Evariste v. Massachusetts

605 F.Supp.3d 219

Emmanuel EVARISTE, Petitioner,

v.Commonwealth of MASSACHUSETTS, Respondent.

CIVIL ACTION NO. 20-10151-DPW

United States District Court, D. Massachusetts.

Filed May 23, 2022

Emmanuel Evariste, Snellville, GA, Pro Se.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

DOUGLAS P. WOODLOCK, UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

Petitioner Emmanuel Evariste, appearing pro se , seeks a writ of federal habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254 to challenge six drug convictions in Boston Municipal Court. The convictions at issue were based on separate plea agreements into which Mr. Evariste entered respectively on August 9, 2017 and September 27, 2018.

Following his September 2018 convictions, Mr. Evariste, acting pro se , pursued six motions for post-conviction relief in Boston Municipal Court. Each motion separately sought to withdraw one of his 2017 and 2018 guilty pleas, all of which he asserted were neither knowing nor voluntary. The motions were denied in the Boston Municipal Court on July 24, 2019. In November of 2020, Mr. Evariste took an expedited appeal of his post-conviction motions to the Massachusetts Appeals Court.

The Appeals Court on January 29, 2021, affirmed the denial of Mr. Evariste's motions to withdraw his pleas. [Mass. App. Ct. Dkt. No. 2020-P-1347] See Commonwealth v. Evariste , 162 N.E.3d 100 (Table), 2021 WL 303434, at *1 (Mass. App. Ct. 2021) (unpublished disposition). Mr. Evariste then filed multiple iterations of a motion for reconsideration in the Appeals Court, all of which were also denied. Thereafter, he sought and was denied leave to obtain further appellate review by the Supreme Judicial Court in February of 2021. [SJC Dkt. FAR-28080.] The Appeals Court issued a notice to Mr. Evariste on March 3, 2021, informing him that the matter was closed.

Meanwhile, Mr. Evariste had filed the instant petition for federal habeas corpus on January 23, 2020, before appealing the denial of his post-conviction motions in state court. Mr. Evariste here challenges his six felony convictions on several grounds, grounds which he did not raise legibly in his state court appeal and were not addressed on their merits by the state courts.

Upon threshold review,¹ I will dismiss Mr. Evariste's petition because the record establishes he failed to exhaust the claims he now asserts before me in state court. Moreover, to the extent Mr. Evariste could be said to have raised any of the claims he now presses here and thereafter somehow to have exhausted them in state court, they are claims that do not merit federal habeas relief.

I. BACKGROUND

On August 9, 2017, Mr. Evariste pled guilty to two counts, a charge of distribution of a class B controlled substance and a charge of possession with intent to distribute a class B controlled substance, in violation of MASS. GEN. LAWS ch. 94C § 32A(a).² See generally Commonwealth v. Evariste , No. 1701CR001418 (Bos. Mun. Ct. Aug. 9, 2017). On the same date, he pled guilty to violations of the same two felony provisions in a separate matter, also in Boston Municipal Court. Commonwealth v. Evariste , No. 1701CR003151 (Bos. Mun. Ct. Aug. 9, 2017). Mr. Evariste received concurrent suspended sentences of two years in those two matters. Mr. Evariste was sentenced to terms of probation running from August 9, 2017 to August 7, 2019.

The following year, Mr. Evariste was charged in two new matters in Boston Municipal Court. See generally Commonwealth v. Evariste , Nos. 1801CR001432, 1801CR002697 (Bos. Mun. Ct. Sept. 27, 2018). On September 27, 2018, he pled guilty to one charge of possession with intent to distribute a class B controlled substance, MASS. GEN. LAWS ch. 94C § 32A(a) in his first matter. Commonwealth v. Evariste , No. 1801CR001432 (Bos. Mun. Ct. Sept. 27, 2018). On the same date, he pled guilty to a violation of the same felony provision in the second matter. Commonwealth v. Evariste , No. 1801CR002697 (Bos. Mun. Ct. Sept. 27, 2018). He received sentences of two years of incarceration with six months to serve and the balance to be suspended in each of these matters, to be served concurrently. Mr. Evariste's sentences in these 2018 matters each included a term of probation ending March 25, 2020.

Based on his September 27, 2018 convictions, Mr. Evariste admitted on the same day to having violated the probation provisions in his August 2017 convictions and waived his rights to hearings on those matters. Evariste , Nos. 1701CR001418, 1701CR003151. Mr. Evariste was sentenced on these probation violations on December 3, 2018. Id. Despite these admitted violations, Mr. Evariste's probation was not revoked, and he was not required to serve the balance of his 2017 suspended sentence in addition to his new sentence for his 2018 convictions. Id. Instead, the court extended his term of probation on the August 2017 matters from August 9, 2017 to March 25, 2020. Mr. Evariste remained on probation for these convictions until March 25, 2020 and was formally discharged in April 2020. Id.

Mr. Evariste was a legal permanent resident at the time of his pleas. Following his convictions, the Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained Mr. Evariste. The government commenced removal proceedings against him in Immigration Court in December of 2018. The Immigration Court found Mr. Evariste removable pursuant to the Immigration and Nationality Act, Section 237(a)(2)(A)(iii), 8 U.S.C. § 1227, and ordered his removal to Haiti in June of 2019. Mr. Evariste appealed that order of removal to the Board of Immigration Appeals. The Board dismissed Mr. Evariste's appeal on December 11, 2019 and the order for Mr. Evariste's removal became final pursuant to 8 C.F.R. § 1241.1(a). See generally Evariste v. Dep't of Homeland Security , No. 1:19-cv-11144-DJC (ECF No. 40)(D. Mass. Nov. 15, 2019).

In a separate civil proceeding assigned to another session in this court, Mr. Evariste pursued countless unsuccessful motions to appeal his removal, reopen removal proceedings, to terminate removal proceedings, and to stay removal.³ It is apparent now Mr. Evariste seeks in this session federal habeas relief from the convictions resulting from his 2017 and 2018 guilty pleas as another means to challenge his removability. [See Dkt. Nos. 2 at 1, 6 at 1.]

A. Post-Conviction Travel of the Case

Following his 2018 convictions and detention by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Mr. Evariste filed six motions for post-conviction relief in rapid succession.⁴ [Commonwealth App'x to Appeals Court, No. 2020-P-1347, ("App'x") 83-100.] Each of Mr. Evariste's motions asserted the same core claims: 1) that his pleas were not knowing and voluntary because he lacked a full understanding of the immigration consequences of his pleas; 2) that plea counsel provided ineffective assistance by advising him, without knowing his immigration status, to plead guilty to offenses that could result in his deportation; and 3) that he was deprived of his due process rights and faced possible removal from the United States as a result. [App'x 83-99.]

Judge Coyne, who received Mr. Evariste's September 2018 pleas, considered Mr. Evariste's post-conviction motions together and summarily denied them on July 24, 2019. [App'x 98.] Mr. Evariste responded to Judge Coyne's order with a second wave of post-conviction motions challenging his convictions on the same grounds previously asserted.⁵ Each was denied. See Commonwealth v. Evariste , 2021 WL 303434, at *1 n.1.

On January 23, 2020, before appealing the denial of his post-conviction motions, Mr. Evariste filed the instant petition for federal habeas relief. In the five months that followed, Mr. Evariste filed several more substantive motions and affidavits in this session requesting vacatur of his state convictions.⁶ [Dkt. Nos. 6, 9, 12, 13.]

On December 28, 2020, Mr. Evariste filed in the Massachusetts Appeals Court a Motion for a Preliminary Injunction to Vacate Convictions. A Single Justice of the Appeals Court denied that motion on December 31, 2020. [Mass. App. Ct. Dkt. No. 2020-P-1347.] Five days later, without counsel or a fully assembled appellate record, Mr. Evariste sought an expedited appeal of the denial of his motions to withdraw his guilty pleas. The Appeals Court permitted the expedited appeal and affirmed the Boston Municipal Court's decision to deny Mr. Evariste's motions. Evariste , 2021 WL 303434, at *2.

B. Mr. Evariste's State Court Appeal

Mr. Evariste raised a single substantive claim in his brief to the Appeals Court: that his plea counsel, Attorneys Stephen Gomes (2017 matters) and John J. O'Neil (2018 matters), failed to advise him of the immigration consequences that he, as a non-citizen, could incur by pleading guilty to the September 2018 drug offenses. According to Mr. Evariste, neither attorney even asked him about his immigration status. Relying on the Supreme Court's holding in Padilla v. Kentucky , 559 U.S. 356, 130 S.Ct. 1473, 176 L.Ed.2d 284 (2010), Mr. Evariste asserted that plea counsel provided him constitutionally deficient assistance and he was entitled to withdraw his pleas as a result.

The Appeals Court rejected Mr. Evariste's Padilla claim because he had "made no showing of prejudice" from counsel's immigration advice or lack thereof. The Appeals Court found Mr. Evariste had presented no rational basis to conclude he would have rejected the plea agreements, even had he known that conviction would result in deportation. 2021 WL 303434, at *2.

Undeterred, Mr. Evariste filed three motions for reconsideration in the Appeals Court, followed by an Urgent Request for Judgment. The Appeals Court denied those motions and Mr. Evariste applied for leave to obtain further appellate review in the Supreme Judicial Court on February 10, 2021. In his application for further appellate review, Mr. Evariste argued again that his attorneys failed to provide him effective assistance as defined in Padilla . He also raised a claim he had not included in his brief to the Appeals Court: that he received an ...