In Re: Erick Davila
Opinion
*181
Erick Daniel Davila was convicted of capital murder in 2009 and is scheduled to be executed on April 25, 2018. After his unsuccessful pursuit of relief in state court, Davila sought federal habeas relief in 2014. The district court denied his petition in 2015, this court denied a certificate of appealability in 2016, and the United States Supreme Court affirmed our denial in 2017. He now moves for authorization to file a successive habeas petition under
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
In February 2009, a Texas jury found Erick Daniel Davila guilty of capital murder and sentenced him to death. The jury found that Davila used a semiautomatic assault rifle to open fire on a children's birthday party at a home in Fort Worth, Texas. In the process of shooting and injuring multiple party attendees, Davila killed Annette Stevenson and her granddaughter, Queshawn Stevenson, age five. As this case has been exhaustively litigated since 2009, we simply cite our 2016 opinion for a fuller recitation of the facts.
See
Davila v. Davis
,
Relevant to Davila's present motion for authorization, we explained in our 2016 opinion that Davila, a member of the Bloods gang, went in his girlfriend's black Mazda on the evening of April 6, 2008, to engage in what he described as a "shoot em up" with a friend.
Detective Boetcher took handwritten notes of their subsequent interview with Thompson. In addition to identifying Davila as the shooter, Thompson made two statements, according to Detective Boetcher's notes, that Davila cites as relevant to his new habeas claim. According to the interview notes, Thompson discussed "family and drug use" with the detectives. In addition, Thompson stated that at some point on the day of the murders, Davila "changed [and] started [to] be uncontrollable and you could tell it in his eyes."
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed Davila's conviction and sentence on direct appeal.
Davila v. State
, No. AP-76,
Davila filed a federal habeas petition in April 2014. The district court denied all 11 of Davila's claims and denied a certificate
*182
of appealability ("COA").
Davila v. Stephens
, No. 4:13-CV-506-O,
On March 27, 2018, Davila filed a subsequent state habeas petition under Texas Code of Criminal Procedure Article 11.071 § 5(a)(1). He raised three claims, including the single
Brady
claim he now seeks to raise in federal court.
See
Brady v. Maryland
,
DISCUSSION
Davila requests authorization to file a successive habeas petition under Section 2244 of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act ("AEDPA"). Before analyzing whether such authorization is warranted, we briefly summarize the relevant AEDPA provisions and corresponding case law that will shape our analysis.
Under Section 2244, a petitioner seeking to file a second or successive federal habeas petition in district court must first receive authorization from a panel of this court. § 2244(b)(3). If the petitioner is seeking to raise a claim brought in a prior federal habeas petition, authorization must be denied. § 2244(b)(1). If the petitioner is seeking to raise a new claim not raised in a prior petition, we may authorize the petition to proceed only if certain statutory prerequisites are met. § 2244(b)(2).
In addition to the prerequisites of Section 2244(b)(2), Section 2244(d) supplies a one-year statute of limitations for federal habeas petitions filed by persons in state custody. § 2244(d)(1). The period runs from various potential milestones, including "the date on which the factual predicate of the claim or claims presented could have been discovered through the exercise of due diligence." § 2244(d)(1)(D).
In addition to the criteria for successive petitions provided by Section 2244, Davila's petition is likewise subject to the same jurisdictional prerequisites as any other federal habeas petition under Section 2254. For example, "[a] federal court generally cannot review the merits of a state prisoner's habeas petition if the claims in the petition are procedurally defaulted."
Rocha v. Thaler
,
In light of these constraints, Davila's claim can be summarized as follows. On February 8, 2018, his counsel met with Garfield Thompson. During that meeting and in a written affidavit provided thereafter, Thompson stated that he could personally testify that Davila was intoxicated on a variety of drugs at the time of the shooting. According to Thompson, the list of drugs included PCP, marijuana, and an "e-pill," which Davila alleges was ecstasy. In a subsequent meeting and written affidavit provided on March 20, 2018, Thompson further alleged that he had "told the courts in 2008 that we were on drugs." In addition, Davila argues that his counsel failed to receive Detective Boetcher's notes describing Thompson's statements about drug use and Davila's "uncontrollable"
*183 temperament until April or May of 2014 between the filing of his first and amended federal habeas petitions. According to Davila, these facts form the factual predicate for a claim under Brady v. Maryland .
A
Brady
claim requires that a defendant "prove that the prosecution suppressed favorable, material evidence that was not discoverable through due diligence."
Kutzner v. Cockrell
,
I. Section 2244
As discussed above, Section 2244 establishes prerequisites for a petitioner seeking to present a successive habeas petition in federal court. We have previously described Section 2244 as establishing two jurisdictional "gates" through which a petitioner must proceed to have the merits of his successive habeas claim considered. The first gate is Section 2244's requirement that a panel of this court first provide authorization for a district court to hear the claim.
In re Campbell
,
Our authorization is therefore " 'tentative' in the following sense: the district court must dismiss the motion that we have allowed the applicant to file, without reaching the merits of the motion, if the court finds that the movant has not satisfied" Section 2254(b)'s requirements.
In re Morris
,
In determining whether Davila's claim may pass through the first gate, we must first determine whether Davila has ever presented his new claim in a prior federal habeas petition. Under Section 2244, we cannot authorize his new claim to proceed if his new claim was presented in a prior petition. § 2244(b)(1). Davila filed his first federal petition in 2014. On this question, Texas concedes that Davila did not raise the Brady claim he is now seeking to raise in his 2014 petition.
Under Section 2244(b)(2), new claims must fulfill two requirements. First, the applicant must show that "the claim relies on a new rule of constitutional law" or "the factual predicate for the claim could not have been discovered previously through the exercise of due diligence."
*184 §§ 2244(b)(2)(A), (B). Second, for new factual claims, the applicant must show that "the facts underlying the claim, if proven and viewed in the light of the evidence as a whole, would be sufficient to establish by clear and convincing evidence that, but for constitutional error, no reasonable factfinder would have found the applicant guilty." § 2244(b)(2)(B)(ii).
As stated above, Davila must make a prima facie showing of these two requirements to pass through the first gate. A prima facie showing requires
a sufficient showing of possible merit to warrant a fuller explanation by the district court. If in light of the documents submitted with the application it appears reasonably likely that the application satisfies the stringent requirement for the filing of a second or successive petition, we shall grant the application.
In re Morris
,
We look first to Section 2244(b)(2)(B)'s due diligence requirement.
a. Due diligence
When a petitioner raises a
Brady
claim in a successive petition, our analysis distinguishes between the requirements of Section 2244(b)(2) and the elements of the
Brady
claim itself.
See
Johnson v. Dretke
,
We must therefore determine whether Davila exhibited due diligence in the investigation of the factual basis for the
Brady
claim he now seeks to bring. § 2244(b)(2)(B)(i). To succeed at this stage, Davila must make a
prima facie
showing that he could not have discovered, through exercise of due diligence, the facts predicating his new
Brady
claim at the time he filed his first federal petition.
See
Johnson
,
Davila argues that for purposes of due diligence, his counsel became aware of the connection between drug use and his case in 2018 when Thompson explicitly alleged that Davila had been intoxicated on the day of the shooting. He also describes, however, how his counsel became aware of Thompson's own drug use during the investigation for his first federal habeas petition. During an interview with Davila's counsel in April 2014, Thompson "mentioned drug use in passing." According to Davila, but for Thompson's eventual decision in 2018 to mention Davila's alleged drug use and "the court's" alleged knowledge of such testimony, Davila would have never been able to discover the factual *185 basis for his new habeas claim. Indeed, he simply states that "Thompson never revealed this information until the follow up interview on March 20, 2018. It is this evidence which is necessary to prove a Brady violation." On this basis, he concludes that Thompson's 2018 revelation, "coupled with the fact that Thompson was prosecuted in the same court as Davila, by the same prosecutor as Davila, [enables] Davila to file this new Brady claim."
Under Section 2244(b)(2)(B) and our corresponding precedent, however, more is required for a
prima facie
showing. In
Johnson
, we noted that a petitioner fails to demonstrate diligence under Section 2244(b)(2)(B) when he "was noticed pretrial of the existence of the factual predicate and of the factual predicate's ultimate potential exculpatory relevance."
We emphasized that our due diligence inquiry under Section 2244(b)(2)(B) is objective, focusing on "whether [the co-defendant's] stipulation could have been discovered previously through the exercise of due diligence."
Although such a finding in
Johnson
eviscerated the merit of Johnson's underlying
Brady
claim, we are nonetheless focused solely on the due diligence exercised in discovering whatever the petitioner alleges to be the basis of his new claim, regardless of whether it is meritorious.
See
As in Johnson , Davila fails to demonstrate how he was not reasonably on notice about the factual basis for his new Brady claim at the time of his trial, let alone at the time of his first federal petition. He fails to provide any explanation as to why we should not arrive at the most obvious conclusion: that he has always been on notice about the underlying factual predicate for his new claim because he himself would know whether he had taken drugs on the day of the murders and that Thompson would have seen him in such a state. The record indicates that Davila recalled Thompson's presence with him on that day as he was the one to implicate Thompson for his involvement in the crime.
Davila's own knowledge aside, we are unpersuaded that his counsel was not also reasonably on notice about the relation between drugs and the events of the shooting after Thompson had "mentioned drug use in passing" during the investigation of Davila's first habeas petition. Given Thompson's role in the shooting, Davila's counsel has been on notice about the potential value of Thompson's accounting of *186 events since the outset of the case. In addition, Davila's emphasis on Detective Boetcher's notes as important in illustrating the drug connection cuts against Section 2244 due diligence, as his approximate accounting of when the notes came into his possession indicates that he likely had access to them at the time he amended his first federal petition. 1
Given the lack of argument as to why the discovery of the factual predicate for his new claim exhibited due diligence, Davila would have the court simply assume that due diligence corresponds directly with the date of discovery. Such a standard plainly contradicts not only the plain language of Section 2244(b)(2)(B) but also our precedent. As we noted in
Johnson
, such an interpretation "would thwart the statutory scheme and render Congress' limitations on second or successive petitions a nullity in a wide range of cases."
Davila fails to make a prima facie showing that the factual predicate for his new habeas claim could not have been discovered through the exercise of due diligence and thus could not have been included in his first federal petition.
b. Actual innocence
Although the requirements of Section 2244(b)(2)(B) are conjunctive, meaning that failure to demonstrate due diligence is sufficient for denial, we nonetheless address the provision's second requirement: actual innocence. To receive our authorization to proceed through the first gate, a petitioner must also make a
prima facie
showing that "the facts underlying the claim, if proven and viewed in light of the evidence as a whole, would be sufficient to establish by clear and convincing evidence that, but for constitutional error, no reasonable factfinder would have found the applicant guilty of the underlying offense." § 2244(b)(2)(B)(ii). We have previously described this standard as "a strict form of 'innocence,' ... roughly equivalent to the Supreme Court's definition of 'innocence' or 'manifest miscarriage of justice' in
Sawyer v. Whitley
,"
Davila argues that the underlying factual predicate of his Brady claim meets this high bar. He argues that his "main defense in guilt and innocence was that he did not intend to harm anyone but Jerry Stevenson." According to Davila, "[s]howing the jury that [he] was so intoxicated that he had essentially become schizophrenic (someone high on PCP) would have gone a long way to support his defense."
Davila acknowledges our precedent holding that "a petitioner cannot bring a successive claim" under Section 2244(b)(2)(B)"where he does not assert that the newly discovered evidence would negate his guilt of the offense of which he was convicted,
i.e.
, capital murder."
In re Webster
,
Texas argues that such a possibility is foreclosed by Texas law. Under the Texas Penal Code, "[v]oluntary intoxication does not constitute a defense to the commission of a crime." TEX. PENAL CODE § 8.04(a). Even if we assume that Davila is correct in forecasting the effect of the factual basis for his new claim at trial, such evidence would not be admissible for his purposes.
Notwithstanding the barrier in Texas law, we are not persuaded that Davila successfully makes a prima facie showing that no reasonable juror would have found Davila guilty of the underlying defense if Thompson's testimony had been admitted. Detectives interviewed numerous people, including both Davila and Thompson, as part of their investigation. Aside from Thompson's comment about Davila's "change" toward "uncontrollable" on the day of the shooting, neither of the two individuals made any indication that Davila had been using drugs on the day of the shooting. Davila alleges that Thompson's statement would indicate him being so intoxicated that he "essentially became schizophrenic," yet the record elsewhere reflects that Davila was communicating with Thompson, giving him instructions, successfully moving around on foot, and operating a firearm with effectiveness, all during a period that Davila would also attempt to convince the jury that he was heavily intoxicated based on the statement of a co-defendant. Even if Davila opens the door to such a possibility with the jury, he has not made a prima facie showing that, based on the testimony, no reasonable juror would have found him guilty.
II. Procedural Default
Texas argues that denial is appropriate because Davila's claim is procedurally defaulted. The first way under Section 2254 that a claim can be procedurally defaulted is if the petitioner did not exhaust state court remedies by presenting the claim to the highest available state court.
See
§ 2254(b)(1). Second, even if the petitioner raised the claim in state court, the claim is procedurally defaulted in federal court if the "state court clearly and expressly bases its dismissal of a prisoner's claim on a state procedural rule, and that procedural rule provides an independent and adequate ground for the dismissal."
Nobles v. Johnson
,
Texas accepts that Davila exhausted his claim in state court.
See
Ex parte Davila
,
We start by examining the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals order. It gave only a brief explanation for its dismissal. Acknowledging Davila's
Brady
claim, the court held that Davila "has failed to make a
prima facie
showing of a
Brady
violation[.]"
We analyzed this issue in two cases published on the same day in 2010.
Balentine v. Thaler
,
In Rocha , we elaborated on the proper inquiry for dismissals based on Section 5(a)(1). We described the two-step inquiry the state court engages in to determine whether dismissal of the claim is required. Rocha , 626 F.3d at 833. Texas law requires the court to determine (1) whether the factual or legal basis for the new claim was unavailable as to previous applications, and (2) whether the specific facts alleged rise to a constitutional violation. Id. We stated that Texas courts will proceed to the second element only if the first is satisfied. Id. at 834. "If an applicant fails to satisfy the unavailability requirement, the § 5(a)(1) inquiry is over, and no merits determination takes place." Id. "Only if the applicant can surmount the unavailability hurdle does the [Texas Court of Criminal Appeals] proceed to ask whether the application makes out a claim that is prima facie meritorious." Id. This inquiry often proves difficult, however, as the state court frequently employs boilerplate language when dismissing claims as an abuse of the writ.
In a case cited in
Rocha
, we stated that "[t]he boilerplate dismissal by the [Court of Criminal Appeals] of an application for abuse of the writ is itself uncertain on this point, being unclear whether the [state court] decision was based on the first element, a state-law question, or on the second element, a question of federal constitutional law."
Ruiz v. Quarterman
,
In
Balentine
, we held that "a determination by a state court that a petitioner failed to make a '
prima facie
showing' of 'sufficient specific facts' to entitle him to relief is a decision on the merits." 626 F.3d at 853 (quoting
Rivera v. Quarterman
,
Perhaps one of the most important tools articulated in
Rocha
was the charge that courts are not required "to check our common sense at the door when we read an opinion of the [Texas Court of Criminal Appeals] with an eye toward ascertaining its decisional basis." 626 F.3d at 837. Here, the court's language directed at the
Brady
claim looked not to the availability of the facts underlying the claim, but rather to the elements of the claim itself required for "a
prima facie
showing of a
Brady
violation."
Ex parte Davila
,
Davila's claim was not dismissed on the basis of an independent and adequate state procedural ground.
III. Time bar
Texas argues that regardless of whether Davila can fulfill the requirements of Section 2244(b)(2), his claim is nonetheless time-barred. Under Section 2244(d)(1)(D), a one-year statute of limitations applies to habeas claims running from "the date on which the factual predicate of the claim or claims presented could have been discovered through the exercise of due diligence." § 2244(d)(1)(D). "We have held that this means the date a petitioner is on notice of the facts which would support a claim, not the date on which the petitioner has in his possession evidence to support his claim."
In re Young
,
We have already concluded that Davila was on notice regarding the factual predicate for his new
Brady
claim such that due diligence at the time of his trial and, in the alternative, during his first federal habeas investigation, would have reasonably led to its discovery. As we noted in
In re Young
, the time bar does not necessarily run from the date on which the petitioner alleges he discovered the new evidence, but rather the date on which he gains notice about such facts.
Because we hold that Davila failed to fulfill the requirements of Section 2244, we need not reach Texas's arguments concerning the merits of Davila's underlying Brady claim.
IT IS ORDERED that Davila's motion for authorization to file a successive habeas corpus petition is DENIED.
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that Davila's motion for stay of execution is DENIED.
He states, "Davila's federal habeas application was filed April 14, 2014, and Davila was not provided [Detective Boetcher's notes containing Thompson's drug-related statements] until after that date. He did not review the files of the district attorney until May of 2014. He amended his federal application on May 19, 2014."
Reference
- Full Case Name
- In RE: Erick Daniel DAVILA, Movant
- Cited By
- 13 cases
- Status
- Published