Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca7-14-02823/USCOURTS-ca7-14-02823-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 530
Nature of Suit: Prisoner Petitions - Habeas Corpus
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals 

For the Seventh Circuit

Chicago, Illinois 60604

Submitted March 19, 2015*

Decided March 20, 2015

Before

DANIEL A. MANION, Circuit Judge

ILANA DIAMOND ROVNER, Circuit Judge

DIANE S. SYKES, Circuit Judge

No. 14‐2823

TODD R. LONDON,

Petitioner‐Appellant,

v.

MARC CLEMENTS,

Respondent‐Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District

Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin.

No. 13‐C‐426

William C. Griesbach,

Chief Judge.

O R D E R

Todd London, a Wisconsin prisoner, contends in this appeal from the denial of

his petition for a writ of habeas corpus that he was denied the effective assistance of

counsel and convicted on the basis of a constitutionally insufficient quantum of

evidence. We disagree, and affirm the denial of London’s petition.

                                                            

* After examining the briefs and record, we have concluded that oral argument is

unnecessary. Thus the appeal is submitted on the briefs and record. See FED. R. APP.

P. 34(a)(2)(C).

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1

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In a series of three compositions produced for her eighth and ninth grade English

classes, London’s daughter, M.L., alluded to instances in which he had sexually

assaulted her and physically abused both her and her stepmother. The first two essays

involved the same incident, and prompted the girl’s teacher to contact child protective

services. A social worker interviewed M.L. shortly thereafter, but during that interview

she denied that any abuse had occurred. The same social worker interviewed the girl a

few months later, and this time she divulged that London had once groped her breasts

and crotch and struck her across the face. M.L. wrote the third essay following this

interview, and implied that London had sexually abused her at least one other time.

Eventually she revealed that London had raped her that time after she tried to protect

her stepmother against London’s physical assault. (Testimony at trial suggests that

London was upset about advances another man had made towards the stepmother at a

bar.)

The State of Wisconsin charged London with two counts of sexual assault of a

child. See WIS. STAT. § 948.02. The trial did not occur until M.L. had entered the tenth

grade, and by that time her stepmother had died in a car accident. The trial, therefore,

was a credibility contest between the girl and London, the only living eyewitnesses.

M.L.’s writings were admitted into evidence (though at the time not published to the

jury), and she repeated what she had told the social worker and the police. The

prosecution also called the social worker, a police officer, and M.L.’s uncle and older

teenage brother. All but the uncle recounted her anxious demeanor when she had

revealed the abuse. The uncle—London’s brother—informed the jury that his niece, a

normally outgoing child, had become distrustful and withdrawn about the time the

sexual assaults occurred.  

Defense counsel, in attacking M.L.’s credibility, cross‐examined the social worker

about the girl’s inconsistent stories in different interviews. The lawyer also elicited

testimony from London’s parents and a sister, all New York residents, who denied

seeing cuts or bruises on the girl or her stepmother, or observing unusual behavior by

M.L. when the girl and her stepmother visited briefly the day after the rape. The

prosecutor asked London’s mother and sister if they had confronted him about the

sexual assault charges. Both said no, and the sister added that she had hoped that

ignoring the case would make it go away, saying she did not “want to know.”  

After the close of evidence, the parties debated whether M.L.’s essays should be

sent to the jury room. The judge sided with the prosecution. M.L.’s writings had been

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referenced “incompletely and in pieces,” the judge said, and the jury should be able to

view them as a whole.

During closing argument the prosecutor decried defense counsel’s strategy of

picking nits in M.L.’s testimony. He asked rhetorically whether the jurors believed that

the emotion she and her brother had displayed on the witness stand was in service of a

lie, and then answered: “Nope. There’s no way that was fake.” The threat of physical

abuse, the prosecutor suggested, could explain M.L.’s hesitance to come forward. The

prosecutor also alluded to M.L.’s testimony that the rape had occurred after London,

enraged by the bar incident, blamed and viciously beat her stepmother: “Do you really

think . . . all it was was an, ‘I didn’t appreciate you doing that?’ No way. I don’t buy that

for a minute. I bet she felt his wrath for a long time.” Confronting the testimony of

London’s parents and sister, the prosecutor argued, “I’ll be frank with you, I’m not sure

they would have said if they did see anything” because, he noted, they had turned a

blind eye to the possibility that London raped his daughter. “Do you honestly think,”

he asked, that the girl “is lying about this?” Defense counsel retorted that the charges

rested on the “unsupported, unreliable, unbelievable” words of a 15‐year‐old whose

testimony could not satisfy the prosecution’s burden of proof. The girl, defense counsel

told the jury, “is not believable beyond a reasonable doubt. . . . She’s lying.”   

After the jury found London guilty on both counts, the court sentenced him to a

total of 20 years’ imprisonment and 10 years’ extended supervision. With new counsel

London filed a posttrial motion, see WIS. STAT. § 974.02, arguing that trial counsel had

been ineffective under a theory not relevant here. The trial court denied that motion,

and London then proceeded with his direct appeal, pro se. He principally contended

that the prosecution had not presented sufficient evidence. The appellate court affirmed

his convictions, and the Wisconsin Supreme Court denied further review.

London, again pro se, then filed a collateral challenge in state court, see WIS. STAT.

§ 974.06, claiming that his second lawyer should have argued in the § 974.02 posttrial

motion that trial counsel was deficient in not objecting to the prosecutor’s closing

argument. The second lawyer also should have argued in that motion, said London,

that it was error to send M.L.’s essays to the jury room. Regarding the first of these

contentions, London argued that trial counsel should have objected to the prosecutor’s

assertions that London’s wife would have “felt his wrath” following the bar incident,

that the prosecutor did not think M.L. was lying, and that the prosecutor doubted if

London’s parents or sister would have told authorities or the jury about witnessing

signs of abuse.

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The trial and appellate courts denied London’s collateral challenge, and again the

Wisconsin Supreme Court denied review. The appellate court, the last state court to

address London’s theories of ineffective assistance, rejected the first theory with the

explanation that commenting about London’s “wrath” had been permissible, and that

vouching for M.L.’s credibility, although improper, had been invited by defense

counsel. The appellate court said nothing, however, about the prosecutor’s

disparagement of London’s parents and sister. The court went on to conclude that

objecting to the prosecutor’s closing argument would have been pointless, and thus the

second lawyer’s decision to omit this theory from the posttrial motion could not have

been deficient. As for London’s second theory concerning M.L.’s essays, the appellate

court rejected this theory of ineffective assistance for the reason that this contention

could have been made by London in his pro se direct appeal, so he could not fault his

second lawyer for omitting it from the posttrial motion. Moreover, the court added,

sending the essays to the jury was not an abuse of discretion.  

London then petitioned for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254,

reprising his claims of insufficient evidence and ineffective assistance. The district judge

concluded that the state appellate court had reasonably applied federal law in rejecting

London’s challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence. And London’s ineffectiveness

claim failed, the district judge continued, because the state appellate court’s application

of federal law to his theory about the prosecutor’s argument was not unreasonable, and

his theory about M.L.’s essays going with the jury during deliberations concerned only

state law. Nevertheless, the district judge certified each question for appeal.

We can quickly dispense with the claim of insufficient evidence. The Due Process

Clause requires sufficient evidence, when viewed in the light most favorable to the

prosecution, to enable a rational trier of fact to find the essential elements of the charged

crime beyond a reasonable doubt. See Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319 (1979). Review

under § 2254 involves a double dose of deference: Federal courts defer to the state

courts, which in turn defer to the jury. See Coleman v. Johnson, 132 S. Ct. 2060, 2062 (2012)

(per curiam). The state appellate court concluded that M.L.’s testimony alone sufficed to

satisfy the Jackson standard. We cannot say that conclusion was unreasonable. See Jones

v. Butler, No. 14‐1638, slip op. at 12 (7th Cir. Feb. 3, 2015); McFowler v. Jaimet, 349 F.3d

436, 456–57 (7th Cir. 2003).

That leaves for analysis the performance of London’s attorneys. In order to be

constitutionally ineffective, a lawyer’s performance must have fallen below an objective

standard of reasonableness and prejudiced the defendant. See Strickland v. Washington,

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466 U.S. 668, 687–88, 692 (1984). And because London complains about a state

conviction, § 2254(d) requires that he demonstrate not only constitutionally deficient

performance, but also that the state appellate court’s application of Strickland was

unreasonable. See Harrington v. Richter, 131 S. Ct. 770, 785 (2011).

As a starting point we might question London’s premise that the Sixth

Amendment guarantees a right to counsel in presenting a posttrial motion under

§ 974.02, since the statute characterizes the remedy as “postconviction,” and § 2254 bars

relief on the basis of poor performance by counsel in “postconviction proceedings.” 28

U.S.C. § 2254(i). We have raised this question previously, see Huusko v. Jenkins, 556 F.3d

633, 635–36 (7th Cir. 2009), but more recently—as advocated by Wisconsin—we have

understood a § 974.02 motion to be a step toward a defendant’s direct appeal, see Nash v.

Hepp, 740 F.3d 1075, 1079 (7th Cir. 2014). And for a direct appeal the assistance of

counsel is constitutionally guaranteed. Evitts v. Lucey, 469 U.S. 387, 394 (1985); see State

v. Romero‐Georgana, 849 N.W.2d 668, 678–79 (Wis. 2014) (discussing standards for

analyzing claim of ineffective assistance on § 974.02 motion).

The district court certified both theories of ineffective assistance, but the second

is frivolous. London continues to insist that his second lawyer should have argued in

the § 974.02 posttrial motion that it was error to send M.L.’s essays to the jury room

during jury deliberations. Yet London’s trial counsel had objected to this decision, so

the claim was preserved for direct appeal without any need to include it in the § 974.02

motion. See State v. Hines, 496 N.W.2d 720, 724 (Wis. Ct. App. 1993). And as the state

appellate court recognized, this is the fatal flaw in London’s theory, since it was London,

not his second lawyer, who handled the direct appeal and decided what claims to raise.

A pro se litigant, having waived the right to counsel, cannot complain that he received

ineffective assistance of counsel. See Faretta v. California, 422 U.S. 806, 834 n.46 (1975).   

What remains, then, is London’s theory that his second lawyer had dropped the

ball in not objecting to—in London’s view—obvious prosecutorial misconduct. The

district court concluded that London is not entitled to relief because the state appellate

court reasonably applied Darden v. Wainwright, 477 U.S. 168 (1986), which represents

clearly established federal law on prosecutorial misconduct. See Ellison v. Acevedo, 593

F.3d 625, 635 (7th Cir. 2010); Ruvalcaba v. Chandler, 416 F.3d 555, 565 (7th Cir. 2005). But

London’s claim is ineffective assistance, not prosecutorial misconduct, so the right

question is whether the state court reasonably applied Strickland, not Darden or other

federal law. Darden remains relevant, of course, to the question of the lawyer’s

performance, see Campbell v. Smith, 770 F.3d 540, 547 (7th Cir. 2014), though the district

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court’s exclusive focus on Darden (a case about federal law) overlooks that an error

predicated on state law also can render counsel’s performance deficient, see Shaw v.

Wilson, 721 F.3d 908, 914 (7th Cir. 2013). At all events we agree with the district court’s

bottom‐line conclusion.  

The state appellate court’s failure to discuss each of the prosecutor’s challenged

statements arguably could lessen our deference to that court’s application of Strickland.

See Ashburn v. Korte, 761 F.3d 741, 751 (7th Cir. 2014); Brady v. Pfister, 711 F.3d 818, 824–

26 (7th Cir. 2013). But London is not entitled to relief no matter how generous our

standard of review. The fundamental defect in his theory that the prosecutor’s closing

argument should have prompted an objection from trial counsel (and thus a § 974.02

claim) is that each challenged statement is grounded in the evidence. Inferences drawn

from the evidence, including inferences about witness credibility, are fair game for

closing argument. See United States v. Alexander, 741 F.3d 866, 871 (7th Cir. 2014);

Rodriguez v. Scillia, 193 F.3d 913, 919 (7th Cir. 1999). The prosecutor’s statements

regarding the credibility of M.L. and of members of London’s extended family do

appear, on their face, to reflect the prosecutor’s personal opinion. And it is well‐settled

that a prosecutor may not express his personal belief in a witness’s credibility.

See United States v. Young, 470 U.S. 1, 17 (1985). But each statement also was prefaced by

reference to the testimony the different witnesses provided. For instance, the

prosecutor’s statement about the family’s silence in the face of abuse was drawn from

the admissions of London’s mother and sister that they had not confronted him about

the charges, and his sister’s further admission that she had ignored the criminal case

because she did not want to know. Given that context, the prosecutor’s argument was

little more than an appeal to common sense, a tack we have characterized as “a fair

comment on the evidence.” Alexander, 741 F.3d at 871.  

Moreover this was, as we have said, a credibility contest. The prosecution could

not obtain a conviction unless the jury concluded that its witnesses were believable

beyond a reasonable doubt. Though perhaps inartful, the statements London now finds

objectionable are, in context, simply an argument that those witnesses are more worthy

of belief than London’s. And no body of law prevents a prosecutor from arguing in

favor of a conviction. See Ellison, 593 F.3d at 638; United States v. Auerbach, 913 F.2d 407,

418 (7th Cir. 1990). Since any objection on the part of trial counsel would have been

meritless, no court could fault either trial counsel for failing to lodge London’s  

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proposed objection or successor counsel for not challenging this aspect of trial counsel’s

performance. See Allen v. Chandler, 555 F.3d 596, 603 (7th Cir. 2009); Martin v. Evans, 384

F.3d 848, 852 (7th Cir. 2004).

AFFIRMED.

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