Huguely v. Clarke

509 F.Supp.3d 575

George Wesley HUGUELY V, Petitioner,

v.Harold W. CLARKE, Respondent.

CASE NO. 7:20CV30021

United States District Court, W.D. Virginia, Roanoke Division.

Signed December 21, 2020

Jonathan Paul Sheldon, Sheldon, Flood & Haywood PLC, Fairfax, VA, Jordan Michael Call, Pro Hac Vice, Jeffrey Matthew Harris, Bryan Kipp Weir, Consovoy McCarthy PLLC, Arlington, VA, for Petitioner.

Leah Ann Darron, Office Of the Attorney General, Richmond, VA, for Respondent.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

THOMAS T. CULLEN, UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

In 2012, a Charlottesville jury convicted George Huguely of murdering his former girlfriend and fellow University of Virginia student, Yeardley Love, during a violent altercation. Although the prosecutor and Huguely's defense team presented different theories at trial about that altercation and the cause of Love's death, much of the evidence was not in dispute. The parties, for instance, agreed that on May 2, 2010, at approximately 11:45 p.m., Huguely—who had been drinking since early in the morning and was significantly intoxicated—walked to Love's nearby apartment and entered through the unlocked front door. None of Love's roommates was present when Huguely arrived, and Love was asleep in her bedroom. Finding the door to Love's bedroom locked, Huguely kicked a hole through the lower paneling, reached in, and opened it. By the time Huguely had forced his way into her bedroom, Love was awake.

At some point after Huguely's forced entry, a physical altercation ensued. The parties disagreed about the nature and severity of that encounter. Huguely, in his admissions to police detectives the following day, described wrestling Love on the floor during a brief struggle that he explained—unconvincingly, as it turns out—was a natural consequence of Love's agitated state. According to Huguely, after tussling with Love on the floor, he picked her up and "tossed" her on the bed. Huguely told detectives that, although he noticed Love was bleeding from her nose, she was conscious and otherwise unharmed. Huguely, by his own admission, then grabbed Love's laptop computer and left the apartment. On the short walk back to his apartment, Huguely threw Love's computer into a dumpster.

Two hours later, one of Love's roommates returned to the apartment with a friend. Despite the late hour, they decided to go to Love's room to wake her up. When Love's roommate entered the room and approached the bed, she observed Love lying face-down with a blanket covering most of her body. Love's roommate also noticed a small pool of blood on the sheet below Love's head and quickly determined that she was not breathing. Despite efforts by the roommate's friend—who moved Love from the bed to the floor at the direction of a 911 operator—and, minutes later, by first responders who attempted CPR and other resuscitation methods, she could not be revived. Love, who was 22 years old and just two weeks from graduating, was pronounced dead at the scene.

The Charlottesville Commonwealth's Attorney presented the testimony of several medical experts, including a neurological pathologist, to substantiate the prosecution's theory that Love's death was the result of blunt force trauma and attendant traumatic brain injuries that Huguely, then a 6’2", 200-plus pound member of the UVA men's varsity lacrosse team, had inflicted during their struggle. The prosecution later argued that Huguely had caused these fatal injuries to Love when he violently overtook and grappled with her in the bedroom. Love was alive, although gravely injured, the prosecutor contended, when Huguely threw her back on the bed and left the apartment. Within two hours, Love's head injuries caused her to suffer a cardiac arrest, which ultimately led to her death.

Huguely's lawyers, aided by their own medical experts, presented a different interpretation of the medical evidence. They argued that the injuries to Love's brain were relatively minor, and that the lack of a skull fracture indicated that she had not died as a result of a traumatic brain injury sustained in the altercation with Huguely. Instead, they suggested, Love had died from a combination of positional asphyxia (from lying face down on a wet pillow), alcohol intoxication, and reperfusion injury.

Ultimately, a jury of 12 Charlottesville residents sorted through the evidence and convicted Huguely of second-degree murder and theft of Love's laptop computer. The presiding Circuit Court judge sentenced Huguely to 24 years’ imprisonment.

Huguely challenged his conviction in a series of appeals in Virginia's courts. Before the Virginia Court of Appeals, Huguely asserted that the trial court had violated his constitutional rights by, among other things, requiring the trial to proceed for a day and a half after one of his two retained attorneys had taken ill and been unable to attend court proceedings. Huguely also contended that the trial court had constitutionally erred during the jury-selection process, and that it had failed to properly instruct the jury on the definition of "malice," one of the elements of second-degree murder. The Court of Appeals ultimately rejected these arguments and affirmed Huguely's conviction. Huguely appealed this ruling to the Virginia Supreme Court, but it ultimately denied his appeal. Huguely then petitioned the United States Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari; the Supreme Court denied that petition.

After unsuccessfully challenging his conviction on direct appeal, in 2016 Huguely filed a writ of habeas corpus in the Charlottesville Circuit Court, where he had initially been convicted. In this state habeas proceeding, Huguely raised several new alleged constitutional violations, including that the jury had improperly consulted a dictionary on the definition of the word "malice" during its deliberations, and that his defense attorneys at trial had provided constitutionally ineffective assistance of counsel by failing to secure vital expert testimony on the cause of Love's death. The Circuit Court, after considering the written arguments of counsel and witness affidavits, denied Huguely's state habeas petition in its entirety. The Virginia Supreme Court affirmed that decision.

Having exhausted his appellate and collateral rights in Virginia's state courts, Huguely has now filed a federal writ of habeas corpus in this court. As discussed in detail below, Huguely raises six constitutional challenges to his conviction, mainly stemming from alleged errors committed by the presiding judge and his lawyers at trial.

In reviewing Huguely's federal habeas petition, this Court is required to apply the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 ("AEDPA"), a federal statute which significantly limits a federal court's ability to issue a writ of habeas corpus "on behalf of a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court." 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b). Under AEDPA, this court may not grant Huguely's petition unless it finds that the state court's decision on the same issues was based on an "unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding," id. § 2254(b)(2), or "was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States," id. § 2254(d)(1). Put simply, this court, in reviewing Huguely's petition, cannot grant the writ merely because it, or other courts, might disagree with the state court's decisions; Huguely is only entitled to federal habeas relief if this court determines the state courts’ decisions were premised on glaringly deficient factfinding or plainly wrong based on established Supreme Court precedent.

This court has carefully considered the entire record. Specifically, it has studied the 12-volume trial transcript, the exhibits, the medical evidence, and the various court rulings (before, during, and after trial). It has read the appellate and state-habeas decisions. And it has considered the arguments of counsel in their briefs and at a hearing on November 23, 2020. Based on that review, the court concludes that three of Huguely's claims were not presented to the Virginia Supreme Court, and therefore that this court does not have the authority to review them on the merits. As to the claims that Huguely properly raises in this federal habeas petition, the court finds, with one exception, that Huguely has failed to meet the high burden of establishing that the prior courts’ decisions rejecting these arguments should be disturbed under the highly deferential AEDPA standard of review. The court will grant the Director's motion to dismiss as to these claims.

But Huguely's claim that the jury consulted a dictionary during its deliberations is the exception. As explained below, the state court's resolution of that claim was an unreasonable determination of the facts before it. Therefore, the court concludes that an evidentiary hearing is necessary to determine (1) whether the jury improperly consulted a dictionary for the definition of a vital legal term; and (2) if they did, whether that action prejudiced Huguely. The court will defer final judgment on the dictionary claim pending the outcome of this evidentiary hearing, which the court will conduct in the near future.

I. FACTUAL BACKGROUND AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

The factual record in this case is extensive and need not be recounted in detail here. The vast majority of what occurred at trial is undisputed and irrelevant to this case. It has also been thoroughly summarized by the Virginia courts, including the Virginia Court of Appeals in Huguely's direct appeal. See Huguely v. Commonwealth , 63 Va.App. 92, 754 S.E.2d 557 (2014). What follows is a summary highlighting the portions of the proceedings that are relevant to Huguely's federal habeas claims.

A. Investigation and Arrest

On the morning of May 3, 2010, just hours after Love's death, police took Huguely into custody for questioning...