McGee v. Medeiros

RICKY MCGEE, Petitioner, v. SEAN MEDEIROS, Respondent.

Civil No. 15-11498-LTS

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS

March 2, 2016

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER ON MOTION TO DISMISS (DOC. NO. 18)

SOROKIN, J.

Petitioner Ricky McGee ("McGee") has filed a counseled petition for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254, in which he advances one challenge to his conviction. Doc. No. 1. Respondent Sean Medeiros ("Medeiros") has moved to dismiss the petition for failure to exhaust state remedies or, alternatively, for failure to state a claim meriting relief. Doc. No. 18. For the reasons that follow, Medeiros's motion is ALLOWED, and the petition is DISMISSED.

I. BACKGROUND

A. Facts

The Court relies on the recitation of facts from the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts ("SJC"). See 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.").

Sometime between 2:16 a.m. and 2:40 a.m. on April 16, 1997, the victim, a store clerk at a convenience store in the Fenway section of Boston, was shot in the back of the head with a .38 caliber revolver. The victim, who was still alive at that point, was discovered by one of his friends, who telephoned 911; the victim died later that day as a result of the gunshot wound. The robber took food stamps, a cash tray that held less than ninety-four dollars in cash, and a coin compartment from the cash register. A few hours after the robbery, police found the cash tray, a single leather glove, and a coin in an alley located next to the convenience store that leads to a parking area behind some apartment buildings. The glove and coin were found on a ledge at the edge of the parking lot; four to five feet below that ledge is another parking lot from which a small alleyway, not immediately visible, leads to a public street. Also that day, the owner of a truck that had been parked in the lot near the alleyway found a coin compartment in the truck bed and contacted police.

The defendant lived with his mother, her three other children, and a family friend, Natasha Hamilton, in an apartment a few blocks from the convenience store. Testimony at trial indicated that only a person familiar with the area would know that the defendant's apartment building could be reached by proceeding from the convenience store down the alley to the parking lot and from there through the small alleyway to the street.

At about 1:45 a.m. on April 16, the defendant, his mother, and Hamilton returned to the apartment from a pizza shop. The defendant's mother went to bed, but Hamilton stayed up to watch television. At about 2:00 a.m. Hamilton saw the defendant leave the apartment wearing a black "skully" cap on his head, a ski mask around his neck, a black pullover, dark fatigue pants, and black boots; he also carried dark brown, almost black gloves in his pocket. When he returned approximately fifteen to twenty minutes later, the defendant was wearing only one glove. The defendant appeared to Hamilton to be nervous; his face was sweating and his voice seemed "scared." He told Hamilton that he had "shot the man" who worked at the convenience store, describing him as "the short guy with the curly hair" who is "always smiling." The defendant said he had gone to the convenience store to rob it and had told the clerk to lie down on the floor; when the man reached for something, the defendant shot him in the back of his head. Hamilton observed the defendant take money and food stamps from his pocket and sort them into two piles on a coffee table; the defendant also put some coins on the table. The defendant then pulled a black gun from his waist, and emptied the bullets from it.

. . . .

The store's security cameras were not functioning on the night of the robbery, and the only physical evidence recovered from the crime scene was two bullet fragments. Hamilton was aware that the store had offered a $25,000 reward for information leading to apprehension and conviction of the shooter. The defendant was arrested almost three months later, when Hamilton informed police that, on the evening of the shooting, the defendant had confessed to her.

Commonwealth v. McGee, 4 N.E.3d 256, 259-60 (Mass. 2014) (internal footnotes omitted).

Hamilton testified at trial. Id. at 266. McGee, alleging that she was paid for her testimony, sought an instruction from the trial court regarding bias from cooperating witnesses. Id. The specific instruction he sought read:

The testimony of a cooperating witness who provides evidence against a Defendant to escape punishment or receive leniency from law enforcement authorities for his or her own misdeeds or crimes, or for other personal reason or advantage, must be examined and weighed by the jury with greater care and caustion that the testimony of an ordinary witness.

You, the jury, must determine whether a cooperating witness's testimony has been affected by self-interest, or by an agreement, implicit or explicit, he or she has with the government, or his own interest in the outcome of the case, or by prejudice or bias against the Defendant and his family.

Id. at 267 (internal quotation marks omitted). McGee's petition references the $25,000 award from the store as Hamilton's sole financial incentive. Doc. No. 1 at 5.¹

Instead of giving that specific instruction, "the judge instructed the jury that they should consider whether a witness 'had a bias or motive which would have influenced [his or her] testimony'; 'has any interest in the trial or any interest in its outcome' or 'has been influenced by any promises, rewards or any other inducements to testify.'" McGee, 4 N.E.3d at 267. Additionally, McGee's "counsel cross-examined Hamilton about these inducements, and argued forcefully in closing that Hamilton was motivated to lie by money and revenge. He argued thatHamilton 'is a witness who was bought and paid for by the Commonwealth. She is a witness who had motive to lie, she is a witness who was well rewarded for her lies.'" Id.

B. Procedural History

A Superior Court jury convicted McGee of first-degree murder on October 20, 1998. Id. at 259. He subsequently appealed his conviction and filed two motions for a new trial, a motion for reconsideration, and a request for posttrial discovery, all of which the trial court denied. Id. The SJC consolidated these appeals, id., and affirmed his conviction on February 12, 2014. Id. at 256, 270. In affirming his conviction, the SJC considered and rejected McGee's challenged to the trial court's failure to deliver his cooperation instruction. See id. at 267 ("The defendant was not entitled to a specific instruction that the jury should exercise special care and caution in evaluating Hamilton's testimony."). McGee filed a petition for rehearing on February 26, 2014, see Doc. No. 19-6, and the SJC denied it on April 4, 2014. Doc. No. 19-2 at 5.

McGee filed this Petition for a Writ of Habeas Corpus, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254, on April 2, 2015. Doc. No. 1. The petition raised one ground for relief: that McGee's "Due Process rights were violated when the trial court failed to specifically instruct the jury that the Commonwealth's key witness had a financial incentive contingent on the defendant's conviction." Id. at 5. He submitted a Memorandum of Law supporting his petition the same day. Doc. No. 2. The memorandum proffered a second Due Process Clause violation: the SJC's "hold[ing] that the petitioner was 'not entitled' to the requested instruction despite the Court being required to apply it to a petitioner's direct appeal under Griffith v. Kentucky." Id. at 5.²

On July 10, 2015, Medeiros filed a Motion to Dismiss. Doc. No. 18. The motion raised two grounds for dismissal: McGee's failure to both exhaust state remedies and state a claim for which relief may be granted. Id. at 1. McGee, relying primarily on his earlier memorandum, responded to the motion on August 28, 2015. See Doc. No. 24.

II. DISCUSSION

Because "[a]n application for a writ of habeas corpus may be denied on the merits, notwithstanding the failure of the applicant to exhaust the remedies available in the courts of the State," § 2254(b)(2), the Court first addresses whether McGee has stated a meritorious claim.

A. Legal Standard

Federal district courts may not grant a writ of habeas corpus unless they find that the state court's adjudication of the petitioner's claims "(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). As the Supreme Court repeatedly has emphasized, this substantially deferential standard is "difficult to meet," with the petitioner carrying a heavy burden of proof. Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 102 (2011); accord Cullen v. Pinholster, 563 U.S. 170, 131 S. Ct. 1388, 1398 (2011).

A state court ruling is "contrary to" clearly established Supreme Court precedent "if the state court applies a rule that contradicts the governing law set forth in [Supreme Court] cases," or "if the state court confronts a set of facts that are materially indistinguishable from a decision of [the Supreme] Court and nevertheless arrives at a result different from [its] precedent." Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 405-06 (2000). The state court is not required to cite, or evenhave awareness of, governing Supreme Court precedents, "so long as neither the reasoning nor the result of [its] decision contradicts them." Early v. Packer, 537 U.S. 3, 8 (2002); cf. Richter, 562 U.S. at 100 (stating "§ 2254(d) does not require a state court to give reasons before its decision can be deemed to...