Opinion ID: 770834
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Challenge to the State Court's Factual Findings

Text: 30 A state prisoner seeking habeas corpus relief in federal court faces significant obstacles. The federal habeas statute provides, inter alia, that 31 [a]n application for a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court shall not be granted with respect to any claim that was adjudicated on the merits in State court proceedings unless the adjudication of the claim-- 32 (1) 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 (2) resulted in a decision that was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding. 33 28 U.S.C. §2254(d). The statute also provides that a determination of a factual issue made by a State court shall be presumed to be correct unless the petitioner rebut[s] the presumption of correctness by clear and convincing evidence. Id. §2254(e)(1). 34 In the present case, the state court adjudicated Leslie's Sixth Amendment claim on its merits, making findings of fact that are presumed to be correct. The overarching findings were that White was present throughout the trial and that he played the dominant role in representing Leslie. Those findings were made by the judge who had presided over the trial and who thus possessed first-hand familiarity with the roles of the various participants at trial. In addition, the trial judge indicated in LeslieI that before making his findings he had renewed his familiarity with the record. 35 Leslie has pointed to no evidence to rebut the presumption that the state court's findings are correct. He apparently does not dispute that White was present throughout his trial, but rather challenges the finding that White represented him at every critical point, arguing that Green examined the sole defense witness and that White examined only one more witness than did Green. That quantitative analysis is specious. In light of Leslie's defense position that in fact he did not draw a gun on the officers, the testimony of the officers who were involved in Leslie's arrest was plainly the crucial aspect of the case. It is undisputed that it was White, not Green, who cross-examined all three of those officers. It was also White who, inter alia, delivered the defense's opening and closing statements to the jury, made virtually all of the defense objections to evidence, prepared the defense's requests to charge, and conferred with the court on the jury instructions without any participation by Mr Green. LeslieI, 154 Misc.2d at 326, 586 N.Y.S.2d at 199. The trial court noted that it was not disputed that, except for one order prepared by Green for a ballistics test, White prepared all of the defense papers filed in the case .... Id. 36 Green's role, in contrast, consisted primarily of his cross-examination of Cotter, the State's ballistics expert, whose testimony was only equivocal and nonincriminatory, LeslieI, 154 Misc.2d at 334, 586 N.Y.S.2d at 204. That assessment of the evidence can hardly be termed unreasonable. Cotter was not a witness to the events; and as a ballistics expert, he testified, favorably to Leslie, that he could not say that the slight dent in the bullet primer had been caused by an attempt to fire the gun. He testified that [a]ctually, anything could have caused this indent .... (Leslie's state-court petition to vacate judgment at 39.) Given the harmlessness of the ballistics evidence, the trial court found that competent counsel could well have elected to forgo cross-examination of Cotter entirely. The only other witness examined by Green was the defense's own ballistics expert; considering the general-denial nature of Leslie's defense and the plain ineffectiveness of the State's ballistics evidence, presentation of the defense ballistics expert might well have been forgone too. The witnesses examined by Green were thus inconsequential; but in any event, White was present as Leslie's lead attorney throughout the questioning of these witnesses. 37 Although Leslie contends that the state court should have convened an evidentiary hearing into White's role in the trial, we cannot see that Leslie made any showing sufficient to warrant such a hearing. His own petition stated that White had [u]ndertak[en Leslie's] defense as primary counsel (Leslie's state-court petition to vacate judgment at 11), and he presented nothing factual to suggest that White had not performed that function. The trial court's findings as to White's role as lead attorney were confirmed by the district judge, who stated in LeslieIII that he had made an independent review of the record, and that it was clear that White was both present throughout the trial and played the preeminent role in Leslie's defense. 38 In sum, Leslie made no factual proffer sufficient to require an evidentiary hearing as to White's role, and pointed to no evidence, much less to clear and convincing evidence, sufficient to overcome the presumption of correctness accorded the trial judge's findings that White represented Leslie at all critical stages of the trial. 39