Hadden v. Schomig , 286 F. App'x 541 ( 2008 )

FILED
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS July 8, 2008
Elisabeth A. Shumaker
TENTH CIRCUIT Clerk of Court
JOHN C. HADDEN,
Petitioner - Appellant, No. 07-8068
v. (D. Wyoming)
JIM M. SCHOMIG, Warden High (D.C. No. 03-CV-207-WFD)
Desert Penitentiary; ROBERT
ORTEGA, Wyoming Department of
Corrections Director; PATRICK J.
CRANK, Wyoming Attorney General,
in their official capacities,
Respondents - Appellees.
ORDER AND JUDGMENT *
Before BRISCOE, MURPHY, and HARTZ, Circuit Judges.
John C. Hadden was convicted by a Wyoming state-court jury of
committing first-degree sexual assault in Rock Springs. He claims that the
evidence at trial could not support a guilty verdict beyond a reasonable doubt.
*
After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has determined
unanimously that oral argument would not materially assist the determination of
this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). The case is
therefore ordered submitted without oral argument. This order and judgment is
not binding precedent except under the doctrines of law of the case, res judicata,
and collateral estoppel. It may be cited, however, for its persuasive value
consistent with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 10th Cir. R. 32.1.
His best argument in that regard is that the victim did not identify him at trial or
in a prior photo array and she consistently had given a description of her assailant
that could not possibly fit Mr. Hadden. In addition, he points to the impeachment
of a critical state witness, Christopher Hobbs, a teenager who was with him in
Rock Springs at the time of the assault. Mr. Hadden notes inconsistencies
between Hobbs’s testimony and his prior statements, and he emphasizes that
Hobbs had a motive to lie because he was having an intimate relationship with
Mr. Hadden’s estranged wife, who allegedly wished Mr. Hadden to be charged
with the offense so that she could obtain full custody of their child.
On appeal to the Wyoming Supreme Court, however, that court, relying on
Hobbs’s testimony, circumstantial evidence, and Mr. Hadden’s statement to a
police investigator admitting a sexual encounter with the victim during the night
of the assault, ruled that the evidence was sufficient to support the jury verdict.
See Hadden v. State, 42 P.3d 495, 504–05 (Wyo. 2002). Mr. Hadden then sought
relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 in the United States District Court for the District
of Wyoming. Although troubled by the evidence, the district court determined
that it could not set aside the state supreme court’s decision. We granted
Mr. Hadden a certificate of appealability (COA) permitting him to appeal to this
court. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(c) (requiring COA to appeal dismissal of claim
under § 2254). But after a careful review of the evidence, we affirm the district
court.
-2-
The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA)
establishes deferential standards of review for state-court factual findings and
legal conclusions. “AEDPA . . . mandates that state court factual findings are
presumptively correct and may be rebutted only by ‘clear and convincing
evidence.’” Saiz v. Ortiz, 392 F.3d 1166, 1175 (10th Cir. 2004) (quoting
28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(1)). And legal conclusions are afforded substantial
deference. If the federal claim was adjudicated on the merits in the state court,
we may only grant federal habeas relief if the habeas petitioner can
establish that the state court decision “was contrary to, or involved
an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as
determined by the Supreme Court of the United States,” or “was
based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the
evidence presented in the State court proceeding.”
Id. (quoting 28 U.S.C. 2254(d)(1) and (2)). As we have stated:
Under the “contrary to” clause, we grant relief only if the state court
arrives at a conclusion opposite to that reached by the Supreme Court
on a question of law or if the state court decides a case differently
than the [Supreme] Court has on a set of materially indistinguishable
facts. Under the “unreasonable application” clause, relief is provided
only if the state court identifies the correct governing legal principle
from the Supreme Court’s decisions but unreasonably applies that
principle to the facts of the prisoner’s case. Thus we may not issue a
habeas writ simply because we conclude in our independent judgment
that the relevant state-court decision applied clearly established
federal law erroneously or incorrectly. Rather, that application must
also be unreasonable.
Gipson v. Jordan, 376 F.3d 1193, 1196 (10th Cir. 2004) (brackets, citations, and
internal quotation marks omitted). “Because sufficiency of the evidence is a
mixed question of law and fact, . . . we apply both 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1) and
-3-
(d)(2) when reviewing sufficiency of the evidence on habeas.” Diestel v. Hines,
506 F.3d 1249, 1267 (10th Cir. 2007) (brackets and internal quotation marks
omitted). “Evidence of guilt is sufficient if 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.” Id. (internal
quotation marks omitted).
Mr. Hadden contends that we should not defer to the Wyoming Supreme
Court’s decision upholding the sufficiency of the evidence because that court
relied on a tape recording of Mr. Hadden’s statement to the police and neither the
recording nor a transcript of the recording was in evidence before the jury. (The
transcript had been in the state-court record on appeal because of Mr. Hadden’s
challenge to the trial court’s refusal to suppress his statement.) We are not
persuaded. To be sure, the Wyoming Supreme Court’s opinion refers to the tape.
Nevertheless, evidence of Mr. Hadden’s statement was presented to the jury
through the testimony of the officer who took the statement. Even if the state
supreme court inadvertently relied on the transcript of the tape recording, rather
than the officer’s account of the statement, Mr. Hadden has not shown, or even
argued, how he was prejudiced by the error. He has not pointed to anything that
could have influenced the court’s decision that was in the transcript but not
testified to by the officer. Accordingly, we see no reason not to defer to the
Wyoming Supreme Court’s decision under ordinary AEDPA deference.
-4-
Applying that deference, we agree with the district court that Mr. Hadden is
not entitled to relief under § 2254. We need not repeat the thorough analysis of
the evidence in the opinions of the Wyoming Supreme Court and the federal
district court. Both opinions cogently explain how a rational juror could have
been convinced beyond a reasonable doubt of Mr. Hadden’s guilt. We add only a
few observations. First, despite the impeachment of Hobbs (whose
inconsistencies, we might add, are not as remarkable as Mr. Hadden suggests), his
account bears strong indicia of reliability. He reported Mr. Hadden’s confession
of a rape when there was no apparent way that he could have heard that a rape
had been alleged on the night that he and Mr. Hadden had been in Rock Springs.
Mr. Hadden and Hobbs apparently left Rock Springs on the night of the assault
and they lived in Florida. No investigator had come looking for either
Mr. Hadden or Hobbs. After Hobbs’s accusation, documentary evidence was
uncovered that Mr. Hadden and Hobbs had been in Rock Springs on the night of
the assault, and a photograph taken during their trip showed Mr. Hadden wearing
a cap that looked like the one left in the victim’s car. Moreover, when
Mr. Hadden was interviewed by a police investigator, he confirmed having a
sexual encounter with the victim, although he denied raping her. Finally,
although the victim clearly recollected an assailant who did not look like
Mr. Hadden (perhaps because of her intense intoxication), she insisted that the
assailant was the same man as the one with whom she had left the bar and who
-5-
had left his hat in her car, and Mr. Hadden admitted both leaving the bar with her
and leaving his cap in her car.
We AFFIRM the district court’s dismissal of Mr. Hadden’s § 2254
application.
ENTERED FOR THE COURT
Harris L Hartz
Circuit Judge
-6-