Franklin v. Vannoy

CHARLES FRANKLIN v. DARRYL VANNOY

Civil Action No. 20-01013

United States District Court, E.D. Louisiana

January 3, 2022

SECTION “D” (1)

REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION

JANIS VAN MEERVELD UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE

This matter was referred to this United States Magistrate Judge for the purpose of conducting a hearing, including an evidentiary hearing, if necessary, and submission of proposed findings of fact and recommendations for disposition pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(B) and (C) and, as applicable Rule 8(b) of the Rules Governing Section 2254 Cases in the United States District Courts. Upon review of the record, the Court has determined that this matter can be disposed of without an evidentiary hearing. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(2). Therefore, for all of the following reasons IT IS RECOMMENDED that the petition be DISMISSED WITH PREJUDICE.

I. State Court Factual and Procedural Background

Petitioner Charles Franklin, is a state prisoner incarcerated at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, Louisiana. On April 23, 2010, Franklin was charged by a bill of indictment with three counts of first degree murder in violation of La. Rev. Stat. § 14.30.^[1] After a trial, a jury found petitioner guilty as charged.^[2] On January 8, 2015, the trial court sentenced petitioner to life imprisonment without the benefit of probation or suspension of sentence.^[3]

On August 24, 2016, the Louisiana Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal affirmed petitioner's conviction and sentence.^[4] Petitioner filed a writ application with the Louisiana Supreme Court which denied relief on September 6, 2017.^[5]

Franklin filed an application for post-conviction relief on November 7, 2018.^[6] On May 20, 2019, the state district court denied relief.^[7] Petitioner's related writ application to the Louisiana Fourth Circuit was denied on June 21, 2019.^[8] The Louisiana Supreme Court denied his related writ application on March 16, 2020.^[9]

On March 19, 2020, Franklin filed the instant federal application seeking habeas corpus relief in which he asserts the following claims for relief^[10]: (1) the state trial court's denial of a challenge for cause was a denial of due process and his appellate counsel was ineffective for failing to raise the issue on appeal; (2) ineffective assistance of counsel for failing to (a) call certain witnesses; (b) impeach witnesses; and (c) object and move for a mistrial based on the state's improper comments.

On December 8, 2020, the state filed its response.^[11] The state concedes that petitioner's application is timely and that his claims are exhausted. The state contends that petitioner's claims are meritless. Franklin filed a traverse reiterating his claims.^[12]

I. Standards of Review

The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (“AEDPA”) comprehensively overhauled federal habeas corpus legislation, including 28 U.S.C. § 2254. Amended subsections 2254(d)(1) and (2) contain revised standards of review for pure questions of fact, pure questions of law, and mixed questions of both. The amendments “modified a federal habeas court's role in reviewing state prisoner applications in order to prevent federal habeas ‘retrials' and to ensure that state-court convictions are given effect to the extent possible under law.” Bell v. Cone, 535 U.S. 685, 693 (2002).

As to pure questions of fact, factual findings are presumed to be correct and a federal court will give deference to the state courts' decision unless it “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); see also 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(1) (“In a proceeding instituted by an application for a writ of habeas corpus by a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court, a determination of a factual issue made by a State court shall be presumed to be correct. The applicant shall have the burden of rebutting the presumption of correctness by clear and convincing evidence.”).

As to pure questions of law and mixed questions of law and fact, a federal court must defer to the state courts' decision on the merits of such a claim unless that decision “was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1). Courts have held that the “ ‘contrary to' and ‘unreasonable application' clauses [of § 2254(d)(1)] have independent meaning.” Bell, 535 U.S. at 694.

Regarding the “contrary to” clause, the United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has explained:

A state court decision is contrary to clearly established precedent if the state court applies a rule that contradicts the governing law set forth in the [United States] Supreme Court's cases. A state-court decision will also be contrary to clearly established precedent if the state court confronts a set of facts that are materially indistinguishable from a decision of the [United States] Supreme Court and nevertheless arrives at a result different from [United States] Supreme Court precedent.

Wooten v. Thaler, 598 F.3d 215, 218 (5th Cir. 2010) (internal quotation marks, ellipses, brackets, and footnotes omitted).

Regarding the “unreasonable application” clause, the United States Supreme Court has held: “[A] state-court decision is an unreasonable application of our clearly established precedent if it correctly identifies the governing legal rule but applies that rule unreasonably to the facts of a particular prisoner's case.” White v. Woodall, 134 S.Ct. 1697, 1705 (2014). However, the Supreme Court cautioned:

Section 2254(d)(1) provides a remedy for instances in which a state court unreasonably applies this Court's precedent; it does not require state courts to extend that precedent or license federal courts to treat the failure to do so as error. Thus, if a habeas court must extend a rationale before it can apply to the facts at hand, then by definition the rationale was not clearly established at the time of the state-court decision. AEDPA's carefully constructed framework would be undermined if habeas courts introduced rules not clearly established under the guise of extensions to existing law.

Id., at 1706 (citations and quotation marks omitted). Therefore, when the Supreme Court's “cases give no clear answer to the question presented, let alone one in [the petitioner's] favor, it cannot be said that the state court unreasonably applied clearly established Federal law.” Wright v. Van Patten, 552 U.S. 120, 126 (2008) (quotation marks and brackets omitted). The Supreme Court has also expressly cautioned that “an unreasonable application is different from an incorrect one.” Bell, 535 U.S. at 694. Accordingly, a state court's merely incorrect application of Supreme Court precedent simply does not warrant habeas relief. Puckett v. Epps, 641 F.3d 657, 663 (5th Cir. 2011) (“Importantly, ‘unreasonable' is not the same as ‘erroneous' or ‘incorrect'; an incorrect application of the law by a state court will nonetheless be affirmed if it is not simultaneously unreasonable.”).

While the AEDPA standards of review are strict and narrow, they are purposely so. As the United States Supreme Court has held:

[E]ven a strong case for relief does not mean the state court's contrary conclusion was unreasonable.

If this standard is difficult to meet, that is because it was meant to be. As amended by AEDPA, § 2254(d) stops short of imposing a complete bar on federal court relitigation of claims already rejected in state proceedings. It preserves authority to issue the writ in cases where there is no possibility fairminded jurists could disagree that the state court's decision conflicts with this Court's precedents. It goes no farther. Section 2254(d) reflects the view that habeas corpus is a guard against extreme malfunctions in the state criminal justice systems, not a substitute for ordinary error correction through appeal. As a condition for obtaining habeas corpus from a federal court, a state prisoner must show that the state court's ruling on the claim being presented in federal court was so lacking in justification that there was an error well understood and comprehended in existing law beyond any possibility for fairminded disagreement.

Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 102-03 (2011) (citations omitted; emphasis added); see also Renico v. Lett, 559 U.S. 766, 779 (2010) (“AEDPA prevents defendants-and federal courts- from using federal habeas corpus review as a vehicle to second-guess the reasonable decisions of state courts.”).

The Supreme Court has expressly warned that although “some federal judges find [28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)] too confining, ” it is nevertheless clear that “all federal judges must obey” the law and apply the strictly deferential standards of review mandated therein. White, 134 S.Ct. at 1701.

II. Facts

On direct appeal, the Louisiana Fourth Circuit summarized the facts of this case as follows:

NOPD Sgt. Michael Rooney testified that shortly before midnight on January 7, 2010, he and Officer Terry Thomas were dispatched to an aggravated burglary in the 2700 block of Urquhart Street. He arrived at 2721 Urquhart Street, where he noticed that the door to the residence was open. Sgt. Rooney entered and observed a female lying on the floor in a pool of blood, and another female lying at the head of a bed. Both were deceased. Sgt. Rooney observed a wounded third female (Ms. Belisle) lying perpendicular on the bed. The wounded female was unable to communicate. Sgt. Rooney then discovered a young child, who was unharmed, moving under the bed covers. Other police units arrived and discovered a deceased male victim in the rear yard.

Former NOPD Homicide Detective Harold Weishan

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