STEPHEN J. MURPHY, III, District Judge.
Ferdarius Shine is incarcerated in a Michigan prison and petitions the Court for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. Shine's imprisonment stems from convictions for three counts of first-degree, premeditated murder, Mich. Comp. Laws § 750.316(1)(a), two counts of assault with intent to commit murder, Mich. Comp. Laws § 750.83, and one count of possessing a firearm during the commission of a felony ("felony firearm"), Mich. Comp. Laws § 750.227b. Shine's sole ground for relief alleges that there was insufficient evidence at trial to overcome his insanity defense. There was conflicting expert testimony regarding Shine's alleged insanity, but the state appellate court ruled that the prosecution presented sufficient evidence to support Shine's convictions and to overcome his insanity defense. The appellate court's decision was not unreasonable and therefore, under the "doubly deferential" standard for reviewing habeas claims challenging the sufficiency of the evidence, Shine's habeas petition must be denied.
Shine's charges arose from multiple shootings at a home on Winthrop Street in Detroit, Michigan on February 15, 2013. The state court described the incident as follows:
People v. Shine, No. 321763, 2015 WL 5314879, at *1 (Mich. Ct. App., Sept. 10, 2015).
Shine was tried before a jury in Wayne County Circuit Court, where his defense was that he was legally insane at the time of the crimes. He did not testify at trial, but forensic psychologist Steven Miller testified on Shine's behalf. In Miller's opinion, Shine suffered from one or more mental disorders and was legally insane at the time of the crimes. But the prosecution's rebuttal witness, Dr. Donna Rinnas, reached the opposite conclusion. She testified that, in her opinion, Shine was neither mentally ill, nor legally insane.
The trial court instructed the jurors that they could find Shine not guilty, not guilty by reason of insanity, guilty as charged, or guilty, but mentally ill. On the first-degree murder charges, the jurors were given the additional option of finding Shine guilty of the lesser offense of second-degree murder. On April 7, 2014, the jury acquitted Shine of one count of assault with intent to commit murder,
The trial court sentenced Shine to mandatory life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for the murder convictions, concurrent terms of 225 months (eighteen years, nine months) to seventy-five years in prison for the two assault convictions, and a consecutive term of two years in prison for the felony-firearm conviction. The Michigan Court of Appeals affirmed Shine's convictions in an unpublished decision, see Shine, 2015 WL 5314879, and on March 29, 2016, the Michigan Supreme Court denied leave to appeal, see People v. Shine, 499 Mich. 882 (2016). On July 25, 2016, Shine filed his habeas corpus petition.
The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 ("AEDPA") requires habeas petitioners who challenge "a matter adjudicated on the merits in State court to show that the relevant state court decision (1) was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, or (2) was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceedings." Wilson v. Sellers, 138 S.Ct. 1188, 1191 (2018) (quoting 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)) (quotation marks omitted). "[A] federal habeas court may not issue the writ simply because that court concludes in its independent judgment that the relevant state-court decision applied clearly established federal law erroneously or incorrectly. Rather, that application must also be unreasonable." Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 411 (2000). Consequently, AEDPA imposes a highly deferential standard that demands state-court decisions be given the benefit of the doubt. Renico v. Lett, 559 U.S. 766, 773 (2010).
"A state court's determination that a claim lacks merit precludes federal habeas relief so long as `fairminded jurists could disagree' on the correctness of the state court's decision." Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 101 (2011) (quoting Yarborough v. Alvarado, 541 U.S. 652, 664 (2004)). To obtain a writ of habeas corpus from a federal court, a state prisoner must show that the state court's ruling on his or her claim "was so lacking in justification that there was an error well understood and comprehended in existing law beyond any possibility for fairminded disagreement." Id. at 103.
Shine alleges that his convictions violate due process of law and must be vacated because there was insufficient evidence to overcome his insanity defense. He claims that he proved the defense by a preponderance of the evidence and that the prosecution failed to rebut the defense. Accordingly, he seeks a judgment of not guilty by reason of insanity.
The Due Process Clause of the United States Constitution "protects the accused against conviction except upon proof beyond a reasonable doubt of every fact necessary to constitute the crime with which he is charged." In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 364 (1970). Accordingly, the Court considers "whether, after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt." Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319 (1979).
Ordinarily, this standard "must be applied with explicit reference to the substantive elements of the criminal offense as defined by state law." Id. at 324 n.16. Here, however, Shine does not deny committing the crimes, and he has not alleged that the prosecution failed to prove the elements of the charged offenses. Rather, the question is whether the prosecution adequately rebutted Shine's defense of legal insanity.
The Supreme Court has said that allocating the burden of proving an affirmative defense to a defendant does not violate the Due Process Clause. See Smith v. United States, 568 U.S. 106, 110 (2013). Although the state may not shift the burden of proof to a defendant when the affirmative defense negates an element of the crime, the state need not overcome an affirmative defense beyond a reasonable doubt when the defense "excuses conduct that would otherwise be punishable, but does not controvert any of the elements of the offense itself[.]" Id. (alteration adopted and quotation marks omitted).
Here, Shine seeks to excuse conduct that would otherwise be punishable; specifically, by asserting that he was insane at the time he committed the offense. In Michigan, "sanity is not an element of substantive criminal charges," including first-degree murder, assault with intent to commit murder, and felony firearm. Whitlow v. Palmer, No. 1:17-cv-1010, 2018 WL 521458, at *3 (W.D. Mich. Jan. 23, 2018) (crimes generally); People v. Mette, 243 Mich.App. 318, 330 (2000) (first-degree murder); Allen v. Redman, 858 F.2d 1194, 1199 (6th Cir. 1988) (assault with intent to commit murder); Mich. Comp. Laws § 750.227b(1); People v. Avant, 235 Mich.App. 499, 505 (1999) (felony firearm). Because sanity is not an element of the crimes for which Shine was convicted, his claim fails to raise a federal constitutional issue and is therefore not cognizable on habeas review. See Duffy v. Foltz, 804 F.2d 50, 54 (6th Cir. 1986).
Even if Shine's claim were cognizable here, the Supreme Court has "made clear that Jackson claims face a high bar in federal habeas proceedings because they are subject to two layers of judicial deference." Coleman v. Johnson, 566 U.S. 650, 651 (2012). First, it is the responsibility of the jury to decide what conclusions should be drawn from the evidence admitted at trial. Id. (quoting Cavazos v. Smith, 565 U.S. 1, 2 (2011)). "And second, on habeas review, `a federal court may not overturn a state court decision rejecting a sufficiency of the evidence challenge simply because the federal court disagrees with the state court. The federal court instead may do so only if the state court decision was `objectively unreasonable.'" Id. (quoting Cavazos, 565 U.S. at 2).
The Michigan Court of Appeals concluded on review of Shine's claim that there was sufficient evidence at trial to overcome Shine's insanity defense and to support the jury's conclusion that Shine was sane during his commission of the crimes. The Court of Appeals pointed out that, in Michigan criminal law, "a person is presumed to be sane," People v. Walker, 142 Mich.App. 523, 525 (1985), and that a defendant has the burden of proving an insanity defense by a preponderance of the evidence, Mich. Comp. Laws § 768.21a(3).
Legal insanity requires "proof that, as a result of mental illness or being mentally retarded as defined in the mental health code, the defendant lacked `substantial capacity either to appreciate the nature and quality or the wrongfulness of his or her conduct or conform his or her conduct to the requirements of the law.'" People v. Carpenter, 464 Mich. 223, 230-31 (2001) (quoting Mich. Comp. Laws § 768.21a(1)). Michigan law defined mental illness as "a substantial disorder of thought or mood that significantly impairs judgment, behavior, capacity to recognize reality, or ability to cope with the ordinary demands of life." Mich. Comp. Laws § 330.1400(g).
Shine's expert witness, forensic psychologist Steven Miller, interviewed Shine for competency to stand trial and for a criminal responsibility evaluation. He conducted two interviews with Shine and opined at trial that Shine had a mental disorder and was legally insane at the time of the crimes. Although Shine informed Miller that he did not remember everything that happened, Miller did not think Shine was malingering. In reaching his conclusions, Miller pointed out Shine's psychiatric history, which included hospitalizations for depression, bipolar disorder, and suicidal ideation at ages ten and twenty years old. For several years, Shine went untreated, but then he voluntarily returned to a treatment center for help.
At the hospital where Shine was taken after the shootings, he reported hearing voices. He also asked the police officers to shoot him, and he had delusional ideas that he was a rock star and was going to be rich and famous. The medical diagnosis for Shine upon his admission to the hospital was acute psychosis, and the discharge diagnosis was schizoaffective disorder, which Miller said was a type of schizophrenia. Medical staff at the hospital gave Shine Seroquel and Haldol, which are antipsychotic medications. The Seroquel dosage was tripled when Shine went to the Wayne County Jail. ECF 9-6, PgID 730-72 (4/3/14 Trial Tr., pp. 130-72); ECF 9-7, PgID 790-810 (4/4/14 Trial Tr., pp. 12-32).
Other witness testimony supported Dr. Miller's observations. For example, Shine's mother testified to Shine's psychiatric history, his abnormal confusion and inability to find his way home from his daughter's school shortly before the shootings, and his state of mind at the time of the shootings. ECF 9-5, PgID 466-67, 486-90, 496-99, 511-19 (4/2/14 Trial Tr., pp. 33-34, 53-57, 63-66, 78-86). Shine's cousin testified that, as he was chasing her during the crime, he said that the devil made him do it. Id. at 579 (Trial Tr. p. 146). And Shine's friend testified that, after the shootings, Shine rode a bicycle to her home in pajama pants and a tee shirt, despite it being mid-February. ECF 9-6, PgID 616-17 (4/3/14 Trial Tr., pp. 16-17). She further testified that Shine was totally different from his usual self at the time, that his voice, attitude, and facial expression were unusual for him, and that he did not remember what he had done, although he said that he was a bad person and wanted to kill himself. Id. at 618-20.
The prosecution's expert witness was Dr. Donna Rinnas who was a consultant and forensic examiner at the Center for Forensic Psychiatry. She maintained that Shine was not legally insane, or even mentally ill, when he committed the charged offenses. The state court summarized her trial testimony as follows:
Shine, 2015 WL 5314879, at *2.
This summary of the evidence is supported by the record before the Court. See ECF 9-6, PgID 649-728 (4/3/14 Trial Tr., pp. 49-128), ECF 9-7, PgID 811-17 (4/4/14 Trial Tr., pp. 33-39). Dr. Rinnas conceded that Seroquel was an antipsychotic medication, but she said that Shine was given a low dosage and that it was used for non-psychotic reasons, that is, to treat agitation or serious anxiety. ECF 9-6, PgID 686 (4/3/14 Trial Tr., p. 86). Although Shine reported hearing voices at the hospital, Dr. Rinnas noted that he was able to provide relevant personal information about himself, id. at 90, and the medical staff was concerned or skeptical about the genuineness of his presentation given the nature of the situation and certain inconsistencies in his presentation. Id. at 691, 694.
Dr. Rinnas also stated that there were no readily apparent psychological symptoms when she saw Shine and that he was not functionally impacted by his symptoms according to his own account and treatment records. Id. at 661, 672. In fact, he had been "engage[d] in pretty full and normal daily [activities], taking care of his daughter, going to school, helping his grandmother, preparing meals for the family, sometimes [being a] DJ at parties at night, playing [on] the computer, going for walks, [and] spending time with his girlfriend." Id. at 672. According to Dr. Rinnas, "[t]hose kind of things [were] not consistent with someone who's . . . functionally, negatively, impacted by a significant mental illness." Id.
Continuing, Dr. Rinnas stated that there was nothing to indicate that Shine had been out of touch with reality earlier on the day of the shootings. Id. at 674. In fact, he indicated to her that it was a normal day and that he became agitated after he smoked marijuana and had a paranoid reaction to the drug. Id. at 673-74. Although Dr. Rinnas acknowledged that high doses of marijuana can cause psychosis, she accurately pointed out that voluntary intoxication is not a basis for legal insanity. Id. at 707.
Other witnesses corroborated aspects of Dr. Rinnas's testimony. Kelly Jones, for example, testified that, during the court proceeding on the morning of the shootings, Shine appeared to be normal and his usual self. ECF 9-4, PgID 400-01, 406-407 (4/1/14 Trial Tr., pp. 171-72, 177-78). Santangela Williams testified that Shine was cooking and talking with his relatives immediately before the shootings. ECF 9-5, PgID 559-67 (4/2/14 Trial Tr., pp. 126-34).
In sum, there were reasons to believe either expert. Although a reasonable juror could have accepted Shine's theory of insanity, there was sufficient evidence to support the prosecution's theory that Shine was sane. The state appellate court's finding that the evidence was sufficient to overcome Shine's insanity defense was therefore objectively reasonable. It certainly was not so lacking in justification that there was an error beyond any possibility for fairminded disagreement. Accordingly, Shine's claim lacks merit, and the habeas petition must be denied.
