question by stating he never wore a condom when he was raping her.

[Campbell] also asked [T.B.] if there had been any communications between you and myself “when I literally got locked up in 2013 until the van incident?” [T.B.] responded “yes” and that the communications were through phone calls and JPay's.^[2] [T.B.] also stated that about thirty to forty pictures were sent to her from [Campbell], [T.B.] was then asked by [Campbell], “in May of 2012, you wrote a letter to the judge to try to get me out of jail. Do you recall that letter?” [T.B.] replied to [Campbell], “yes” but that “you [Campbell] told her what to write in the letter. I wrote it, but none of the words are my own.” [T.B.] explained to the jury that [Campbell] “had me send the letter back, and rewrite it, because you [Campbell] didn't like the way it was written.” Next, [Campbell] asked, “did you want your father to get out of prison?” and [T.B. responded “no.”

[Campbell] then turned to the van incident. He asked [T.B.] whether she and her friends “saw the van was spray painted?” [T.B.] stated that she saw that the van said, “the time is now, CXE with the number six.” [T.B.] also testified that the number six is in

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