Rickey Martin v. Secretary, Florida Department of Corrections

[DO NOT PUBLISH]
In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Eleventh Circuit
____________________
No. 22-12134
Non-Argument Calendar
____________________
RICKEY MARTIN,
Petitioner-Appellant,
versus
SECRETARY, FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS,
Respondent-Appellee.
____________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of Florida
D.C. Docket No. 4:19-cv-00562-MW-HTC
____________________
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2 Opinion of the Court 22-12134
Before NEWSOM , GRANT, and L UCK , Circuit Judges.
PER C URIAM :
Rickey Martin, counseled and currently incarcerated, ap-
peals the district court’s denial of his 28 U.S.C. section 2254 habeas
petition. We affirm.
Martin is serving a life sentence for capital sexual battery.
His victim in this case—a daughter of his former girlfriend—didn’t
report the crime until years later when she heard a rumor that he’d
molested another girl. The rumor came up in a conversation be-
tween the victim, her sister, and their mother, in which the sister
shared the rumor and indicated that she had a hard time believing
it because it didn’t sound like something Martin would do. Mar-
tin’s victim broke down and tearfully told her sister and mother
that they should believe it because he’d raped her when she was
eleven years old.
At trial, the state moved in limine to admit testimony of that
conversation. Martin objected, arguing that it was “very harmful
to suggest that there’s another victim out there.” But his primary
defense was that the rape never happened and that his victim’s
years-long silence was evidence that her story was fabricated be-
cause the family was angry over his breakup with the victim’s
mother. The trial court admitted the testimony, with a “very se-
vere limiting instruction” to the jury, because it provided context
regarding the series of events that brought the victim’s story to
light. Martin was convicted and sentenced to a term of life impris-
onment without parole.
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22-12134 Opinion of the Court 3
After unsuccessfully appealing his conviction in the state ap-
pellate court, Martin moved the district court for habeas relief, ar-
guing that the trial court’s admission of the testimony deprived
him “of the right to confront witnesses against him in violation of
his Sixth Amendment rights and den[ied] him a fair trial in violation
of his Fourteenth Amendment due process rights.”1 A magistrate
judge entered a report and recommendation that characterized
Martin’s petition as “claim[ing] [that] his right to a fair trial under
the Fourteenth Amendment was violated when the state trial court
erred in admitting, over defense objection, a highly inflammatory
inadmissible hearsay statement concerning an unknown and there-
fore unavailable person rumored to have claimed to have been mo-
lested by . . . Martin.” The magistrate judge recommended deny-
ing Martin’s petition and denying a certificate of appealability be-
cause: (1) the trial court’s decision to grant the state’s motion in
limine wasn’t contrary to, and didn’t involve an unreasonable ap-
plication of, clearly established federal law as determined by the
Supreme Court; (2) the trial court didn’t err because the testimony
was offered not for the truth of the matter asserted but rather to
explain the victim’s delay in coming forward; and (3) even if the
trial court erred, it didn’t deprive Martin of a fair trial because the
trial court’s limiting instructions ameliorated any prejudice that
might’ve been caused by the evidence. The district court accepted
in part and adopted in part the report and recommendation, denied
1 This was “Ground 2” of Martin’s petition, which is the only ground relevant
to this appeal.
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4 Opinion of the Court 22-12134
Martin’s petition, and granted a certificate “as to Ground 2 of the
petition” because “reasonable jurists could find this court’s assess-
ment of Ground 2 debatable.”
On appeal, Martin repeats verbatim the argument he raised
before the district court—namely, that “[t]he state trial court erred
in admitting, over defense objection, a highly inflammatory inad-
missible hearsay statement concerning an unknown and therefore
unavailable person rumored to have claimed to have been mo-
lested by Mr. Martin, thus depriving Mr. Martin of the right to con-
front witnesses against him in violation of his Sixth Amendment
rights and denying him a fair trial in violation of his Fourteenth
Amendment due process rights.”2
We review de novo a district court’s denial of a section 2254
petition, “but we owe deference to the final state habeas judg-
ment.” Reed v. Sec’y, Fla. Dep’t of Corr., 593 F.3d 1217, 1239 (11th
Cir. 2010) (quotation omitted). Specifically, under the
2
Neither the magistrate judge nor the district court addressed the Sixth
Amendment part of Martin’s claim. See Clisby v. Jones, 960 F.2d 925, 936 (11th
Cir. 1992) (instructing district courts “to resolve all claims for relief raised in a
petition for writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. [section] 2254”). But
because Martin didn’t raise this issue in either his response to the report and
recommendation or his brief on appeal, he has forfeited any argument that the
district court committed Clisby error. See 11th Cir. R. 3-1 (stating that a party
who fails to object to a magistrate judge’s finding or recommendation waives
the right to challenge that finding or recommendation on appeal); United States
v. Campbell, 26 F.4th 860, 872 (11th Cir. 2002) (en banc) (holding that issues not
raised on appeal are deemed forfeited). As such, only his Fourteenth Amend-
ment claim is properly before us on appeal.
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22-12134 Opinion of the Court 5
Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, where a
state court has adjudicated a claim on the merits, a federal court
may grant habeas relief only if the state court decision (1) “was con-
trary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly estab-
lished [f]ederal law, as determined by the Supreme Court,” or (2)
“was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light
of the evidence presented in the [s]tate court proceeding.” 28
U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1), (2). The “unreasonable application” inquiry re-
quires that the state court decision “be more than incorrect or er-
roneous”; it must be “objectively unreasonable.” Lockyer v. An-
drade, 538 U.S. 63, 75 (2003). The petitioner must show that the
state court’s ruling “was so lacking in justification that there was an
error well understood and comprehended in existing law beyond
any possibility for fairminded disagreement.” White v. Woodall, 572
U.S. 415, 419–20 (2014). Under the “contrary to” clause, a federal
habeas court may grant the writ if the state court arrives at a con-
clusion opposite to that reached by the Supreme Court on a ques-
tion of law or if the state court decides a case differently than the
Supreme Court has on a set of materially indistinguishable facts.
Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 412–13 (2000).
Where, as here, the final state court decision on the merits
doesn’t provide its reasoning, “the federal court must look through
the unexplained decision to the last related state-court decision that
does provide a relevant rationale and presume that the unexplained
decision adopted the same reasoning.” Pye v. Warden, Ga. Diagnos-
tic Prison, 50 F.4th 1025, 1034 (11th Cir. 2022) (en banc) (quotation
omitted). Generally, “a federal court in a habeas corpus case will
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6 Opinion of the Court 22-12134
not review the trial court’s actions concerning the admissibility of
evidence.” Alderman v. Zant, 22 F.3d 1541, 1555 (11th Cir. 1994).
But “where a state court’s ruling is claimed to have deprived a de-
fendant of his right to due process, a federal court should then in-
quire only to determine whether the error was of such magnitude
as to deny fundamental fairness to the criminal trial.” Id. (cleaned
up). “The admission of prejudicial evidence justifies habeas corpus
relief only if the evidence is material in the sense of a crucial, criti-
cal, highly significant factor.” Osborne v. Wainwright, 720 F.2d 1237,
1238 (11th Cir. 1983) (quotation omitted).
Martin’s due process claim fails because he hasn’t shown
that the trial court’s ruling “was contrary to, or involved an unrea-
sonable application of, clearly established [f]ederal law.” 28 U.S.C.
§ 2254(d)(1). He argues primarily that the trial court erred by vio-
lating Florida’s rules of evidence as expounded in various state
court cases. The only federal law Martin references in the Four-
teenth Amendment context is Huddleston v. United States, 485 U.S.
681 (1988), which is nested within a quotation of a state appellate
opinion. Martin doesn’t attempt to show that the trial court vio-
lated Huddleston, nor could he; Huddleston addresses whether evi-
dence violates the Federal Rules of Evidence and doesn’t even
mention due process or the Fourteenth Amendment. See id. at 691.
Nor has Martin shown that the trial court’s ruling “was so
lacking in justification that there was an error well understood and
comprehended in existing law beyond any possibility for fair-
minded disagreement.” White, 572 U.S. at 419–20. Indeed, nothing
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22-12134 Opinion of the Court 7
in the record shows that the decision was “objectively unreasona-
ble,” Lockyer, 538 U.S. at 75, or that the objected-to evidence—even
if admitted in error—was “material in the sense of a crucial, critical,
highly significant factor,” Osborne, 720 F.2d at 1238.
The most crucial factor in convicting Martin was his victim’s
testimony that he raped her. The testimony of the rumor focused
not on the idea that Martin had molested another child but rather
on explaining how and why, after so many years, Martin’s victim
came forward. The trial court considered its prejudicial effect but
determined that it had probative value because it helped the victim
tell her story.
The trial court also granted Martin’s request for limiting in-
structions, and—before each witness’s testimony and again before
deliberations—it told the jury that the statement should be consid-
ered only as proof of how the allegations were first reported. Alt-
hough Martin argues that, in some circumstances, a jury instruc-
tion can’t cure unfair prejudice, he offers no explanation for why
this is one of those instances. The jury is presumed to have fol-
lowed the trial court’s limiting instructions, and there’s nothing in
the record to indicate that it didn’t. See Richardson v. Marsh, 481
U.S. 200, 211 (1987).
Finally, the objected-to testimony lacked credibility. The
witnesses made no representation that the accusation was true, the
victim’s sister said that she didn’t believe it sounded like something
Martin would do, and the state referred to it only as a “rumor.”
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8 Opinion of the Court 22-12134
For all of these reasons, the district court’s denial of Martin’s
section 2254 habeas petition is affirmed.
AFFIRMED.
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