Davis v. Burt

100 F. App'x 340
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
DecidedApril 9, 2004
DocketNo. 02-2333
StatusPublished
Cited by12 cases

This text of 100 F. App'x 340 (Davis v. Burt) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Davis v. Burt, 100 F. App'x 340 (6th Cir. 2004).

Opinion

OPINION

COLLIER, District Judge.

Petitioner-Appellant Mickey Lee Davis (“Davis”) appeals pro se from the district court’s order denying his application for a writ of habeas corpus filed pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254. Davis challenges his 1996 convictions for first-degree murder and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. He raised nineteen grounds for relief, and the district court granted a certificate of appealability as to all nineteen asserted grounds. For the reasons set forth below, we AFFIRM the district court’s denial of Davis’ application.

I. FACTUAL BACKGROUND

Davis was convicted of first-degree murder and possession of a firearm in the commission of a felony in state court in Michigan. The victim was his estranged ■wife, Priscilla Davis, from whom he was divorcing and with whom he was contentiously contesting the custody of their four-year-old daughter, Ayssa. Witnesses placed Davis in his wife’s neighborhood in Benton Township, Michigan, in the late afternoon of October 6, 1995, the date of the murder. Melissa Peters, Davis’ girlfriend, testified Davis left her there to case his wife’s residence. Meanwhile, Davis drove to Kalamazoo, part-way between Benton Township and his residence in Lansing. Aound 6:00 p.m. Davis met his wife at a convenience store there to pick up their daughter.

According to testimony at trial, Davis and his daughter left the Kalamazoo convenience store around 6:25 p.m. and returned to his wife’s neighborhood in Benton Township. Davis met Peters and they broke into his wife’s residence. Peters believed their purpose was to take jewelry Davis said was for his daughter. Sometime after 7:00 p.m., Priscilla Davis returned to her residence, and Davis shot her multiple times in the head. Peters went into the bedroom where the shooting [343]*343occurred, and Davis told her she must also shoot his wife because Peters had seen what he was doing. Davis then placed the barrel of the pistol against his wife’s temple and fired another round into her head. Next he hit Peters, threatened her, and made her shoot the victim. Peters shot her in the leg.

About 10:00 p.m. on October 6, 1995, Priscilla Davis was found dead in her residence. A medical examiner testified at trial she died from gunshot wounds to her head and testified a gunshot wound to the victim’s leg was inflicted after the victim died, consistent with Peters’ description of the shot she fired. According to the medical examiner, the victim died sometime between 7:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m., based on when people saw her and when her body was found. Though not produced at trial, the death certificate estimates the time of death as 7:15 p.m.

According to Peters, she and Davis left Benton Township and drove to Lansing. Davis stopped by a bridge on the way home to relieve himself, and he threw the murder weapon and the victim’s cell phone into the nearby river. Divers recovered those items where Peters said they should look, and the firearm recovered from the river was found to have fired the shots that killed the victim. Peters further testified Davis used a makeshift sileneer-the combination of a plastic soft drink bottle, cloth, duct tape, and metal fibers-when he shot his wife. Fragments of those materials were recovered from the victim’s body and from her residence.

Davis maintained he was not involved in his wife’s fatal shooting. He offered an alibi that he and his daughter went to a fast food restaurant between Kalamazoo and Benton Township when they left the convenience store. Later he picked up Peters at another location and returned to Lansing. To find witnesses to corroborate his alibi he and his daughter were at a restaurant, Davis wanted to run an advertisement in the newspaper featuring their photographs, in hopes someone would recognize them from the restaurant and testify he was there during the time of the killing. A friend of Davis took such photos to a McDonald’s restaurant in the Kalamazoo area in an attempt to discover potential alibi witnesses, but Davis never ran a newspaper advertisement. His first appointed counsel, Michael Renfro, advised it would not be an effective strategy in part because at that time, before Peters agreed to testify against Davis, there was little proof against him. Further, the time Davis claimed to be at the restaurant with his daughter did not account for the full period during which his wife’s murder could have occurred (between 7:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m.).

When Davis filed an ethics complaint against Renfro, Ernest White was appointed to represent Davis. Like Renfro, White was in a law practice called Felony Defense Counsel, a corporation that routinely accepts appointed criminal cases. Near the time of trial, Davis wanted to call Renfro to testify that Davis asked him to run a newspaper advertisement to find alibi witnesses. White sought a ruling as to the admissibility of Renfro’s proposed testimony because he would need to withdraw from representing Davis in the event Renfro would be a witness. The trial court held withdrawal was not necessary because Renfro’s proposed testimony would be collateral to the issues to be decided by the jury and inadmissible because it was not relevant to Davis’ alibi.

After the jury trial, Davis was convicted of first-degree murder and possession of a firearm in the commission of a felony. The Michigan Court of Appeals affirmed the convictions and the Michigan Supreme Court denied leave to appeal. Davis [344]*344sought postconviction relief from the judgment, which the Michigan trial court denied. He then moved for a waiver of fees when he sought to appeal the denial of postconviction relief, but the Michigan Court of Appeals ordered him to pay the fees within a given time because it appeared he had the ability to do so. When Davis did not pay the fees, the Michigan Court of Appeals dismissed his appeal. He did not appeal that dismissal to the Michigan Supreme Court. Davis then sought a writ of habeas corpus in United States district court. The district court denied his petition and certified all the issues for appealability, and Davis filed this appeal.

II. STANDARD OF REVIEW

This Court reviews a district court’s legal conclusions in habeas corpus proceedings de novo. Lucas v. O’Dea, 179 F.3d 412, 416 (6th Cir.1999). We review the district court’s findings of fact for clear error. Id.; Carson v. Burke, 178 F.3d 434, 436 (6th Cir.1999).

Federal courts evaluate habeas petitions according to the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, Pub.L. No. 104-132, 110 Stat. 1214 (1996) (codified as amended at 28 U.S.C. § 2254) (“AEDPA”). Harpster v. Ohio, 128 F.3d 322, 326 (6th Cir.1997). The AEDPA’s objective is “to prevent federal habeas ‘retrials’ and to ensure that state-court convictions are given effect to the extent possible under law.” Bell v. Cone, 535 U.S. 685, 693, 122 S.Ct. 1843, 1849, 152 L.Ed.2d 914 (2002) (citations omitted). The statute provides:

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Bluebook (online)
100 F. App'x 340, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/davis-v-burt-ca6-2004.