Haynes v. Nicholson et al
Filing
17
Enter MEMORANDUM Opinion and Order Signed by the Honorable Elaine E. Bucklo on 12/16/2013. Mailed notice (jdh)
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS
EASTERN DIVISION
HOSEA HAYNES,
Petitioner,
v.
GREG GOSSETT, Acting
Warden, Illinois Riverside
Correctional Center
Respondent.
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No. 13 C 4261
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
Hosea Haynes (“Haynes”) has petitioned this Court for a writ
of habeas corpus to overturn his state conviction for first
degree murder.
I deny Haynes’s petition for the reasons stated
below and also decline to issue a certificate of appealability.
I.
On February 9, 1990, a Northlake, Illinois police officer
approached Haynes at a currency exchange to question him about
the murder of Michael Kelliher (“Kelliher”) one month earlier.1
When the officer pulled Haynes out of line, Haynes said, “I
didn’t mean to hurt that guy, but he was going to hurt me.”
The
police arrested Haynes and provided him with Miranda warnings on
1
On habeas review, the Illinois Appellate Court’s statement of
facts, see Dkt. No. 12 at Ex. A, is presumed correct unless
rebutted by clear and convincing evidence. 28 U.S.C. §
2254(e)(1).
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the way to the station.
(1966).
See Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436
All questioning ended when Haynes asserted the right to
remain silent and asked to speak with an attorney.
The Northlake
police released Haynes without bringing charges.
The Kelliher murder remained a cold case until 1998 when
Illinois police performed DNA analysis on blood found inside a
pocketknife recovered from the Haynes family apartment shortly
after the murder.
After establishing a DNA match between
Kelliher’s blood and the blood inside the pocketknife, the
Northlake police obtained an arrest warrant for Haynes.
Haynes initiated communication with the Northlake police
officers who arrested him in Minnesota on November 5, 1998.
After the police interrupted Haynes to administer fresh Miranda
warnings, he waived his rights and continued talking.
Haynes
stated that he met Kelliher at a bar on the night of the murder
and later went with him to a convenience store.
However, Haynes
did not remember getting into a fight with Kelliher or hurting
him.
In August 2000, Haynes filed a pre-trial motion to suppress
his 1998 statements on the ground that Northlake police knew or
should have known that Haynes invoked the right to remain silent
and requested an attorney in 1990 and could not be reinterrogated about the same crime.
Haynes’s motion.
The trial court denied
A jury subsequently found Haynes guilty of
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first degree murder.
Haynes is currently serving a sixty year
prison sentence at the Illinois River Correctional Center in
Canton, Illinois.
The only issue raised in Haynes’s direct appeal was whether
the trial court should have suppressed his 1998 statements to
Northlake police.
argument.
The Illinois Appellate Court rejected this
See Rule 23 Order (“Or.”), People v. Haynes, No. 1-00-
4151 (Ill. App. Ct. Sept. 27, 2002).
In his pro se petition for leave to appeal (“PLA”), Haynes
raised four new arguments: (1) the state knowingly used perjured
testimony about how Northlake police obtained the pocketknife
containing Kelliher’s blood; (2) Haynes’s trial attorney provided
ineffective assistance by failing to call witnesses who would
have refuted the state’s theory that investigators recovered the
pocketknife while searching the Haynes family apartment; (3)
Haynes’s appellate attorney provided ineffective assistance by
refusing to file a supplemental brief regarding how Northlake
police actually came into possession of the pocketknife; and (4)
the trial court had an affirmative duty to advise Haynes of his
right to be sentenced under the procedures in effect at the time
of the underlying crime.
The Illinois Supreme Court denied
Haynes’s pro se petition for discretionary review on April 2,
2003.
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The Circuit Court of Cook County appointed counsel for
Haynes after he filed a pro se petition for post-conviction
relief based on the state’s alleged use of perjured testimony.
This collateral review proceeding culminated in a counseled PLA
arguing that Haynes’s post-conviction counsel provided
ineffective assistance.
The Illinois Supreme Court denied
Haynes’s second PLA on September 26, 2012.
Haynes now turns to
this Court for relief.
In his pro se habeas petition, Haynes seeks relief on four
grounds: (1) his 1998 statements to Northlake police were
obtained and used in violation of his Fifth Amendment right to
remain silent; (2) his 1998 statements to Northlake police were
obtained and used in violation of his Fifth Amendment right to
the assistance of counsel during custodial interrogations; (3)
the state violated his due process rights by knowingly using
perjured testimony that the Northlake police recovered the
pocketknife during a search of the Haynes family apartment when,
in fact, Haynes’s stepbrother, Sebron Floyd (“Floyd”), turned it
in to the police; and (4) Haynes’s trial counsel was ineffective
for failing to introduce an affidavit from Floyd stating that he
made false statements about the pocketknife after prosecutors
threatened to bring charges against him for withholding evidence
in a murder investigation.
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II.
The Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996
(“AEDPA”), 28 U.S.C. § 2254, governs my review of Haynes’s habeas
petition.
Under AEDPA, when a state court has already
adjudicated the petitioner’s claim(s) on the merits, a federal
court may not grant habeas relief unless the state court’s
decision was (1) “contrary to” or “an unreasonable application
of” Supreme Court precedent, or (2) “based on an unreasonable
determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in
the State court proceeding.”
Id. at § 2254(d).
A.
Haynes has exhausted state remedies because he no longer has
“the right under the law of [Illinois] to raise, by any available
procedure, the question[s] presented.”
Id. at § 2254(c).
However, Respondent argues that Haynes has procedurally defaulted
his claims relating to the state’s alleged use of perjured
testimony and ineffective assistance of trial counsel because
Haynes failed to present these claims through “one complete round
of the State’s established appellate review process.”
O’Sullivan
v. Boerckel, 526 U.S. 838, 845 (1999).
In order to avoid procedural default, a habeas petitioner
“must have directly appealed to the Illinois Appellate Court and
presented the claim in a petition for leave to appeal to the
Illinois Supreme Court.”
Guest v. McCann, 474 F.3d 926, 930 (7th
5
Cir. 2007); see also Lewis v. Sternes, 390 F.3d 1019, 1025-26
(7th Cir. 2004) (“[T]he petitioner must raise the issue at each
and every level in the state court system, including levels at
which review is discretionary rather than mandatory.”).
Although Haynes’s first PLA filed with the Illinois Supreme
Court argued that the state knowingly used perjured testimony and
that his trial attorney was ineffective, he did not raise these
claims before the Illinois Appellate Court.
This omission at the
intermediate appellate stage results in procedural default.
See
Castille v. Peoples, 489 U.S. 346, 351 (1989) (a claim raised
“for the first and only time” in a petition for discretionary
review to the state’s highest court has not been fairly presented
to the state courts); Alvarez v. McGinnis, 4 F.3d 531, 534-5 (7th
Cir. 1993) (“A claim is not fairly presented if done for the
first time in a procedural context in which the reviewing court
exercises only discretionary review.”).
“[A] district court may excuse procedural default if the
petitioner can demonstrate either (a) cause for the default and
prejudice (i.e., the errors worked to the petitioner's actual and
substantial disadvantage,); or (b) that failure to consider his
claim would result in a fundamental miscarriage of justice (i.e.,
a claim of actual innocence).”
Weddington v. Zatecky, 721 F.3d
456, 465 (7th Cir. 2013) (internal quotations omitted).
Haynes
has not attempted to excuse his procedural defaults in either his
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petition or reply brief, so I need not address this issue.
Wilson v. Briley, 243 F.3d 325, 329 (7th Cir. 2001).
Before turning to the merits, I note that Haynes did not
argue in either PLA he filed with the Illinois Supreme Court that
his 1998 statements should have been suppressed.
Accordingly,
his Fifth Amendment claims based on Miranda appear to be
procedurally defaulted as well, but Respondent has not raised
this argument.
Because Haynes’s Fifth Amendment claims are
without merit, I reject them on that basis.
B.
To prevail on the merits, Haynes must show that the Illinois
Appellate Court’s rejection of his suppression claims was
contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly
established Supreme Court precedent.
Haynes argues that any statements he made to the Northlake
police in 1998 are inadmissible because he invoked the right to
remain silent and requested an attorney eight years earlier.
Haynes is correct that police must stop questioning a suspect in
custody who indicates that he wishes to remain silent or requests
an attorney.
Miranda, 384 U.S. at 473-4.
However, Miranda does
not establish a per se rule against any future questioning of the
same suspect regarding the same crime.
See Michigan v. Mosley,
423 U.S. 96, 101 (1975) (noting that Miranda “does not state
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under what circumstances, if any, a resumption of questioning is
permissible”).
The Supreme Court has established separate tests for
determining when police may resume questioning a suspect who
previously invoked the right to remain silent and/or the right to
counsel during custodial interrogations.
Accordingly, I analyze
these as separate issues.
1.
In Mosley, the Supreme Court explained that “the
admissibility of statements obtained after the person in custody
has decided to remain silent depends under Miranda on whether his
right to cut off questioning was scrupulously honored.”
104 (internal quotations omitted).
Id. at
Whether police “scrupulously
honored” a suspect’s right to remain silent depends on “the
amount of time that lapsed between interrogations; the scope of
the second interrogation; whether new Miranda warnings were
given; and the degree to which police officers pursued further
interrogation once the suspect had invoked his right to silence.”
U.S. v. Schwensow, 151 F.3d 650, 658 (7th Cir. 1998) (citing
Mosley, 423 U.S. at 104-5).
“[T]he constitutionality of a
subsequent police interview depends not on its subject matter but
rather on whether the police, in conducting the interview, sought
to undermine the suspect's resolve to remain silent.”
659.
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Id. at
Here, the Illinois Appellate Court concluded that Northlake
police scrupulously honored Haynes’s right to remain silent
because the police (1) immediately stopped questioning Haynes in
1990 when he invoked this right and released him shortly
thereafter; (2) did not attempt to resume questioning for more
than eight years; and (3) provided a fresh set of Miranda
warnings before questioning Haynes in 1998.
Or. at 10-11.
This
conclusion is a reasonable application of Mosley, where the
Supreme Court held that a suspect’s incriminating statement was
admissible even though only two hours passed before the police
resumed questioning.
423 U.S. at 106 (characterizing two hours
as “a significant period of time”).
Haynes’s reliance on People v. Nielson, 718 N.E.2d 131 (Ill.
1999), and People v. Mendez, 749 N.E.2d 391 (Ill. App. Ct. 2001),
is unavailing because AEDPA does not permit a habeas court to
grant relief based on state precedents.
Moreover, in both cases,
the court held that the suspect’s right to remain silent was
“scrupulously honored” given that more than two hours elapsed
between the first and second custodial interrogations.
See
Nielson, 718 N.E.2d at 143; Mendez, 749 N.E.2d at 400.
In sum, Haynes has not demonstrated that the Illinois
Appellate Court’s application of Mosley to the facts of his case-where more than eight and a half year passed before police reinterrogated him--was unreasonable.
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2.
The Supreme Court has established stronger safeguards
against re-interrogation of suspects who invoke the Fifth
Amendment right to counsel.
In Edwards v. Arizona, 451 U.S. 477
(1981), the Court held that “when an accused has invoked his
right to have counsel present during custodial interrogation, a
valid waiver of that right cannot be established by showing only
that he responded to further police-initiated custodial
interrogation even if he has been advised of his rights.”
Id. at
484.
If the police do subsequently initiate an encounter in
the absence of counsel (assuming there has been no
break in custody), the suspect's statements are
presumed involuntary and therefore inadmissible as
substantive evidence at trial, even where the suspect
executes a waiver and his statements would be
considered voluntary under traditional standards.
McNeil v. Wisconsin, 501 U.S. 171, 177 (1991).
The Edwards
presumption of involuntariness “is designed to prevent police
from badgering a defendant into waiving his previously asserted
Miranda rights.”
Michigan v. Harvey, 494 U.S. 344, 350 (1990).
After citing Edwards as the governing precedent, the
Illinois Appellate Court noted that Haynes initiated
communication with the Northlake police rather than vice versa.
“The police did not initiate any discussion with [Haynes] nor did
they attempt any coercive measures to encourage [him] to make a
statement.”
Op. at 9.
When the police detective interrupted
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Haynes to remind him of his Miranda rights, Haynes expressly
waived these rights and went on to describe his recollection of
the night Kelliher was murdered.
Based on these facts, the
Illinois Appellate Court reasonably concluded that the Edwards
presumption of involuntariness no longer applied because “the
accused himself initiate[d] further communication, exchanges, or
conversations with police.”
Edwards, 451 U.S. at 485.
The Edwards presumption is also inapplicable to Haynes’s
situation because eight and a half years passed between his first
and second interrogations.
See Maryland v. Shatzer, 559 U.S. 98,
106-7 (2010) (noting that Supreme Court has applied Edwards
presumption only where suspect was held in “uninterrupted
pretrial custody” between first and second interrogations).
The
long break in custody between Haynes’s first and second
interrogations also distinguishes his case from People v. Lira,
742 N.E.2d 885 (Ill. App. Ct. 2001), where the court suppressed
incriminating statements a suspect made during his second
interrogation “on the same afternoon within a matter of a few
hours” while being held in “continuous police custody.”
891.
Id. at
Haynes’s reliance on Lira is also misplaced because the
case is not clearly established Supreme Court precedent and
therefore cannot serve as the basis for habeas relief under
AEDPA’s stringent standards.
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III.
Haynes’s habeas petition is DENIED for the reasons stated
above.
I also decline to issue a certificate of appealability
because Haynes has not made “a substantial showing of the denial
of a constitutional right,” 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(2), or
established that “jurists of reason would find it debatable
whether the district court was correct in its procedural
ruling[s],” Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 484 (2000).
ENTER ORDER:
_____________________________
Elaine E. Bucklo
United States District Judge
Dated: December 16, 2013
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