In re Stewart

78 F.4th 690

IN RE: Weldon W. STEWART, Jr., Movant.

No. 21-278

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit

Argued: January 26, 2023

Decided: August 21, 2023

On Motion for Authorization to File Successive 28 U.S.C. § 2254 Petition in the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina, at Anderson.

ARGUED: Ciara Barone, Walker Fortenberry, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA LAW SCHOOL, Charlottesville, Virginia, for Movant. Melody Jane Brown, OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL OF SOUTH CAROLINA, Columbia, South Carolina, for Respondent. ON BRIEF: Dawinder Sidhu, HOPWOOD & SINGHAL PLLC, Potomac, Maryland, for Movant. Alan Wilson, Attorney General, Donald J. Zelenka, Deputy Attorney General, OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL OF SOUTH CAROLINA, Columbia, South Carolina, for Respondent.

Before GREGORY, HARRIS and QUATTLEBAUM, Circuit Judges.

Motion denied by published opinion. Judge Quattlebaum wrote the opinion, in which Judge Harris joins. Judge Gregory concurs in part and in the judgment.

QUATTLEBAUM, Circuit Judge:

A South Carolina jury convicted Weldon Stewart of voluntary manslaughter concerning the death of his girlfriend. Almost 20 years later—following three rounds of collateral litigation in state court and one 28 U.S.C. § 2254 habeas petition in federal court—Stewart seeks permission to file a second § 2254 petition. In that application, Stewart claims he now remembers that his girlfriend died by suicide. According to Stewart, his memory was repressed at the time of his trial and his regained memory satisfies the rigorous newly discovered evidence requirements of 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(2)(B), allowing him to file a second habeas petition. One of those requirements is that Stewart demonstrate, by clear and convincing evidence, that no reasonable factfinder, considering his alleged regained memory with the rest of the evidence, would find Stewart guilty of manslaughter. Because Stewart fails to meet this burden, we deny his application to file a successive § 2254 habeas petition.

I.

A.

On December 6, 2000, Stewart—who was 19 at the time—called the police to report that he had burned the body of his 15-year-old girlfriend C.A. Responding to the call, police officers discovered that C.A. was dead and her body had, in fact, been burned. In 2002, Stewart was indicted in Marlboro County, South Carolina, for murdering C.A. and then burning her body. He pled guilty to desecration but went to trial on the murder charge.

Stewart, despite repeated inquiries from the trial court about appointing counsel, decided to represent himself at trial. The trial court then conducted a hearing to evaluate Stewart's competency to stand trial. Relying on expert forensic psychiatrist testimony, the court found Stewart competent and thus allowed him to represent himself. But the court appointed the public defender as standby counsel for Stewart should he need or request assistance.

At trial, the state's forensic pathologist testified that C.A. died from blunt force trauma to the head before she was burned. He based this opinion on fractures to the skull and evidence of bleeding near the fractures. The evidence of bleeding, he explained, indicated the injuries occurred before the fire. On cross-examination, the pathologist agreed that the skull fracture could have resulted from a fall but said it was unlikely. He concluded that the skull fracture came from something hitting the victim's skull hard or her skull hitting something with great force.

The state called several police officers. The officers testified that they responded to a call for police aid from Stewart after he burned the body. When they arrived, Stewart told them about the fire. The officers testified that Stewart said he and C.A. had an argument that night and that she fell, went limp and made unusual sounds. Stewart also told them he left the victim after she started making those noises to grab a flashlight from his home. By the time he returned, Stewart continued, she was no longer breathing.

Along with these statements that Stewart made to the responding officers, an officer testified that Stewart delivered letters to the police describing being "overcome with rage" because C.A. was involved with another man. J.A. 572-73. One of the letters was admitted into evidence. Written in third person, it provides:

And she saw his rage and he knew he had learned of that which had taken place and was sore [sic] afraid. And his heart was hardened toward her, and he sought to slay her. Yet she loved him still and made haste to meet him in the night to calm his rage. He would have her to commit fornication, but she would not and in his madness, he went in unto her by force. She pleaded with him to have his way with her, but spare her life. He would not take heed and struck her in the face with his right hand, and in his madness laid his hand upon her neck and slew her. When he saw that which he had done, it greatly pleased him.

. . . .

He went into his house to take rest and in the seventh hour, he arose and built an alter so that he could make a burnt offering. And he found that which was for the offering caught in some bushes. And he prepared her, and in the eleventh hour, seven hours after the slaughter, he placed her on the alter. He anointed her with oil and sang and danced praises for the offering. And when he had done this, he looked towards the sky and stretched forth his hands. That he held the cloth he had taken out of the temple, and a great fire came down from the sky and lit the cloth. He then cried out with a loud voice and placed the burning cloth on the alter. As the sacrifice burnt, the smoke reached the sky and he knew that it was good. He was greatly pleased with what he had done and sang and danced and gave thanks. He sacrificed her that she may be forgiven for her sins.

J.A. 573:17-74:24.

The state also called Anthony Watson, a classmate of C.A. who was in a relationship with her when she died. Watson testified that Stewart called him multiple times threatening him. In one of these threatening phone calls, which occurred while Stewart was in jail, Stewart stated Watson was "next." J.A. 421-22.

In response, Stewart insisted C.A.'s death was accidental. He testified in detail about what happened on December 6, 2000. C.A., he said, snuck out of her house to meet Stewart for sex. Later, as he was walking C.A. home through a path in the woods, they began to argue. Stewart told the jury that C.A. pulled out a box cutter and swung it at him. So, Stewart picked her up and started to carry her home. But according to Stewart, as he picked her up, he tripped and fell. He said he fell on top of C.A. Stewart recalled that she initially sat up, but then began calling Stewart's name. He said her voice became low and that she made "strange sounds" that "didn't sound human." J.A. 937-38. Then Stewart testified that he saw blood coming from C.A.'s mouth. He knew at that point something was wrong, so he left to find his friend Stanton Wright.

Stewart testified that he was drinking a beer and looking for cigarettes when he found Wright. And he claimed he told Wright about tripping and falling on C.A. Wright, however, previously signed a statement saying that Stewart told him that C.A. had sex with someone else before their encounter and did not shower before meeting him. According to the statement, Stewart "flipped" out when he learned this. J.A. 311.

Stewart also relied on his statements to the authorities, the lack of evidence of a struggle and the testimony of witnesses that said Stewart was not violent towards C.A. And he pointed out that the state's case lacked a murder weapon.

After all the evidence was presented, the jury found Stewart guilty of the lesser included charge of voluntary manslaughter. The trial court sentenced Stewart to 30 years' imprisonment for that charge, and 9 years on the desecration of human remains charge to run consecutively. Later, the South Carolina Court of Appeals dismissed his direct appeal.

B.

Stewart then began a series of collateral challenges to his conviction. In 2006, he sought post-conviction relief in South Carolina state court, arguing he received ineffective assistance from his appellate counsel. He complained that his counsel did not effectively challenge the trial court's voluntary manslaughter charge, the authentication of the letters the state introduced or the admission of graphic photographs of the victim's charred remains. He also argued that the trial court erred by admitting Wright's testimony over his hearsay objections. The state post-conviction relief ("PCR") court rejected those claims, and the South Carolina Supreme Court then denied his petition for a writ of certiorari.

Next, in 2009, Stewart filed his first § 2254 habeas petition in federal court. In that petition, he claimed the trial court's failure to include an involuntary manslaughter charge he proposed violated his due process rights and repeated the ineffective assistance of counsel claims he lodged in state PCR court. The district court dismissed the petition as a matter of law. First, it held that the trial court's rejection of the jury instruction Stewart requested was not an unreasonable application of federal law as established by the Supreme Court. Second, the court held that Stewart's appellate counsel's failure to raise the ineffectiveness of trial counsel did not fall below the applicable standard of professional care nor was it sufficiently prejudicial under Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984). Stewart appealed the district court's order and we denied his motion for certification and dismissed his appeal. Stewart v. Bodison, 412 Fed. App'x. 633 (4th Cir. 2011).

In 2015, Stewart went back to state trial court. He moved for a new trial, arguing a juror from his criminal trial failed to report a relationship with him, the pathologist who testified for the state at trial was not qualified and, for the first time, that he...