Goding v. Capra

Background

Emil Goding filed a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, a federal procedure allowing a state prisoner to challenge custody based on a claimed violation of federal law. His petition raised one ground: that the pretrial identification of him and related testimony were unduly suggestive.

The underlying crime occurred on October 13, 2015. According to the opinion, Goding and a co-defendant robbed a bodega in Harlem at gunpoint. The clerk, Mr. Ashishi, directed police toward the fleeing robbers and identified them after seeing them a few blocks away. Goding ran from the police and was later apprehended in St. Nicholas Park. The clerk identified him there, even though Goding was no longer wearing the blue hoodie he had worn during the robbery. Police recovered about $300, including marked currency, and four packs of Newport cigarettes from Goding. They later recovered a cell phone and the blue hoodie from the park.

Before trial, Goding moved to suppress the show-up identification and items recovered after his arrest. The trial court denied that motion, finding that the identification was not unreasonably suggestive because it occurred close in time and location to the robbery. A jury convicted Goding of two counts of second-degree robbery, and he received concurrent prison terms of 16 years to life. The New York Appellate Division affirmed, finding that the identification claim was not preserved and alternatively that the show-up was justified by its close spatial and temporal proximity to the robbery. The New York Court of Appeals denied leave to appeal.

Report and Recommendation

Magistrate Judge Ona T. Wang recommended denying the petition. She discussed whether the claim was exhausted and whether the state court’s finding that the claim was not preserved created a procedural bar. She also addressed the merits. Judge Wang concluded that the identification was not unnecessarily suggestive because of the circumstances surrounding the police search and its close timing and location. She further concluded that, even if the procedure had been suggestive, the clerk’s identification was independently reliable and other evidence supported Goding’s guilt.

The parties did not file objections to the Report and Recommendation within the required fourteen-day period. The district court therefore reviewed the report for clear error, meaning a clear mistake in its factual or legal reasoning.

Court’s Ruling

Judge Katherine Polk Failla found no clear error and adopted the Report and Recommendation in its entirety. The court agreed that the trial court did not err in admitting the identification and related evidence, that Goding received a fundamentally fair trial, and that the state courts’ decisions were not an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law.

The court accordingly ordered that the petition be denied. It also ruled that no certificate of appealability would issue because Goding had not made a substantial showing that a constitutional right was denied. The court further denied permission to proceed without paying filing fees for an appeal, finding that any appeal would not be taken in good faith, and directed the Clerk of Court to close the case.