Martin v. Burgess

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DEANDRE MARTIN, Petitioner, v. MICHAEL BURGESS, Respondent.

No. 2:22-CV-12260

United States District Court, E.D. Michigan, Southern Division

July 1, 2024

OPINION AND ORDER DENYING PETITION FOR WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS, DENYING THE MOTION FOR THE APPOINTMENT OF COUNSEL (ECF NO. 10), DENYING THE MOTION FOR BOND (ECF NO. 11) DECLINING TO ISSUE A CERTIFICATE OF APPEALABILITY, AND GRANTING LEAVE TO APPEAL IN FORMA PAUPERIS

LINDA V. PARKER, U.S. DISTRICT JUDGE

Deandre Martin, (“Petitioner”), confined at the Oaks Correctional Facility in Manistee, Michigan, filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254. In his application, Petitioner challenges his conviction for second-degree murder, Mich. Comp. Laws § 750.317; and felony-firearm possession, Mich. Comp. Laws § 750.227b. For the reasons that follow, the petition is DENIED WITH PREJUDICE.

I. Background

Petitioner was convicted following a bench trial in the Wayne County Circuit Court. This Court recites verbatim the relevant facts relied upon by the Michigan Court of Appeals, which are presumed correct on habeas review pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(1). See Wagner v. Smith, 581 F.3d 410, 413 (6th Cir. 2009).

On the evening of September 8, 2017, defendant and Algernon Ladre Moore, Jr. attended a candlelight vigil for Moore's father. Although the vigil was peaceful, defendant was armed with a large handgun that he referred to as a “Draco” gun; the gun was visible to several witnesses. Defendant eventually left the vigil with Moore, Moore's mother Roshawandra McGowan, and McGowan's friend Lakeisha Vance, and went to a gathering at the home of Chardawna Layne (Chardawna), located on Washburn Street in Detroit. Defendant still had the gun at the Washburn location. Several people asked him to put the gun away, but he did not do so.

Chynna Pitts and Chardawna's cousin Alexis Layne (Alexis) also arrived at Chardawna's home that evening in Pitts'[] truck. Pitts parked across the street from the home. Chardawna came outside to speak to Alexis and joined Pitts and Alexis in the truck. They conversed inside the truck until around 2:30 a.m.

At about that time, McGowan and Vance left the Washburn Street house and got into defendant's truck. Defendant and Moore then exited the house; defendant went to the driver's side of the truck where McGowan was seated, and Moore went to the passenger's side where Vance was seated. Moore and Vance conversed, as did defendant and McGowan. The conversation between defendant and McGowan involved how McGowan was going to get home.

At some point, Moore interjected into defendant's and McGowan's conversation; defendant apparently took offense at this, responding, “[Y]ou know, mind your business. Stay out of grown folks' business.” Moore came over to the driver's side door and exchanged more words with defendant; Moore and defendant ultimately became involved in a physical altercation. McGowan saw defendant grab Moore's throat, while Vance could only see defendant's hand stretched out toward Moore. Defendant had the gun pointed downward in his other hand. McGowan tried to get out of the truck but could not open the door. McGowan climbed out of the window while telling them to “chill out.” McGowan and Vance saw defendant raise the gun and McGowan saw a flash from the gun. Alexis saw defendant raise the gun up, but she quickly hid underneath Pitts'[] truck for safety. Alexis and Pitts heard a gunshot. Chardawna did not see the gun go off or where the gun was before it went off.

Moore was shot. McGowan and Alexis began performing emergency lifesaving procedures on Moore after McGowan could not find a pulse. Chardawna told defendant, who was still holding his gun, to leave. Defendant walked over to his truck and told Vance to “get out the car.” Vance got out of the truck and called 911. Defendant got into the truck and “pulled off real fast.” Moore was transported to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Defendant testified at trial and admitted to having a Draco gun on the day in question. He also admitted to drinking four or five cups of vodka that night. He testified that he was holding the gun downward as he and Moore began “tussling,” but that Moore grabbed the gun, they began pulling it back and forth, and the gun went off during the struggle. Defendant stated that he did not intend for the gun to go off and did not intentionally put his finger on the trigger; according to defendant, his “finger went to the trigger” because of the pulling back and forth. Defendant characterized the shooting as an accident and claimed not to have known that Moore was shot when he left the Washburn Street location.

After leaving the scene of the shooting, defendant did not call 911. He admitted that he “got rid of” the gun by throwing it “in the street” “[o]ver the freeway” because he did not have a license to carry the weapon.

People v. Martin, No. 344493, 2019 WL 3759849, at *1-2 (Mich. Ct. App. Aug. 8, 2019) (second and fourth alteration in original). Petitioner's conviction was affirmed on appeal. See People v. Martin, 937 N.W.2d 640 (Mich. 2020).

Petitioner filed a post-conviction motion for relief from judgment, which the trial court denied. See People v. Martin, No. 17-010562-01-FC (Wayne Cnty. Cir. Ct., Mar. 8, 2021) (ECF No. 9-17.) The Michigan appellate courts denied Petitioner leave to appeal. See People v. Martin, No. 358414 (Mich. Ct. App. Feb. 4, 2022), lv. den. 974 N.W.2d 193 (Mich. 2022). Petitioner now seeks a writ of habeas corpus on the following five grounds:

I. Trial court counsel's wholesale failure to interview any of the prosecution's civilian, expert or law enforcement witnesses amounted to a complete failure to meaningfully investigate and did [thus] preclude counsel from subjecting the prosecution's case to meaningful adversarial testing.

II. Petitioner suffered a complete deprivation of counsel from February 1, 2018, to February 8, 2018, which was after the commencement of the judicial proceedings and during the critical pretrial investigative state of the proceedings; therefore, automatic reversal is mandatory.

III. After the presiding trial court judge reviewed the preliminary examination transcript, obtained Petitioner's criminal history, and learned that Petitioner was on federal parole at the time, he was disqualified from being the trier of fact and counsel was ineffective for failing to move to have the trial court judge recused.

IV. The waiver of trial by jury was constitutionally invalid where the record shows Petitioner was misinformed that the burden of proof associated with a trial by jury only required the prosecutor to prove him “guilty” but not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and the record is silent as to whether Petitioner actually understood the right to trial by jury because Petitioner was never asked if he understood.

V. Petitioner suffered ineffective assistance of appellate counsel and therefore has good cause for failing to raise the constitutional violations now set forth herein on direct appeal.

II. Standard of Review

As amended by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d), imposes the following standard of review for habeas cases:

An application for a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court shall not be granted with respect to any claim that was adjudicated on the merits in State court proceedings unless the adjudication of the claim-

(1) resulted in a decision that was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States; or

(2) resulted in a decision that 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). A decision of a state court is “contrary to” clearly established federal law if the state court arrives at a conclusion opposite to that reached by the Supreme Court on a question of law or if the state court decides a case differently than the Supreme Court has on a set of materially indistinguishable facts. See Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 405-06 (2000). An “unreasonable application” occurs when “a state court decision unreasonably applies the law of [the Supreme Court] to the facts of a prisoner's case.” Id. at 409.

A federal habeas court may not “issue the writ simply because that court concludes in its independent judgment that the relevant state-court decision applied clearly established federal law erroneously or incorrectly.” Id. at 410-11. “A state court's determination that a claim lacks merit precludes federal habeas relief so long as ‘fairminded jurists could disagree' on the correctness of the state court's decision.” Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 101 (2011) (citing Yarborough v. Alvarado, 541 U.S. 652, 664 (2004)).

Therefore, in order to obtain habeas relief in federal court, a state prisoner is required to show that the state court's rejection of his or her claim “was so lacking in justification that there was an error well understood and comprehended in existing law beyond any possibility for fairminded disagreement.” Id. at 103.

Petitioner's claims were raised in his post-conviction motion for relief from judgment. In reviewing a claim under the AEDPA's deferential standard of review, this Court must review “the last state court to issue a reasoned opinion on the issue.” Hoffner v. Bradshaw, 622 F.3d 487 505 (6th Cir. 2010) (quoting Payne v. Bell, 418 F.3d 644, 660 (6th Cir. 2005)). The Michigan Court of Appeals and the Michigan Supreme Court both denied petitioner's post-conviction application for leave to appeal in unexplained one-sentence orders. Accord...