Court Opinion

ID: 9951069
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-03-15 16:00:49.925428+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:37:05.439078
License: Public Domain

Appellate Case: 23-5104     Document: 010111016477      Date Filed: 03/15/2024   Page: 1
                                                            FILED
                                                United States Court of Appeals
                   UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS        Tenth Circuit

                            FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT                       March 15, 2024
                          _______________________________________
                                                                     Christopher M. Wolpert
  TIMOTHY BRIAN BUSSELL,                                                  Clerk of Court

         Petitioner - Appellant

  v.                                                       No. 23-5104
                                                (D.C. No. 4:20-CV-0417-TCK-JFJ)
  STEVEN HARPE, Director,                                  (N.D. Okla.)
  Oklahoma Department of
  Corrections,

         Respondent - Appellee,

                          _______________________________________

        ORDER DENYING A CERTIFICATE OF APPEALABILITY
                 AND DISMISSING THE APPEAL
                 _______________________________________

 Before MATHESON, BACHARACH, and McHUGH, Circuit Judges .
                _______________________________________

       This appeal involves a habeas proceeding growing out of a rape

 conviction. A man had sex with a woman who was unconscious, and a

 second man watched. Our appeal involves a third man, Mr. Timothy Brian

 Bussell, who videotaped the sexual encounter.

       The State of Oklahoma prosecuted Mr. Bussell for first-degree rape,

 alleging that he had aided and abetted the first man as he had sex with the

 unconscious woman. Okla. Stat. tit. 21, § 1114(A)(4). The jury found

 Mr. Bussell guilty, and he unsuccessfully appealed in state court and

 pursued habeas relief in district court. He wants to appeal the denial of
Appellate Case: 23-5104   Document: 010111016477   Date Filed: 03/15/2024   Page: 2

 habeas relief. To do so, however, he needs a certificate of appealability. 28

 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(1)(A). We decline to issue this certificate.

 1.    We can grant the certificate only if the district court’s denial of
       relief is reasonably debatable.

       We can grant a certificate only if reasonable jurists “would find the

 district court’s assessment of the constitutional claims debatable or

 wrong.” Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 484 (2000). To determine

 whether the district court’s assessment is reasonably debatable, we must

 consider the standard that applied there.

       The district court could consider granting relief only if Mr. Bussell

 had satisfied his threshold burden under the Antiterrorism and Effective

 Death Penalty Act. Miller-El v. Cockrell, 537 U.S. 322, 336 (2003). To

 apply this statute, we consider whether the state appellate court decided

 the underlying constitutional claims on the merits.

       Here the state appeals court did so. So the federal district court could

 consider granting habeas relief only if the state appellate court had

 contradicted or unreasonably applied a Supreme Court precedent or

 unreasonably determined the facts. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1)–(2).

 2.    The district court’s constitutional rulings aren’t reasonably
       debatable.

       Mr. Bussell seeks a certificate of appealability so that he can appeal

 the district court’s rejection of three habeas claims: (1) insufficiency of

 evidence on guilt, (2) denial of due process from the refusal to sever

                                        2
Appellate Case: 23-5104   Document: 010111016477   Date Filed: 03/15/2024    Page: 3

 Mr. Bussell’s trial, and (3) denial of due process from prosecutorial

 misconduct during closing argument. The state appeals court rejected each

 claim on the merits. Given these rulings, Mr. Bussell argues that the state

 appeals court unreasonably applied Supreme Court precedent. We not only

 reject these arguments but conclude that no reasonable jurist could find

 them debatable.

       a.     The state appeals court didn’t act unreasonably when it
              found enough evidence to convict.

       Mr. Bussell doesn’t deny that he videotaped another man having sex

 with an unconscious woman. But Mr. Bussell argues that he didn’t

 participate in the sexual act itself. The State counters that Mr. Bussell

 aided and abetted the other man as he committed rape. The resulting

 question is whether the jury had enough evidence to find that Mr. Bussell

 had aided and abetted the commission of rape.

       The underlying standard required the district court to view the

 evidence favorably to the prosecution and ask whether any rational jury

 could have found guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Jackson v. Virginia, 443

 U.S. 307, 319 (1979). This inquiry requires us to consider the elements of

 first-degree rape under state law. Coleman v. Johnson, 566 U.S. 650, 655

 (2012).

       Under state law, the prosecution needed to prove that Mr. Bussell had

             aided, promoted, or encouraged another individual to commit
              first-degree rape and
                                        3
Appellate Case: 23-5104    Document: 010111016477     Date Filed: 03/15/2024   Page: 4

              acted with criminal intent or knowledge of the other
               individual’s intent to commit the rape.

 Okla. Unif. Jury Instr. CR 2-6. We apply these elements based on the

 prosecution’s evidence, which included video showing that the

 videographer had

               helped prop up the unconscious woman during the rape and

               appeared to laugh and tell the rapist to “perk it up.”

 In addition, the prosecution presented a photograph of Mr. Bussell smiling,

 along with the other two men, next to the unconscious woman. Beyond the

 video and photograph, the woman testified that Mr. Bussell had videotaped

 the rape and encouraged the rapist. This combination of evidence allowed

 the state appeals court to reasonably conclude that the jury had enough

 evidence to find Mr. Bussell guilty of first-degree rape.

          Mr. Bussell insists that he was just a bystander, but he doesn’t say

 why it would have been unreasonable for the jury to credit the

 prosecution’s evidence that he had aided the rapist by propping up the

 woman, laughing during the rape, and encouraging the rapist to “perk it

 up.” We thus conclude that no reasonable jurist could find satisfaction of

 Mr. Bussell’s burden to show an unreasonable application of Supreme

 Court precedent. Given this conclusion, we deny a certificate of

 appealability on Mr. Bussell’s claim involving insufficient evidence of

 guilt.
                                          4
Appellate Case: 23-5104   Document: 010111016477   Date Filed: 03/15/2024   Page: 5

       b.      The state appeals court didn’t act unreasonably in
               upholding the denial of a severance.

       Mr. Bussell asked the state court to sever his trial from the trial of

 the first man (who had actually committed the rape). The trial court

 refused, and the state appeals court upheld that ruling. Mr. Bussell argues

 that the refusal to sever his trial resulted in a denial of due process because

 his defense had differed from the first man’s, the evidence of guilt was

 overwhelming for the rapist, and joinder created a racial issue. So

 Mr. Bussell must show that the state appellate court unreasonably applied

 Supreme Court precedent in rejecting these arguments.

       Even when codefendants have conflicting defenses, severance may

 not be constitutionally required. Instead, the court considers whether

 joinder would “compromise a specific trial right” or prevent a “reliable

 judgment about guilt or innocence.” Zafiro v. United States, 506 U.S. 534,

 539 (1993).

       The federal district court concluded that the state appeals court had

 reasonably applied Supreme Court precedent because

              Mr. Bussell’s defense was aligned with the rapist’s,

              Mr. Bussell and the first man shared the same legal position
               because aiding and abetting the crime could show guilt of the
               underlying offense,

              Mr. Bussell had only speculation to support his complaint about
               the injection of race into his prosecution, and

                                        5
Appellate Case: 23-5104   Document: 010111016477   Date Filed: 03/15/2024   Page: 6

             the trial judge had instructed the jury to separately consider the
              evidence of guilt for each defendant.

 In our view, this reasoning is not reasonably debatable.

       The state appeals court could reasonably consider Mr. Bussell’s

 theory of innocence as consistent with the first man’s. The first man

 argued that the sex had been consensual; if it had been consensual,

 Mr. Bussell wouldn’t have incurred guilt.

       And the state appeals court could reasonably question Mr. Bussell’s

 complaint about the injection of race into his prosecution. The victim

 testified that she wouldn’t have consented to sex with the first man

 because he was Black. Mr. Bussell complains that race thus became an

 issue in his prosecution. But the state appeals court could have reasoned

 that race would remain an issue even with severance: The prosecution’s

 theory of guilt was that Mr. Bussell had aided and abetted the first man’s

 commission of rape; if the victim would have refused to have sex with the

 first man because he was Black, her refusal would have remained relevant

 against Mr. Bussell even if the trials had been severed. We thus conclude

 that the state appeals court reasonably applied Supreme Court precedent in

 rejecting Mr. Bussell’s claim involving the refusal to sever his trial. Given

 the reasonableness of that conclusion, we deny a certificate on the claim

 involving a refusal to sever the trials.

                                        6
Appellate Case: 23-5104   Document: 010111016477   Date Filed: 03/15/2024   Page: 7

       c.     The state appellate court acted reasonably in rejecting the
              claim involving prosecutorial misconduct.

       Finally, Mr. Bussell claims misconduct in the prosecutor’s closing

 argument based on his references to Mr. Bussell and his codefendants as

 sexual predators, their appearance in a photograph as “big game hunters

 that [had] bagged a trophy,” and the similarity to a movie (The Accused).

       These references would create a denial of due process only if they

 sufficiently tainted the fairness of the trial. Darden v. Wainwright, 477

 U.S. 168, 181 (1986). Mr. Bussell argues that the references satisfied that

 standard because he was just a bystander who had failed to step in to

 prevent the rape. Of course, the prosecution countered that characterization

 with evidence that Mr. Bussell had laughed and helped the first man

 commit the rape. But irrespective of Mr. Bussell’s ultimate culpability, the

 constitutional claim would turn on the impact of the prosecutor’s

 statements on the fairness of the trial itself. See id. And any jurist would

 have to conclude that the state appeals court had acted reasonably in

 finding no constitutional taint from the prosecutor’s characterization of

 Mr. Bussell and his codefendants. We thus deny a certificate of

 appealability on this claim.

                                      * * *

                                        7
Appellate Case: 23-5104   Document: 010111016477    Date Filed: 03/15/2024   Page: 8

       The district court determined that the state appeals court had acted

 reasonably in applying Supreme Court precedent. In our view, the district

 court’s determination is not reasonably debatable. We thus

             decline to issue a certificate of appealability and

             dismiss the appeal.

                                      Entered for the Court

                                      Robert E. Bacharach
                                      Circuit Judge

                                        8