Opinion ID: 613009
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: How We Got to This Point

Text: Wright was convicted of murder by a jury on April 10, 1985, and sentenced to life in prison. Wright filed two separate motions for a new trial, both based in part on allegations of newly discovered evidence (primarily, an affidavit by Lee Britt, mother of Smalls, implicating Smalls in the murder). After holding an evidentiary hearing, the trial court denied both motions. The SJC consolidated Wright's appeal from the denial of his motions with his direct appeal of the conviction, and affirmed everything. Wright, 411 Mass. at 679, 584 N.E.2d at 623. The SJC specifically noted that the trial judge did not abuse his discretion in denying Wright's first motion for a new trial based on a finding that the newly discovered evidence lacked probative value. In September of 1992, Wright sought relief in federal court, filing a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the District of Massachusetts pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254. In 1993, Wright moved for voluntary dismissal of his first federal habeas petition and returned to state court. Wright filed a third motion for a new trial, in which he first raised the ineffective assistance of counsel claims at issue in this appeal. The motion was denied by the trial court in March of 1996. The SJC denied leave to appeal, holding that all of the claims asserted were procedurally defaulted because they had already been addressed or could have been addressed during trial or on direct review. Commonwealth v. Wright, No. SJ-96-0262, slip op. at 2 (Mass. Aug. 12, 1997). In 1998, Wright filed a second petition for a writ of habeas corpus in federal district court, the case from which this appeal has arisen. [3] The district court denied the petition in 1999, rejecting Wright's invitation to reach the merits of his procedurally defaulted claims based on new evidence of actual innocence. [4] The evidence included Britt's testimony during the state court hearing on Wright's first motion for a new trial, in which she claimed that Smalls had admitted the murder to his girlfriend (who then relayed the statement to Britt), and Britt's claim that on the day of the murder, Smalls had tried to sell a knife possibly similar to the murder weapon. The district court stated that [i]f properly corroborated, this information would provide troubling new evidence of actual innocence. But because the Massachusetts trial court had rejected the new evidence as either hearsay or not credible, the district court accorded its finding a presumption of correctness. Wright sought reconsideration and an evidentiary hearing, bolstering his contentions with additional evidence including an affidavit from Smalls' former girlfriend, Maria Rivera Ramos, reciting that he had threatened to kill her like I did [Anderson]. The district court appointed counsel for Wright and held a hearing on his motion for reconsideration. In 2001, at the parties' request, the district court stayed federal proceedings without prejudice so Wright could present the new affidavit to the state court and seek forensic testing of the knife sold by Smalls, which was in the possession of the state court clerk's office. Forensic testing of the knife was inconclusive. In 2003, Wright filed a fourth motion for new trial in state court, arguing that trial counsel was ineffective for failing to locate Ramos earlier. The state trial court denied the motion and the SJC declined to allow an appeal. Wright returned once more to federal court in 2006, to resume the proceedings which had been stayed five years earlier. After conducting an evidentiary hearing, the district court in 2008 allowed Wright's motion for reconsideration based on evidence of actual innocence and permitted him to proceed on the merits of his procedurally defaulted claims. See House v. Bell, 547 U.S. 518, 126 S.Ct. 2064, 165 L.Ed.2d 1 (2006). Both parties briefed and argued the merits of those claims and, in an order dated November 9, 2009, the district court denied Wright's petition, finding that he had failed to demonstrate that his trial was tainted by constitutional error. With respect to the ineffective assistance of counsel claims, the district court found that Wright failed to show a reasonable probability that the result of his trial would have been different if trial counsel had launched a more focused attack on the admissibility of Turner's grand jury testimony. Similarly, the district court found that Wright had not been prejudiced by trial counsel's failure to request a misidentification instruction. The district court granted a certificate of appealability limited to two claims of ineffective assistance of counsel based on trial counsel's failure to object to the admission of Turner's grand jury testimony pursuant to Daye and failure to request a jury instruction on misidentification. On appeal, Wright argues that trial counsel's performance was deficient because he failed to argue specifically that Turner's grand jury testimony was a mere confirmation of a statement by an interrogator (which would make it inadmissible under the third prong of Daye ) and that the commonwealth failed to introduce sufficient corroborating evidence (which would make it inadmissible under the fourth prong of Daye ). Wright asserts a second claim of ineffective assistance based on trial counsel's failure to request a jury instruction on misidentification.