Meas v. Demoura

Filing 48

Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton: ORDER entered. MEMORANDUM AND ORDER: For the foregoing reasons, the letter of Meas dated August 28, 2020, (Docket No. 45 ) treated here as a motion for a certificate of appealability is DENIED.So ordered.(Vieira, Leonardo)

United States District Court
District of Massachusetts

Malein Meas,
Petitioner,
v.
Doug Demoura,
Respondent.

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Civil Action No.
16-12236-NMG

MEMORANDUM & ORDER
GORTON, J.
In March, 2008, a grand jury of the Massachusetts Superior
Court for Middlesex County indicted Malein Meas (“Meas” or
“petitioner”) on one count of murder in the first degree and one
count of carrying a firearm without a license.

A jury trial was

held in November, 2010, in that Court (“the Trial Court”) and
Meas was ultimately convicted on the firearm charge and on the
lesser-included offense of second-degree murder.

He was

sentenced to life imprisonment on the murder conviction and a
concurrent term of four to five years on the firearm conviction.
He is currently incarcerated at the Massachusetts Correctional
Institution in Concord.
Following his convictions, Meas appealed and the
Massachusetts Appeals Court (“the MAC”) affirmed.
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The Supreme

Judicial Court (“SJC”) denied Meas’ application for further
appellate review.

Thereafter, Meas filed a petition for writ of

habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254.

In March, 2020,

this Court entered an order dismissing the habeas petition.
Meas subsequently filed a notice of appeal to the First Circuit
Court of Appeals in May, 2020.
In early September, the Clerk of this Court received a
letter from Meas requesting “a copy of the Certificate of
Appealability.”

Because no such certificate had been filed, the

Court will treat the letter as a motion for a certificate of
appealability (“COA”).
I.

Certificate of Appealability
A.

Legal Standard

Section 2253(c) of Title 28 of the United States Code
provides that a COA may issue “only if the applicant has made a
substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right.” 28
U.S.C. § 2253(c)(2).

In order to make a “substantial showing”,

a petitioner seeking a COA must demonstrate that
reasonable jurists could debate whether (or, for that
matter, agree that) the petition should have been
resolved in a different manner or that the issues
presented were adequate to deserve encouragement to
proceed further.
Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 484 (2000).

To meet the

standard of debatable-among-jurists-of-reason the petitioner
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must prove “something more than the absence of frivolity or the
existence of mere good faith.” Miller-El v. Cockrell, 537 U.S.
322, 338 (2003).
B.

Application

Reasonable jurists would not debate whether Meas’ habeas
petition should have been decided differently.
Meas first alleges violations resulting from the Trial
Court’s purported refusal to rule definitively on his motion for
a required finding of not guilty.

Specifically, he contends

that the Trial Court’s refusal to rule on his motion 1) violated
Mass. R. Crim. P. 25(a), 2) allowed the government to avoid
having to present sufficient evidence to establish his guilt
beyond a reasonable doubt and 3) forced him to testify when he
otherwise would have abstained.
As a preliminary matter, the MAC determined that the Trial
Court did not reserve judgment on Meas’ motion, as he claims,
but instead explicitly denied the motion.

Even assuming,

however, that the Trial Court did fail to rule definitively on
his motion, petitioner’s allegations are without merit.
With respect to petitioner’s first allegation, that the
Trial Court’s failure to rule on his motion violated Mass. R.
Crim. P. 25(a), any alleged failure of the Trial Court to follow
a state court rule of criminal procedure is not an appropriate
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subject for federal habeas review. See Estelle v. McGuire, 502
U.S. 62, 67 (1991).

Therefore, Meas has not made the required

substantial showing of entitlement to habeas relief as to that
claim.
As to petitioner’s other two allegations, Meas cites the
standard in Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307 (1979) to support
his theory that the Trial Court violated his rights by allowing
the government to rest without having presented sufficient
evidence which, in turn, forced him to testify.

The Jackson

decision, however, provides no support for the theory that a
defendant is entitled to a sufficiency finding at the close of
the prosecution’s case.

Furthermore, a federal court

considering a habeas petition raising a Jackson claim must apply
a “twice-deferential standard” that requires upholding the state
court decision unless it was “objectively unreasonable.” Linton
v. Saba, 812 F.3d 112, 123 (1st Cir. 2016).

The MAC determined

that sufficient evidence was presented against petitioner such
that any rational trier of fact could have found the elements of
the crime charged beyond a reasonable doubt. Commonwealth v.
Meas, No. 15-P-710, 2016 WL 1728790, at *6-9 (Mass. App. Ct.
2016).

Because this Court found the analysis of the MAC to be a

reasonable application of clearly established Supreme Court
precedent, reasonable jurists could not debate whether the MAC’s
decision was objectively unreasonable.
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Petitioner also maintains that the Trial Court’s rejection
of two proposed jury instructions violated his right to due
process pursuant to the Fourteenth Amendment to the United
States Constitution.

First, the MAC held that the jury

instructions fully complied with Massachusetts state law, a
ruling which this Court is required to accept. See Rodriguez v.
Spencer, 412 F.3d 29, 37 (1st Cir. 2005).

Second, to the extent

Meas has a claim for denial of due process, he has not properly
exhausted such a claim as required by § 2254 in that he failed
to raise it before the MAC. See Nadworny v. Fair, 872 F.2d 1093,
1098 (1st Cir. 1989) (exhaustion requires the presentation of a
claim in state court that “alert[s] the tribunal to the claim’s
federal quality and approximate contours”). There is no
reference to any federal due process claim in either
petitioner’s submission to the MAC or the resulting opinion of
that Court.
Accordingly, Meas has not made the required substantial
showing of entitlement to either habeas relief or to a
certificate of appealability.

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ORDER
For the foregoing reasons, the letter of Meas dated August
28, 2020, (Docket No. 45) treated here as a motion for a
certificate of appealability is DENIED.

So ordered.

/s/ Nathaniel M. Gorton
Nathaniel M. Gorton
United States District Judge

Dated October 2, 2020

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