Filed: Oct. 29, 2008
Latest Update: Feb. 21, 2020
Summary: denial of his petition for habeas corpus.numerous references to drug use and gang membership.apply a de novo standard.deciding whether de novo review is in fact required. Commonwealth v. Babbitt, 430 Mass., 700, 704 (2000).the letter was error, however, Williams habeas petition would 8 still fail.
Not for Publication in West’s Federal Reporter
United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 07-1269
ERIC WILLIAMS,
Petitioner-Appellant,
v.
JOHN R. MARSHALL, JR.,
Respondent-Appellee.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS
[Hon. William G. Young, District Judge]
Before
Torruella and Boudin, Circuit Judges,
and Schwarzer,* District Judge.
Anne E. Gowen for appellant.
Maura D. McLaughlin, Assistant Attorney General, Criminal
Bureau with whom, Martha Coakley, Attorney General, was on brief
for appellees.
October 29, 2008
*
Of the Northern District of California, sitting by
designation.
Schwarzer, District Judge. Eric Williams appeals the
denial of his petition for habeas corpus. In his petition,
Williams claimed that his constitutionally guaranteed due process
rights were violated by the admission of a letter allegedly
authored by him, and by the prosecutor’s use and interpretation of
portions of the letter. The district court denied his petition.
Even applying a standard more favorable to the petitioner than the
one adopted by the district court, we agree that admission of the
letter was proper and affirm the judgment below.
I. Factual and Procedural History
We detail only those facts necessary to resolve Williams’
claim. Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(1), we presume the factual
findings of the state court to be correct.
Williams was charged in connection with a series of
incidents that occurred on August 9, 1999, in Brockton,
Massachusetts. That evening, a fistfight broke out between
Williams and several other individuals. He was accused of punching
Tiffany Clark in the face. Later that evening, there was a second
fight, in which Williams was accused of striking Linda Burrell
twice, one time with a gun. Subsequently, a man who police alleged
was Williams fired a gun into the ground near Burrell and her
friend, Daniel Silva. Clark did not testify at trial about the
first incident. Burrell positively identified Williams as her
attacker in the second incident, but she could not clearly identify
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Williams as the shooter in the third incident. Other prosecution
witnesses who identified Williams as the shooter were problematic,
one suffering from limited perception of the incident and the other
suffering from credibility issues.
Williams was convicted of four of the six assault and
battery and weapons related charges in Massachusetts Superior Court
for Plymouth County. One of the prosecution’s key pieces of
evidence was a letter allegedly authored by Williams while he was
incarcerated awaiting trial. The letter was addressed to a friend
of Williams’, but was returned to the correctional facility because
the addressee was unknown. In compliance with established
policies, jail authorities treated the letter as incoming mail, and
opened it because of safety concerns raised by gang symbols on the
outside of the envelope.
The letter was written largely in slang and contained
numerous references to drug use and gang membership. More
importantly, it asked the recipient to intimidate Tanya Ross, a
witness expected to testify for the prosecution, and to try to
influence a co-defendant not to accept a plea bargain. Defense
counsel moved to exclude the letter. The trial court admitted it,
reasoning that although the letter was prejudicial to the
defendant, it was also highly probative of consciousness of guilt.
The judge ordered that portions of the letter relating to gang
membership and some mentions of drug use be redacted.
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The redacted letter was read to the jury twice during the
course of the trial. The prosecutor displayed an enlargement of
the two-page letter during his closing argument and referenced
passages several times. Additionally, the prosecutor suggested
that the jury should interpret a phrase in the letter – “blaze for
me” – to mean “shoot for me”.
The jury convicted Williams of assault and battery and
assault and battery with a dangerous weapon on Burrell, unlawful
possession of a firearm, and unlawful discharge of a firearm. He
was acquitted of the two other charges, assault and battery on
Clark and assault with intent to murder Silva. Williams’ motion
for a new trial was denied, and he was sentenced to nine to ten
years in prison.
The Massachusetts Appeals Court affirmed Williams’
conviction and the denial of his motion for new trial. He filed a
motion for further appellate review with the Massachusetts Supreme
Judicial Court, which was denied without opinion. Williams then
filed a petition for habeas corpus in the district court, claiming
that the admission of the letter was so prejudicial that it
violated his constitutionally guaranteed due process rights. The
petition was denied, and this timely appeal followed.
II. Standard of Review
We review the district court’s denial of habeas corpus de
novo. Norton v. Spencer, 351 F.3d 1, 4 (1st Cir. 2003).
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The standard of review applied by federal courts in a
habeas corpus case depends on whether the petitioner’s
constitutional claim was adjudicated by the state court. Under the
Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (“AEDPA”), 28 U.S.C.
§ 2254, if the state court decided Williams’ constitutional claim,
he is entitled to habeas relief only if the proceeding 1) “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,” or 2) “resulted in a
decision that was based on an unreasonable determination of the
facts in light of the evidence presented in the state court
proceedings.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d).
If, however, the petitioner’s federal constitutional
claim was raised in the state courts but remained unresolved, we
apply a de novo standard. Lynch v. Ficco, 438 F.3d 35, 44 (1st
Cir. 2006). Under this standard, Williams’ petition should be
granted if he can demonstrate that the erroneously admitted
evidence so infused the proceeding with inflammatory prejudice that
it rendered a fair trial impossible. Petrillo v. O’Neil,
428 F.3d
41, 44 n.2 (1st. Cir. 2005).
The Commonwealth contends that Williams’ federal claim
was effectively adjudicated by the state court because the
Massachusetts Appeals Court applied prejudicial error analysis, a
standard that was at least as favorable to Williams as the federal
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standard. McCambridge v. Hall, 303 F.3d 24, 35 (1st Cir.
2002)(holding that if a state case explicitly states that the state
standard is more favorable to the defendant than the federal
standard, the federal claim is considered adjudicated below when
the state standard is applied).
The Appeals Court found that admission of the letter and
the prosecutor’s statements about the letter was not error.
Commonwealth v. Williams, No. 02-P-640, 2005 WL 955049, at *2-3
(Mass.App.Ct. April 26, 2005). The Commonwealth argues that the
court applied prejudicial error analysis, which examines
erroneously admitted evidence to be “sure that the error did not
influence the jury, or had but very slight effect.” Commonwealth
v. Alphas,
430 Mass. 8, 13-14 n.7 (1999),(quoting Commonwealth v.
Flebotte,
417 Mass. 348, 353 (1994)). Finding that admission of
the letter was not error, the court did not proceed to the second
prong of the analysis to determine if the error influenced the
jury.
The petitioner contends that the state courts did not
address his federal claim, and that he is entitled to de novo
review. He argues that the court did not mention his federal due
process claim in its analysis of the admissibility of the letter,
and that the court’s statements summarily rejecting the alleged
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evidentiary error did not adequately address the issue.1
The Appeals Court’s discussion of the admission of the
letter and the prosecutor’s statements about it are indeed brief
and do not explicitly discuss the petitioner’s federal claim.
Additionally, it is unclear what standard the court applied in
evaluating Williams’ claims. In finding that the admission of the
letter was not error, however, the court likely applied a standard
more favorable than the federal standard. Nonetheless, because
petitioner’s claim fails even under the more favorable de novo
standard articulated in Petrillo, we apply this standard without
deciding whether de novo review is in fact required. 428 F.3d at
44 n.2.
III. Discussion
In Petrillo, we held that for an evidentiary error to
deprive a defendant of his constitutionally guaranteed due process
rights and provide a basis for habeas relief, the “error must so
infuse the trial with inflammatory prejudice that it renders a fair
1
In discussing the admission of the letter, the Appeals Court
stated:
Further, we see no merit to the defendant’s claim that
the letter was inadmissible in that its contents
portrayed him in a poor light, suggested an additional
uncharged crime, and were unduly exacerbated by the
prosecutor’s use of a blow up copy of the letter during
closing argument. See and contrast Commonwealth v.
Hoppin, 387 Mass. 25, 30,
438 N.E.2d 820 (1982). See
also Commonwealth v. Helfant, 398 Mass. 214, 224-225,
496
N.E.2d 433 (1986); Commonwealth v. Babbitt,
430 Mass.
700, 704 (2000).
Williams,
2005 WL 955049, at *2-3.
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trial impossible.” 428 F.3d at 44 n.2. In this case, unlike in
Petrillo, the Appeals Court found that the admission of the letter
as well as the prosecutor’s use of an enlargement of the letter and
his comments about it did not constitute error. Williams,
2005 WL
955049, at *2-3. As the district court notes, the trial court made
a careful and detailed ruling in admitting the letter. The court
reasoned that although prejudice to Williams was necessarily a
byproduct of admission, the high probative value of the letter
outweighed any prejudice. Additionally, the trial court took
numerous steps to decrease potential prejudice to Williams. The
court redacted the letter to remove several gang and drug use
references. The court also offered to provide a limiting
instruction to the jury on consciousness of guilt, which Williams’
trial counsel declined, viewing it as a “double edged sword.”
Additionally, as the Appeals Court notes, even if the prosecutor’s
brief statement interpreting the phrase “blaze for me” to mean
“shoot for me” in the letter was incorrect, the judge instructed
the jury that closing arguments are not evidence in the case.
Williams,
2005 WL 955049, at *2. Therefore, because the admission
of the letter was not error, petitioner necessarily fails to meet
the high bar set in Petrillo to demonstrate that an error amounted
to a violation of constitutionally protected due process rights.
Even if we were to assume that the admission and use of
the letter was error, however, Williams’ habeas petition would
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still fail. As discussed above, Williams was charged with six
counts of assault and battery and weapons related charges against
three different individuals. He was convicted of the assault on
Linda Burrell, where Burrell was able to provide a clear positive
identification, and acquitted for the alleged assault on Clark and
Silva, in which either no identification was provided, or the
identification was less reliable. This careful evaluation of the
evidence supporting each of the charges indicates that the jury
acted in a rational and deliberative manner, and was not so
inflamed by prejudice that they were not able to fulfill their
neutral fact finding role. Therefore, even assuming that Williams
is entitled to de novo review, and that the admission and use of
the letter was error, he has still not demonstrated that it was an
error of constitutional magnitude that deprived him of due process
and entitles him to habeas relief. Fortini v. Murphy, 257 F.3d 39,
48 (1st Cir. 2001) (“the Supreme Court adopted a different test for
habeas more favorable to the prosecution, namely, that the error
(constitutional or not) is harmless if it did not have a
substantial and injurious effect or influence on the jury’s
verdict.”).
AFFIRMED.
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