Court Opinion

ID: 9964015
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-04-26 19:01:18.664689+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:25:07.986688
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 22-12134    Document: 24-1     Date Filed: 04/26/2024   Page: 1 of 8

                                                  [DO NOT PUBLISH]
                                   In the
                United States Court of Appeals
                        For the Eleventh Circuit

                          ____________________

                                No. 22-12134
                          Non-Argument Calendar
                          ____________________

       RICKEY MARTIN,
                                                   Petitioner-Appellant,
       versus
       SECRETARY, FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS,

                                                  Respondent-Appellee.

                          ____________________

                 Appeal from the United States District Court
                     for the Northern District of Florida
                  D.C. Docket No. 4:19-cv-00562-MW-HTC
                          ____________________
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       2                      Opinion of the Court                 22-12134

       Before NEWSOM, GRANT, and LUCK, Circuit Judges.
       PER CURIAM:
              Rickey Martin, counseled and currently incarcerated, ap-
       peals the district court’s denial of his 28 U.S.C. section 2254 habeas
       petition. We affirm.
               Martin is serving a life sentence for capital sexual battery.
       His victim in this case—a daughter of his former girlfriend—didn’t
       report the crime until years later when she heard a rumor that he’d
       molested another girl. The rumor came up in a conversation be-
       tween the victim, her sister, and their mother, in which the sister
       shared the rumor and indicated that she had a hard time believing
       it because it didn’t sound like something Martin would do. Mar-
       tin’s victim broke down and tearfully told her sister and mother
       that they should believe it because he’d raped her when she was
       eleven years old.
              At trial, the state moved in limine to admit testimony of that
       conversation. Martin objected, arguing that it was “very harmful
       to suggest that there’s another victim out there.” But his primary
       defense was that the rape never happened and that his victim’s
       years-long silence was evidence that her story was fabricated be-
       cause the family was angry over his breakup with the victim’s
       mother. The trial court admitted the testimony, with a “very se-
       vere limiting instruction” to the jury, because it provided context
       regarding the series of events that brought the victim’s story to
       light. Martin was convicted and sentenced to a term of life impris-
       onment without parole.
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       22-12134                 Opinion of the Court                              3

               After unsuccessfully appealing his conviction in the state ap-
       pellate court, Martin moved the district court for habeas relief, ar-
       guing that the trial court’s admission of the testimony deprived
       him “of the right to confront witnesses against him in violation of
       his Sixth Amendment rights and den[ied] him a fair trial in violation
                                                                  1
       of his Fourteenth Amendment due process rights.” A magistrate
       judge entered a report and recommendation that characterized
       Martin’s petition as “claim[ing] [that] his right to a fair trial under
       the Fourteenth Amendment was violated when the state trial court
       erred in admitting, over defense objection, a highly inflammatory
       inadmissible hearsay statement concerning an unknown and there-
       fore unavailable person rumored to have claimed to have been mo-
       lested by . . . Martin.” The magistrate judge recommended deny-
       ing Martin’s petition and denying a certificate of appealability be-
       cause: (1) the trial court’s decision to grant the state’s motion in
       limine wasn’t contrary to, and didn’t involve an unreasonable ap-
       plication of, clearly established federal law as determined by the
       Supreme Court; (2) the trial court didn’t err because the testimony
       was offered not for the truth of the matter asserted but rather to
       explain the victim’s delay in coming forward; and (3) even if the
       trial court erred, it didn’t deprive Martin of a fair trial because the
       trial court’s limiting instructions ameliorated any prejudice that
       might’ve been caused by the evidence. The district court accepted
       in part and adopted in part the report and recommendation, denied

       1
         This was “Ground 2” of Martin’s petition, which is the only ground relevant
       to this appeal.
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       4                           Opinion of the Court                         22-12134

       Martin’s petition, and granted a certificate “as to Ground 2 of the
       petition” because “reasonable jurists could find this court’s assess-
       ment of Ground 2 debatable.”
              On appeal, Martin repeats verbatim the argument he raised
       before the district court—namely, that “[t]he state trial court erred
       in admitting, over defense objection, a highly inflammatory inad-
       missible hearsay statement concerning an unknown and therefore
       unavailable person rumored to have claimed to have been mo-
       lested by Mr. Martin, thus depriving Mr. Martin of the right to con-
       front witnesses against him in violation of his Sixth Amendment
       rights and denying him a fair trial in violation of his Fourteenth
                                                 2
       Amendment due process rights.”
              We review de novo a district court’s denial of a section 2254
       petition, “but we owe deference to the final state habeas judg-
       ment.” Reed v. Sec’y, Fla. Dep’t of Corr., 593 F.3d 1217, 1239 (11th
       Cir. 2010) (quotation omitted).            Specifically, under the

       2
          Neither the magistrate judge nor the district court addressed the Sixth
       Amendment part of Martin’s claim. See Clisby v. Jones, 960 F.2d 925, 936 (11th
       Cir. 1992) (instructing district courts “to resolve all claims for relief raised in a
       petition for writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. [section] 2254”). But
       because Martin didn’t raise this issue in either his response to the report and
       recommendation or his brief on appeal, he has forfeited any argument that the
       district court committed Clisby error. See 11th Cir. R. 3-1 (stating that a party
       who fails to object to a magistrate judge’s finding or recommendation waives
       the right to challenge that finding or recommendation on appeal); United States
       v. Campbell, 26 F.4th 860, 872 (11th Cir. 2002) (en banc) (holding that issues not
       raised on appeal are deemed forfeited). As such, only his Fourteenth Amend-
       ment claim is properly before us on appeal.
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       22-12134               Opinion of the Court                          5

       Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, where a
       state court has adjudicated a claim on the merits, a federal court
       may grant habeas relief only if the state court decision (1) “was con-
       trary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly estab-
       lished [f]ederal law, as determined by the Supreme Court,” or (2)
       “was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light
       of the evidence presented in the [s]tate court proceeding.” 28
       U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1), (2). The “unreasonable application” inquiry re-
       quires that the state court decision “be more than incorrect or er-
       roneous”; it must be “objectively unreasonable.” Lockyer v. An-
       drade, 538 U.S. 63, 75 (2003). The petitioner must show that the
       state court’s ruling “was so lacking in justification that there was an
       error well understood and comprehended in existing law beyond
       any possibility for fairminded disagreement.” White v. Woodall, 572
       U.S. 415, 419–20 (2014). Under the “contrary to” clause, a federal
       habeas court may grant the writ if the state court arrives at a con-
       clusion opposite to that reached by the Supreme Court on a ques-
       tion of law or if the state court decides a case differently than the
       Supreme Court has on a set of materially indistinguishable facts.
       Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 412–13 (2000).
               Where, as here, the final state court decision on the merits
       doesn’t provide its reasoning, “the federal court must look through
       the unexplained decision to the last related state-court decision that
       does provide a relevant rationale and presume that the unexplained
       decision adopted the same reasoning.” Pye v. Warden, Ga. Diagnos-
       tic Prison, 50 F.4th 1025, 1034 (11th Cir. 2022) (en banc) (quotation
       omitted). Generally, “a federal court in a habeas corpus case will
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       6                       Opinion of the Court                   22-12134

       not review the trial court’s actions concerning the admissibility of
       evidence.” Alderman v. Zant, 22 F.3d 1541, 1555 (11th Cir. 1994).
       But “where a state court’s ruling is claimed to have deprived a de-
       fendant of his right to due process, a federal court should then in-
       quire only to determine whether the error was of such magnitude
       as to deny fundamental fairness to the criminal trial.” Id. (cleaned
       up). “The admission of prejudicial evidence justifies habeas corpus
       relief only if the evidence is material in the sense of a crucial, criti-
       cal, highly significant factor.” Osborne v. Wainwright, 720 F.2d 1237,
       1238 (11th Cir. 1983) (quotation omitted).
              Martin’s due process claim fails because he hasn’t shown
       that the trial court’s ruling “was contrary to, or involved an unrea-
       sonable application of, clearly established [f]ederal law.” 28 U.S.C.
       § 2254(d)(1). He argues primarily that the trial court erred by vio-
       lating Florida’s rules of evidence as expounded in various state
       court cases. The only federal law Martin references in the Four-
       teenth Amendment context is Huddleston v. United States, 485 U.S.
       681 (1988), which is nested within a quotation of a state appellate
       opinion. Martin doesn’t attempt to show that the trial court vio-
       lated Huddleston, nor could he; Huddleston addresses whether evi-
       dence violates the Federal Rules of Evidence and doesn’t even
       mention due process or the Fourteenth Amendment. See id. at 691.
              Nor has Martin shown that the trial court’s ruling “was so
       lacking in justification that there was an error well understood and
       comprehended in existing law beyond any possibility for fair-
       minded disagreement.” White, 572 U.S. at 419–20. Indeed, nothing
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       22-12134               Opinion of the Court                          7

       in the record shows that the decision was “objectively unreasona-
       ble,” Lockyer, 538 U.S. at 75, or that the objected-to evidence—even
       if admitted in error—was “material in the sense of a crucial, critical,
       highly significant factor,” Osborne, 720 F.2d at 1238.
               The most crucial factor in convicting Martin was his victim’s
       testimony that he raped her. The testimony of the rumor focused
       not on the idea that Martin had molested another child but rather
       on explaining how and why, after so many years, Martin’s victim
       came forward. The trial court considered its prejudicial effect but
       determined that it had probative value because it helped the victim
       tell her story.
               The trial court also granted Martin’s request for limiting in-
       structions, and—before each witness’s testimony and again before
       deliberations—it told the jury that the statement should be consid-
       ered only as proof of how the allegations were first reported. Alt-
       hough Martin argues that, in some circumstances, a jury instruc-
       tion can’t cure unfair prejudice, he offers no explanation for why
       this is one of those instances. The jury is presumed to have fol-
       lowed the trial court’s limiting instructions, and there’s nothing in
       the record to indicate that it didn’t. See Richardson v. Marsh, 481
       U.S. 200, 211 (1987).
             Finally, the objected-to testimony lacked credibility. The
       witnesses made no representation that the accusation was true, the
       victim’s sister said that she didn’t believe it sounded like something
       Martin would do, and the state referred to it only as a “rumor.”
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       8                       Opinion of the Court                  22-12134

              For all of these reasons, the district court’s denial of Martin’s
       section 2254 habeas petition is affirmed.
              AFFIRMED.