Williams v. Marsh

Mariani Judge

REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION

MARTIN C. CARLSON, UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE

I. Introduction

Pending before the court is a petition for writ of habeas corpus filed by the petitioner, Joseph Williams, who was convicted in 2009 in the Court of Common Pleas of York County, Pennsylvania of robbery and third degree murder. Williams is currently serving a sentence of 30-to-60 years imprisonment and seeks relief in the form of this habeas corpus petition, in which he raises several claims alleging ineffective assistance of counsel as well as trial court errors.

After review of the record, we find that Williams' claims are without merit. Accordingly, for the reasons set forth below, we will recommend that his petition be denied.

II. Statement of Facts and of the Case

This case involved a fatal shooting which occurred in the context of a robbery. As recounted by the state courts, the charges brought against Williams arose from the following factual scenario:

This matter arises out of a fatal shooting in the vicinity of 624 Chestnut Street in the City of York following an attempted robbery. At trial, evidence showed that Williams approached a group of males congregated in front of the Chestnut street address, suggesting that one or more of them had recently robbed him. Among those present in the group were the victim, John Mason, and co-defendant Anthony Herndon. When the members of the group denied having robbed Williams, he held them at gunpoint and demanded that they "run their pockets" and give him whatever they had Although some of those present complied and emptied their pockets, Herndon, who resided at 624 Chestnut, went into the house

Although multiple witnesses observed the ensuing events their recollections are inconsistent, some asserting that Herndon produced a gun and fired on Williams from the doorway of the house, prompting Williams to return fire, and others contending that Herndon did not have a gun and that Williams opened fire without provocation. Some witnesses recounted hearing only one shot, while others recounted hearing more than one. Regardless of the number of shots fired, one found a target in the victim, John Mason, who lay dying with a gunshot wound to his head.

In the wake of the shooting, the Commonwealth first charged Herndon with two counts each of Aggravated Assault and Reckless Endangerment. Although Williams was aware that the police were then seeking him in connection with the shooting, he did not turn himself in, choosing to remain a fugitive. Following Williams's arrest, the Commonwealth charged him with Robbery as well as Murder of the First, Second, and Third Degrees, respectively, and filed a motion to consolidate both defendants' cases for trial. The trial court, the Honorable Penny L. Blackwell, granted the Commonwealth's motion

and both matters proceeded for trial before the Honorable Michael J. Brillhart.

Williams filed a motion to sever the cases, which Judge Brillhart denied, and the matters were then tried jointly before a jury. At trial, the Commonwealth introduced the testimony of, among others, Officer Lisa Daniels, who first responded at the scene of the shooting; Sargent Troy Bankert, an investigating officer who identified the .45 caliber bullet retrieved from the victim's body; and Pennsylvania State Police corporal David Crumbine, an expert in ballistics. The Commonwealth presented additional testimony from Elana Foster, an expert who analyzed Herndon's clothing for gunshot residue; and Dr. Barbara Bollinger, the forensic pathologist who autopsied the victim's body. The Commonwealth also called multiple eyewitnesses to the shooting who testified concerning how many shots they had heard and whether they had seen Herndon with a gun.

In defense, Herndon elected to testify on his own behalf and called three additional witnesses, each of whom attested that they heard only one gunshot. Herndon asserted that he was innocent of any crime and did not have a gun during the events in question. Finally, Williams also testified and acknowledged that he approached the group in front of 624 Chestnut Street carrying a .45 caliber handgun and questioned them about having robbed him. Although Williams also acknowledged having discharged the weapon, he contended that he had done so defensively in response to gunfire by Herndon.

(Doc. 54-6).

Convicted at trial, Williams was sentenced on April 3, 2009 to an aggregate sentence of 30 - 60 years' incarceration for Third Degree Murder and Robbery. On April 27, 2009, Williams filed a timely direct appeal to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which affirmed his conviction and sentence on June 10, 2011. On July 8, 2011 Williams filed a timely petition for allocatur to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which was denied on July 16, 2012.

Williams then promptly filed a petition under Pennsylvania's Post-Conviction Relief Act seeking collateral review of this conviction on August 14, 2012. Due to some procedural mishaps, there was an initial delay in adjudicating this state PCRA petition, delay which led Williams to file this federal habeas corpus petition. Ultimately, that delay was resolved in the state courts, and we stayed consideration of Williams' federal petition in order to allow Williams to fully exhaust his state court remedies and filed an amended comprehensive federal habeas corpus petition at the conclusion of the state PCRA litigation.

That state court PCRA litigation drew to a close by August of 2020, after the state court's denied Williams' various requests for post-conviction relief. Williams then filed this amended federal habeas corpus petition on November 17, 2020. (Doc. 46). In this amended petition, Williams presents six claims which he asserts warrant habeas corpus relief. First, Williams contends that the trial court's refusal to sever his case from the trial of his co-defendant, Herndon, violated his right to due process. Second, Williams brings what we regard as a challenge to the legal sufficiency of the robbery charge, alleging that he was unlawfully convicted under a subsection of the law which was never charged against him. Third, Williams brings a due process claim in the nature of an allegation that the Commonwealth withheld evidence which supported a newly discovered evidence on his part.

Williams' amended habeas corpus petition also leveled three claims of ineffective assistance of counsel, arguing that his counsel was ineffective in: (1) failing to investigate, identify and present an eyewitness, Joseph Griffith at trial; (2) failing to request a cautionary instruction regarding the use of demonstrative evidence; and (3) failing to request a cautionary instruction regarding the dangers of spillover prejudice and the need to separately consider the evidence as it related to each defendant.

This petition is now fully briefed and ripe for resolution. After review of the petition and the underlying state court records, we find that Williams' claims are without merit, as they have been thoroughly considered by the state courts and properly denied on their merits. Thus, given the deferential standard of review that applies to habeas petitions like Williams', we will recommend that the court deny this petition.

III. Discussion

A. State Prisoner Habeas Relief-The Legal Standard.

1. Substantive Standards

In order to obtain federal habeas corpus relief, a state prisoner seeking to invoke the power of this Court to issue a writ of habeas corpus must satisfy the standards prescribed by 28 U.S.C. § 2254, which provides in part as follows:

(a) The Supreme Court, a Justice thereof, a circuit judge, or a district court shall entertain an application for a writ of habeas corpus in behalf

of a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court only on the ground that he is in custody in violation of the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States.

(b) (1) 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 unless it appears that-

(A) the applicant has exhausted the remedies available in the courts of the State;

(2) An 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.

28 U.S.C. § 2254(a) and (b).

As this statutory text implies, state prisoners must meet exacting substantive and procedural benchmarks in order to obtain habeas corpus relief. At the outset, a petition must satisfy exacting substantive standards to warrant relief. Federal courts may “entertain an application for a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court only on the ground that he is in custody in violation of the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(a). By limiting habeas relief to state conduct which violates “the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States, ” § 2254 places a high threshold on the courts. Typically, habeas relief will only be granted to state prisoners in those instances where the conduct of state proceedings led to a “fundamental defect which inherently results in a complete miscarriage of justice” or was completely inconsistent with rudimentary demands of fair procedure. See e.g., Reed v. Farley, 512 U.S. 339, 354 (1994).

Thus, claimed violations of state law, standing alone, will not entitle a petitioner to § 2254 relief, absent a showing that those violations are so great as to be of a constitutional dimension. See Priester v. Vaughan, 382 F.3d 394, 401-02...