ED CARNES, Chief Judge:
Jimmy Fletcher Meders, a Georgia prisoner, filed a 28 U.S.C. § 2254 petition in the Southern District of Georgia raising 18 claims. After the district court denied his petition, Meders moved for a certificate of appealability on several of his claims. The district court granted that motion only as to his claim alleging that trial counsel was ineffective at the guilt phase of his trial. This is his appeal.
The facts that follow in these two paragraphs are not disputed. On October 13, 1987, Meders went to help his boss, Randy Harris, fix a car at Harris' house. Bill Arnold and Greg Creel later arrived at the house. Arnold is Harris' cousin, and Creel is Arnold's friend. Meders, Harris, Arnold, and Creel spent the afternoon drinking beer and liquor. The four of them went to a Best Western motel later that evening, where Harris had rented a room for a young woman with whom he was having an extramarital affair. Meders, Arnold, and Creel left the motel later that night.
Around 2:35 the next morning (October 14), the three men stopped by a Jiffy Store. Don Anderson, the store clerk, was shot twice — once in the chest, once in the head — and he died. The weapon used in the shooting was a Dan Wesson .357 Magnum revolver. Meders took between $31 and $38 from the cash register. Included in the cash taken were two $1 bills and a $5 bill that the store manager had planted as bait money — she had written down the three bills' serial numbers and kept them in the store's records so that the money could be identified if the store was robbed and the money was recovered. That bait money and some food stamps were found in Meders' wallet and in his house after he was arrested later that same day. The murder weapon was found under his bed two days later.
Meders was indicted in Georgia state court in December 1987 for the murder and armed robbery of Anderson, the store clerk. The case proceeded to a jury trial.
Because the claim Meders presses in this Court involves the trial testimony of several of the State's witnesses, we recount their testimony in some detail.
The State first called Harris to the stand. He testified that he spent the after-noon of October 13 drinking with Meders, Arnold, and Creel. He paid Meders about $200 for his work on a car, and while they were sitting around drinking and talking, Meders kept mentioning that he owed some people in Florida $2,000 for some drugs, and that they were "going to come down here and kill him if he didn't pay them."
Harris testified that later that evening all four men went to a Best Western motel.
Harris testified that around that same time, Arnold called his motel room and asked Harris to pick up Creel and him from a trailer park. Harris drove Creel's truck to the trailer park, picked up both of them, and took them to Harris' house. After arriving at his house around 4:00 or 5:00 a.m., Harris urged the two of them to go to the police and report what had happened. He testified that the three of them talked for about an hour and then all three went to sleep at his house. Around 9:00 a.m., Harris woke up and went to his shop; the police questioned him there and then took him to the police station for more questioning.
Creel testified next for the State. He stated that he, Harris, Arnold, and Meders had spent the afternoon of October 13 drinking before going to the Best Western later that evening. After spending a few hours in the motel room, he, Arnold, and Meders left and went riding around, stopping at a couple of bars. Arnold was driving, Meders was in the passenger seat, and Creel was in the back seat. They later stopped at a Jiffy Store because Creel was hungry. He testified that both he and Meders got out of the car and went into the store. Once inside, Creel grabbed a Yoo-hoo and a package of sausage and biscuits. While he was heating up his sausage and biscuits in a microwave in the back of the store, he heard a gunshot. He turned around and saw the store clerk falling against the wall and Meders facing the wounded clerk.
Creel testified that he "tore out" of the store, and as he was running out, he heard a second gunshot. He exited the store, jumped in the back seat of the car, and told Arnold to "go" because Meders had "just shot a man." He recounted how Meders had run out of the store, jumped in the front passenger seat of the car, and pointed his gun at Arnold and Creel. Arnold drove to Shady Acres, a trailer park, where he and Creel got out. Meders got in the driver's seat, and Arnold told Meders "to never come around him again." Meders asked Arnold and Creel if they wanted any of the money or food stamps he had taken from the store. They both said no, that they didn't want any part of it. Creel and Arnold then walked to one of the trailers where they called Harris to pick them up. Creel testified that he didn't know Meders until the day before the shooting, that he didn't know that Meders had a gun until the shooting, and that he had no idea that Meders was going to rob the store or shoot the clerk. He also stated that he had given the police two statements about the incident: one on October 15, and one a few weeks later.
On cross-examination Creel confirmed that, after they all were finished drinking at Harris' house, they did not take Meders back to his house but instead went to the Best Western. For that reason, Creel
The State next presented Arnold, who is Harris' cousin. For the most part Arnold's testimony tracked Creel's. Arnold testified that he had grown up with Creel and that he had known Meders for about "a year or two" before the shooting. Arnold told how, after the four of them spent the afternoon of October 13 drinking, they all went to a room at the Best Western, and later he, Creel, and Meders left (without Harris) to go riding around. In the early morning hours of October 14, they stopped at a Jiffy Store because Creel was hungry and Meders wanted some cigarettes. After Arnold parked the car, Creel and Meders both went inside the store. The next thing Arnold heard was a gunshot, and the next thing he saw was Creel running out of the store. Then Arnold heard another shot, and Creel jumped in the car and "hollered that Jimmy [Meders] had just killed that man." Meders then jumped in the car, waved his gun around and pointed it at Arnold and Creel, and told Arnold to drive off and "get away from the store."
Which Arnold did. He drove them to the Shady Acres Trailer Park, where he and Creel got out of the car and refused to take any of the cash Meders had stolen. Meders got in the driver's seat and drove off, while Arnold and Creel went into a friend's trailer and called Harris and asked him to pick them up. Arnold testified that Harris picked them up and they all went to Harris' house, where he told them that they should go to the police. Instead, the three went to sleep. Arnold went to the police station the next morning, October 15, to give a statement.
On cross-examination Arnold testified that he did not take Meders back to his house in the hours before the shooting but that they did stop by a bar while they were driving around. He stated that no one in the car had "shot at a truck" while they were driving around.
Margaret Clements, who was the manager of the Jiffy Store at the time of the shooting, was the next witness for the State. She testified that a couple of days before the shooting she had recorded the serial numbers from a $5 bill and two $1 bills, and that those three bills were put in a money clip in the register to use as the store's "bait money." When the bait money was removed from the register, it would trigger a silent alarm. She said that when she went to the store after the shooting, between $31.00 and $38.00 — which included the $7.00 in bait money — had been taken from the register, but she couldn't determine how many food stamps were taken. She also testified that a receipt was left sticking out of the register, which showed a transaction for 51 cents at 2:35 a.m. on October 14, 1987.
The State then presented several witnesses who testified about the scene of the crime, the evidence related to the crime, and the police department's investigation of the crime.
The State called Jack Boyet as its last witness. Boyet was a detective with the Glynn County Police Department at the time of the murder. He responded to the scene at the Jiffy Store and also went with two other officers to Meders' house later that morning to question him. At the house Boyet told Meders that he had some questions about a homicide at the Jiffy Store, and Meders falsely stated that he didn't know anything about it. Boyet then asked Meders whether he had a gun or knife on him, and Meders admitted that he did. The officers took a "small .22 pistol," which was loaded and had a shell in the chamber, from the right pocket of his jacket. They also found 17 food stamps in the left pocket of Meders' jacket. After reading him his
Detective Boyet told the jury that at the police station Meders again stated that he didn't know anything about the robbery-murder and had not gone to the Jiffy Store. He claimed, instead, that he had been at the Best Western and had gone home around midnight. Boyet then informed Meders that Harris had just given a statement to detectives that Meders had told him that he "had blew a man's head off for $38.00." Meders denied saying that and told Boyet that Harris was "trying to get him" because he thought Meders was having an affair with his wife. After Boyet finished interviewing him, Meders was arrested.
Boyet testified that on October 16, Harris came to the police station and said that he "had received information" that the gun used in the shooting was under Meders' waterbed. Boyet executed a search warrant at Meders' house that day and found
Boyet also testified that on November 14, 1988 — a year and one month after the murder and Meders' first statement to police, and four months before the trial — Meders asked to talk with him again. Despite his previous statements denying that he knew anything about the crime, Meders now told Boyet a different story. Here's how Boyet recounted on the witness stand Meders' new story:
Meders also told Boyet that he did not go to Harris' motel room after the murder, that Harris had told him later that morning that the best thing he could do is keep his mouth shut about the shooting, and that Harris had put the gun under Meders' mattress. Boyet testified that Meders said he had waited more than a year to tell the police about the incident because he was scared of what would happen if he told them. Boyet confirmed that he had not found any evidence that Arnold or Creel ever had the gun that killed the store clerk, or any evidence that corroborated Meders' story about what had happened.
Defense counsel then cross-examined Boyet. Boyet stated that when he questioned
The State rested, and the defense presented its case. Five witnesses testified for the defense before Meders himself took the stand. His wife Sherry testified that Meders had passed out from drinking around 10:00 p.m. on October 13, 1987, that Arnold came inside their house later that night asking to borrow a gun, and Meders left the house with him. On cross-examination Sherry Meders admitted telling officers on October 14 that she did not know whether her husband had left the house during the previous night and that she did not tell them that Arnold came by the house to pick up Meders or Meders' gun. She had told the police that Meders had, among other guns, two .357 caliber guns in the house. She testified that she never told Harris that the murder weapon was under Meders' waterbed.
Wayne Martin, a friend of Meders, testified that after going by the Best Western for about 10 minutes on the night of October 13, he and Meders went to Meders' house to drink some beer. He stated that when he left around 10:00 p.m. Meders was "passed out ... on the couch." Martin stated that a couple of months after the shooting, Meders told him that he had been with Arnold and Creel at the time of the shooting, that they had his gun, but that he didn't remember what happened during the shooting.
Meders' brother and his brother's wife both testified that they saw Meders around 2:25 a.m. on October 14, that he was with Arnold and Creel then, and that the three men had a gun in the car. His brother also stated that about six to seven months after the shooting, Meders told him that either Arnold or Creel had shot the clerk. Another witness testified that he saw Arnold at a bar around 5:00 or 6:00 p.m. on October 14, the day of the murder, and that Arnold told him and a few others that he had to go see Harris and Creel to "see what the deal was" and "get the story straight."
Finally, Meders testified on his own behalf. He said that during the afternoon of October 13, 1987, he and Harris took two 10 milligram Valiums each and drank some beer at the auto shop before Arnold and Creel met them at Harris' house, where they all drank some more. He stated that Harris gave him $250 for some work he had done on a car, and Harris also bought a bulldog from Creel for $50. Meders testified that he, Arnold, and Creel "felt like getting drunk" so they went to the liquor store and bought some alcohol. Around 5:30 p.m., Meders felt like he had "had enough to drink," so he stopped drinking — at least for a little while. He said that Harris then told him, Arnold, and Creel that he had to go pick his wife up from work, so Arnold and Creel drove Meders home.
Meders testified that later that night, his friend Wayne Martin took him to the motel room that Harris had rented. Meders
According to Meders, Arnold did not take him home but instead drove to a convenience store. After that Meders started driving the car, and as he was heading back to his house, he saw his brother and his brother's wife making a deposit at a bank "right around the corner from [his] house." When they stopped at the bank to talk to Meders' brother and sister-in-law, Arnold got back in the driver's seat. They then drove to another convenience store, and Arnold went in with Meders' gun in his pocket while Creel and Meders sat in the car. Meders testified that they thought Arnold was just "kidding" around by taking the gun inside.
Meders testified that after Arnold returned to the car, he drove to the Jiffy Store, and all three men went inside. Meders testified that he and Arnold were standing near the counter while Creel went to the microwave. He stated that out of nowhere, Arnold "pulled the gun and shot" the clerk twice, then told Meders: "No witnesses. Get the money." Meders grabbed the money out of the cash register, and the three men exited the store "pretty quickly," got in the car, and Arnold drove to Shady Acres Trailer Park, where he and Creel got out. Meders told Arnold to keep the gun, that he didn't want it back, and then he drove back to his house. He testified that after getting to his house, an officer pulled up and told him that he had a brake light out. Meders went inside and went to sleep on the couch.
Later that morning Harris came by Meders' house and told him to "go on to work" and that he would be there shortly. Meders testified that Harris later told him at the shop that he should keep his mouth shut and "let [it] blow over" because Meders had a wife and child to take care of. Meders went back to his house, and several officers showed up. He told the officers multiple times that he did not know anything about the shooting, which he admitted at trial was not true. Meders went to the police station around 11:15 that morning and, as he claimed that Harris had advised him, told the officers again that he did not know anything about the robbery-murder.
Meders acknowledged at trial that he did not tell Detective Boyet that he witnessed the shooting until more than a year after the murder. He also conceded that although he did not know how the torn $1 bill from the bait money ended up on his television, the officers did find the other two bills of the bait money (the $5 bill and the other $1 bill) in his wallet. And he acknowledged that the officers found the
Harris and a Brunswick City police officer testified in rebuttal for the State. Harris admitted that he had previously pleaded guilty to selling marijuana. He also testified that it was Meders' wife Sherry who had told him where the murder weapon was.
The city police officer testified that around 3:30 a.m. on October 14, 1987, he saw a vehicle speeding about a quarter mile from Meders' house, and he later located that vehicle at Meders' house. After he stopped in front of the house Meders came out to see "what was wrong." The officer asked Meders if he had been driving the vehicle, and Meders, who was acting "very, very nervous," told the officer that he had just driven it back from the Amoco station where he had called his girlfriend, and that he was nervous because his wife "would kill him" if she found out that he had a girlfriend.
The State waived its opening argument to the jury but reserved the right to conclude. Defense counsel argued in closing that the State had allowed Harris, Arnold, and Creel to "design its case," and he pointed out inconsistencies between their testimonies. He told the jury that he didn't believe the "Arnold-Creel-Harris version of this case speaks the truth" and argued that Harris planted the murder weapon under Meders' bed.
The State told the jurors in its closing argument that they would have to judge the credibility of the witnesses, and that "Randy Harris, Bill Arnold, Greg Creel, [and] the police officers all told the same story all the way down the line from day one." It argued that Meders, his wife, and Martin had made up their stories about a year after the incident. And it noted that Meders had never explained what he did in the "twenty-five minute[]" gap between leaving the Shady Acres Trailer Park and arriving at his house. The State argued that what he had done was stop by the Best Western and tell Harris what he had done, just as Harris had recounted to the jury. The State pointed out that Meders had several opportunities to tell the police what he knew about the crime, but he failed to do so until more than a year after the murder — unlike Harris, Arnold, and Creel.
During its deliberations, the jury asked six questions, three of which Meders discusses in his briefs to this Court:
The court told the jury that it could not "respond to you in any regard concerning the evidence in this case," and that the jury must base all of its findings on the evidence that had been presented to it. After two hours of deliberations, the jury returned a guilty verdict on the charges of malice murder and armed robbery. Meders was sentenced to death for the murder
Meders appealed his convictions and sentences to the Georgia Supreme Court.
At the remand hearing Meders contended that his trial counsel was ineffective during the guilt phase for:
The evidence presented at the hearing included the complete files of the prosecutor and of Meders' trial counsel as well as documents from the Glynn County Police Department relating to Meders' case.
The prosecutor's file contained pretrial statements from Harris, Arnold, and Creel, including transcripts of Harris' October 14, 1987 interview and of Arnold's and Creel's October 15 interviews. There were several inconsistencies between those pretrial statements and trial testimony. For example, in their pretrial statements Arnold and Creel told the police that they had taken Meders home and picked him up on the night of October 13, but in their trial testimony they denied doing that. Creel's pretrial statement showed that he told the police he knew Meders had a gun when Meders went into the Jiffy Store, but he testified at trial that he did not know about the gun until Meders actually shot the clerk.
A report prepared by Boyet shows that when the police went to Harris' body shop around 11:00 a.m. on October 14, Harris told them that he had not seen Meders since the night before and he did not say anything about the shooting or Meders' involvement in it. But at the police station just over an hour later, Harris told the police that Meders had stopped by his motel room around 3:00 to 4:00 that morning and told him that he had just "killed a man over $38." Harris also told the officers that Meders did not say where (that is, in what part of the body) he had shot the clerk but "just [that] he shot him." At trial Harris had testified that Meders stopped by his motel room around 3:15 a.m. and told him that: "I just blowed a man's head off over $38.00."
The pretrial statements also show that Harris told the officers on October 14 that he had no idea where Meders would keep the murder weapon. Two days later he told
The prosecutor's file also contained two police reports that supported Meders' trial testimony about the truck shootings and contradicted the testimony of Arnold, Creel, and Detective Boyet on that subject. One police report stated that around 12:30 a.m. on October 14, a car passed by the complainant's house several times and someone in the car "fired a shot" on the last pass. The bullet struck the wall near the house, missing the truck parked in the driveway "by about a foot." The complainant's son was Keith Bowen — the same person that Meders testified had been in a fight with Arnold and Creel.
Finally, the prosecutor's file also contained a note that stated "[u]nable to trace any food coupons to store," as well as a report by a Glynn County police officer stating that Sherry (Meders' wife) had told the officer that she and Meders were legally receiving food stamps. Less favorable to Meders, that same report indicated that during the first search of Meders' house the officers had looked "around the bottom outside area" of the waterbed but not underneath it.
In addition to that evidence, Meders presented twelve witnesses at the remand hearing.
Meders' counsel also questioned Boyet about the police reports and the inconsistencies between the pretrial statements and the trial testimony of Harris, Arnold, and Creel. Boyet confirmed that before the trial he had talked to Arnold and Creel about the truck shootings and that they both had denied any involvement in them. Boyet conceded that he was unable to link to the Jiffy Store any of the food stamps that were admitted into evidence, he had never testified he could.
No copies of the pretrial statements of Arnold, Creel, or Harris were found in Meders' trial counsel's file. And nothing in his trial counsel's file suggested that he had reviewed those witnesses' pretrial statements. Nor did his file contain copies of the police reports. Based on the evidence presented at the remand hearing, Meders argued that his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to use the pretrial statements and police reports to corroborate Meders' testimony and "undercut the credibility of the [State's] prime accusers against [him]," and for failing to object to
The state trial court ruled that Meders had failed to show that he was prejudiced by his trial counsel's alleged deficiencies. As a result, it denied his claim that his counsel was ineffective during the guilt phase of his trial. The Georgia Supreme Court affirmed.
A couple of years later, in April 1994, Meders filed a state habeas petition. After conducting evidentiary hearings, the state habeas court granted relief on Meders' claim alleging ineffective assistance of counsel at the guilt phase, but it denied relief on his other claims. The State and Meders both appealed. The Georgia Supreme Court reversed the grant of relief on Meders' ineffective assistance claim, explaining that the claim was procedurally barred because it had already been litigated on the merits in the direct appeal.
Meders filed a 28 U.S.C. § 2254 petition in July 2007 and an amended petition in January 2012. The district court ruled that Meders' trial counsel's performance at the guilt phase was deficient but concluded that the trial court's ruling on remand in the direct appeal that Meders could not establish prejudice was not an unreasonable application of
For a third of a century it has been established that counsel does not render ineffective assistance unless he performs outside "the wide range of reasonable professional assistance."
As for how adverse, and how likely, the effect of the attorney's errors must be:
As difficult as it is to prevail on an ineffective assistance prejudice issue in the first court to decide it, the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 makes it even harder to succeed on that issue in a federal habeas proceeding after a state court has ruled that the petitioner failed to show prejudice. To obtain habeas relief, the petitioner must show that the state court's ruling "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." 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1).
Under AEDPA, error is not enough; even clear error is not enough.
The Georgia Supreme Court denied Meders' guilt stage ineffective assistance of counsel claim on the merits.
Meders concedes that AEDPA deference is due the ruling on prejudice.
Notwithstanding that concession, at other points Meders appears to engage in a line-by-line critique of the state court's reasoning, pointing out evidence that was not mentioned in the order or given the weight he feels it deserves.
"Deciding whether a state court's decision involved an unreasonable application of federal law ... requires the federal habeas court to train its attention on the particular reasons — both legal and factual — why state courts rejected a state prisoner's federal claims, and to give appropriate deference to that decision."
This Court has stressed that in applying AEDPA deference federal courts are not to take a magnifying glass to the state court opinion or grade the quality of it. We have emphasized time and again that "our charge under § 2254(d) is to review the conclusion the state court reached, not to read state court opinions as if we were grading papers."
Likewise, the Supreme Court has recognized that "federal courts have no authority to impose mandatory opinion-writing
Applying AEDPA deference, when a state court decides that a petitioner has failed to establish prejudice for
Meders contends that his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to use certain pretrial statements and police reports to impeach several of the State's witnesses, and that the state trial court's determination that he had failed to establish prejudice "reflects a profound misvaluation of the impeachment material trial counsel failed to use." The State, while acknowledging that new evidence does call into question "certain areas of credibility" of some of its witnesses, contends that evidence is not enough to repair Meders' credibility or to refute the overwhelming evidence showing his guilt.
As the State recognizes, when read against their testimony at trial, the pretrial statements and the police reports weaken the credibility of Harris, Creel, Arnold, and Detective Boyet. Harris, for example, first told the police around 11:00 a.m. on October 14 that he hadn't seen Meders since the previous night. An hour later he told the police that between 3:00 to 4:00 that morning Meders had stopped by his motel room and told him he shot the store clerk, but said that Meders had not mentioned that he shot the clerk in the head. But Harris later testified at trial that when Meders had stopped by his motel room, Meders told him he had shot the store clerk in the head. He also first told the police he didn't know where the murder weapon was located, then told them two days later that he had remembered Meders liked to hide things under his waterbed "where they would never be found," and finally testified at trial that Sherry Meders had told him that the gun was under the waterbed.
Although it's clear that Harris made inconsistent statements, it's not clear that he was lying about Meders confessing that he had just "blowed a man's head off over $38.00." Harris testified that Meders took $38 — no more, no less — from the Jiffy
In a similar vein, Harris' incentive to lie about who committed the robbery-murder was much weaker than that of Meders, Arnold, or Creel. Arnold and Creel admitted that they were present at the scene of the murder, putting them in some jeopardy of being convicted of that crime. Harris, by contrast, undisputedly was not present during the crime, nor was there any evidence suggesting that he knew it was going to happen. No matter whose version of the events the jury found was true, Harris did not face conviction for the capital crime of robbery-murder and a death sentence. And a rational jury in deciding whether to believe him or Meders would take into account that he had far less incentive to lie than Meders, who was facing a death sentence, did.
Still, Harris could have been impeached with the evidence Meders' trial counsel did not present. And Arnold, Creel, and Detective Boyet also could have been impeached with the evidence that was not presented. Arnold's and Creel's pretrial statements contradicted some of their testimony at trial. The police reports from the prosecutor's file not only undermined the testimonies of Arnold, Creel, and Boyet about the truck shootings but also supported Meders' testimony about those shootings. And the jury's question about whether any reports were filed about the truck shootings suggests that it was interested in that subject. The jury questions about whether the waterbed was searched when officers first searched the house and whether fingerprints were lifted from it suggest that the jury was also interested in that.
Despite all of that, there was still undisputed evidence in the record pointing to Meders' guilt. For example, the two bullets that struck the victim were fired from the Dan Wesson .357 Magnum revolver that was found under Meders' waterbed. Meders even confirmed at trial that the .357 Magnum "was the weapon that was used to kill the [store clerk]." He acknowledged that he owned that weapon, and there was no evidence that anyone had planted it under his waterbed.
The undisputed facts about what happened to the proceeds of the robbery are strong evidence of Meders' guilt. After all, he admitted to the jury that he was the one who took the money from the Jiffy Store: "I got the money out of the cash register." And he was the only one who kept any of that money. The Jiffy Store's bait money was found in his possession. Meders admitted that two of the three bait money bills were found in his wallet. The third bait bill was found on his television. If, as Meders claimed in his testimony, Arnold actually shot the store clerk during the robbery, it seems highly unlikely that Arnold would not have ended up with any of the stolen money. Meders testified that after the crime, he insisted that Arnold keep the firearm that belonged to Meders because he "didn't want it back," but he never explained why he didn't insist that
That the murder weapon was found under Meders' waterbed evidences his guilt. And even if we assume that it was put there by someone other than Meders, as he implied at trial, the fact remains that he admitted to owning the weapon that fired the bullets that killed Anderson. He admitted to being present at the scene of the crime. And he admitted to having in his possession all of the money taken from the cash register. And although the evidence that trial counsel did not present would have been helpful in impeachment, none of it substantially undermined the proof of Meders' guilt. Whether Arnold and Creel shot at the trucks and whether they dropped Meders off at his house at some point before the murder does not change the undisputed facts that point to Meders' guilt. The evidence establishing that Meders committed the murder remains strong.
Even though the police reports corroborated some of Meders' testimony, the reports would not have repaired his credibility. Meders lied to the police several different times, and he acknowledged as much at trial. He testified that he told the officer who pulled up at his house after the shooting that he had just gone to call his girlfriend and he was nervous because his wife would kill him if she found out. That was a lie, as Meders admitted at trial. And when police officers questioned him at his house hours after the murder, he told them he did not know anything about the shooting. That was also a lie, as Meders admitted at trial. Hours later at the police station, he again told Detective Boyet he knew nothing about the shooting. Same lie retold, as Meders later admitted at trial.
A year and a month after his arrest Meders reversed a year-long course of lies and admitted to Boyet that he was with Arnold and Creel at the Jiffy Store at the time of the murder. He attempted to explain away his previous lies about that by saying he had simply been following Harris' advice to deny any involvement in the crime.
Meders has failed to show that had his trial counsel used all of the impeachment material during the guilt phase of his trial, every fairminded jurist would conclude that there is a "substantial, not just conceivable," likelihood that the result of his trial would have been different.
Meders also argues that trial counsel's failure to object to the introduction of evidence that he had food stamps or to argue to the jury that they could not be linked to the robbery also amounted to ineffective assistance. The Jiffy Store manager testified that food stamps were taken from the store, although she could not say how many food stamps were taken. And on the witness stand, Meders conceded that food stamps were found in his jacket just hours after the crime. In addition, Creel testified that after they got to the trailer park minutes after the shooting, Meders tried to give him and Arnold some of the food stamps that he had taken from the store.
Given all of that testimony, there was enough evidence to link the food stamps to the robbery. They were admissible and an objection to them would have been futile. The state court found that counsel's failure to object to the introduction of the food stamps was neither deficient performance nor prejudicial. That is not only reasonable but also correct. It is not ineffective assistance of counsel to fail to make an objection that is not due to be sustained.
As for counsel's failure to argue to the jury that the food stamps found in Meders' possession had not been positively connected to the robbery, it is not prejudicial for an attorney to fail to point out to the jury something that is obvious from the evidence. No one said that those food stamps could be traced to the store that had been robbed. Reasonable jurists could find, as the state court did, that Meders has failed to show that if counsel had objected to the food stamps or argued that they had not been identified as the ones taken in the robbery, Meders would have been acquitted.
The state court rejected Meders' ineffective assistance of counsel claim involving the failure to object to the admission of the cocaine citation seized from his wallet on the ground that he had failed to establish prejudice. Although that citation was admitted as evidence and given to the jury (along with other documentary evidence), it was never mentioned during the trial. Not once. Not only that, but other evidence established that Meders had used and purchased drugs. He admitted to the jury that he "smoked a little bit of dope" (marijuana) during the afternoon of October 13, 1987. He also told the jury that he
Based on the other evidence presented, the jury could reasonably conclude that Meders' drug use was the cause of the debt he allegedly owed. And even if his drug use was not the cause of it, his debt was not "a critical fact for the determination of guilt," anyway, as the district court noted. All of this means that a fairminded jurist could agree with the state trial court's ruling that Meders failed to show
Because our review is deferential, we need not determine whether our decision would be the same if we were conducting a
Greg McMichael, a Glynn County police officer at the time of the shooting, testified that when he responded to the call at the Jiffy Store, he passed a car with several occupants driving away from the location of the Jiffy Store. And Matthew Doering, a detective from the Glynn County Police Department, testified that on October 14 he found that same car at Meders' house. After impounding it, he searched the car and found a "Dandy Sausage Biscuits" wrapper.
Meders argues that in a contest of credibility a jury should not believe Harris' testimony incriminating him because Harris initially failed to mention to the police anything about Meders' involvement in the murder but an hour later told them that Meders said he had "killed a man over $38." If Harris' "lie," which he corrected within an hour, supplies "good reason to doubt" his testimony, Meders' lies about having no knowledge of the crime, which he failed to correct for 13 months, give bountiful reason to doubt Meders' testimony and decide the contest of credibility in favor of Harris.
