Greeman v. State of New York

Background

Edward Greeman filed a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 asking the federal court to provide relief from his New York convictions and sentence. He proceeded without a lawyer. A New York Supreme Court jury found him guilty of 15 counts of second-degree criminal possession of a forged instrument, nine counts of first-degree criminal tampering, and one count of second-degree criminal impersonation. He received an aggregate indeterminate sentence of 5½ to 11 years.

The trial evidence concerned a fare-evasion scheme at the South Ferry subway station. The government presented evidence that, between September 2017 and July 2018, Greeman jammed credit-card and bill slots on MetroCard vending machines, dressed as a Metropolitan Transit Authority employee, collected payment from riders, and let them enter the subway. During three arrests, officers found MetroCards in his possession that had been bent along the magnetic strip so they could be used for rides despite having a zero balance.

Greeman pursued state-court motions and appeals. The New York Appellate Division affirmed his conviction, and the New York Court of Appeals denied leave to appeal and later denied reconsideration. He then filed his federal habeas petition, raising four grounds: an allegedly unlawful arrest; a claim that the prosecution exceeded New York’s speedy-trial time limit; insufficient evidence for the forged-instrument convictions; and withholding of exculpatory evidence from the grand jury.

Legal standard

Under the federal habeas statute and the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, a federal court may grant relief to a state prisoner only for a violation of the Constitution, federal law, or a treaty. When a state court has decided a federal claim on the merits, the federal court generally may grant relief only if the state court’s decision conflicted with clearly established United States Supreme Court law, unreasonably applied that law, or rested on an unreasonable determination of the facts.

The arrest and evidence-withholding claims

The court held that grounds one and four were procedurally defaulted. Procedural default means that a federal court ordinarily will not review a claim when the petitioner failed to present it through the required state-court review process.

Greeman raised his unlawful-arrest and evidence-withholding claims in the Appellate Division, but he did not include them in his application asking the New York Court of Appeals to review his case. The court therefore treated those claims as abandoned for purposes of the state’s highest-court review. Greeman did not present an argument showing a legally recognized reason to excuse the default, such as a valid cause for failing to follow the procedure and resulting prejudice, or a fundamental miscarriage of justice. The court declined to review the merits of those two grounds.

The speedy-trial claim

The court held that ground two could not support federal habeas relief. Greeman relied on New York Criminal Procedure Law § 30.30, which concerns the time within which the government must be ready for trial. The court explained that this is a state-law requirement and does not itself protect a federal constitutional right. A federal habeas court cannot reexamine a state court’s ruling solely on a state-law question.

The sufficiency-of-the-evidence claim

The state courts decided ground three on the merits, so the federal court applied a highly deferential standard. The question was whether, viewing the evidence in the prosecution’s favor, any rational factfinder could have found the elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt, and whether the state court unreasonably applied that standard.

For second-degree criminal possession of a forged instrument, the government had to prove that Greeman possessed a forged instrument—here, a bent MetroCard—knowing it was forged and intending to defraud, deceive, or injure another. The federal court identified evidence that bent MetroCards were found in Greeman’s possession during three arrests, an MTA fraud investigator explained how the cards worked, and surveillance video showed Greeman swiping a MetroCard to admit people to the subway while accepting payment. Although the investigator had not checked whether the recovered cards contained legitimate value added by ordinary customers, the court concluded that a reasonable juror could still find that Greeman knowingly possessed the bent cards with intent to defraud. The court held that Greeman had not shown that the Appellate Division unreasonably applied Supreme Court precedent.

Disposition

Judge Arun Subramanian denied Greeman’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus and directed the Clerk of Court to close the case. The court declined to issue a certificate of appealability because Greeman had not made a substantial showing that a constitutional right was denied. It also certified that any appeal would not be taken in good faith.