Mejia v. Harrington et al

Filing 21

MEMORANDUM Opinion and Order Signed by the Honorable Charles P. Kocoras on 1/10/2014.(nf, )

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS
EASTERN DIVISION
United States of America ex rel.
MICHAEL MEJIA, K831363,
Petitioner,
v.
RICK HARRINGTON, Warden,
Menard Correctional Center,
Respondent.

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13 C 3403

MEMORANDUM OPINION
CHARLES P. KOCORAS, District Judge:
This case comes before the Court on the petition for a writ of habeas corpus
filed by petitioner Michael Mejia (“Mejia”) pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254 (“Section
2254”). For the reasons stated below, the Court denies the petition and declines to
issue a certificate of appealability.
BACKGROUND
Following a jury trial in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois, Mejia was
convicted of first degree murder and aggravated discharge of a firearm. The trial
court originally sentenced Mejia to thirty years for the murder conviction and twentyfive years for attempted first degree murder, to be served concurrently. However, the
trial court erred when it sentenced Mejia for attempted murder, a charge that had been

dismissed, instead of his aggravated discharge of a firearm conviction. The trial court
then resentenced Mejia to concurrent sentences of thirty years for first degree murder
and ten years for aggravated discharge of a firearm. Mejia is currently incarcerated at
the Menard Correctional Center in Menard, Illinois, where he is in the custody of the
warden of that facility, Defendant Richard Harrington (“Harrington”).
Mejia directly appealed his convictions, and on March 30, 2004, the Illinois
Appellate Court affirmed his convictions (except for requiring the trial court to
resentence him on the correct aggravated discharge of a firearm conviction). Mejia
filed a petition for leave to appeal (“PLA”) with the Illinois Supreme Court. On
October 6, 2004, the Illinois Supreme Court denied Mejia’s PLA.
On July 25, 2003, while his direct appeal was pending, Mejia filed a pro se
post-conviction petition alleging various claims. Mejia then amended his petition,
adding more claims. The trial court dismissed all but one—it ordered an evidentiary
hearing on Mejia’s claim that he was actually innocent based upon three alleged
recantation affidavits.
At the evidentiary hearing on January 8, 2010, the evidence established that
none of the alleged affiants had signed or authored the affidavits and that the notary
seal affixed to the affidavits had been stolen around the time that the affidavits were
dated. The trial court found that the affidavits were fraudulent and deemed Mejia’s
actual innocence claim meritless.

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After the evidentiary hearing, the circuit court denied Mejia’s post-conviction
petition after finding that the proffered affidavits in support of his actual innocence
claims were fraudulent. His motion to reconsider was denied. On December 6, 2010,
Mejia filed a notice of appeal.
On January 12, 2012, Mejia’s appointed appellate counsel moved to withdraw
pursuant to Pennsylvania v. Finley, 481 U.S. 551 (1987), because he concluded that
an appeal would be without arguable merit. Mejia answered with a motion to proceed
pro se and a response to the Finley motion. After careful examination of the record,
the Illinois Appellate Court granted the Finley motion and affirmed the order of the
circuit court, finding no issues of arguable merit to be asserted on appeal.

On

September 26, 2012, the Illinois Supreme Court denied Mejia’s post-conviction PLA.
Mejia filed his first federal habeas petition in 2009 pursuant to Section 2254. It
was dismissed without prejudice for failure to exhaust state remedies. After fully
exhausting his state court remedies, Mejia filed this timely federal habeas petition on
May 6, 2013.
DISCUSSION
Mejia raises the following arguments in his habeas petition: (A) the Illinois
Department of Corrections (“IDOC”) unconstitutionally added a three-year mandatory
supervised release (“MSR”) term to Mejia’s sentence (“Claim A”); (B) the evidence
was insufficient to convict (“Claim B”); (C) Mejia was denied due process when the
trial court allowed Detective Butler (“Butler”) to testify to Mejia’s post-arrest
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statements regarding his gang membership and tattoos, including publication of
photos of Mejia’s tattoos to the jury (“Claim C”); (D) Mejia was denied due process
when the trial court permitted the jury to see inflammatory photos of the victim
(“Claim D”); (E) Mejia was denied due process and a fair trial when the prosecutor,
during closing argument, misstated the law of accountability, misstated the evidence,
improperly argued the relevance of Mejia’s tattoos, shifted the burden to the defense,
and improperly argued that witnesses were afraid (“Claim E”); (F) the admission of
Vanessa Rios’s (“Rios”) written statement violated Mejia’s rights under the
Confrontation Clause (“Claim F”); (G) trial counsel was ineffective for having failed
to: (1) object to the prosecutor’s misstatement of the law and inflammatory statements
during closing argument (“Allegation G1”); (2) object to the admission of
inflammatory exhibits, the prejudicial effect of which outweighed their probative
value (“Allegation G2”); (3) object to the admission of Rios’s written statement as
involuntary (“Allegation G3”); (4) object to the trial court’s use of Illinois Pattern
Instruction (“IPI”) 3.06-3.07 regarding Mejia’s statements to police without first
determining that Mejia’s admissions had been made voluntarily and in a manner that
suggested he had made the statements (“Allegation G4”); (5) request that the trial
court redact portions of Rios’s written statement as speculation (“Allegation G5”);
(6) request that the trial court redact portions of Rios’s grand jury testimony as
speculative (“Allegation G6”); (7) move to suppress Mejia’s statements regarding his
tattoo and gang involvement (“Allegation G7”); (8) call Mejia to testify on his own
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behalf (“Allegation G8”); (9) adequately inform Mejia of his right to testify
(“Allegation G9”); (10) request an accomplice-witness instruction for Rios’s written
statement (“Allegation G10”); and (11) preserve the issues set forth in Mejia’s postconviction petition (“Allegation G11”) (collectively “Claim G”); (H) appellate
counsel was ineffective for having failed to: (1) argue that the prosecutor’s statements
in closing argument implicated Mejia’s right to remain silent in violation of the Fifth
Amendment (“Allegation H1”); and (2) raise unspecified “wholly meritorious” issues
(“Allegation H2”) (collectively “Claim H”); and (I) all Illinois state courts violated
federal law as established by the United States Supreme Court (“Claim I”).
I. Claims A, B, C, D, E, G7, and I
A. Procedural Default
Harrington argues that Mejia failed to exhaust Claims A, B, C, D, E, and G7.
With respect to Claim I, even though Harrington does not mention it in his answer,
this Court will determine whether Mejia fully exhausted it in direct or state collateral
proceedings. A petitioner must present his claims to all levels of the Illinois courts to
avoid procedural default. See Smith v. Gaetz, 565 F.3d 346, 352 (7th Cir. 2009) (to
preserve a claim for federal habeas review, petitioner “was required to raise the claim
at each level of state court review: in his initial post-conviction petition, in his appeal
to the Illinois Appellate Court, and in his Petition for Leave to Appeal (PLA) to the
Illinois Supreme Court”). To fairly present a claim to the Illinois Supreme Court, a
petitioner must set it forth in his PLA and cannot direct the court to review other
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documents in the record. See Baldwin v. Reese, 541 U.S. 27, 32 (2004). At each level
of state review, a petitioner must provide operative facts and legal principles that
control each claim to the state courts. Wilson v. Briley, 243 F.3d 325, 327 (7th Cir.
2001). A “passing reference” to a constitutional right does not fairly present a claim.
Chambers v. McCaughtry, 264 F.3d 732, 738 (7th Cir. 2001). It is not enough for the
state claim and the federal claim to arise from the same facts—instead the federal
court must ask “whether the petitioner has framed his claim in the state proceedings in
a way that brings to mind a specific constitutional right, and whether he has alleged a
set of facts well within the mainstream of constitutional litigation.” Lieberman v.
Thomas, 505 F.3d 665, 670 (7th Cir. 2007) (internal quotation marks omitted). The
federal court must assess “whether the petitioner alerted the state court to the federal
nature of his claim in a manner sufficient to allow that court to address the issue on a
federal basis.” Id. at 670.
1. Claims A, C, D, E, and G7
Mejia argues that he fully presented Claim A, which states that the IDOC
unconstitutionally added a three-year term of MSR to his sentence. Harrington claims
that Mejia failed to present this claim in his post-conviction trial court petition,
thereby rendering it procedurally defaulted. Harrington is correct. Mejia argued in
his amended post-conviction petition that the reenacted Illinois’s Truth-in-Sentencing
Act violated the Illinois Constitution by denying first degree murder defendants the
ability to receive good conduct credit and by classifying all persons convicted of first
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degree murder as similarly situated. Mejia did not mention if there was a federal
nature to this claim. He only argued a violation of the Illinois statute, and it is not
enough that this state claim in his amended post-conviction petition and Claim A arise
from the same facts. Therefore, this Court holds that Mejia failed to properly present
Claim A to the trial court in his post-conviction proceedings because he did not alert
the court of any possible federal issue contained in Claim A. Claim A is procedurally
defaulted.
As for Claim C, Mejia alleges he was denied due process when the trial court
permitted Butler’s testimony about Mejia’s post-arrest statements regarding gang
affiliation and tattoos, including publication of photos of his tattoos to the jury.
Mejia presented this claim on direct appeal and in his direct appeal PLA. However,
Harrington suggests that when Mejia presented this claim, he only did so as an issue
of Illinois evidentiary law, not federal law. Construing the claim liberally due to
Mejia’s pro se status, this Court will assume arguendo that the claim is cognizable for
the sake of this analysis. See Perruquet v. Briley, 390 F.3d 505, 512 (7th Cir. 2004).
This Court is required to determine whether the admission of the testimony and
photos regarding Mejia’s tattoos and gang affiliation was so severe that it deprived
him of due process. See Anderson v. Sternes, 243 F.3d 1049, 1053 (7th Cir. 2001)
(due process does entitle a defendant to a fair trial; but only if the state court
committed an error so serious as to render it likely that an innocent person was
convicted can the error be described as a deprivation of due process). It is axiomatic
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that “errors of state law in and of themselves are not cognizable on habeas review.”
Perruquet, 390 F.3d at 511. “[O]nly if a state court's errors have deprived the
petitioner of a right under federal law can the federal court intervene.” Id. Matters of
evidentiary rulings are usually beyond the scope of federal habeas review. Id.
While Mejia argued to the Illinois Courts in his direct appeal papers that the
evidence about his gang affiliation and tattoos had been improperly admitted into
evidence, he never mentioned a due process violation. Regardless, these alleged
errors of state law, themselves, are not cognizable on habeas review because they do
not reach to the level of fundamental unfairness or deprive Mejia of his constitutional
due process rights. Therefore, Claim C is denied.
In Claim D, Mejia alleges that he was denied due process of law when the trial
court permitted the jury to see inflammatory photos of the victim in his postconviction petition. Harrington avers that Mejia did not present Claim D in his postconviction appeal or post-conviction PLA. In his reply, Mejia responds that he
presented Claim D in his response to the Finley motion and in his post-conviction
PLA. After closely reviewing the record, the Court agrees that Mejia did present
arguments in those papers about his trial counsel’s failure to object to the trial court’s
erroneous admission of inflammatory exhibits to the jury and that the prejudicial
effect of admitting these exhibits served to deny him his right to a fair trial. Since the
Illinois Appellate Court granted the Finley motion, and in doing so, wrote that it had
carefully reviewed the record and found no arguable issue of merit, such a disposition
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is a decision on the merits, and this Court will again accept, for the sake of argument,
that Claim D is a cognizable claim. See Wilkinson v. Cowan, 231 F.3d 347, 350-52
(7th Cir. 2000). Even on that assumption, the trial court’s decision to allow the jury to
see photos of the victim was a state evidentiary ruling beyond the scope of federal
habeas review. Similar to Mejia’s other claims that the state court made evidentiary
errors, this Court finds that allowing the jury to see these photos of the victim did not
deprive Mejia of due process and Claim D is therefore denied.
Mejia asserts in Claim E that he was denied a fair trial when the prosecutor
misstated the law of accountability, shifted the burden to the defense, and improperly
argued during closing argument that witnesses were afraid. Harrington claims that
while Mejia fully presented this claim on direct appeal before the Illinois Supreme
Court in his PLA, he addressed it in only a single sentence, stating: “The State made
numerous improper comments designed to prejudice Petitioner’s right to a fair trial
and its decision conflicts with many decisions of this Court specifically People v.
Mullen (1990) 141 Ill.2d 394.” Mejia responds by claiming that he fully presented
this claim to the Illinois Supreme Court by attaching the appellate briefs and appellate
court order to his PLA. This Court concludes that the vague reference in Mejia’s
direct appeal PLA and his attached documents fall short of providing any supportive
operative facts or legal principles that would have assisted the Illinois Supreme Court
in making a full and fair assessment of Mejia’s federal claim. Indeed, Harrington is
correct that Mullen is an Illinois Supreme Court case that does not apply federal law
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and would not have alerted the state court of any federal nature of Mejia’s claim.
Claim E is denied.
Harrington claims that Allegation G7, which states that Mejia’s trial counsel
was ineffective for having failed to move to suppress Mejia’s statements regarding his
tattoos and gang involvement is procedurally defaulted because Mejia failed to
present it to the post-conviction trial court.

Mejia responds that he included

Allegation G7 in his amended petition for post-conviction relief, satisfying the
exhaustion requirement. After carefully reviewing the record, this Court agrees with
Mejia. Thus, Allegation G7 will be addressed with the other ineffective assistance of
trial counsel allegations in Part IV, infra.
2. Claims B and I
Mejia posits in Claim B that there was insufficient evidence to convict him
beyond a reasonable doubt. Harrington argues that Mejia only presented this claim on
direct appeal, not in his direct appeal PLA or post-conviction proceedings. Mejia’s
appointed appellate counsel included the following statements in the direct appeal
PLA: (i) “While the evidence against the shooter was undeniably strong, the evidence
against Petitioner, who simply stood next to the shooter, was non-existent”; and
(ii) “The evidence failed to establish either the existence of a prior plan or that
Petitioner performed any actions which aided and abetted the undisputed shooter.
Therefore, the evidence failed to establish Petitioner’s guilt beyond a reasonable
doubt.”
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The Court concludes that these allegations in Mejia’s PLA overlap with what
Mejia alleges in his habeas petition as Claim E, that he was denied a fair trial when
the prosecutor misstated the law of accountability. Besides these passing references
intertwined in Claim E, Mejia failed to provide operative facts and legal principles to
fully present Claim B. He also did not directly include this specific claim in any of
his post-conviction papers.

Thus, Mejia failed to present Claim B through one

complete round of state court review in either direct or state post-conviction
proceedings. Claim B is therefore denied.
Regarding Claim I, Mejia asserts that all courts violated clearly established
federal law as determined by the United States Supreme Court. Neither Harrington in
his answer nor Mejia in his reply addresses Claim I. After reviewing the record,
Claim I was not fully and fairly presented to the state court in either direct or postconviction proceedings. Claim I is procedurally defaulted.
B. Exceptions to Procedural Default
The Court must now consider whether any instances of procedural default can
be excused. A federal court may not grant relief on a procedurally defaulted claim
unless the petitioner can establish cause for the default and actual prejudice as a result
of the alleged violation of federal law or demonstrate that the court’s failure to
consider the claim will result in a miscarriage of justice. See Coleman v. Thompson,
501 U.S. 722, 750 (1991).

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The cause and prejudice exception applies when “some objective factor
external to the defense impeded [the petitioner’s] efforts to comply with the State’s
procedural rule.”

Strickler v. Greene, 527 U.S. 263, 282 n. 24 (1999).

The

fundamental miscarriage of justice exception applies in “situations where the
constitutional violation has probably resulted in a conviction of one who is actually
innocent.” Dellinger v. Bowen, 301 F.3d 758, 767 (7th Cir. 2002) (citing Schlup v.
Delo, 513 U.S. 298, 327 (1995)). To show actual innocence, a petitioner must present
“new, reliable evidence of his innocence” so convincing that ‘“in light of the new
evidence, no juror, acting reasonably, would have voted to find him guilty beyond a
reasonable doubt.’” Woods v. Schwartz, 589 F.3d 368, 377 (7th Cir. 2009) (quoting
Schlup, 513 U.S. at 329); see Gomez v. Jaimet, 350 F.3d 673, 679 (7th Cir. 2003) (“To
support a colorable claim of actual innocence, the petitioner must come forward with
new reliable evidence—whether it be exculpatory scientific evidence, trustworthy
eyewitness accounts, or critical physical evidence—that was not presented at trial.”)
(internal quotation marks omitted).
Because Mejia has pursued neither the cause and prejudice nor the fundamental
miscarriage of justice exceptions in his habeas petition, this Court finds that his
defaults cannot be excused. See, e.g., Crockett v. Hulick, 542 F.3d 1183, 1193 (7th
Cir. 2008). For the sake of thoroughness, the Court will address Mejia’s assertion that
Martinez v. Ryan applies as an exception to procedural default of Allegation G7, an
ineffective assistance of trial counsel claim. 132 S. Ct. 1309 (2012). However, this
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Court has already established that Mejia did not procedurally default Allegation G7,
so Martinez is inapposite.
II. Claim F—Right to Confrontation
Mejia alleges that he was denied due process and his Sixth Amendment
confrontation right was violated when the trial court submitted Rios’s written
statement to the jury without allowing his trial counsel to cross-examine her on it.
Harrington argues that Mejia forfeited this claim on direct appeal when he challenged
the admissibility of the statement, but not under the Confrontation Clause.
Harrington also suggests that Claim F is meritless because Rios testified at trial and
was subject to cross-examination.
In her written statements, Rios provided descriptions and observations of the
night of the shooting. She also testified at Mejia’s trial and when asked certain
questions, she gave answers inconsistent with her written statement and grand jury
testimony. Rios admitted that she had made up the written statement and lied to the
grand jury because she had been scared.

Because Rios provided inconsistent

statements at trial, the trial court allowed both of the prior statements to be admitted as
substantive evidence.

During trial, she was available for cross-examination by

Mejia’s counsel.
With respect to the merits of Claim F, to obtain relief, Mejia must show that
there is a clearly established Supreme Court precedent addressing this issue, and that
the state court’s decision was contrary to or an unreasonable application of that
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precedent. See Carey v. Musladin, 549 U.S. 70, 76-77 (2006). The Supreme Court
has held that trial courts have wide discretion to limit cross-examination. Delaware v.
Van Arsdall, 475 U.S. 673, 679 (1986). As long as the trial court does not curtail
cross-examination to the point that the defendant is unable to expose the witness’s
bias and motivation to lie, the reasonable limitations imposed by the court do not rise
to the level of a Sixth Amendment violation. Id. at 678-79. If the defendant is given
sufficient opportunity “to expose a motive to lie, it is of peripheral concern to the
Sixth Amendment how much opportunity defense counsel gets to hammer that point
home to the jury.” United States v. Nelson, 39 F.3d 705, 708 (7th Cir. 1994).
The Illinois Appellate Court held in its March 30, 2004 order that the trial court
had not erred when it admitted Rios’s prior statements because it had been in the trial
court’s sound discretion to admit the evidence. This Court agrees. The Confrontation
Clause does not restrain the admission of Rios’s written statements since she had been
subject to cross-examination during Mejia’s trial. See Crawford v. Washington, 541
U.S. 36, 59 n. 9 (2004) (citing California v. Green, 399 U.S. 149, 162 (1970)) (“When
the declarant appears for cross-examination at trial, the Confrontation Clause places
no constraints at all on the use of his prior testimonial statements.”). As Mejia’s
counsel had the opportunity to cross-examine Rios and elicit evidence for the jury to
evaluate any bias or motive she may have had, this Court finds that Mejia’s
confrontation right was not violated.

Therefore, the Illinois Appellate Court’s

rejection of Mejia’s claim that the trial court violated his confrontation right because
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Rios’s inconsistent statements were admitted as substantive evidence is not contrary
to or an unreasonable application of Supreme Court precedent. Claim F is denied.
III. Claim H—Ineffective Assistance of Appellate Counsel
Mejia asserts two specific allegations in his ineffective assistance of appellate
counsel claim. These claims are not procedurally defaulted and will be addressed on
the merits. Mejia alleges that his appellate counsel was ineffective for having failed
to argue that the prosecutor’s statements in closing argument implicated Mejia’s right
to remain silent in violation of the Fifth Amendment (Allegation H1), and his
appellate counsel failed to raise unspecified “wholly meritorious” issues (Allegation
H2). Harrington argues both allegations are meritless.
Claims of ineffective assistance of appellate counsel are measured against the
same standard as those dealing with ineffective assistance of trial counsel established
in Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984). Howard v. Gramley, 225 F.3d 784,
789–90 (7th Cir. 2000). A petitioner who contends that appellate counsel rendered
ineffective assistance of counsel must show that the failure to raise an issue on direct
appeal was objectively unreasonable and that the decision prejudiced petitioner in the
sense that there is a reasonable probability that his case would have been remanded
for a new trial or that the decision of the state trial court would have been otherwise
modified on appeal. Id. at 790.
As the Supreme Court has noted, the hallmark of effective appellate advocacy
is to winnow out weaker arguments on appeal and focus on the issues more likely to
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prevail.

Smith v. Murray, 477 U.S. 527, 536 (1986).

Performance is deemed

insufficient when counsel omits a “significant and obvious issue” without a legitimate
strategic reason for doing so. Mason v. Hanks, 97 F.3d 887, 893 (7th Cir. 1996).
In the instant case, after Mejia was arrested, he was given his Miranda rights
and waived his right to remain silent. He then gave a statement to the police,
revealing his gang affiliation and denying his involvement in the shooting. In his
closing argument, the prosecutor stated: “He [Mejia] never said hey police officers,
get me out of this mess. I want nothing to do with it.” In evaluating prosecutorial
misconduct, it is not enough that a prosecutor's remarks were “undesirable or even
universally condemned. The relevant question is whether the prosecutors' comments
so infected the trial with unfairness as to make the resulting conviction a denial of due
process.” Darden v. Wainwright, 477 U.S. 168, 181 (1986).
Upon review of the record, this Court determines that Mejia’s appellate counsel
produced one hundred pages of well-researched arguments in his appellate brief,
raising five distinct issues on appeal. His appellate counsel focused on the issues
regarding the State’s accountability case, not the comments the prosecutor made
during his closing arguments. However, that decision to emphasize the issues Mejia’s
appellate counsel thought would succeed was an effective assistance in the sense that
it led to a sentence reduction of ten years.

This Court finds that the appellate

counsel’s choice not to address the prosecutor’s closing argument was not objectively
unreasonable under Strickland. Allegations H1 and H2 are not more meritorious than
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the other issues Mejia’s appellate counsel raised, and habeas relief based on Claim H
must therefore be denied.
IV. Claim G—Ineffective Assistance of Trial Counsel
Mejia argues that his trial counsel was ineffective in eleven respects. The
Court listed these arguments in the Background section of this opinion and declines to
relist them here for the sake of brevity. It has been established in Part I, supra, that
Allegation G7 is not procedurally defaulted and is included in Claim G.
As seen in Part III, supra, Strickland governs ineffective assistance of counsel
claims. Under Strickland, to establish an ineffective assistance of counsel claim,
Mejia must show that: (i) his counsel’s performance fell below an objective standard
of reasonableness; and (ii) he suffered substantial prejudice as a result. See 466 U.S.
at 674. To judge the reasonableness of the state court’s adjudication, this Court must
“determine what arguments or theories supported or, as here, could have supported,
the state court’s decision.” Harrington v. Richter, 131 S. Ct. 770, 786 (2011). The
“bar for establishing that a state court's application of the Strickland standard was
‘unreasonable’ is a high one.” Murrell v. Frank, 332 F.3d 1102, 1111 (7th Cir. 2003).
After Mejia’s post-conviction appointed counsel moved to withdraw under
Finley, the Illinois Appellate Court reviewed Mejia’s ineffective assistance of trial
counsel claims on the merits and rejected them in a summary order. Harrington relies
on the Illinois Appellate Court’s dismissal of this claim when granting the Finley
motion and argues the Illinois Appellate Court’s adjudication of this claim was a
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reasonable application of the law. No issues of arguable merit had been asserted in
Mejia’s appeal, so the Illinois Appellate Court affirmed the circuit court’s order
denying it.
After thoroughly reviewing the record, taking careful note of the findings
within the Finley motion and summary order, this Court agrees that the Illinois
Appellate Court’s rejection of Mejia’s ineffective assistance of trial counsel claim
(and Allegations G1-G11) was reasonable. Although the Illinois Appellate Court’s
summary order did not provide detailed reasoning for why it had dismissed Mejia’s
ineffective assistance of counsel claim, there is no reason for this Court to determine
what arguments could have supported the Illinois Appellate Court’s decision.
Nothing in the record indicates that there was an unreasonable application of the
controlling law to the facts because each of the ineffective assistance of trial counsel
allegations in Mejia’s laundry-list lacked merit and failed to show that Mejia faced
substantial prejudice as a result.

A trial counsel’s decisions to present certain

witnesses, defenses, or evidence receive much deference because they are strategic
choices and “because of the distorting effect of hindsight in making a post hoc
assessment of counsel's strategic assessments.” Vera-Natal v. Hulick, 05 C 1500,
2005 WL 3005613 (N.D. Ill. Nov. 7, 2005); see also Fountain v. United States, 211
F.3d 429, 434 (7th Cir. 2000) (“[M]any trial determinations, like so many other
decisions that an attorney must make in the course of representation, are a matter of
professional judgment.

Thus, we must resist a natural temptation to become a
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‘Monday morning quarterback.” ’) (internal punctuation and citations omitted). Thus,
this Court declines to delve into specific reasons why each of the eleven fullyexhausted allegations fail under Strickland because it has found that the state court
decision was not contrary to clearly established federal law.
All of Mejia’s claims, therefore, fail to satisfy the standard for habeas relief.
Accordingly, this Court denies his habeas petition.
V. Certificate of Appealability
Pursuant to Rule 11(a) of the Rules Governing Section 2254 Cases, which
provides that the district court must issue or deny a certificate of appealability when it
enters “a final order adverse to the applicant,” the court turns to whether a certificate
of appealability should be issued. Under 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(2), “(1) [a] certificate of
appealability may be issued only if the prisoner has at least one substantial
constitutional question for appeal; (2)[t]he certificate must identify each substantial
constitutional question; (3)[i]f there is a substantial constitutional issue, and an
antecedent non-constitutional issue independently is substantial, then the certificate
may include that issue as well; (4)[a]ny substantial non-constitutional issue must be
identified specifically in the certificate; [and] (5)[i]f success on a non-constitutional
issue is essential (compliance with the statute of limitations is a good example), and
there is no substantial argument that the district judge erred in resolving the nonconstitutional question, then no certificate of appealability should issue even if the

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constitutional question standing alone would have justified an appeal.” Davis v.
Borgen, 349 F.3d 1027, 1029 (7th Cir. 2003).
Based on the reasons stated in this opinion, Mejia has not established “that
reasonable jurists could debate whether the challenges in his habeas petition should
have been resolved differently or that his petition adequately shows a sufficient
change of the denial of a constitutional right that he deserves encouragement to
proceed further.” See Rutledge v. United States, 230 F.3d 1041, 1047 (7th Cir. 2000).
Therefore, the Court declines to issue a certificate of appealability.
CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, the Court denies Mejia’s petition for a writ of habeas
corpus and declines to issue a certificate of appealability.

_____________________________________
Charles P. Kocoras
United States District Judge
January 10, 2014
Dated: _________________________

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