Court Opinion

ID: 9410536
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-07-21 18:00:43.9213+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:20:58.405029
License: Public Domain

Case: 22-40217         Document: 00516828844             Page: 1      Date Filed: 07/21/2023

              United States Court of Appeals
                   for the Fifth Circuit                                         United States Court of Appeals
                                                                                          Fifth Circuit
                                      ____________                                      FILED
                                                                                      July 21, 2023
                                       No. 22-40217
                                      ____________                                    Lyle W. Cayce
                                                                                           Clerk
   William DeWayne Owens,

                                                                    Petitioner—Appellant,

                                             versus

   Bobby Lumpkin, Director, Texas Department of Criminal Justice,
   Correctional Institutions Division,

                                                Respondent—Appellee.
                      ______________________________

                      Appeal from the United States District Court
                           for the Eastern District of Texas
                                USDC No. 5:14-CV-165
                      ______________________________

   Before Davis, Southwick, and Oldham, Circuit Judges.
   Per Curiam: *
          A Texas state court convicted William DeWayne Owens of aggra-
   vated sexual assault of a child. After seeking relief in state court, Owens filed
   an application for a writ of habeas corpus under the Anti-Terrorism and Ef-
   fective Death Penalty Act, 28 U.S.C. § 2254. The district court denied his
   petition. We affirm.

          _____________________
          *
              This opinion is not designated for publication. See 5th Cir. R. 47.5.
Case: 22-40217         Document: 00516828844             Page: 2      Date Filed: 07/21/2023

                                          No. 22-40217

                                                I.
          William DeWayne Owens was charged with aggravated sexual assault
   of a child in Texas state court. The victim was his daughter “Julie,” who was
   four years old at the time of the assault. 1 At his trial, Owens tried to admit
   evidence of sexual assault allegations Julie made against Billy Speights, Ju-
   lie’s mother’s then-boyfriend, but the trial judge refused to admit this evi-
   dence on the grounds that it did not disprove the claims against Owens. Ow-
   ens also sought police reports against Speights under Brady v. Maryland, 373
   U.S. 83 (1963), but the prosecution claimed it did not have any Brady mate-
   rial. The jury convicted Owens and sentenced him to life imprisonment along
   with a fine of $10,000. His conviction and sentence were affirmed on direct
   appeal.
          He then sought postconviction review in Texas state court. His claims
   were denied. He subsequently filed a petition for federal habeas review under
   the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (“AEDPA”), 28 U.S.C.
   § 2254. While his petition was pending in federal district court, he obtained
   the police report of Julie’s allegations against Speights. The federal court
   stayed its proceedings so Owens could amend his state petition to include
   and exhaust his Brady claim. The Texas Criminal Court of Appeals
   (“TTCA”) admonished the State for not producing the Speights police re-
   port when requested. But ultimately it concluded that this evidence was not
   material and denied his petition for relief in a unanimous opinion. The Su-
   preme Court denied certiorari. Owens v. Texas, 139 S. Ct. 2742 (2019)
   (mem.).
          Owens then sought and was granted permission to file an amended
   federal habeas petition to include his Brady claim. The district court denied
          _____________________
          1
              “Julie” is a pseudonym used by the Texas state court.

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                                    No. 22-40217

   relief as well as a certificate of appealability (“COA”). A judge of this court
   granted Owens a COA on his Brady claim.
                                         II.
          To obtain relief under AEDPA, Owens must show that the state
   court’s adjudication of his Brady claim “resulted in a decision that was con-
   trary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Fed-
   eral law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States.” 28
   U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1). The Supreme Court refers to this provision as
   AEDPA’s “relitigation bar.” E.g., Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 100
   (2011). The bar “stops short of imposing a complete bar on federal-court re-
   litigation of claims already rejected in state proceedings.” Id. at 102. But it
   does require a prisoner in state custody to “shoehorn his claim into one of its
   [two] narrow exceptions.” Langley v. Prince, 926 F.3d 145, 155 (5th Cir. 2019)
   (en banc).
          The first exception—for decisions that are “contrary to” clearly es-
   tablished Federal law—is the “narrower” one. Id. (quotation omitted). The
   applicant must identify a Supreme Court case that is “opposite to” or “ma-
   terially indistinguishable” from the case at hand. Terry Williams v. Taylor,
   529 U.S. 362, 413 (2000). Owens does not, so this prong does not apply.
          The second exception—for decisions that involve an “unreasonable
   application” of clearly established Federal law—is “almost equally unforgiv-
   ing.” Langley, 926 F.3d at 156 (quotation omitted). “[A] prisoner must show
   far more than that the state court’s decision was merely wrong or even clear
   error.” Shinn v. Kayer, 141 S. Ct. 517, 523 (2020) (per curiam) (quotation
   omitted); see also Renico v. Lett, 559 U.S. 766, 773 (2010) (“[A] federal habeas
   court may not issue the writ simply because that court concludes in its inde-
   pendent judgment that the relevant state-court decision applied clearly es-
   tablished federal law erroneously or incorrectly.” (quotation omitted));

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   Schriro v. Landrigan, 550 U.S. 465, 473 (2007) (“The question under
   AEDPA is not whether a federal court believes the state court’s determina-
   tion was incorrect but whether that determination was unreasonable—a sub-
   stantially higher threshold.”); Neal v. Puckett, 286 F.3d 230, 236 (5th Cir.
   2002) (en banc) (per curiam) (“[W]e have no authority to grant habeas cor-
   pus relief simply because we conclude, in our independent judgment, that a
   state supreme court’s application of [federal law] is erroneous or incor-
   rect.”). “Rather, the relitigation bar forecloses relief unless the prisoner can
   show the state court was so wrong that the error was ‘well understood and
   comprehended in existing law beyond any possibility for fairminded disagree-
   ment.’” Langley, 926 F.3d at 156 (quoting Shoop v. Hill, 139 S. Ct. 504, 506
   (2019) (per curiam)); see also Harrington, 562 U.S. at 101. In other words, it
   must be “‘beyond the realm of possibility that a fairminded jurist could’
   agree with the state court.” Langley, 926 F.3d at 156 (quoting Woods v. Ether-
   ton, 578 U.S. 113, 118 (2016) (per curiam)). This demanding standard aligns
   with “the purpose of AEDPA . . . to ensure that federal habeas relief func-
   tions as a guard against extreme malfunctions in the state criminal justice sys-
   tems, and not as a means of error correction.” Greene v. Fisher, 565 U.S. 34,
   38 (2011) (quotation omitted). This standard is “difficult to meet” precisely
   “because it was meant to be.” Harrington, 562 U.S. at 102.
          Here, all agree that Brady is the relevant “clearly established Federal
   law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States.” 28 U.S.C.
   § 2254(d)(1). A Brady violation has three components: (1) the evidence must
   “be favorable to the accused, either because it is exculpatory, or because it is
   impeaching”; (2) the “evidence must have been suppressed by the State, ei-
   ther willfully or inadvertently”; and (3) the suppression must have resulted
   in “prejudice.” Strickler v. Greene, 527 U.S. 263, 281–82 (1999). We agree
   with the Court of Criminal Appeals that the first two prongs are satisfied
   here. The only question is whether this evidence is prejudicial.

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          The third prong—sometimes called Brady prejudice and sometimes
   called Brady materiality—requires the prisoner to show “there is a reasona-
   ble probability that, had the evidence been disclosed to the defense, the result
   of the proceeding would have been different.” Id. at 280 (quotation omitted).
   “The mere possibility that an item of undisclosed information might have
   helped the defense, or might have affected the outcome of the trial, does not
   establish ‘materiality’ in the constitutional sense.” United States v. Agurs,
   427 U.S. 97, 109–10 (1976). Rather, a defendant must show “the nondisclo-
   sure was so serious that there is a reasonable probability that the suppressed
   evidence would have produced a different verdict.” Strickler, 527 U.S. at 281.
   And we cannot evaluate a piece of evidence in a vacuum. Instead, we must
   adjudge the materiality of a particular piece of evidence “in the context of the
   entire record.” Agurs, 427 U.S. at 112; see also Kyles v. Whitley, 514 U.S. 419,
   435 (1995) (requiring that the evidence “could reasonably be taken to put the
   whole case in such a different light as to undermine confidence in the verdict”
   (emphasis added)). And all of these cases—Strickler, Agurs, and Kyles—
   arose before AEDPA’s enactment. So we must apply their legal rules through
   the deferential lens of AEDPA’s relitigation bar. See Harrington, 562 U.S. at
   105 (noting underlying constitutional rules and relitigation bar operate “in
   tandem” to create a “deferential” standard).
          Here, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rejected Owens’s claim
   because he failed to establish Brady’s third requirement, materiality. The
   question presented to us is not whether we would have concurred if we sat
   on that state court. See id. at 101–02. Rather, our question presented is
   whether the state court’s application of Brady was so unreasonable that no
   fairminded jurist could agree with it. See id. at 101; Woods, 58 U.S. at 118;
   Yarborough v. Alvarado, 541 U.S. 652, 664 (2004).

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          We cannot conclude that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals trans-
   gressed the line of fairmindedness in its unanimous decision in this case. That
   is for three principal reasons.
          First, and most significantly, jurists of reason on the Court of Criminal
   Appeals could reasonably conclude the Speights report did not undermine
   Owen’s guilt or conclusively determine that Julie was assaulted by only one
   man. Rather, the testimony at trial established that Julie called Owens “her
   daddy” and “Bubba.” In the Speights report, Julie claimed she was assaulted
   by “Uncle Billy” (her name for Speights)—but she never disputed that she
   was also assaulted by Owens; she never suggested any confusion between the
   two men; nor did she ever claim that she was assaulted by only one man.
          True, some parts of the police report could support the one-abuser
   theory. For example, Julie did not accuse Owens of abusing her in the police
   report. And Nora Mitchell, Julie’s guardian beginning in June 2008, told in-
   vestigators that she believed Julie confused the details between Speights and
   Owens. Although the issue is not free from doubt, we cannot say that the
   Court of Criminal Appeals was so unreasonable in its decision as to be unfair-
   minded.
          Second, jurists of reason on the state court could reasonably conclude
   that Owens’s guilt stood independent from any allegations Julie also made
   against Speights. Most notably, Julie accused Owens of assaulting her in
   March 2008—months before she made her statements to police regarding
   Speights in August 2008. That undermines Owens’s claim that Julie had a
   motive to falsely accuse Owens at the bequest of her mother to exonerate
   Speights. By the time Julie made her statements about Speights, she had al-
   ready accused Owens.
          To the extent the record taken as a whole could be read to suggest only
   one man assaulted Julie, the state courts could reasonably conclude it was

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                                        No. 22-40217

   Owens. For example, Missy Davison, a forensic interviewer, testified that Ju-
   lie told her that Owens sexually assaulted her. She concluded that Julie pro-
   vided consistent details, and her testimony indicated that she was telling the
   truth. For example, Julie used “kid language” and provided sensory details.
   The forensic examiner also testified that Julie’s behaviors during the inter-
   view indicated that she had been sexually abused. Mitchell also corroborated
   Julie’s claim against Owens. She testified that when Julie came to live with
   her, she had a lot of nightmares and would cry to Mitchell “about how her
   daddy hurt her” and about how she was “afraid that her daddy [would] come
   and hurt her again.” Julie’s statements against Speights were much weaker
   by comparison. She provided multiple conflicting stories and insufficient de-
   tails of the events. Mitchell could not corroborate any of the details Julie pro-
   vided. And the investigator concluded that Julie was “unclear on exactly
   what happened.” As a result, Speights was not charged for assaulting Julie.
          Third and finally, while the Speights report could have provided addi-
   tional impeachment value, fairminded jurists on the Texas Court of Criminal
   Appeals could reasonably conclude that value was unlikely to change the
   jury’s decision. Owens was already able to impeach Julie for her claims about
   her abuser’s hair color. Julie told the forensic examiner in her initial interview
   that her abuser had white hair. Owens did not have white hair at the time of
   the trial, and defense counsel was able to impeach Julie at trial on that point.
   The only thing trial counsel was not permitted to do was to blame Speights
   (who allegedly had bleached tips on his hair) for the assault. As the Texas
   Court of Criminal Appeals determined: “The information in the police re-
   port would have provided a stronger basis upon which to impeach Julie’s
   identification of applicant, but not to the extent that there is a reasonable like-
   lihood this information would have affected the jury’s verdict or undermines
   our confidence in the verdict.” ROA.2143.
                                    *        *         *

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                                    No. 22-40217

          While some evidence suggests the police report may have been mate-
   rial, we can only grant Owens’s petition if all fairminded jurists would disa-
   gree with the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. Owens has not met that de-
   manding standard.
          AFFIRMED.

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