Muhammad v. Steele

Filing 26

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that Petitioner Rasheed Muhammad's Motion to Amend Judgment (Doc. No. 25 ) is DENIED. Signed by District Judge Audrey G. Fleissig on 8/15/16. (KXS)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
EASTERN DISTRICT OF MISSOURI
EASTERN DIVISION
RASHEED I. MUHAMMAD,
Petitioner,
v.
TROY STEELE,
Respondent.

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Case No. 4:13-CV-0311-AGF

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER
This matter is before the Court on Petitioner Rasheed Muhammad’s Motion to
Amend Judgment (Doc. No. 25). Petitioner’s motion will be denied.
Petitioner argues that the Court erred in its Memorandum and Order of March 16,
2016, by which the Court denied Petitioner habeas relief, by giving undue weight to the
prosecutor’s statement of the facts as presented at Petitioner’s plea hearing. Petitioner
argues that the facts the Court relied upon “were the prosecutor’s statement of what he
intended to prove.” (Doc. No. 25 at 2.) The statement of these facts was as follows:
There were at least seven people that saw the defendant
engage in a verbal altercation with at least seven people and
one of the friends which was Djuan Rives who - - there may
have been some physical contact between the individuals and
several of the witnesses. They noticed that the defendant had
a gun on him, and several of the witnesses also would testify
that the defendant, after Djuan Rives slipped and fell into
him, that the defendant then pulled this handgun, this 9
millimeter Jennings pistol, and shot the victim once in the
chest and - - which killed him. Witnesses also saw the

defendant hide a 9 millimeter Jennings pistol in the side of a
dumpster which they told police about and was recovered that
night.
Doc. No. 23-2 at 18-19.
However, as explained in the Court’s Memorandum and Order (Doc. No. 23 at 23), Petitioner agreed during his plea hearing that the facts as stated were substantially
correct. The transcript from Petitioner’s plea hearing demonstrates that after being read
the statement of the facts above, Petitioner was asked, “[I]s the evidence as stated by the
assistant prosecuting attorney substantially correct?” Id. at 19. Petitioner replied, “Yes,
sir.” Id.
For the reasons explained in the previous Memorandum and Order, the defenses of
self-defense and the lesser included offenses of voluntary or involuntary manslaughter
were untenable based on the facts as Petitioner agreed to them. Therefore, for all of the
reasons detailed in the Court’s Memorandum and Order of March 16, 2016, Petitioner is
not entitled to federal habeas relief.
CONCLUSION
Accordingly,
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that Petitioner Rasheed Muhammad’s Motion to
Amend Judgment (Doc. No. 25) is DENIED.

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AUDREY G. FLEISSIG
UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
Dated this 15th day of August, 2016.
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