Rosario v. Roden

United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 15-1143
JOSE ROSARIO,
Petitioner, Appellant,
v.
GARY RODEN, Superintendent;
MARTHA M. COAKLEY, Attorney General of
the Commonwealth of Massachusetts,
Respondents, Appellees.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS
[Hon. Denise J. Casper, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Howard, Chief Judge,
Lynch and Kayatta, Circuit Judges.
Max D. Stern, with whom Todd & Weld LLP was on brief, for
appellant.
Eva M. Badway, Assistant Attorney General, Criminal Bureau,
with whom Maura Healey, Attorney General of Massachusetts, was on
brief, for appellees.
December 7, 2015
LYNCH, Circuit Judge. Jose Rosario was convicted in
September 2000 of the first degree shooting murder of Mario Cordova
in Springfield, Massachusetts. He was sentenced to life
imprisonment.1 There is no claim Rosario was the shooter. He was
convicted because he ordered the shooting, which was carried out
by a member of the Latin Kings gang subordinate to him. The state
trial court denied his motion for a new trial, and the Supreme
Judicial Court (SJC) affirmed his conviction. Commonwealth v.
Rosario, 950 N.E.2d 407, 411 (Mass. 2011). That opinion contains
a full recitation of the facts, to which we refer the reader.
Before us is Rosario's appeal from the district court's
denial of his habeas corpus petition, a denial we review de novo.
Lynch v. Ficco, 438 F.3d 35, 44 (1st Cir. 2006). If the state
court had ruled on the due process claim raised by the petitioner,
we would review the findings of the state high court through the
deferential lens of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty
Act of 1996 (AEDPA). See 28 U.S.C. § 2254. But we do not do so
here. That is because, on our reading, the SJC did not address
the precise constitutional due process issue presented here. One
might consider, given the high quality of that court, whether that
1 Rosario was also convicted of the state law crimes of
unlawful possession of a firearm, unlawful carrying of a firearm,
and unlawful discharge of a firearm within 500 feet of a dwelling
or other building. He received concurrent sentences for these
convictions.
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was because the issue was not clearly argued to it. But the
Commonwealth has chosen not to defend on the basis that this claim
was not exhausted before the SJC, and it is a close question
whether the Commonwealth has waived reliance on the exhaustion
requirement. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b)(3). Because we affirm the
denial of the petition on the merits, we can bypass the exhaustion
question. See id. § 2254(b)(2).
And so we review de novo the due process violation claim
asserted in this case. See Hodge v. Mendonsa, 739 F.3d 34, 41
(1st Cir. 2013); Clarke v. Spencer, 582 F.3d 135, 145 (1st Cir.
2009). The claim essentially is that the Commonwealth failed to
disclose a document which was evidence of a possible cooperation
agreement between one prosecution witness and the Commonwealth.
Had the document been timely disclosed during or before trial, it
could have been used to impeach the testimony of the witness, Luis
Rodriguez, as described below, and, possibly could have shown the
prosecution in a bad light for withholding evidence.
The Commonwealth does not dispute that the document was
not disclosed, and it assumes in its brief that the document's
production may have been favorable to the accused. However, the
Commonwealth argues that the document was immaterial because its
disclosure would not have affected the result of the proceeding.
We find on this habeas petition, that had the document been timely
disclosed to the defense, there is no "reasonable probability"
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that the result of the proceeding -- conviction -- would have been
different. See Kyles v. Whitley, 514 U.S. 419, 433–34 (1995).
Our confidence in the outcome of conviction is not undermined.
See United States v. Bagley, 473 U.S. 667, 682 (1985).
I.
A. The Suppressed Material
Rodriguez was a prosecution witness at trial and
testified as an eyewitness to the shooting. He was not alleged to
be involved with the shooting in any way. Rodriguez testified
that on the night of the shooting, he was at the apartment of a
friend, Jenette Vasquez, with a number of other people, including
Rosario. He testified that at some point in the evening, he heard
Vasquez on the phone talking to Johnel Olmo, a friend of the
victim. Rosario asked Vasquez for the phone, and Rodriguez
testified that he heard Rosario tell Olmo, "I'm your worst
nightmare."
The evening after Rodriguez testified at Rosario's
trial, Edward Fogarty, Rodriguez's attorney on unrelated pending
drug offenses, contacted the prosecutor's office, saying that
Rodriguez believed he and the Commonwealth had an agreement
involving some sort of consideration for Rodriguez's testimony.
The prosecution then informed Rosario's counsel about its
conversation with Fogarty.
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After the issue was raised to the court, the judge held
a voir dire. The Commonwealth claimed there was no agreement, and
both Rodriguez and Fogarty testified that it was their
understanding that there was an agreement. Rodriguez testified
that the prosecutor said that "she can help . . . [him] on [his]
drug cases; that she won't promise [him] nothing but she'll try to
do something." Fogarty testified that although there was nothing
in writing, the prosecutor "said something to the effect that she
could help him on his case," without giving specifics.
At that time, the trial judge did not make a finding
regarding whether there was an agreement but said that Rosario
could recall Rodriguez to the stand, where he could be questioned
about his belief regarding an agreement. Rosario's counsel
declined, arguing, "the problem is calling the witness back in the
middle of the trial after the jury has seen him and has seen that
he's left. I don't think this can be corrected." Rosario's
counsel moved for a mistrial, which the court denied because it
thought that "whatever prejudice that may be shown by the defendant
can be rectified at this stage of the trial."
The next day, Rosario's counsel requested to call
Rodriguez and Fogarty to testify about their impressions of their
meeting with the prosecution. He also said that he would like to
disclose -- either through testimony or a stipulation from the
Commonwealth -- that this information came to Rosario's counsel's
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attention only the prior day. He argued that challenging the
prosecutor's credibility was within Rosario's due process rights
under Kyles v. Whitley. The trial court declined to allow
testimony of when Rosario's counsel became aware of the possible
agreement. Rosario's counsel said that "[i]f the ruling of the
court is that I can't get into the area that I want to get into
(and I object to the ruling) then I will not call Mr. Rodriguez
back to the stand."
After the trial, when Fogarty was cleaning out his files,
he found an unsigned document, a purported cooperation agreement
dated May 1, 2000, on the district attorney's letterhead addressed
to Fogarty saying, "This letter confirms the agreement between
your client, Louis Ramon Rodriguez, . . . and the
Commonwealth . . . ." It listed six terms of agreement, and it
said it was from the assistant district attorney. In October 2001,
Rosario filed a motion for a new trial with the SJC, which remanded
it to the Superior Court. That motion was heard by the same judge
who presided over the trial. She held an evidentiary hearing on
the motion in November 2002. In May 2010, the trial judge denied
the motion for a new trial, finding that at most, the letter
confirmed that the prosecutor thought a deal was possible, not
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that it corroborated the existence of an actual agreement.2 The
judge also found that the new evidence did not change the fact
that Rosario's counsel chose not to recall Rodriguez to let the
jury know that Rodriguez believed there was a cooperation
agreement.
Rosario appealed to the SJC, raising a number of issues,
including the denial of his motion for a new trial. The SJC found
no abuse of discretion in the trial court's order and, as said,
affirmed. In 2012, Rosario filed a petition for a writ of habeas
corpus in the Massachusetts federal district court, alleging that
the trial court denied his right to due process, which the district
court denied. Rosario v. Roden, No. 12-12172-DJC, 2014 WL 7409584(D. Mass. Dec. 31, 2014).
B. Disclosure and Prejudice
Under Brady v. Maryland, "the suppression by the
prosecution of evidence favorable to an accused upon request
violates due process where the evidence is material either to guilt
or to punishment, irrespective of the good faith or bad faith of
the prosecution." 373 U.S. 83, 87 (1963). Impeachment evidence
"falls within this general rule," when a witness's reliability can
determine the defendant's guilt or innocence. Giglio v. United
2 We note that what was relevant to establishing
Rodriguez's motive to help the prosecution was his belief that he
had a deal, not whether Rodriguez's belief was correct.
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States, 405 U.S. 150, 154 (1972). Evidence is material "if there
is a reasonable probability that, had the evidence been disclosed
to the defense, the result of the proceeding would have been
different." Kyles, 514 U.S. at 433–34 (quoting Bagley, 473 U.S.
at 682). "A 'reasonable probability' of a different result is . . .
shown when the government's evidentiary suppression 'undermines
confidence in the outcome of the trial.'" Id. at 434 (quoting
Bagley, 473 U.S. at 678).
There were two main prosecution witnesses -- both Latin
Kings members subordinate to Rosario -- whose testimony was
essential to the verdict. Both acknowledged they had cooperation
agreements, but that did not dissuade the jury from convicting
Rosario. Rodriguez's testimony certainly supported the verdict in
the sense that he corroborated testimony about the locations of
the defendant and other players at various times.
But the main import for the prosecution of Rodriguez's
testimony was that he heard Rosario tell Olmo, "I'm your worst
nightmare."3 Significantly, there were two other witnesses who
testified as to the "nightmare" statement. First, Sharoll Burgos,
who was at Vasquez's house as well, testified to hearing Rosario
say that. When the assistant district attorney discussed the
statement at closing argument, she said "Sharoll Burgos testified.
3 Rodriguez did not mention this statement to the police
in his initial interview with them.
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'I'll be here when you get here. I'm your worst nightmare.'" When
the prosecutor mentions the "nightmare" statement a second time,
she again attributes it to Burgos, not Rodriguez. Further, the
assistant district attorney did not ever in closing argument
attribute the statement to Rodriguez's testimony. In fact, the
prosecutor's only mention of Rodriguez in closing argument was in
the context of the shooting itself where, in response to an
argument made by Rosario's counsel, she says, "Do you really think
that Luis Rodriguez remembers, oh, he was fixated straight ahead?"
Second, Olmo himself testified that Rosario made the statement to
him. Rosario concedes that other than for his testimony about the
statement, Rodriguez "admittedly, was . . . a relatively minor
witness for the Commonwealth."
Rosario contends that Rodriguez was the only neutral
witness because Burgos was romantically interested in Olmo,
"thereby giving her a reason to corroborate whatever his story
was." He also notes that Burgos did not mention that Rosario was
at Vasquez's apartment when she first spoke to the police and that
Burgos told the police about Rosario's threat only after Olmo gave
a statement to the police. The defense counsel cross-examined
Burgos about this at trial. And the defense counsel also impeached
Rodriguez with prior convictions and cross-examined him about
inconsistencies between his statements to the police -- where in
the report of his first statement, there was no mention of
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Rodriguez hearing Rosario say anything, and in the report of the
second statement, it said that Rodriguez heard Rosario say, "I'm
your worst enemy" (not "nightmare") -- and his testimony on the
stand.
There was also other independent evidence from which the
jury could conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that Rosario had
ordered the shooting. The jury learned about three incidents where
Rosario confronted Olmo and the victim before the night of the
murder. Rosario's disinterested coworker told the police that the
day after the shooting Rosario was acting differently and said, "I
snuffed somebody." Rosario also called Olmo the day after the
shooting to say, "I told you something bad would happen . . . Latin
King love." There was no reasonable probability that the unsigned
letter of a possible cooperation agreement would have affected the
outcome.
Finally, Rosario argues that evidence of the suppression
itself was material because it could have suggested that the
prosecution had something to hide and that "the Commonwealth had
such a vested interest in sticking to its theory of [the]
prosecution that it felt the need to offer Rodriguez a cooperation
agreement." Ultimately, this claim too fails. Unlike Kyles, which
involved several pieces of evidence favorable to the defendant
that if disclosed would have born light on the "thoroughness and
even the good faith of the investigation," 514 U.S. at 423–29,
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445, or United States v. Flores-Rivera, which involved a letter a
witness sent to the prosecutor that the prosecutor acknowledged
having, disclosure of which could have allowed "counsel to call
into question the credibility of . . . implicitly, the lead
prosecutor," 787 F.3d 1, 11–12, 19 (1st Cir. 2015), here, whether
there was a cooperation agreement is itself very much in dispute.
At the motion for a new trial hearing, the assistant
district attorney maintained that no agreement was offered and
that the letter should not have been sent. Further, the letter
was unsigned, and while it began with Rodriguez's name on it, at
the end, it included an "Acknowledgement of Agreement" with the
name of an unrelated party, suggesting that while the Commonwealth
may have contemplated a cooperation agreement, the document was
not a final draft. The letter would have had minimal value in
calling the prosecutor's motives into question, and there is no
reasonable probability that it would have affected the jury
verdict.
II.
We affirm the denial of the habeas petition.
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