Lyons v. Warden Toledo Correctional Institution

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF OHIO
EASTERN DIVISION
JAVON LYONS,
Petitioner,
v.
KIM HENDERSON, WARDEN,
TOLEDO CORRECTIONAL
INSTITUTION,
Respondent.
:
:
Case No. 2:23-cv-03532
Chief Judge Sarah D. Morrison
Magistrate Judge Karen L. Litkovitz
OPINION AND ORDER
This is an action for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, brought
by Petitioner Javon Lyons with the assistance of counsel. The Magistrate Judge has
filed a Report and Recommendation recommending that the Petition be dismissed
with prejudice and that Petitioner be denied a certificate of appealability. (R&R,
ECF No. 18-1.) Petitioner has objected (Objs., ECF No. 28) and Respondent’s time
for responding to those Objections has expired.
If a party objects within the allotted time to a report and recommendation,
the Court “shall make a de novo determination of those portions of the report or
specified proposed findings or recommendations to which objection is made.” 28
U.S.C. § 636(b)(1); see also Fed. R. Civ. P. 72(b). Upon review, the Court “may
accept, reject, or modify, in whole or in part, the findings or recommendations made
by the magistrate judge.” 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1).
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The Court has reviewed the Magistrate Judge’s R&R, Petitioner’s Objections,
and those portions of the record implicated therein, de novo, and finds no error in
the Magistrate Judge’s conclusions or reasoning.
Ground One: Ineffective Assistance of Counsel
In his first and only ground for relief, Petitioner argues he was denied
effective assistance of counsel under the Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth
Amendments. (ECF No. 1, PAGEID# 6.) He asserts that had his trial counsel
properly advised him of the strength (or lack thereof) of the ballistics evidence, he
would have rejected a plea and taken his case to trial.
To prevail in habeas corpus under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death
Penalty Act (AEDPA) on an issue decided in state court, a petitioner must show
that the state court’s decision:
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 proceeding.
28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1)–(2). The AEDPA “imposes a highly deferential standard for
evaluating state-court rulings, and demands that [a] state-court decision be given
the benefit of the doubt.” Renico v. Lett, 559 U.S. 766, 773 (2010) (cleaned up). After
evaluating the state court’s decision, the Magistrate Judge recommended denial of
the petition.
A. Unreasonable Application of Clearly Established Law
The controlling precedent here is Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668
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(1984). There, the Supreme Court of the United States held that to prove ineffective
assistance of counsel, a defendant must show: 1) “counsel’s performance was
deficient,” and 2) “the deficient performance prejudiced the defense.” Id. at 687.
Petitioner objects to the Magistrate Judge’s findings on both prongs.
Deficient Performance. “Judicial scrutiny of counsel’s performance must be
highly deferential.” Id. at 689. Thus, the first prong of an ineffective assistance of
counsel claim raised in a federal habeas petition is subject to “doubly deferential”
review. Knowles v. Mirzayance, 556 U.S. 111, 123 (2009). That is because
“Strickland requires deference to counsel and AEDPA requires deference to the
state court.” Moody v. Parris, No. 20-5299, 2022 WL 3788503, *4 (6th Cir. Aug. 30,
2022). Applying that standard here, the Magistrate Judge found:
Upon review of the entire record, this Court concludes that
Lyons has failed to demonstrate that the Ohio appellate court’s
decision is contrary to or an unreasonable application of Supreme
Court precedent as to justify federal habeas corpus relief. See Williams
v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, (2000). The appellate court correctly identified
Strickland as the controlling Supreme Court precedent and recognized
that counsel’s performance is entitled to “a strong presumption that
counsel’s conduct falls within the wide range of reasonable professional
assistance.” 466 U.S. at 689. In assessing counsel’s performance, the
Ohio Court of Appeals noted not only the internal inconsistencies in
Lyons’ affidavit but also the new evidence adduced since the acquittal
of Lyons’ co-defendant, i.e., law enforcement’s discovery of the gun
involved in the shooting resulting from Lyons’ incriminating jail calls
to his brother and co-defendant, urging them to find and destroy the
gun, and evidence showing a match between that gun and a spent shell
casing found at the crime scene. Under the circumstances, the
appellate court’s finding that counsel’s recommendation “in very strong
terms, the likely and dire result (life in prison with no possibility of
parole) of going to trial in this case” was within the exercise of
reasonable professional judgment was not an unreasonable application
of Strickland. For these reasons, the Court cannot say that the Ohio
Court of Appeals was unreasonable when it concluded that Lyons’
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attorney provided sound professional advice when he counseled Lyons
to accept a plea of 25 years rather than risking life without the
possibility of parole.
(R&R, PAGEID# 1829.)
Petitioner objects and argues that even doubly deferential review “should not
excuse clearly deficient performance.” (Obj., PAGEID# 1860.) Petitioner cites to
factually inapposite cases to suggest that the state court should have reached a
different result. But Petitioner ignores the real question before this Court: “whether
the state court’s application of the Strickland standard was unreasonable.”
Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 101 (2011) (emphasis added). It was not.
Prejudice to Defendant. In the context of guilty pleas, the prejudice
requirement hinges on “whether counsel’s constitutionally ineffective performance
affected the outcome of the pleas process.” Hill v. Lockhart, 474 U.S. 52, 59 (1985).
“In other words, in order to satisfy the ‘prejudice’ requirement, the defendant must
show that there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s errors, he would
not have pleaded guilty and would have insisted on going to trial.” Id.
According to Petitioner, but for his counsel’s inappropriate handling of the
ballistic evidence, he would have gone to trial. (Obj., PAGEID# 1861.) But
Petitioner ignores the other evidence that was known at the time of his plea:
The Ohio Court of Appeals reasonably determined there was not
a reasonable probability that Lyons would not have pleaded guilty and
gone to trial in view of the evidence tying him to the shooting. This
included the recently discovered jail calls in which Lyons instructed his
brother and co-defendant to destroy a gun that was later determined to
be consistent with one used in the shooting; that such recent evidence
had the potential to damage Lyons and his witnesses’ credibility vis-à-
vis his alibi defense, and thereby risking the possibility of a life
sentence without parole had he gone to trial; the state’s ballistics
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expert testimony at Harris’ trial that a bullet found embedded in a
wall in Lyons’ home was fired from the same weapon as a bullet
fragment retrieved from the victim (ECF No. 11-3 at PageID# 404-
405); and Lyons’ apology to the victim’s father, thereby demonstrating
he shouldered at least some responsibility for the shooting. In addition,
the state’s new evidence forensically tied Lyons to the shooting because
a shell casing from the crime scene was matched to the Recovered
9mm.
(R&R, PAGEID#1831.) After weighing the litany of other evidence known at the
time Petitioner knowingly entered his guilty plea, it cannot be said that the state
court unreasonably applied the second prong here. The Court finds no error in the
Magistrate’s reasoning or conclusion regarding prejudice.
In sum, the Court finds no error in the Magistrate Judge’s conclusions or
reasoning regarding the state court’s application of Strickland. Petitioner’s objection
is OVERRULED.
B. Unreasonable Determination of the Facts
A state court’s factual findings are “only unreasonable where they are
rebutted by clear and convincing evidence and do not have support in the record.”
Mortiz v. Woods, 692 F. App’x 249, 254 (6th Cir. 2017) (cleaned up). The Magistrate
Judge recognized that the state court thoroughly evaluated Petitioner’s ballistics
report, determining that the report is “misleading,” “erroneous,” and “based on
evidence known to [Petitioner] at the time of the plea.” (R&R, PAGEID# 1830
(citing Ohio App. Ct., ECF No. 12, PAGEID# 1507–08).)
Petitioner objects and argues that the state court’s factual determination as
to the credibility of his ballistics report was unreasonable. (Obj., PAGEID# 1863.)
According to Petitioner, the state court should have viewed the report as evidence
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that his counsel failed to adequately investigate the ballistics before his plea. But
Petitioner’s argument fails to rebut any of the state court’s factual findings or
identify how those findings are unsupported by the record. Without such support,
the Court finds no error in the Magistrate Judge’s conclusions or reasoning here.
Petitioner’s objection is OVERRULED.
II. CONCLUSION
Having considered the Magistrate Judge’s Report and Recommendation de
novo in light of Petitioner’s Objections, the Court ADOPTS the Report and
Recommendation (ECF No. 18-1) and OVERRULES Petitioner’s Objections (ECF
No. 28). The Clerk will enter judgment dismissing with prejudice the Petition.
Because reasonable jurists would not disagree with this conclusion, Petitioner is
DENIED a certificate of appealability, and the Court certifies to the Sixth Circuit
that any appeal would be objectively frivolous and should not be permitted to
proceed in forma pauperis.
IT IS SO ORDERED.
/s/ Sarah D. Morrison
SARAH D. MORRISON, CHIEF JUDGE
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
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