Smith v. Hastings

TYRONE SMITH, Petitioner, v. BEVERLY HASTINGS, Respondents.

Civil Action No. 14-2602 (JMV)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT DISTRICT OF NEW JERSEY

December 30, 2016

NOT FOR PUBLICATION

OPINION

APPEARANCES:

Tyrone Smith

New Jersey State Prison

I-Right Cell #7

P.O. Box 861

Trenton, NJ 08625

Petitioner, pro se

Sara Beth Liebman

Union County Prosecutor's Office

32 Rahway Ave.

Elizabeth, NJ 07202

On behalf of Respondents

VAZQUEZ, District Judge

This matter comes before the Court upon the Amended Petition for a Writ of Habeas Corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 (ECF Nos. 3, 4) filed by Petitioner, an inmate confined in New Jersey State Prison in Trenton, New Jersey. Respondents filed an Answer opposing habeas relief. (ECF Nos. 12, 13.) Petitioner filed a reply. (ECF No. 14.) Petitioner subsequently filed a motion to compel a hearing date for this matter (ECF No. 18), and an application for a final disposition. (ECF No. 19.) For the reasons discussed below, the Court will deny an evidentiary hearing and deny the petition for a writ of habeas corpus on the merits.

I. PROCEDURAL HISTORY

On April 9, 2007, Petitioner was convicted in the Union County Superior Court of New Jersey of first-degree aggravated sexual assault, second-degree sexual assault, third-degree endangering the welfare of a child, third-degree aggravated criminal sexual contact and fourth-degree aggravated criminal sexual contact. State v. Smith, Ind. No. 02-04-00595, 2007 WL 162219, at *1 (N.J. Super. Ct. App. Div. Jan. 24, 2007) certif. denied 192 N.J. 296. He was sentenced to an aggregate term of imprisonment for fifty-nine years. Id.

Petitioner appealed. On January 24, 2007, the Appellate Division affirmed the convictions but remanded for resentencing, and the New Jersey Supreme Court denied certification on July 23, 2007. Id. On remand, Petitioner was sentenced to an aggregate term of imprisonment for fifty-seven years. State v. Smith, Ind. No. 02-04-00595, 2012 WL 4036697, at *2 (N.J. Super. Ct. App. Div. Sept. 14, 2012) certif. denied 213 N.J. 535 (2013).

On March 6, 2007, Petitioner filed a pro se petition for post-conviction relief, which he subsequently amended. Id. at *2. The PCR Court held a hearing, and denied the petition by order dated February 25, 2010. Id. The Appellate Division affirmed on September 14, 2012, and the Supreme Court denied certification on May 2, 2013. Id. at *3.

Petitioner initially filed a § 2254 habeas petition before the Honorable Katharine S. Hayden in Smith v. Conway, Civil Action No. 10-1097, on March 2, 2010. (ECF No. 5 at 1.) After Respondents answered, Petitioner filed a new petition in Civil Action 13-3750, which the Honorable Keven McNulty construed as a motion to amend the petition pending before Judge Hayden, and he dismissed Civil Action No. 13-3750. (Id.) Judge Hayden granted Petitioner'smotion to amend but noted that the amended habeas petition was a mixed petition because Petitioner had not exhausted his judicial misconduct claim. (Id. at 2.)

Judge Hayden directed Petitioner to drop the unexhausted claim and proceed with the other claims or return to state court to litigate the unexhausted claims, and then return with a new habeas petition before the expiration of the statute of limitations. (Id.) Petitioner responded that he would drop the unexhausted claim and proceed with the habeas petition that was pending before Judge McNulty. (Id.) Judge Hayden responded by directing the Clerk to file the new petition as a "reapplication" in a new § 2254 proceeding, with an April 17, 2014 filing date. (Id.) Thus, the present civil action was opened. Petitioner then filed an amended petition. (ECF Nos. 3, 4.)

Before this Court is Petitioner's Amended Petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 for Writ of Habeas Corpus by a person in State Custody, raising all of his exhausted claims;¹ Respondents' Answer; Petitioner's reply; and Petitioner's motion to compel the court to schedule a hearing.

II. BACKGROUND

The factual background in this matter was summarized by the New Jersey Superior Court, Appellate Division upon Petitioner's direct appeal. See State v. Smith, Ind. No. 02-04-00595, 2007 WL 162219 (N.J. Super. Ct. App. Div. Jan. 24, 2007). The state court's factual findings are presumed true unless rebutted by clear and convincing evidence. Miller-El v. Cockrell, 537 U.S. 322, 340 (2003) (citing 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(1)). Petitioner was a coach for the Police Athletic League ("PAL"). He coached football and wrestling from 1980 to 1993, and again in 1997.Between 1989 and 1994, Petitioner befriended six boys who played football or wrestled for the PAL. In 1991 and 1992, Petitioner invited the boys to stay overnight at his home on some occasions before a sporting event. During those overnight stays, Petitioner sexually assaulted the boys.

Petitioner told the boys not to tell anyone, and he gave them gifts of cash and clothing. In 2001, after several of the boys read a newspaper article about an unrelated child sex abuse case, the boys spoke to each other about Petitioner's assaults on them, and they went to the police. When Petitioner was arrested, he admitted the boys had slept at his house, but he denied molesting them. Petitioner was convicted after a twelve-day jury trial.

III. DISCUSSION

A. Standard of Review

28 U.S.C. § 2254(d) provides:

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.

Section 2254(e)(1) states:

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.

"Contrary to clearly established Federal law" means the state court applied a rule that contradicted the governing law set forth in United States Supreme Court precedent or that the state court confronted a set of facts that were materially indistinguishable from United States Supreme Court precedent and arrived at a different result than the Supreme Court. Eley v. Erickson, 712 F.3d 837, 846 (3d Cir. 2013) (citing Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 405-06 (2000)). The phrase "clearly established Federal law" "refers to the holdings, as opposed to the dicta" of the U.S. Supreme Court's decisions. Williams, 529 U.S. at 412. An "unreasonable application" of clearly established federal law is an "objectively unreasonable" application of law, not merely an erroneous application. Eley, 712 F.3d at 846 (quoting Renico v. Lett, 130 S.Ct. 1855, 1862 (2010)).

If a state court order is silent on the reason for a decision on a federal claim, the following presumption applies: "[w]here there has been one reasoned state judgment rejecting a federal claim, later unexplained orders upholding that judgment or rejecting the same claim rest upon the same ground." Ylst v. Nunnemaker, 501 U.S. 797, 802 (1991). Thus, habeas courts "look through" an unexplained order to the last reasoned decision by the state court. Id. at 804.

If there is no explanation in a state court decision denying a federal claim, the habeas petitioner's burden still must be met by showing there was no reasonable basis for the state court to deny relief. Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 98 (2011). "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." Yarborough v. Alvarado, 541 U.S. 652, 664 (2004). Additionally, with respect to claims of ineffective assistance of counsel under § 2254(d), "the question is not whether counsel's actions were reasonable." Harrington, 562 U.S. at 105. "The question is whether there is any reasonable argument that counsel satisfied Strickland's deferential standard." Id.

B. Evidentiary Hearing

On April 15, 2016, Petitioner filed a motion to compel this Court to schedule a hearing date for this matter. (ECF No. 18.) 8 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(2) provides:

(2) If the applicant has failed to develop the factual basis of a claim in State court proceedings, the court shall not hold an evidentiary hearing on the claim unless the applicant shows that--

(A) the claim relies on--

(i) a new rule of constitutional law, made retroactive to cases on collateral review by the Supreme Court, that was previously unavailable; or

(ii) a factual predicate that could not have been previously discovered through the exercise of due diligence; and

(B) the facts underlying the claim would be sufficient to establish by clear and convincing evidence that but for constitutional error, no reasonable factfinder would have found the applicant guilty of the underlying offense.

Petitioner does not state a basis for an evidentiary hearing in this motion. (Id.) Instead, he appears to seek a disposition of his petition.

However, in Petitioner's reply (ECF No. 14), he asserts the prosecutor committed misconduct by representing to this Court, on December 24, 2010, that his trial records "were devoid," but the documents have now been produced with the explanation that they were inadvertently archived. (ECF No. 14 at 2.) Petitioner contends that none of his court-appointed attorneys have ever had these documents in their files; therefore, they never filed a proper brief or appeal, and they never reviewed or investigated any claims. (Id.)

In a cover letter to the exhibits in this proceeding, Responden...