Mayrant v. McCarthy

Background

Raymond Mayrant, proceeding without a lawyer, filed a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 seeking to overturn his New York convictions for second-degree murder and attempted second-degree murder. He received consecutive sentences totaling 25 years to life for murder and 25 years for attempted murder. The convictions arose from the shooting of Diamond Dunn, who survived, and Elvira Brown, who died.

Mayrant raised four claims: (1) the felony complaint was legally defective and therefore could not support his arrest; (2) the trial court improperly removed a prospective juror for cause; (3) the verdict was against the weight of the evidence; and (4) the trial court violated his Sixth Amendment confrontation right by allowing the parties to stipulate to Brown’s cause of death without testimony from a medical examiner.

Magistrate Judge Barbara C. Moses recommended denying the amended petition. Mayrant objected. Judge Daniels reviewed the challenged portions of the recommendation independently and reviewed the unchallenged portion for clear error.

Court’s analysis

Felony complaint and arrest. The court held that Mayrant’s claim was procedurally barred. The state court had denied his motion under New York Criminal Procedure Law § 440.10(2)(c) because he could have raised the claim on direct appeal. Judge Daniels found that rule to be an independent and adequate state-law ground that prevented federal habeas review. The court also held that the claim would fail on the merits because Dunn immediately identified Mayrant as the shooter, supplying probable cause for his arrest. The court further concluded that any defect in the felony complaint was superseded by the later grand-jury indictment and that Mayrant’s appellate lawyer was not ineffective for declining to raise a meritless claim.

Prospective juror. The court denied Mayrant’s challenge to the removal of the prospective juror. It held that the claim that the trial court misapplied New York’s juror-selection rules did not present a federal question suitable for habeas review. It also rejected Mayrant’s argument that a different, unidentified prospective juror who said, “I can’t be fair,” might have served on the jury. The state appellate court reasonably found that the dismissed juror was the person who made that statement, and Mayrant did not show that the jury that convicted him was actually biased or that the state court made an unreasonable factual determination.

Weight of the evidence. The court denied this claim because an argument that a verdict was against the weight of the evidence arises under New York law and is not generally reviewable in a federal habeas proceeding. The court noted that the magistrate judge had also explained that even a properly framed federal sufficiency-of-the-evidence claim would fail on the merits.

Cause-of-death stipulation. The court held that Mayrant’s confrontation claim was procedurally barred under New York Criminal Procedure Law § 440.10(2)(c) because the issue was apparent from the trial record and should have been raised on direct appeal. The court also found the claim meritless. Mayrant and his trial lawyer expressly agreed to the stipulation, which stated that Brown died within seconds from a close-range gunshot wound. The court concluded that the stipulation did not violate the Confrontation Clause and may have benefited Mayrant by avoiding the admission of gruesome autopsy photographs. The court also rejected Mayrant’s reliance on the Second Circuit’s decision in Garlick because that case involved an autopsy report introduced through a substitute witness, whereas no substitute witness testified here, the autopsy report was not admitted, and Mayrant consented to the stipulation.

Disposition

The court adopted Magistrate Judge Moses’s Report and Recommendation in full, overruled Mayrant’s objections, and denied the § 2254 petition. The clerk was directed to close the case.