Stephen v. Sec'y, Dep't of Corr.

SHANNON STEPHEN, Petitioner, v. SECRETARY, DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, Respondent.

No. 8:20-cv-727-VMC-CPT

United States District Court, M.D. Florida, Tampa Division

February 24, 2023

ORDER

VIRGINIA M. HERNANDEZ COVINGTON UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

Shannon Stephen, a Florida prisoner, timely filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. (Doc. 1.) Respondent filed a response opposing the petition. (Doc. 13.) Stephen filed a reply. (Doc. 20.) Upon consideration, the petition is DENIED.

I. Procedural History

A state-court jury convicted Stephen of two counts of DUI manslaughter and one count of leaving the scene of a crash involving death. (Doc. 14-1, Ex. 14.) The state trial court sentenced Stephen to fifteen years' imprisonment for each DUI manslaughter count and five years' imprisonment for the leaving-the-scene count. (Id., Ex. 19.) The sentences were run consecutively, for a total term of thirty-five years in prison. (Id.) The state appellate court affirmed the convictions and sentences but remanded for entry of a “corrected order assessing fines and costs.” (Id., Ex. 26.)

Stephen then sought postconviction relief under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.850. (Doc. 14-2, Exs. 32, 33, 35.) The state trial court denied Stephen's claims, and the state appellate court per curiam affirmed the denial of relief. (Id., Ex. 36; Doc. 144, Exs. 40, 44.)

II. Facts; Trial Testimony^[1]

Around 1:00 a.m. on March 26, 2006, Robert Bartlett, Sarah Gleason, and Joseph Swiech were walking home from a bar in Pasco County, Florida. The three were approximately fifteen feet “off the road.” (Doc. 14-5, Ex. 58, pp. 449-50.) As they were walking home, Bartlett called a friend, Rick Scott, and asked him to pick them up. Immediately after Bartlett hung up, a truck hit Gleason and Swiech. The truck drove off with Swiech “underneath” it. (Id., p. 452.) Bartlett ran toward the victims and, at approximately 1:09 a.m., called 911. Gleason and Swiech died of “blunt trauma.” (Id., p. 566.)

Unaware that an accident had occurred, Scott and Jim Ramsey drove to pick up Bartlett, Gleason, and Swiech. On the way there, Scott and Ramsey saw a Chevrolet pickup truck that “looked like” it had run “into a building,” with “severe[] damage[]” on the “front end.” (Id., p. 580; Doc. 14-6, Ex. 59, p. 690.) The truck came to a stop at an intersection. A man got out of the driver's side, surveyed the damage to the front of the truck, and ran to a traffic signal box on the side of the road. As sirens approached, the man hid behind the box and appeared to make a phone call. The man got back into the truck, and Scott and Ramsey drove away.

When Scott and Ramsey arrived at the scene of the accident, Bartlett told them that a “dark color” Chevrolet pickup truck had hit the victims. (Doc. 14-5, Ex. 58, p. 586.) Scott and Ramsey “put one and one together,” and they drove back to where they had seen the damaged pickup truck. (Id.) The truck had made its way through the intersection and was parked behind a bar. Scott and Ramsey pulled in front of the truck to block it, and Scott got out to “detain the person until [they] could get the law there and let them sort it out.” (Doc. 14-6, Ex. 59, p. 696.) Scott pulled the driver out of the truck and observed that he appeared to be “very well intoxicated.” (Doc. 14-5, Ex. 58, p. 596.) Both Scott and Ramsey identified the driver as the same man they had seen at the intersection-Shannon Stephen.

When the police arrived, Stephen took a blood test that showed a blood alcohol content of 0.238 to 0.240-approximately three times the legal limit. After being read his Miranda rights, Stephen allegedly admitted “to being the driver.” (Doc. 14-6, Ex. 61, p. 1103.) This admission did not, however, appear in the report prepared by the highway patrolman to whom Stephen spoke. (Id., p. 1124.) Furthermore, the lead homicide investigator never learned of Stephen's alleged admission.

Before the crash, Stephen had been drinking at a bar with two friends, James Wallace and Marvin Dalzell. Stephen drove to the bar by himself in a Chevrolet Silverado, and his friends arrived together in Wallace's car. Once they were at the bar, Stephen became intoxicated. At some point, Wallace told Stephen it was “time to go.”

(Id., Ex. 59, p. 725.) Although Stephen did not want to leave, he walked up to the bar and paid his tab. The three left around 12:45 a.m.

After leaving the bar, Stephen urinated on a “column” in the parking lot. (Id., p. 727.) Wallace and Dalzell testified at trial that they tried to take Stephen home in Wallace's truck. At some point during this process, Stephen “look[ed] up,” saw where his truck was parked, and “trotted” toward it. (Id., p. 729.) Stephen got in his truck, “backed into a vehicle that was parked across the aisle,” and drove out of the parking lot. (Id., pp. 730-31.) At trial, a bar patron (Walter Schubart) offered a different account. He testified that he saw Wallace and Dalzell help Stephen into the passenger side of Stephen's truck, that either Wallace or Dalzell got into the driver's side, and that the three drove off together.

By contrast, Wallace and Dalzell testified that after Stephen left the parking lot, the two of them drove together to Wallace's house, where Dalzell had parked his van. The two chatted for a few minutes, after which Dalzell drove home in his van. Then, at 1:09 a.m., Wallace called his wife and left a voicemail. At trial, Kara Wallace testified that her husband was “letting [her] know that he was home.” (Id., Ex. 62, p. 1307.) At her deposition, however, she claimed that Wallace had said, “[S]omething happened, it's important that you call me back.” (Id., pp. 1311-12, 1318-19.)

On his way home, Dalzell saw Stephen's truck on the side of the road. The “right front of the hood was caved in,” and Stephen had gotten out of the truck. (Id., pp. 1030-31.) Dalzell called 911 and described the scene, but he did not identify Stephen, nor did he mention he had been with Stephen earlier that night. After calling 911, Dalzell reached out to Wallace to let him know that Stephen “had been involved in a wreck.” (Id., pp. 1032-33.) Wallace called his wife again, told her what had happened, and drove to the scene. Neither Wallace nor Dalzell spoke to the police at the scene. At trial, Wallace explained that he “didn't want to rat on [his] best friend.” (Id., Ex. 59, p. 737.)

A freelance photographer, Brian Farrow, testified that after hearing about the accident on a police scanner, he drove to the area where Stephen's truck had stopped. There, Farrow saw a van next to the truck. He also observed “two or three people” “arguing,” “shoving[,] and pushing each other.” (Id., Ex. 62, pp. 1363, 1371.) Figuring that “it was a couple of drunks maybe fighting [] from the strip club,” Farrow drove away and headed to where the victims had been hit. (Id., pp. 1373-74.)

Two Sprint employees-Dan Jensen and Youssouf Mohamed-testified about Wallace's cell phone activity the night of the accident. Mohamed opined that, if someone had made a call from the scene of the crash on March 26, 2006, the call would “most likely” have connected with cell tower 208. (Id., Ex. 60, p. 971.) By contrast, a call made from Wallace's house would “most likely” have connected with cell tower 121. (Id.) The two cell towers were approximately four miles apart. Celltower data showed that, on March 26, all of Wallace's calls between 1:09 a.m. and 1:33 a.m. connected with cell tower 121.

An accident reconstructionist testified on behalf of the State. He opined that Stephen's truck was traveling 47 miles per hour when it hit the victims, that the driver did not apply the brakes, and that the victims were off the road at the time of impact.

III. Standards of Review

A. AEDPA

The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (“AEDPA”) governs this proceeding. Carroll v. Sec'y, DOC, 574 F.3d 1354, 1364 (11th Cir. 2009). Habeas relief can be granted only if a petitioner is in custody “in violation of the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(a). Section 2254(d) provides that federal habeas relief cannot be granted on a claim adjudicated on the merits in state court unless the state court's adjudication:

(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.

A decision 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.” Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 413 (2000). A decision involves an “unreasonable application” of clearly established federal law “if the state court identifies the correct governing legal principle from [the Supreme] Court's decisions but unreasonably applies that principle to the facts of the prisoner's case.” Id.

AEDPA was meant “to prevent federal habeas ‘retrials' and to ensure that statecourt convictions are given effect to the extent possible under law.” Bell v. Cone, 535 U.S. 685, 693 (2002). Accordingly, “[t]he focus . . . is on whether the state court's application of clearly established federal law is objectively unreasonable, and . . . an unreasonable application is different from an incorrect one.” Id. at 694; see also Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 103 (2011) (“As a condition for obtaining habeas corpus from a federal court, a...