McFadden v. Jennings
Filing
96
MEMORANDUM AND ORDER - IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that Petitioner's motion for reconsideration is DENIED. ECF No. 88 . Signed by Sr. District Judge Audrey G. Fleissig on 1/28/25. (KJS)
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
EASTERN DISTRICT OF MISSOURI
EASTERN DIVISION
VINCENT McFADDEN,
Petitioner,
v.
WILLIAM STANGE,
Respondent.
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No. 4:18-cv-01559-AGF
MEMORANDUM AND ORDER
This matter is before the Court on Petitioner Vincent McFadden’s motion for
reconsideration of the Court’s Order denying Petitioner leave to file supplemental
appendix. ECF No. 88. After the time for Respondent to file a response had passed,
Petitioner filed a notice of additional authority. ECF No. 89. The Court then issued an
order directing Respondent to file a response to the additional authority (ECF No. 90),
and Respondent filed its response (ECF No. 92). Petitioner then filed a reply. ECF No.
94. This matter is now fully briefed and ripe for disposition. For the reasons set forth
below, the Court will deny Petitioner’s motion.
Background
On June 16, 2023, Petitioner filed a motion for leave to file a supplemental
appendix. ECF No. 81. Petitioner argued that he should be permitted to supplement the
record with the materials he submitted to the Missouri Supreme Court in the state habeas
proceedings under Missouri Supreme Court Rule 91 because they are now part of the
state court record.
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After considering the arguments of the parties, the Court denied Petitioner’s
motion. ECF No. 87. Based on the holdings of two recent United State Supreme Court
cases, Shoop v. Twyford, 596 U.S. 811 (2022) and Shinn v. Ramirez, 596 U.S. 366
(2022), the Court found that it could not consider the materials in Petitioner’s proposed
supplemental appendix because such materials had not properly been part of the state
court record.
Petitioner argues that the Court made several misstatements of law in its Order
denying Petitioner’s motion for leave. First, Petitioner argues that the materials included
in his proposed supplementary appendix were properly part of the state court record.
Petitioner takes particular issue with the Court’s determination that the Missouri Supreme
Court’s one-sentence denial of Petitioner’s most recent state habeas petition was an
indication that Petitioner’s claims raised in that petition were procedurally barred.
Second, Petitioner argues that a ruling in another matter, Anderson v. Jennings, No. 1:19cv-14-JAR (E.D. Mo. Jan. 20, 2023), should persuade the Court to accept Petitioner’s
supplementary appendix. Third, Petitioner asserts that the Court should permit the filing
of the supplemental appendix under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(g). Finally, Petitioner contends
that denying the Petitioner’s request to submit the supplementary appendix would allow
Petitioner’s death sentence to serve as a vehicle of injustice.
On September 27, 2024, Petitioner filed his notice of additional authority in
support of his motion. ECF No. 89. Petitioner directs the Court to a recent opinion from
the Missouri Supreme Court in State v. Williams, Case No. SC83934 (Mo. July 12, 2024).
In this opinion, the Supreme Court of Missouri overruled the motion to withdraw the
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warrant of execution filed by petitioner Marcellus Williams. In footnote 2 of that
opinion, the Court states that “after reviewing the results of the DNA testing, this Court
has twice rejected William’s claim that DNA evidence excludes him as contributor of
DNA recovered from the knife.” Id. at 3, n.2. Petitioner suggests that this is an
indication by the Missouri Supreme Court that its previous summary denials of Mr.
Williams’ state habeas petitions were decisions made on the merits. According to
Petitioner, this means that all of the Missouri Supreme Court’s summary denials of
habeas petitions, regardless of context, are decisions on the merits. Petitioner concludes
that the Missouri Supreme Court’s summary denial of his habeas petition therefore could
not have been on procedural grounds but must have been a decision on the merits.
Petitioner requests that the Court now find that the summary denial of his Rule 91
petition was in fact a decision on the merits, and therefore Petitioner’s proposed
supplemental appendix materials were properly before the Missouri courts. Petitioner
further requests that the Court admit the materials in his proposed supplementary
appendix for review in this federal habeas action.
In its response, Respondent argues that Petitioner is reading more into the
Williams decision than is warranted. In Respondent’s view, the Missouri Supreme
Court’s opinion in Williams “are merely a recognition of the unique nature of a
freestanding innocence claim under Missouri state law.” ECF No. 92 at 3. Respondent
contends that the summary denials of Mr. Williams’ previous freestanding innocence
claims are not comparable to the summary denial of Petitioner’s claims of ineffective
assistance and trial court error raised in his most recent Rule 91 petition. Respondent
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asks the Court to deny reconsideration and not consider the documents in Petitioner’s
proposed supplemental appendix “[u]nless and until [Petitioner] demonstrates he can
satisfy [28 U.S.C.] § 2254(e)(2) . . . .” Id. at 6.
Petitioner contends in his reply that Respondent failed to respond to his motion for
reconsideration, and Respondent’s response filed as directed by the Court cannot fix
Respondent’s previous waiver of its right to respond. Instead, Petitioner proposes that
Respondent “is limited to arguing the impact of the Williams decision.” ECF No. 94 at 2.
Petitioner then briefly restates its position that the Williams opinion is proof that the
Missouri Supreme Court’s summary denials of Rule 91 petitions are decisions on the
merits and cannot be interpreted as dismissals due to procedural default. Petitioner
concludes by arguing again that the Byrd v. Delo decision is not applicable here.
Discussion
Although district courts have discretion in ruling on motions for reconsideration,
in general, “[m]otions for reconsideration serve a limited function: to correct manifest
errors of law or fact or to present newly discovered evidence.” Hagerman v. Yukon
Energy Corp., 839 F.2d 407, 414 (8th Cir. 1988) (citation omitted).
Reconsideration is not warranted here. The Court carefully considered the
arguments Petitioner presented in his motion for leave to file supplementary appendix
and presents again now for reconsideration. The Court continues to believe that it
correctly denied Petitioner’s motion for leave to file supplementary appendix. As the
Shoop and Shinn cases make clear, the Court cannot consider evidence or materials on its
habeas review when those materials are not part of the state court record unless Petitioner
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satisfies the requirements of 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(2). Petitioner has again failed to make
such a showing.
Petitioner disputes the applicability of Byrd v. Delo 1 in this matter and again
contends that the Court should conclude that his recent state habeas petition was denied
on the merits under Harrington v. Richter. 2 According to Petitioner, the Court failed to
properly assess the distinguishing factual issues in Byrd and failed to correctly follow the
Supreme Court’s ruling from Harrington. Petitioner again ignores the qualifying
language from Harrington that “[w]hen a federal claim has been presented to a state court
and the state court has denied relief, it may be presumed that a state court adjudicated the
claim on the merits in the absence of any indication or state-law procedural principles to
the contrary.” 562 U.S. at 99 (emphasis added). Here, there are state-law procedural
principles indicating that the Missouri Supreme Court dismissed Plaintiff’s Rule 91
habeas petition because such claims were procedurally barred.
The Court is not convinced that the Missouri Supreme Court’s July 12, 2024,
opinion in Williams requires a different result. The statement made by the Missouri
Supreme Court relating to its previous denial of Mr. Williams’ habeas petitions for actual
innocence does not appear applicable here. The Court specifically states that it reviewed
the DNA test results and rejected Mr. Williams’ petitions. Williams, Case No. SC83934,
at 3, n.2 (Mo. July 12, 2024). This statement appears in a footnote to the “Facts and
1
942 F.2d 1226 (8th Cir. 1991).
2
562 U.S. 86 (2011).
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Procedural History” section of the opinion, and it plays no role in the Court’s analysis of
the legal issues before it. This Court does not believe that this statement regarding the
Missouri Supreme Court’s summary disposition of Mr. Williams’ habeas petitions can be
read as applying to the summary disposition of all habeas cases. The fact remains that
Petitioner’s habeas petition was denied without explanation and without full briefing, and
Missouri procedural rules indicate that this summary dismissal was because the issues
Petitioner raised were procedurally defaulted.
Petitioner’s reliance here on the “plain statement” rule from Harris v. Reed fares
no better. In Harris, the Supreme Court held that “a procedural default does not bar
consideration of a federal claim on either direct or habeas review unless the last state
court rendering a judgment in the case ‘clearly and expressly’ states that its judgment
rests on a state procedural bar.” 489 U.S. at 265 (citing Caldwell v. Mississippi, 472 U.S.
320, 327 (1985) and Michigan v. Long, 463 U.S. 1032, 1041 (1983)). The Harris rule is
simply irrelevant to the issue here. Petitioner asks the Court to review evidence from the
state court record that was not properly before the state court. The issue is not whether
Petitioner can raise a federal claim that was procedurally defaulted.
The Court again finds that the materials in Petitioner’s proposed supplementary
appendix were not properly before the Missouri Supreme Court, and therefore are not
properly part of the state record at issue in this case. Petitioner’s motion for
reconsideration will be denied.
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Conclusion
Accordingly,
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that Petitioner’s motion for reconsideration is
DENIED. ECF No. 88.
Dated this 28th day of January, 2025.
AUDREY G. FLEISSIG
UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
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