Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca7-14-01419/USCOURTS-ca7-14-01419-0/pdf.json

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

---

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________

No. 14-1419

LAWRENCE OWENS,

Petitioner-Appellant,

v.

STEPHEN DUNCAN, Warden,

Respondent-Appellee.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the

Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.

No. 08 C 7159 — Thomas M. Durkin, Judge.

____________________

ARGUED MARCH 3, 2015 — DECIDED MARCH 23, 2015

____________________

Before POSNER, KANNE, and TINDER, Circuit Judges.

POSNER, Circuit Judge. Lawrence Owens was convicted of 

first-degree murder in November 2000 after a bench trial in 

the Circuit Court of Cook County. The judge sentenced him 

to 25 years in prison; he has almost 11 years of his sentence 

left to serve. His conviction and sentence were affirmed. He 

then filed state claims for post-conviction relief that came to 

naught eight years after having been filed, when the state 

supreme court declined to hear an appeal from the affirCase: 14-1419 Document: 36 Filed: 03/23/2015 Pages: 10
2 No. 14-1419

mance by the intermediate appellate court of the trial court’s 

denial of Owens’ petition for such relief.

He had already filed a petition for federal habeas corpus 

relief, 28 U.S.C. § 2254, and, the state proceedings having finally wound up, the federal district court adjudicated the 

petition—and denied it, precipitating this appeal. In it he argues that the state trial judge who convicted him based his 

decision on evidence that did not exist, thus denying him 

due process of law in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. Holbrook v. Flynn, 475 U.S. 560, 567 (1986) (“one accused of a crime is entitled to have his guilt or innocence determined solely on the basis of the evidence introduced at 

trial,” quoting Taylor v. Kentucky, 436 U.S. 478, 485 (1978)); 

Estelle v. Williams, 425 U.S. 501, 503 (1976) (“The right to a 

fair trial is a fundamental liberty secured by the Fourteenth 

Amendment. The presumption of innocence, although not 

articulated in the Constitution, is a basic component of a fair 

trial under our system of criminal justice”) (citation omitted); 

see also United States v. Moore, 572 F.3d 334, 341 (7th Cir. 

2009) (“Guilt beyond a reasonable doubt cannot be premised 

on pure conjecture”); United States v. Garcia, 439 F.3d 363, 

366–68 (7th Cir. 2006) (”The presumption [of innocence] is 

violated . . . when the jury is encouraged (or allowed) to consider facts which have not been received in evidence”).

In 1999, in the City of Markham (current population 

12,508), 20 miles south of Chicago, a young man named Ramon Nelson, while riding his bike away from a liquor store, 

received a fatal blow to the head by a person, presumably 

male, wielding a wooden stick that may have been a baseball 

bat. Two eyewitnesses to the murder testified at Owens’ trial. Maurice Johnnie identified Owens as the murderer from a 

Case: 14-1419 Document: 36 Filed: 03/23/2015 Pages: 10
No. 14-1419 3

photo array of six persons and from a lineup—although 

Owens was the only person in the line-up who also was in 

the photo array, thereby diminishing the probative value of 

the second identification. The other eyewitness, William Evans, identified Owens as the murderer from the same photo 

array and a lineup. But at the trial, though Owens was present in the courtroom, Evans twice pointed to a photo of 

someone else in the photo array as being Owens. There were 

other discrepancies between the two witnesses’ testimony. 

Evans testified that there had been two assailants, Johnnie 

that there had been only one. And Evans but not Johnnie testified that Nelson had spoken with the assailants before they 

assaulted him.

Nelson had crack cocaine on his person when he was 

killed that appeared to be packaged for individual sale, for 

the cocaine was in 40 small plastic bags in his coat. No evidence was presented that Owens had known Nelson, used 

or sold illegal drugs, or had any gang affiliation. If Owens 

had had any record of involvement in the illegal drug trade, 

or in gangs, the prosecution would, one imagines, have presented evidence of that involvement; it did not. Also absent 

was any physical evidence (such as fingerprints on the baseball bat) pointing to Owens as the murderer. Moreover, the 

murder had taken place at 8:30 p.m. on September 22. Sunset 

was at 6:47 p.m. that evening, and so it would have been 

dark (“nautical twilight” as it is called—the hour after sunset— would have ended by 7:47 p.m., see WeatherSpark, 

“Average Weather On September 22 For Chicago, Illinois, 

USA: Sun,” https://weatherspark.com/averages/30851/9/22/

Chicago-Illinois-United-States (visited March 11, 2015))—

three quarters of an hour before the murder took place. Not 

pitch black, though, and apparently the area in which the 

Case: 14-1419 Document: 36 Filed: 03/23/2015 Pages: 10
4 No. 14-1419

murder was committed had been illuminated to an undetermined extent by light from street lamps and from a nearby building.

The eyewitness identification (at least by Maurice Johnnie) could, we assume despite the substantial doubts that 

have been raised concerning the reliability of eyewitness evidence (see, e.g., National Academy of Sciences, Identifying 

the Culprit: Assessing Eyewitness Identification (2014); Sandra 

Guerra Thompson, “Beyond a Reasonable Doubt? Reconsidering Uncorroborated Eyewitness Identification Testimony,” 

4 U.C. Davis L. R. 1487 (2008); Nancy Steblay et al., “Eyewitness Accuracy Rates in Police Showup and Lineup Presentations: A Meta-Analytic Comparison,” 27 Law and Human Behavior 523 (2003); Gary L. Wells et al., “Eyewitness Identification Procedures: Recommendations for Lineups and Photospreads,” 22 Law and Human Behavior 603 (1998)), have 

supported a finding beyond a reasonable doubt that Owens 

had murdered Nelson. But it is highly uncertain whether the 

judge (for remember that Owens’ trial was a bench trial, not 

a jury trial) thought that any of the evidence that had been 

presented sufficed to dispel reasonable doubt of Owens’ 

guilt. For at the end of the parties’ closing arguments the 

judge said: “I think all of the witnesses skirted the real issue. 

The issue to me was you have a seventeen year old youth on 

a bike who is a drug dealer [Nelson], who Larry Owens 

knew he was a drug dealer. Larry Owens wanted to knock 

him off. I think the State’s evidence has proved that fact. 

Finding of guilty of murder.”

That was all the judge said in explanation of his verdict, 

and it was nonsense. No evidence had been presented that 

Owens knew that Nelson was a drug dealer or that he wantCase: 14-1419 Document: 36 Filed: 03/23/2015 Pages: 10
No. 14-1419 5

ed to kill him (we assume that by “knock him off” the judge 

meant “kill him”), or even knew him—a kid on a bike. The 

prosecutor had said in his closing argument that the case 

“boils down to identification ..., how they identified him 

and where ... and in this case identification equals recognition.” The judge seems not to have been convinced, for he 

said nothing to suggest that he thought the real issue in the 

case was identification. If one may judge from what he said, 

which is the only evidence of what he thought, he thought 

that Owens’ knowledge that Nelson was a drug dealer was 

the fact that dispelled reasonable doubt of Owens’ guilt. 

Otherwise, why would he have called the existence of this 

fact the “real issue” in the case—the basis therefore of the 

verdict?

Even if the proper way to determine whether the judge 

would have convicted Owens had he not mistakenly believed that Owens knew Nelson and knew him to be a drug 

dealer (and wanted to kill him for that reason) would be to 

ask the judge what he was thinking when he sentenced Owens almost 14 years ago, that approach would be impossible. 

The judge died two years ago. Chicago Tribune Obituaries, 

“Joseph M. Macellaio,” April 3, 2013, www.legacy.com/

obituaries/chicagotribune/obituary.aspx?pid=164012815 (visited March 11, 2015).

On Owens’ appeal from his conviction, the state appellate court ruled that the trial judge’s belief that Owens knew 

Nelson to be, or was himself, involved with drugs or gangs 

was baseless, saying “there was no evidence presented that 

defendant knew Nelson was dealing drugs, and there was 

no evidence presented that defendant was involved with 

gangs or the illegal drug trade.” The court also said that “the 

Case: 14-1419 Document: 36 Filed: 03/23/2015 Pages: 10
6 No. 14-1419

reliability of Evans’ testimony is severely called into question,” noting not only Evans’ two failures to identify Owens 

in the photo array in the courtroom but also his having been 

promised by the prosecution probation on two drug charges 

in exchange for his testimony. Nevertheless the court ruled 

2-1 that the trial judge’s error had been harmless because 

Johnnie’s eyewitness identification of Owens was sufficient 

to establish Owens’ guilt. The federal district court, in denying Owens’ petition for habeas corpus, added nothing to the 

state courts’ discussion of the harmless-error issue.

The dissenting judge in the state appellate court pointed 

out that the trial judge had “never stated that he relied on 

that identification or other properly admitted evidence,” so 

that “what we do have is a trial judge manufacturing, supplying, and interjecting its own evidence into a trial and then 

affirmatively stating on the record that this manufactured 

evidence constituted the basis of its verdict.” She added that 

the error was not harmless because the trial judge had “only 

considered unsupported insinuations without any indication 

that he was aware of this impropriety.” The trial judge 

hadn’t actually said that he’d considered only evidence not 

in the trial record, but the only ground for his finding Owens 

guilty that he mentioned had no basis in that record (or 

elsewhere for that matter).

Not every fact on which a verdict is based must be found 

in or inferred from evidence introduced by a party. There is 

judicial notice (for example of what time nautical twilight 

begins and ends on a given day of the year); there are legislative facts; there are stipulated facts. But there was no factual basis of any sort, in the trial record or elsewhere, for the 

Case: 14-1419 Document: 36 Filed: 03/23/2015 Pages: 10
No. 14-1419 7

judge’s finding that Owens knew Nelson, let alone knew or 

cared that he was a drug dealer. The judge made it up.

In its brief in our court the state argues that the judge’s 

determination that Owens knew Nelson and knew him to be 

a drug dealer, etc. was a reasonable inference from Owens’ 

having killed him. The argument is that the judge, having 

(without bothering to say so) concluded that Owens had 

killed Nelson, was merely remarking that it was a drugrelated crime. And indeed it is highly plausible that Nelson 

was murdered by someone in the drug business. But the critical issue in the case was whether Owens had murdered Nelson. The murderer’s motive could not have been “the real 

issue” in the case—as the state keeps stressing, motive is not 

an element of the crime of murder or of the prosecution’s 

case and was not addressed by Owens’ trial counsel either, 

and the prosecution had made no effort to prove that Owens 

had known Nelson or was himself in the drug business. If as 

the judge thought and is plausible in light of what was 

found on Nelson’s person the murderer was a drug dealer, 

there’s a good chance Owens was not the murderer.

The state mistakenly characterizes Owens as contending 

that “inferring a defendant’s motive entitles petitioner to a 

new trial if that inference is not fully supported by the evidence at trial.” Had the judge said that he’d found the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt on the basis of the 

evidence presented at the trial, and merely added that “by 

the way my guess is that Owens knew Nelson and killed 

him for reasons related to their both being drug dealers,” 

Owens would have no case, because the judge’s observation 

would not have been the basis of Owens’ conviction. In fact 

the evidence of Owens’ guilt was as we’ve seen far from 

Case: 14-1419 Document: 36 Filed: 03/23/2015 Pages: 10
8 No. 14-1419

conclusive, yet its uncertainty did not engage the judge’s attention. The judge appears to have been thoroughly confused—and likewise the state when it argues in its brief in 

our court that the judge’s inference that Owens killed Nelson 

for drug-related reasons “was arguably a reasonable inference from the” fact that “Nelson had forty bags of crack cocaine on him at the time of the attack.” Nelson’s being a 

drug dealer could not by itself have supported any such inference about the identity of his murderer unless more had 

been known about the murderer than the prosecution was 

able to establish.

Nonetheless, to repeat, we can assume that if the evidence of Owens’ guilt had been overwhelming, the judge’s 

conjecture that Owens knew Nelson and knew him to be a 

drug dealer and that Owens was (as the judge’s comment 

implied) himself involved in the drug trade (why else would 

he want to kill Nelson?) could be disregarded as goofy but 

harmless. But evidence of Owens’ guilt was not overwhelming. Had it been, it is unlikely that the judge would have described Owens’ supposed (but by only the judge) knowledge 

of Nelson’s involvement in the drug business as “the real 

issue” in the case. What may have made it the “real issue” to 

the judge was the scantiness of the actual evidence of Owens’ guilt.

It remains to consider whether the judge’s blunder satisfies the test for whether a state court’s error, though of constitutional magnitude (in this case, because the judge based a 

verdict of guilty on ungrounded conjecture), can escape being deemed “harmless” when challenged in a federal habeas 

corpus proceeding. The test “is whether the error had substantial and injurious effect or influence in determining the 

Case: 14-1419 Document: 36 Filed: 03/23/2015 Pages: 10
No. 14-1419 9

jury’s verdict. Under this standard, habeas [corpus] petitioners may obtain plenary review of their constitutional claims, 

but they are not entitled to habeas [corpus] relief based on 

trial error unless they can establish that it resulted in actual 

prejudice.” Brecht v. Abrahamson, 507 U.S. 619, 637 (1993) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). Owens has 

satisfied this standard. Given that the entire case pivoted on 

two shaky eyewitness identifications, Owens might well 

have been acquitted had the judge not mistakenly believed 

that Owens had known Nelson to be a drug dealer and 

killed him because of it. As we explained in Jones v. Basinger, 

635 F.3d 1030, 1053–54 (7th Cir. 2011), the question that 

Brecht requires us to answer is not whether a reasonable trier 

of fact could have rendered the verdict that it (in this case 

he) did, but whether the trier of fact committed an error that 

had a substantial malign influence on the verdict. The trial 

judge’s singling out as the only explanation for the verdict a 

“fact” having no evidentiary support, and declaring it the 

“real issue” in resolving the case, had to have had such an 

influence.

We are mindful that only clearly established violations of 

a defendant’s constitutional rights permit us to reverse a 

state court decision challenged in a federal habeas corpus 

proceeding. Nevada v. Jackson, 133 S. Ct. 1990 (2013). But

there’s no question that the right to have one’s guilt or innocence adjudicated on the basis of evidence introduced at trial 

satisfies that exacting standard. That is clear from the Supreme Court decisions in Holbrook, Taylor, and Estelle, and 

our own Garcia and Moore decisions, from all of which we 

quoted earlier. It’s true that we know of no case identical to 

this one—unsurprisingly, given the combination of weak 

proof with a verdict based on groundless conjecture. But 

Case: 14-1419 Document: 36 Filed: 03/23/2015 Pages: 10
10 No. 14-1419

identity can’t be required. The Supreme Court has made 

clear in the cases we’ve cited and quoted from that a judge 

or a jury may not convict a person on the basis of a belief 

that has no evidentiary basis whatsoever. Just imagine that 

the judge in our case had said “I know there’s no evidence of 

guilt, but I also know that prosecutors in the City of Markham never prosecute an innocent person.” The defendant 

would be entitled to relief in a habeas corpus proceeding 

even though that precise statement had never been uttered 

by a judge before.

And so we reverse the judgment denying Owens relief 

and give the state 120 days in which to decide whether to 

retry him. If it does not decide within that period to retry 

him, he must be released from prison.

Case: 14-1419 Document: 36 Filed: 03/23/2015 Pages: 10