Source: https://openjurist.org/290/f3d/602/basden-v-rc-lee
Timestamp: 2019-11-22 05:26:28
Document Index: 55601436

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 2254', '§ 2254', '§ 2254', '§ 15', '§ 15', '§ 15', '§ 2254']

290 F3d 602 Basden v. Rc Lee | OpenJurist
290 F. 3d 602 - Basden v. Rc Lee
290 F3d 602 Basden v. Rc Lee
290 F.3d 602
Ernest West BASDEN, Petitioner Appellant,
No. 01-24.
ARGUED: J. Matthew Martin, Martin & Martin, P.A., Hillsborough, North Carolina; John Dalton Loftin, Loftin & Loftin, P.A., Hillsborough, North Carolina, for Petitioner-Appellant. Edwin William Welch, Special Deputy Attorney General, North Carolina Department of Justice, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Respondent-Appellee.
Basden appealed his convictions and sentence to the Supreme Court of North Carolina and after that court affirmed the verdict and sentence, the Supreme Court of the United States denied certiorari. See State v. Basden, 339 N.C. 288, 451 S.E.2d 238, cert. denied, 515 U.S. 1152, 115 S.Ct. 2599, 132 L.Ed.2d 845 (1995). Then Basden filed a motion for appropriate relief, which the state postconviction court denied in January 1996. After involved state court proceedings, Basden finally won postconviction discovery in 1999. See State v. Basden, 350 N.C. 579, 515 S.E.2d 220 (N.C.1999); State v. Basden, 348 N.C. 284, 501 S.E.2d 920 (N.C.1998). This discovery provided Basden with a number of documents, including police reports of additional statements from Taylor and a statement of one Tim Jones, describing facts concerning Billy White's death and the plan to kill him. On the basis of these documents, Basden filed an amended motion for appropriate relief; the state postconviction court again rejected it, and the Supreme Court of North Carolina and Supreme Court of the United States denied review. See Basden v. North Carolina, 531 U.S. 982, 121 S.Ct. 435, 148 L.Ed.2d 442 (2000); State v. Basden, 352 N.C. 357, 544 S.E.2d 549 (N.C.2000); State v. Basden, 352 N.C. 150, 544 S.E.2d 228 (N.C. 2000).
We conduct de novo review of a "district court's decision on a petition for writ of habeas corpus based on a state court record." See Spicer v. Roxbury Corr. Inst., 194 F.3d 547, 555 (4th Cir.1999). Applying the same standard as the district court, we can order issuance of the writ only if the state court's adjudication of a claim "resulted in a decision that was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States"; or "resulted in a decision that was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of evidence presented in the State court proceeding." 28 U.S.C.A. § 2254(d) (West 2001).
Basden raises two arguments grounded in Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963), which holds that a State violates a defendant's due process rights when it fails to disclose to the defendant prior to trial "evidence favorable to an accused ... where the evidence is material." Id. at 87, 83 S.Ct. 1194; see also United States v. Agurs, 427 U.S. 97, 96 S.Ct. 2392, 49 L.Ed.2d 342 (1976). Under Brady, "evidence favorable to the accused" includes impeachment as well as exculpatory evidence; the suppression of such evidence is material and so violates due process "if there is a reasonable probability that, had the evidence been disclosed to the defense, the result of the proceeding would have been different." Strickler v. Greene, 527 U.S. 263, 280, 119 S.Ct. 1936, 144 L.Ed.2d 286 (1999) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).
We must reach this conclusion because none of the nondisclosed documents in any way affect the admissibility of Basden's detailed pretrial confession. It is undisputed that prior to his arrest Basden voluntarily sought out the police officers in order to confess to them. Although Basden states in a postconviction affidavit that he "had smoked marijuana in the morning," both police officers testified that Basden did not appear to be under the influence when he confessed, and even Basden does not say that the marijuana affected his judgment that day. Accordingly, the state postconviction court was not unreasonable in concluding that a motion to suppress the pretrial confession would have failed. See Boggs v. Bair, 892 F.2d 1193, 1198-99 (4th Cir.1989) (discussing the level of intoxication necessary to render a confession involuntary).
We recognize that Basden need not show that the State offered insufficient evidence to convict him without the suppressed evidence. See Kyles v. Whitley, 514 U.S. 419, 437, 115 S.Ct. 1555, 131 L.Ed.2d 490 (1995). But even putting aside Basden's confession at trial, when we consider his full pretrial confession, its consistency with the two Taylor confessions that the State disclosed to Basden, and the physical evidence confirming it, such as Basden's possession of Billy White's ring, we cannot conclude that the state postconviction court's ruling was unreasonable.
Basden's Brady challenge to his sentence raises more difficult questions. Before turning to the merits of this challenge, however, we must address a Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288, 109 S.Ct. 1060 103 L.Ed.2d 334 (1989), argument advanced by the State.1
The State contends that application of Brady to Basden's sentencing would constitute a "new rule" under Teague, and for this reason, in the context of sentencing, Brady is not "clearly established Federal law" for purposes of 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d). See Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 412, 120 S.Ct. 1495, 146 L.Ed.2d 389 (2000). The clear language of Brady and its progeny renders this argument meritless.
In Brady itself, the Supreme Court expressly stated that its holding applied not only to suppression of materials at the guilt phase of a trial, but also at the punishment phase: "We now hold that the suppression by the prosecution of evidence favorable to an accused upon request violates due process where the evidence is material either to guilt or to punishment...." 373 U.S. at 87, 83 S.Ct. 1194 (emphasis added); see also United States v. Bagley, 473 U.S. 667, 674-75, 105 S.Ct. 3375, 87 L.Ed.2d 481 (1985) (describing Brady); Spicer, 194 F.3d at 553 n. 1 (stating that in Brady "the Supreme Court held that a state denies a defendant due process by failing to disclose to the defendant before trial evidence favorable to the defendant that is material either to guilt or to punishment") (emphasis added).
Moreover, in Strickler v. Greene, the Supreme Court considered the effect of Brady materials on punishment — on a sentence. Strickler, 527 U.S. at 263, 291, 294, 295, 119 S.Ct. 1936; see also id. at 307, 119 S.Ct. 1936 (Souter, J., dissenting); id. at 280, 119 S.Ct. 1936, citing Strickler v. Pruett, No. 97-29, 1998 WL 340420 at *10 (4th Cir. June 17, 1998) (unpublished disposition) (considering a Brady claim directed to a sentence). Of course, because the Supreme Court issued its opinion in Strickler after Basden's conviction had become final, see Teague, 489 U.S. at 295, 109 S.Ct. 1060 (noting that the date of finality is the date of exhaustion of direct appeal), if Strickler's application of Brady to a sentence had announced a new rule for Teague purposes, that rule would not constitute "clearly established Federal law" under § 2254(d). See Williams, 529 U.S. at 412, 120 S.Ct. 1495. But in Strickler, the Supreme Court expressly stated that in applying Brady to sentencing, it was not announcing a new rule. Rather, the Court explained, "[b]ecause our opinion [in Strickler] does not modify Brady," it does not "announce a `new rule.'" Strickler, 527 U.S. at 289 n. 35, 119 S.Ct. 1936. Consistent with this express statement, the Strickler Court in 1999 applied the Brady rule to Strickler's sentencing claim, which would have been contrary to Teague if Strickler had announced a new rule.
In sum, the Supreme Court, in first enunciating the Brady rule in 1963, declared that the rule applied to "favorable evidence," which is "material to guilt or to punishment." Brady, 373 U.S. at 87, 83 S.Ct. 1194. Moreover, when in Strickler the Supreme Court itself applied the Brady rule to determine if nondisclosed documents were material to punishment — if they affected a sentence — the Court expressly stated that this application of Brady did not constitute a "new rule." Strickler, 527 U.S. at 289 n. 35, 119 S.Ct. 1936; see also Mincey v. Head, 206 F.3d 1106, 1139-40 (11th Cir.2000) (considering an asserted Brady violation with respect to sentencing in a case final for Teague purposes before Strickler was announced); Jackson v. Johnson, 194 F.3d 641, 648-50 (5th Cir.1999) (same).
We, therefore, consider Basden's Brady claim with respect to his sentence, examining the cumulative effect of the withheld documents, "collectively, not item by item." See Kyles, 514 U.S. at 436, 115 S.Ct. 1555.
The suppressed documents do paint a picture that a jury could find supports such a theory.3 With respect to Sylvia White, these documents show that she was obsessed with the desire to kill her husband for more than a year. Her plotting involved much more than the specific details — her requests that Taylor look for poison and find a hit man — of which the jury heard. White used various strategies to encourage Taylor to take on the murder, once threatening to commit suicide, and another time explaining "[i]t ain't that hard," and boasting that she had already smothered a child without much difficulty. White supplied Taylor with a map to the murder site, strongly suggesting that she had a significant role in selecting it. She provided him with pictures of her husband to assist in the identification. She even gave Taylor a diamond necklace, to be pawned so that he could buy a gun. See also White, 457 S.E.2d at 846.
In sum, Basden's counsel knew almost all of the details that were available in the asserted Brady materials, and were able to get most of those details before the jury. Moreover, an even more powerful argument as to the greater culpability of the other conspirators, which the Brady materials might have provided, would not have eliminated the core prosecution argument that Billy White died only because "somebody," i.e., Ernest Basden, "[wa]s willing to take the money." Accordingly, we cannot hold that Basden has shown that the state postconviction court was unreasonable in concluding that he failed to show a reasonable probability of a different sentence.5
Basden also contends that the State violated Napue v. Illinois, 360 U.S. 264, 79 S.Ct. 1173, 3 L.Ed.2d 1217 (1959), which holds that a State denies a defendant due process by knowingly offering or failing to correct false testimony. A Napue claim requires a showing of the falsity and materiality of testimony and the prosecutor's knowledge of its falsity. Perjury offered under these circumstances is material if "there is any reasonable likelihood that the false testimony could have affected the judgment of the jury." Agurs, 427 U.S. at 103, 96 S.Ct. 2392.
Basden argues that the State denied him due process by destroying evidence that might have assisted his defense. Under Arizona v. Youngblood, 488 U.S. 51, 109 S.Ct. 333, 102 L.Ed.2d 281 (1988), if a criminal defendant can show that the police failed to "preserve potentially useful evidence" with bad faith, he or she has been denied due process. Id. at 158, 109 S.Ct. 333. However, "unless a criminal defendant can show bad faith on the part of the police, failure to preserve potentially useful evidence does not constitute a denial of due process of law." Id.
Basden argues that his trial counsel's assistance was ineffective in eleven ways, depriving him of his constitutional right to counsel. See Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 687, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984); United States v. Cronic, 466 U.S. 648, 658-61, 104 S.Ct. 2039, 80 L.Ed.2d 657 (1984). Basden pursued only one of these claims on direct appeal. Basden, 451 S.E.2d at 244. The state postconviction court addressed and rejected one other claim on the merits, and found that the other ten were procedurally barred as well as rejecting them, too, on the merits. The district court addressed and rejected two of the claims on the merits, and ruled that the other nine were procedurally defaulted because of the state postconviction court's ruling that they were procedurally barred under North Carolina law. We begin with the claims addressed on the merits, and proceed to those deemed to have been defaulted.
Basden asserts that he was denied effective assistance of counsel because of an unauthorized admission of guilt by trial counsel in his opening statement. Confronting affidavits to the contrary, the state postconviction court ruled that "the record reflects that the defendant concurred in the decision to admit guilt to the lesser offense in the opening statement." This asserted "factual finding" does not dispose of Basden's claim, because it constitutes a pure credibility determination made without benefit of an evidentiary hearing. For a different reason, however, we cannot find that the state postconviction court's conclusion was unreasonable. We have already discussed the impact of Basden's full, voluntary, and detailed pretrial confession on the likelihood of his conviction. For the same reason, Basden cannot show prejudice under Strickland with respect to this claim. Cf. Haynes v. Cain, 272 F.3d 757 (5th Cir.2001) (ruling that an unauthorized admission of guilt in an opening statement constituted constitutionally ineffective assistance in a case in which the defendant had never confessed).
In light of our Brady analysis, we agree with the state postconviction court and the district court. We further note that Basden's written Brady motion did ask for all Brady evidence. We think it clear that everyone at the hearing understood the contours of Brady, and that nothing turns on the prosecutor's apparently inadvertent use of the word "suppression" in responding to a later oral request. We would not permit the State to hide behind the technicalities of its response to a Brady request in defending a failure to disclose Brady materials. See Agurs, 427 U.S. at 110, 96 S.Ct. 2392 ("[T]here are situations in which evidence is obviously of such substantial value to the defense that elementary fairness requires it to be disclosed even without a specific request."). Nor will we permit Basden to argue that his counsel's performance was constitutionally ineffective on the basis of this sort of hypertechnical argument. Basden's counsel sought Brady materials, and accepted the State's assurance in open court that all had been disclosed. Even if Brady materials existed, we see no evidence that this performance was constitutionally deficient for failure to understand or protect Basden's rights under Brady.
The first claim is particularly troubling. Basden's counsel apparently knew that Basden was to testify for the State at Sylvia White's trial for the murder of her stepson only a few days after his scheduled sentencing. If defense counsel had successfully moved to continue Basden's sentencing until after that testimony, Basden could have submitted an additional statutory mitigating factor to the jury. See N.C. Gen.Stat. § 15A-2000(f)(8) (1999). But Basden's counsel never made the necessary motion.
The state postconviction court found that on direct appeal Basden's appellate attorney "was in a position to raise" all nine of these claims (including the failure to move for continuance of the sentencing hearing), and that failure to do so meant that the claims were procedurally barred. See N.C. Gen.Stat. § 15A-1419(a)(3) (1999). Later, after Basden had received postconviction discovery, the state postconviction court affirmed its earlier ruling, observing that the postconviction discovery material "does not related [sic]" to these ineffective-assistance claims. Since § 15A-1419(a)(3) is an adequate and independent state-law ground, the state court's ruling on that ground means that Basden has procedurally defaulted these remaining ineffective-assistance claims. McCarver, 221 F.3d at 588-89.6
Because Basden does not argue that his procedural default should be excused on the grounds of factual innocence or a fundamental miscarriage of justice, see McCleskey v. Zant, 499 U.S. 467, 494-95, 111 S.Ct. 1454, 113 L.Ed.2d 517 (1991); 28 U.S.C.A. § 2254(e)(2)(B), to overcome the ruling of procedural default, he must demonstrate cause for his failure to raise a claim on direct review and actual prejudice resulting from the default. McCarver, 221 F.3d at 588. To establish cause, Basden must make a showing of "some objective factor external to the defense [that] impeded counsel's efforts to comply with the State's procedural rule," such as "a showing that the factual or legal basis for a claim was not reasonably available to counsel." Murray v. Carrier, 477 U.S. 478, 488, 106 S.Ct. 2639, 91 L.Ed.2d 397 (1986) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). A petitioner may not show cause by pointing to evidence that the petitioner "knew about or could have discovered" through a "reasonable investigation." McCleskey, 499 U.S. at 497-98, 111 S.Ct. 1454.
Finally, Basden argues that North Carolina's "short-form" indictment for murder is unconstitutional under Jones v. United States, 526 U.S. 227, 119 S.Ct. 1215, 143 L.Ed.2d 311 (1999) and Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 120 S.Ct. 2348, 147 L.Ed.2d 435 (2000), because it omits essential elements of the offense and aggravating factors relied upon to impose the death penalty. Previously, we have ruled that Apprendi and Jones do not apply to cases on collateral review. See United States v. Sanders, 247 F.3d 139, 146-51 (4th Cir.2001); see also Hartman v. Lee, 283 F.3d 190 (4th Cir.2002). Of course, Sanders binds us here, and indeed, Basden notes that he raises this claim before us only "for the purposes of preserving it."
The State also preliminarily contends that Basden "waived" or did not preserve his appellate argument thatBrady violations entitle him to a new sentence, because he failed to "focus[ ]" on this argument "[i]n the lower courts." The contention is meritless. Before the state postconviction court and in the district court Basden did indeed focus on his Brady challenge to his conviction, but in both courts he also clearly preserved his Brady challenge to his sentence. He moved for appropriate relief in state postconviction court seeking a "new sentencing hearing" and arguing that the suppressed documents "taken together ... undermine confidence in the outcome of the case" and create a "reasonable probability that a different result would have been reached," and argued in his federal habeas petition that the state postconviction court "completely missed the impact of this evidence [the suppressed Brady documents at the sentencing phase," requesting, inter alia, "a new sentencing hearing."
We note thatBrady evidence need not tend to impeach a person who testified at trial or sentencing. See, e.g., Kyles, 514 U.S. 419, 115 S.Ct. 1555, 131 L.Ed.2d 490 (reversing two lower courts' refusal to grant the writ on the basis of exculpatory evidence including police reports that tended to impeach and incriminate a witness who never testified),
Moreover, notwithstanding (or indeed perhaps because of) the greater cunning of Taylor and Sylvia White, they have been treated much more leniently than Basden. The State did not bring Taylor to trial until four years after Billy White's murder, and then permitted Taylor to plead guilty to first-degree murder; he received a sentence of life imprisonment. Similarly, the State did not seek to try Sylvia White for almost four years after the murder of her husband and then allowed her to plead guilty to conspiracy to commit murder and second-degree murder; she too received a sentence of life imprisonment. Prior to that conviction, the State tried and convicted Sylvia White for the 1973 unrelated murder of her stepson (Billy White's son and namesake) whom she suffocated with a plastic bag when he was four years old; the State did not seek the death penalty for that murder and White received a life sentence for that crime tooSee State v. White, 340 N.C. 264, 457 S.E.2d 841 (N.C.1995).
It is troubling that the State did not provide Basden withany of the Taylor confessions until the first morning of the Basden's trial, since the timing of a disclosure ordinarily affects the defense's ability to use it effectively. See Leka v. Portuondo, 257 F.3d 89, 100 (2d Cir.2001) (noting that "the closer to trial the disclosure is made, the less opportunity there is for use"). In reviewing Basden's arguments on prejudice, we have considered the timing of the provision of Taylor's two statements. Even so, we cannot conclude that in this case the state postconviction court's holding constitutes an unreasonable application of Brady.
Basden seeks an evidentiary hearing on the prejudice at sentencing of theBrady materials and on his claim based on the destruction of documents, see infra Part V. The district court refused to grant a hearing reasoning that Basden had produced no disputes of fact at the state postconviction court or in district court requiring resolution at a hearing. Although Basden asserts that "genuine issues of material fact" necessitate a hearing on both issues, he does not discuss what such a hearing would explore. We conclude that the district court did not err in refusing to hold a hearing. See McCarver v. Lee, 221 F.3d 583, 597-98 (4th Cir.2000).