Wallace v. Pliler

1

TIMI Y. WALLACE, Petitioner, v. WILLIAM S. PLILER, Respondent.

Civil Action No. 22-10758-IT^[1]

United States District Court, D. Massachusetts

May 28, 2024

REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION ON PETITION FOR WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS (#1).

M. PAGE KELLEY, UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE.

I. Introduction.

In this petition for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 (#1), Timi Wallace asserts that the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (“SJC”) erred in finding that his Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial was not violated where, after a complaint issued charging him with murder, “over ten years” passed before he was brought to trial. (#22 at 4, 12.)

Timi^[2] was convicted in 2017 in the Massachusetts Superior Court, Suffolk County, of second-degree murder in connection with the fatal shooting of his brother, Tasfa. (#1 at 2-3; #23 at 3.) The Commonwealth's theory was that Timi shot his brother while acting in a joint venture with another brother Nickoyan. Commonwealth v. Wallace, 100 Mass.App.Ct. 1103, 2021 WL 3083662, at *1 (2021) (unpublished) (Wallace III). Before trial, both Timi and Nickoyan filed motions before Judge Hely of the Massachusetts Superior Court (“the motion judge”), asserting that under both the Federal and Massachusetts Constitutions, they had been deprived of their constitutional right to a speedy trial. Commonwealth v. Wallace, 472 Mass. 56, 57 (2015) (Wallace II). In an order dated December 6, 2011, the motion judge found that Timi's right to a speedy trial had not been violated, but Nickoyan's had, and dismissed the case against Nickoyan. Id.; #18 at 371-84 (motion judge's order).

A single justice of the SJC allowed the interlocutory appeals of Timi and the Commonwealth, consolidated the cases, and reported them to the Massachusetts Appeals Court (“MAC”). Wallace II, 472 Mass. at 57. The MAC held that neither brother's right to a speedy trial had been violated, thus affirming the motion judge's denial of Timi's motion and reversing the allowance of Nickoyan's. Commonwealth v. Wallace, 85 Mass.App.Ct. 123 (2014) (Wallace I). On further appellate review, the SJC reversed the MAC with regard to Nickoyan and affirmed the motion judge's denial of Timi's motion and his allowance of Nickoyan's motion. Wallace II, 472 Mass. at 72.^[3]

Timi was convicted of second-degree murder on April 11, 2017.^[4] (#18 at 17.) On appeal, the MAC affirmed his conviction, see Wallace III, and on September 14, 2021, his petition for further appellate review to the SJC was denied. Commonwealth v. Wallace, 488 Mass. 1104 (2021) (table). Acting pro se, he timely filed this petition on May 17, 2022. (#1.) On March 16, 2023, represented by counsel, Timi filed a memorandum in support of his petition. (#22.) The government opposed. (#23.) For the reasons set out below, this court recommends that the petition be DENIED.

II. Factual Background.

A. Tasfa is murdered; Timi and Nickoyan flee and commit a robbery; Timi is arrested after four years as a fugitive and is convicted in federal court of the robbery.

At Timi's trial for murder, the Commonwealth presented evidence that on March 26, 2000, Timi and Nickoyan had a dispute with Tasfa over money, and, angered by his failure to meet with them as planned, they each armed themselves with a loaded firearm, went to Tasfa's apartment, and fatally shot him through the door. Wallace III, 2021 WL 3083662, at *1, 6. Tasfa's girlfriend, who answered knocking at the door and saw Timi and Nickoyan through the door's peephole, was a witness at trial; other witnesses saw Timi and Nickoyan entering and leaving the building at the time of the shooting. Wallace II, 472 Mass. at 58.

On March 27, 2000, the day after the shooting, criminal complaints charging Timi and Nickoyan with murder issued from the Dorchester Division of the Boston Municipal Court Department. Id. Boston Police soon learned that the two brothers had left Massachusetts. Id. In April 2000, the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts issued federal fugitive warrants charging the brothers with unlawful interstate flight to avoid prosecution. Id.

On September 25, 2000, Timi and Nickoyan committed an armed robbery of a gun store in Providence, Rhode Island. Id. On October 5, 2000, Nickoyan was arrested. Id. Both brothers were federally indicted for the gun store robbery on October 18, 2000. Id. After his arrest, Nickoyan was held in federal custody; on February 23, 2001, a jury trial on the robbery and related charges in the United States District Court for the District of Rhode Island ended in a hung jury. Id.; #18 at 174. After a second jury trial, on November 8, 2001, Nickoyan was convicted of the robbery and related charges. Id. at 177. On March 19, 2002, he was sentenced to seventeen years in prison. Id.^[5]

Timi was a fugitive for almost four years after the robbery; he was arrested on July 20, 2004. Wallace II, 472 Mass. at 58. After his arrest, he also was held in federal custody and then also convicted of the robbery and related charges on October 15, 2004, after a jury trial. Id.; #18 at 181, 184. He was sentenced to twenty-five years on January 21, 2005. Wallace II, 472 Mass. at 58; #18 at 185. He appealed, and on August 14, 2006, the First Circuit affirmed his conviction but remanded for resentencing based on errors in the sentencing judge's application of sentencing guidelines provisions to depart upward from the advisory guidelines range. United States v. Wallace, 461 F.3d 15, 43-45 (1st Cir. 2006); #18 at 189. He was resentenced on May 24, 2007, to six months less than the first sentence, that is, to a sentence of twenty-four and one-half years. (#18 at 193-94.)^[6]

B. While a fugitive, Timi is indicted for murder; once he is arrested and in federal custody in connection with the robbery, state prosecutors delay lodging a detainer against him.

About six months after Nickoyan's federal trial, on May 22, 2002, while Timi was still a fugitive, a Massachusetts grand jury issued indictments against Timi and Nickoyan charging them with the murder of Tasfa. Wallace II, 472 Mass. at 59; #18 at 670-71 (indictments). As stated above, Timi was a fugitive from the time of Tasfa's murder in March 2000 until he was arrested in July 2004; he was tried on the federal armed robbery charge in October 2004; he was sentenced in federal court for the first time in January 2005; and he was resentenced in May 2007. Although the Interstate Agreement on Detainers (“IAD”)^[7] permitted state prosecutors to lodge detainers against Timi and Nickoyan to initiate the process for bringing them to state court as soon as they began serving their federal sentences, state prosecutors did not do so until June 2009.^[8] Timi was arraigned on the murder charge on November 25, 2009; Nickoyan was arraigned on December 9, 2009. Wallace II, 472 Mass. at 59.

C. The reasons for state prosecutors' delay in lodging a detainer.

After Timi and Nickoyan filed motions to dismiss the murder charge on speedy trial grounds, the motion judge held a three-day hearing at which prosecutors from Suffolk County and Boston police officers testified about why it took them so long to bring the brothers to trial. (#18 at Exs. 1-3 (transcripts of hearing).) As the SJC noted, emails obtained from state prosecutors, which were admitted into evidence at the hearing, (#18 at 524-49 (emails)), show that after Nickoyan was arrested in 2000 and after Timi was arrested in 2004, state prosecutors knew that the brothers were in federal custody, but delayed lodging detainers against them under the IAD for years. Wallace II, 472 Mass. at 59. The SJC agreed with the motion judge's finding that the period when the brothers were subject to the IAD, that is, when they were serving their federal sentences, was “characterized by a ‘cumulative lack of attention by the [d]istrict [attorney's [o]ffice to the duty to file detainers in this case within a reasonable time.'” Id. at 62 (quoting motion judge's findings, #18 at 381) (internal alterations incorporated, additional alterations added).

In his order, the motion judge set out more detailed findings than did the SJC concerning the reasons for the state prosecutors' delay. Based on the testimony he heard at the hearing, the motion judge found that the causes of the delay in bringing the brothers to trial included:

practical difficulties in tracking the status of the two [f]ederal prosecutions, including the appeals and the vacating of the defendants' initial sentences; frequent changes in the locations of the defendants' [f]ederal prison assignments (e.g., New York, West Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky); keeping track of the witnesses and evidence and completing forensic testing so that the cases would be ready for trial when the Commonwealth obtained custody of the defendants; the large number of homicide trial cases and investigations assigned to each assistant district attorney within the homicide division of the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office; the complexity and difficulty of preparing homicide cases for indictment and trial under contemporary court standards for investigation, discovery, and pretrial and trial issues; and changes in the assistant district attorneys assigned to the case.

(#18 at 380.)

Neither the motion judge in his order nor the SJC in its decision set out in any detail the testimony of the witnesses who testified at the hearing. The court therefore summarizes the testimony that is relevant to the analysis of the motion judge's and the SJC's factual findings below.

The case was assigned to Assistant District Attorney (“ADA”) Lynn Beland from March 26, 2000, the date of the murder, to November 30, 2003, when she left the office to work elsewhere. (#18-1 at 56, 116-17, 134.) ADA...