United States v. Jones

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. NYGELL JONES, Defendant.

Cr. No. 07-10339-MLW

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS

March 14, 2014

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

WOLF, D.J.

I. OVERVIEW

Defendant Nygell Jones was tried by jury and convicted on one count of possession of a firearm and ammunition by a convicted felon. On September 16, 2008, he was sentenced to 27 months in prison. On May 7, 2010, Jones filed a motion under 28 U.S.C. §2255 to vacate, set aside, or correct his sentence (the "Motion"). The Motion alleges that the firearm Jones was convicted of possessing was planted on him by the police; that the prosecution withheld exculpatory evidence from Jones; and that Jones was denied the effective assistance of trial counsel.

As explained in this Memorandum, the Motion is barred by the one-year period of limitation imposed by 18 U.S.C. 2255(f). Moreover, none of Jones's claims would support relief even if the Motion had been filed within the period of limitation. The Motion is, therefore, being denied.

II. BACKGROUND

On October 17, 2007, Jones was indicted on one count of possession of a firearm and ammunition by a convicted felon, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §922(g)(1). He pleaded not guilty. Represented by Robert Ullmann, Esq., Jones was tried by jury in June 2008.

The core of the prosecution's evidence was provided by the four police officers who had arrested Jones: Sergeant James Tarantino and Officer Rance Cooley of the Boston Police Department, and Massachusetts State Troopers William Cameron and Stephen Johnson. Tarantino, Cooley, Cameron, and Johnson were members of the Boston Police Department's Youth Violence Strike Force. They testified, consistent with each other, as follows.

At about 11:45 p.m. on August 3, 2007, Tarantino, Cooley, Cameron, and Johnson approached a building located at 22-24 Thane Street in Dorchester, Boston, where a large party was being held. When Jones saw the officers approaching, he grabbed the waist of his shorts and began moving aggressively through the crowd of party-goers and into the building. Tarantino, Cameron, and Johnson followed Jones into the building. Cooley remained outside.

Inside the building, the officers saw Jones clutching his waistband frantically. Surmising that Jones had a gun, theofficers pursued him. Tarantino overtook Jones and tackled him. Cameron and Johnson handcuffed Jones. Tarantino removed a gun loaded with a magazine and ten rounds of ammunition from Jones's waistband.

The officers walked Jones outside the building. Cameron led Jones to a police cruiser and instructed him to lean against the cruiser. Jones broke free and started running. Cameron chased Jones, caught up to him, and tackled him. Jones struck his head on a retaining wall. Both Jones and Cameron fell and hit the sidewalk. The officers called for Emergency Medical Services. Jones was given preliminary treatment and taken by ambulance to Boston Medical Center.

Rachel Lemery, a criminalist for the Boston Police Department latent fingerprint unit, also testified. According to Lemery, no fingerprints were identified on the gun or on the rounds of ammunition found on Jones. One partial fingerprint was found on the magazine. A comparison of that print with Jones's fingerprints was inconclusive.

Jones stipulated that he had previously been convicted of a felony. His defense was, in essence, that the police officers were lying -- that they had not, in fact, found the gun and the ammunition on him. Jones challenged the officers' credibility in various ways. Among other things, he pointed out that Cameron and Johnson had filed practically identical police reportsconcerning the night of Jones's arrest, but that each testified at trial that he had not copied the other's report.

Two witnesses were presented by the defense, Monique Cooper and Barbara Santos-Silva. Cooper and Santos-Silva testified that they saw Jones being beaten and kicked by the police while he was handcuffed. Jones also introduced medical records from the night of his arrest. These records showed that Jones was unconscious on arrival at the hospital. He was found to have sustained a head laceration, a collapsed lobe in his right lung, and a deviated septum.

In rebuttal, the government offered the testimony of two additional Boston Police Department officers, Sergeant John Earley and Officer Adrian Worrell. Earley and Worrell testified that they had arrived on the scene after Jones's arrest and did not witness any violence by the arresting officers.

On June 24, 2008, the jury returned a guilty verdict. Jones moved for a judgment of acquittal or for a new trial. The court denied the motion. On September 16, 2008, the court sentenced Jones to 27 months in prison followed by 36 months of supervised release. Judgment was entered on October 5, 2008. Jones did not appeal his conviction or his sentence.

On May 7, 2010, Jones filed the instant §2255 Motion. Attached to the Motion was a letter requesting that the court "'toll' the appropriate number of days, in order to validly beable to determine said motion/petition under 28 U.S.C. §2255 as having been timely filed." Letter from Jones filed May 7, 2010, at 1 ("Extension Letter"). The court permitted the Motion to be docketed, but stated that the decision to do so was "without prejudice to any argument by the government that the claims in the §2255 motion are barred by the applicable limitations period." July 12, 2010 Order ¶1. The government moved for dismissal of the Motion without a hearing, both on period of limitation grounds and on the merits.¹

III. THE MOTION IS TIME-BARRED

A. Legal Standard

Motions under 28 U.S.C. §2255 are subject to "[a] 1-year period of limitation." 28 U.S.C. §2255(f). This period of limitation begins on the latest of several alternative dates:

(1) the date on which the judgment of conviction becomes final;

(2) the date on which the impediment to making a motion created by governmental action in violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States is removed, if the movant was prevented from making a motion by such governmental action;(3) the date on which the right asserted was initially recognized by the Supreme Court, if that right has been newly recognized by the Supreme Court and made retroactively applicable to cases on collateral review; or

(4) the date on which the facts supporting the claim or claims presented could have been discovered through the exercise of due diligence.

Id. If a defendant does not appeal his conviction, "judgment of conviction becomes final" at the end of the period for filing an appeal. See Barreto-Barreto v. United States, 551 F.3d 95, 99 (1st Cir. 2008); Trenkler v. United States, 268 F.3d 16, 20 (1st Cir. 2001).

The period of limitation for §2255 proceedings is not jurisdictional. See Ramos-Martinez v. United States, 638 F.3d 315, 321 (1st Cir. 2011). It is subject, in appropriate cases, to equitable tolling. See Id. at 321-22 (citing and extending Holland v. Florida, 130 S. Ct. 2549 (2010)). However, equitable tolling is "the exception rather than the rule; resort to its prophylaxis is deemed justified only in extraordinary circumstances." Delaney v. Matesanz, 264 F.3d 7, 14 (1st Cir. 2001).

"A habeas petitioner bears the burden of establishing the basis for equitable tolling." Riva v. Ficco, 615 F.3d 35, 39 (1st Cir. 2010). To carry this burden, the petitioner must show "'(1) that he has been pursuing his rights diligently, and (2) that some extraordinary circumstance stood in his way' andprevented timely filing." Holland, 130 S. Ct. at 2562 (quoting Pace v. DiGuglielmo, 544 U.S. 408, 418 (2005)); see also Trapp v. Spencer, 479 F.3d 53, 61 (1st Cir. 2007).

B. Analysis

As explained below, the Motion was filed after the period of limitation prescribed by §2255(f) had elapsed, and that period of limitation should not be equitably tolled.

1. §2255(f)

Judgment against Jones was entered on October 5, 2008. According to the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure then in effect, any appeal was required to be filed within ten days.² Because Jones did not file an appeal, judgment became final on October 15, 2008. Therefore, the baseline period of limitation prescribed by §2255(f)(1), namely one year from "the date on which the judgment of conviction [became] final," ended on October 15, 2009. The Motion was not filed until May 7, 2010.

Jones contends that the period of limitation is extended because the Motion relies on this court's decision in a case involving another criminal defendant, Darwin Jones. See United States v. Jones, 609 F. Supp. 2d 113 (D. Mass. 2009) (the "Darwin Decision"). In that case, the court wrote that Cameron and Johnson had testified falsely at Jones's trial. See id. at123 n.6. Jones states that he was informed of the Darwin Decision on or about June 29, 2009, and that he was not able to review that decision in detail until November or December of 2009. See Extension Letter at 2. Jones argues that the period of limitation is, therefore, extended by §2255(f)(4), which permits a motion to be filed within one year of "the date on which the facts supporting the claim or claims presented could have been discovered through the exercise of due diligence."

The period of limitation applicable to the Motion is not extended by §2255(f)(4). First, the Darwin Decision does not belong to the universe of "facts" that, if discovered belatedly through the exercise of due diligence, postpone the commencement of the §2255 period of limitation. The First Circuit has interpreted the analogous provision concerning habeas petitions by state prisoners "to mean 'evidentiary facts or events[,] and not court rulings or legal consequences of the facts.'" Holmes v. Spencer, 685 F.3d 51, 59 (1st Cir. 2012) (alteration in original) (quoting Brackett v. United States, 270 F.3d 60, 69 (1st Cir. 2001), abrogated on other grounds by Johnson v. United States, 544 U.S. 295 (2005)); see also Lo v. Endicott, 506 F.3d 572, 575 (7th Cir. 2007) (...