Doyle v. Coyne-Fague

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT                             
               FOR THE DISTRICT OF RHODE ISLAND                          

                               )                                         
DANIEL E. DOYLE, JR,           )                                         
                               )                                         
     Petitioner,               )                                         
                               )                                         
     v.                        )                                         
                                 C.A. No. 1:21-CV-00479-MSM-LDA          
                               )                                         

PATRICIA A. COYNE-FAGUE, in her  )                                       

official capacity as Director of the  )                                  
DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS      )                                         
FOR THE STATE OF RHODE         )                                         
ISLAND                         )                                         
                               )                                         
     Respondent.               )                                         

                   MEMORANDUM AND ORDER                                  

Mary S. McElroy, United States District Judge.                            
    The petitioner, Daniel E. Doyle, Jr., an inmate at the Rhode Island Adult 
Correctional Institute, has filed with this Court a Petition pursuant to
28 U.S.C. § 
2254
for Writ of Habeas Corpus by a Person in State Custody.  The respondent, 
Patricia A. Coyne-Fague, in her capacity as Director of the Rhode Island Department 
of Corrections, has moved to dismiss the petition.                        
    For the following reasons, the respondent’s Motion to Dismiss (ECF No. 5) is 
GRANTED, and Mr. Doyle’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus (ECF No. 1) is 
DENIED and DISMISSED.                                                     
                        I.   BACKGROUND                                  

    The relevant facts of this case are adapted from  ,
235 A.3d 482
(R.I. 2020), unless otherwise noted.                                      
    The petitioner was the executive director of the Institute for International 
Sport (“the Institute”), a Rhode Island nonprofit corporation formed in 1987 with the 
goal of “expanding the opportunities for young people around the world to participate 

in sports activities in order to improve and develop their capabilities[.]”  , 235 
A.3d at 489.  The Institute operated primarily through grants obtained by the State 
of Rhode Island and private donations.  (ECF No. 1-1 at 2.)               
    Sometime in the early 2000s, the petitioner decided that the Institute required 
a second building, to be called the “Leadership Building,” to supplement the existing 
“Hall of Fame Building.”   , 235 A.3d at 490.  In addition to securing funds from 

private donors, the petitioner, in 2007, secured funds from the State of Rhode Island.  
   The total of $575,000 of these state funds came in the form of two grants from the 
Rhode Island General Assembly’s Joint Committee on Legislative Services (“JCLS”).  

    In 2009, Marisa White, the director of JCLS, noticed that the Leadership 
Building remained under construction, long after she believed it should have been 
completed.     Her concerns led to a JCLS investigation, which was referred to the 

office of the state Auditor General.     After the Auditor General issued a report on 
his  findings  in  2012,  a  grand  jury  investigation  resulted  in  an  eighteen-count 
indictment, charging the petitioner with seven counts of embezzlement in violation 
of R.I.G.L. § 11-41-3, one count of obtaining money under false pretenses under §§ 11-
41-4 and 11-41-5, five counts of forgery in violation of R.I.G.L. § 11-17-1, and five 
counts of giving false documents to an agent, employee, or public official in violation 
of R.I.G.L. § 11-18-1                                                     
    On December 5, 2016, at the conclusion of a three-month trial, a jury returned 

guilty verdicts on all eighteen counts.  (ECF No. 1-1 at 1-2.)            
    Among his pretrial pleadings, the petitioner filed a motion   that the 
Rhode Island Supreme Court described as a “broad-based attack against a significant 
amount of the state’s evidence and a host of prosecution witnesses.”   , 235 A.3d 
at 492.  Specifically, the petitioner argued that this evidence, which ultimately 
spanned two weeks of the trial, was inadmissible under Rules 403 and 404(b) of the 

Rhode Island Rules of Evidence because it related solely to his bad character.     The 
trial justice issued a preliminary ruling denying the motion, finding that “facially, 
the state’s planned evidence appeared relevant, and not in contravention of Rule 
404(b).”    at 492-93.  The trial justice further stated that she would decide during 
trial whether the evidence should be admitted in accordance with Rule 404(b).    at 
493.  Much of this evidence concerned the JCLS grant and the audit that followed. 
    On Appeal, the Rhode Island Supreme Court determined that the petitioner 

had not preserved specific objections to the prior bad acts evidence and therefore held 
that the issue was not properly before the court pursuant to its well-settled “raise or 
waive” rule.    at 494-95.  But the petitioner asserts to this Court that the Rhode 
Island  Supreme  Court’s  finding  of  waiver  constituted  a  “clearly  unreasonable 
interpretation of the facts” presented at trial.  (ECF No. 7 at 8.)  He avers that 
contrary to the Rhode Island Supreme Court’s holding that he failed to preserve his 
objections by relying on a continuing objection that the trial justice granted him, the 
trial record reflects that it was defense counsel who offered the continuing objection 
format to the court to accommodate the witnesses and the jury.    at 9-10.  Moreover, 

he asserts that he in fact “objected to the introduction of all the Rule 404(b) witnesses 
and  their  attendant  exhibits,  and  the  trial  court  repeatedly  thanked  him  for 
graciously allowing it to proceed with a continuing objection.”   at 11.   
      Despite determining that he had waived his objection to the prior bad acts 
evidence, the Rhode Island Supreme Court proceeded to consider the petitioner’s 
404(b) arguments to “make clear that, were the issue properly before the Court, it is 

without merit.”   , 235 A.3d at 495.  The court held that the trial justice correctly 
determined “that the testimony elicited from the state’s witnesses was independently 
relevant for a complete and coherent presentation of the events underlying the 
numerous and complex crimes in this case.”    at 496.  The court explained that 
    the JCLS grant money was paid to the Institute and the circumstances 
    surrounding  the  grant  were  highly  relevant.  The  defendant  stands 
    convicted of embezzling a whopping amount of money from the Institute, 
    over several years, and engaging in a monumental scheme to obfuscate 
    inquiry  into  his  charged  misconduct.  The  evidence  in  this  case 
    established that defendant lied to the Auditor General during the audit 
    that  was  precipitated  by  the  JCLS;  he  submitted  false  and  forged 
    documents to the auditor and drafted phony correspondence in the name 
    of third parties without their knowledge or consent. This is evidence of 
    defendant’s intent and motive to prolong his “far-flung chicanery” and 
    coverup, as well as his consciousness of guilt. It is so interwoven with 
    the  charged  misconduct  as  to  be  independently  relevant.  The  trial 
    justice admitted this evidence at trial because the failure to complete 
    the Leadership Building, which led to the grant audit, resulted in the 
    grand  jury  investigation  and  this  indictment.  The  defendant’s 
    subterfuge during the audit was highly relevant on the crucial element 
    of  defendant's  intent  and  constituted  evidence  that  the  incomplete 
    building was not the result of poor bookkeeping or mistake. In fact, 
    defendant's conduct can fairly be ascribed to the entirety of the reasons 
    that underlay Rule 404(b) as proof of defendant's motive, intent, plan, 
    scheme, and opportunity.                                             
       at 496–97.                                                        

    Also at trial, the State presented Detective Courtney Elliot of the Rhode Island 
State Police to provide opinion testimony as a lay witness.    at 498.  Detective 
Elliot, a member of the Financial Crimes Unit and a certified fraud examiner, joined 
the  state  police  investigation  into  the  Institute  in  2012  and  was  tasked  with 
determining which of the petitioner’s “expenses from various accounts held by the 
Institute  were  personal  and  what  expenses  were  legitimate  business  expenses 
chargeable to the Institute.”     Detective Elliot testified that that the petitioner 
“had incurred $145,332.36 in personal expenditures on his American Express card 
which was paid by the Institute.”    at 499.                              
    The Rhode Island Supreme Court held that the trial justice did not abuse her 
discretion under Rhode Island Rule of Evidence 701 by allowing Detective Elliot to 
offer an opinion about the nature of the petitioner’s credit card charges.      Rule 
701 provides:                                                             
    If the witness is not testifying as an expert, the witness’ testimony in the form 
    of opinions is limited to those opinions which are (A) rationally based on the 
    perception of the witness and (B) helpful to a clear understanding of the 
    witness’ testimony or the determination of a fact in issue.          


    While Detective Elliot’s opinions were “informed by her qualifications and 
experience,” it also was “rationally based on the perceptions derived” from her review 
of thousands of documents and interviews with parties involved in those transactions.  
  at 500.  These opinions, the court held, “were helpful to a clear understanding of 
her testimony and the determination of facts at issue.”     Furthermore, the court 
disagreed with the petitioner that Detective Elliot should have been qualified as an 
expert witness under Rule 702 because her testimony was not the kind of scientific, 

technical, or other specialized knowledge contemplated by that Rule.      
    With his conviction affirmed, the petitioner has now come to this Court seeking 
habeas corpus relief.  (ECF No. 1.)  He offers two grounds: (1) that the Rhode Island 
Supreme  Court  based  its  decision  on  the  bad  character  evidence  upon  an 
unreasonable application of federal law and an unreasonable determination of the 
facts in light of the evidence presented at trial; and (2) that the Rhode Island Supreme 

Court unreasonably interpreted the facts and contravened federal law by upholding 
the trial justice’s allowance of Detective Elliot’s testimony.  (ECF No. 1-1 at 60, 71.) 
                        II.  DISCUSSION                                  

 A. Exhaustion of State Remedies                                         

    Federal habeas review is governed by the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death 
Penalty Act (“AEDPA”), which provides that habeas relief “shall not be granted 
unless it appears that the applicant has exhausted the remedies available in the 
courts of the State.”
28 U.S.C. § 2254
(b)(1)(A).  “This exhaustion requirement, which 
codified preexisting law, is born of the principle ‘that as a matter of comity, federal 
courts should not consider a claim in a habeas corpus petition until after the state 
courts have had an opportunity to act.’”             ,
640 F.3d 478,      
482
(1st Cir. 2011) (quoting
455 U.S. 509, 515
,
102 S.Ct. 1198
,
71  
L.Ed.2d 379
(1982)).                                                      
    A failure to present a federal constitutional claim to the state court is generally 
fatal to a habeas petition.    at 482.  Although “[t]his circuit’s rules about what 
constitutes  presenting  a  federal  issue  are  fairly  generous,”  a  habeas  petitioner 

nevertheless “bears a heavy burden to show that he fairly and recognizably presented 
to the state courts the factual and legal bases of [his] federal claim.”   ; 
  ,
448 F.3d 45, 47
(1st Cir. 2006);       ,
296 F.3d 48, 51
(1st Cir.   
2002).  The First Circuit has set forth examples that would satisfy whether a federal 
issue  was  fairly  presented,  such  as  “reliance  on  a  specific  provision  of  the 
Constitution, substantive and conspicuous presentation of a federal constitutional 

claim,  on-point  citation  to  federal  constitutional  precedents,  identification  of  a 
particular right specifically guaranteed by the Constitution, and assertion of a state-
law claim that is functionally identical to a federal constitutional claim.”   ,
640 F.3d at 482
.                                                          
    A federal constitutional ground must be presented to the state court “face-up 
and squarely” and be “plainly defined.”       ,
836 F.2d 715, 717
(1st    
Cir. 1988). A “‘passing reference’ to a constitutional issue will not preserve it for 

habeas  review”  and  nor  will  “mere  incantation[s]  of  constitutional  buzzwords, 
unaccompanied by any federal constitutional analysis.”   ,
257 F.3d       
39
, 44 (1st Cir. 2001);          ,
131 F.3d 259, 263
(1st Cir. 1997).  The 
bottom line is whether a petitioner has “tendered his federal claim in such a way as 
to make it probable that a reasonable jurist would have been alerted to the existence 
of the federal question.”       ,
824 F.3d 187, 192
(1st Cir. 2016) (quoting 
            ,
753 F.3d 279, 294
(1st Cir. 2014)).                        
    Here, in his opening brief and in his reply brief to the Rhode Island Supreme 

Court, the petitioner devoted lengthy sections of analysis asserting his position that 
the  trial  justice’s  admission  of  prejudicial  character  evidence  was  an  erroneous 
application of Rule 404(b) of the Rhode Island Rules of Evidence.  Only in a concluding 
sentence in both briefs did he state that the bad character evidence exceeded the 
scope of Rule 404(b)  violated his due process rights to a fair trial under both the 
United States and Rhode Island Constitutions.  (ECF No. 6-1 at 50; ECF No. 6-3 at 

11.)   Indeed, a review of his briefs to the Rhode Island Supreme Court in their totality 
indicate that his presentment of a federal constitutional issue amounted only to a 
“passing  reference  …  unaccompanied  by  any  federal  constitutional  analysis” 
following detailed argument on the contours of a state evidentiary rule.   , 
257 F.3d at 44.  The petitioner therefore does not meet his burden to demonstrate 
that he presented a federal claim to the Rhode Island Supreme Court “face up and 
squarely” to put a reasonable jurist on notice of a federal claim.    ,
824 F.3d at 

192
;       ,
836 F.2d at 717
.                                             
    The petitioner also argues that he cited in his briefs a state case, 
    ,
119 R.I. 614
,
382 A.2d 526
(1978), which, as he noted in those filings, cited to 
a U.S. Supreme Court case,         ,
385 U.S. 554
(1967).  (ECF No. 6-1 at 
40-41; ECF No. 6-3 at 10.)  But  , and the parenthetical quote he used from it 
that drew upon       concerned not a constitutional principle but the general 
concern about the prejudicial nature of bad character evidence: “Moreover, another 
reason for this exclusionary principle is the prejudicial potential of such evidence, the 
real possibility that the generality of the jury’s verdict may mask a finding of guilt 

which is based upon involvement with unrelated crimes rather than on the evidence 
which shows the defendant guilty of the crime charged.”   ,
119 R.I. at 524
,
382 
A.2d at 532
(citing   ,
385 U.S. at 560
).  The indirect citation to       
therefore cannot be said to have reasonably alerted the Rhode Island Supreme Court 
to a federal point of law beyond its state jurisprudence regarding bad character 
evidence.                                                                 

    The petitioner offers even less regarding Detective Elliot’s testimony, the Rule 
701 issue.  There, he never mentioned due process or a fair trial to the state court but 
instead argued that “the trial court abused its discretion and caused Mr. Doyle to 
suffer prejudice.”  (ECF No. 6-1 at 53; ECF No. 6-3 at 19.)  He contends instead that 
because R.I. R. Evid. 701 is substantially the same as Fed. R. Evid. 701 he fairly 
presented a federal claim to the Rhode Island Supreme Court.  A similarity in federal 
and state evidentiary rules is not, however, enough to satisfy the fair presentment 

requirement.       ,
640 F.3d at 483
.  Although the petitioner argued that the 
Rhode Island Supreme Court’s decision contravened the Supreme Court’s decisions 
in       and              those decisions held that expert opinion must be 
relevant  and  reliable  to  be  admissible  under  Fed.  R.  Evid.  702  –  neither  case 
discussed lay opinion testimony under Fed. R. Evid. 701.                  
    The petitioner’s failure to exhaust is fatal to his claim and the Court need 
proceed no further.      ,
640 F.3d at 483
.  The AEDPA, however, in the   
interests of judicial economy, allows the Court to consider the merits and “dispose of 

that claim once and for all” if the petitioner “does not raise even a colorable federal 
claim.”    483-84 (citing
28 U.S.C. § 2254
(b)(2);    ,
481 U.S. 129,      
135
,
107 S. Ct. 1671
,
95 L.Ed.2d 119
(1987)).                             
 B. The Merits                                                           

    As an initial matter, the respondent argues that the petitioner fails to state a 
claim  for  federal  habeas  corpus  relief  on  his  Rule  404(b)  claim  because  it  is 
procedurally defaulted under the Rhode Island Supreme Court’s “raise or waive” rule.   
But  the  petitioner  argues  that  the  Rhode  Island  Supreme  Court  erroneously 
concluded that he failed to preserve his claim for appellate review, which he considers 
a clearly unreasonably interpretation of the facts in light of the evidence presented 
at trial.   Erroneous or not, the issue is of no moment here because the state Supreme 
Court proceeded to consider the substance of his 404(b) claims “in order to make clear 
that, were the issue properly before the Court, it is without merit.”  , 235 A.3d 

at 495.  And so, this Court will consider the petitioner’s claim for habeas corpus relief 
with a focus on the merits that the Rhode Island Supreme Court did consider. 
    “The statutory authority of federal courts to issue habeas corpus relief for 
persons  in  state  custody  is  provided  by
28  U.S.C.  §  2254
,  as  amended  by  the 
Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA).”           
     ,
562 U.S. 86, 97
(2011).  “By its terms § 2254(d) bars relitigation of any claim 
‘adjudicated  on  the  merits’  in  state  court,  subject  only  to  the  exceptions  in  §§ 
2254(d)(1) and (2).”   at 98.  “[A] federal court may grant habeas relief only when a 
state court’s decision on the merits was ‘contrary to, or involved an unreasonable 

application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by’ decisions from [the 
United States Supreme Court], or was ‘based on an unreasonable determination of 
the facts.’”          ,
575 U.S. 312
, 315 (2015) (quoting
28 U.S.C. § 2254
(d)).   
    On the Rule 404(b) issue, this matter is analogous to  ,
640 F.3d at 
478
, and so this Court must decide it similarly.                          
    The petitioner cannot argue that the state court’s decision on the merits was 

“contrary to … clearly established Federal law” because he has not, as he is required, 
identified a United States Supreme Court decision identifying legal principles for 
determining when prior act evidence is constitutionally admissible—and that the 
Rhode Island Supreme Court could be said to have unreasonably applied it.  Indeed, 
the U.S. Supreme Court “has expressly declined to determine ‘whether a state law 
would violate the Due Process Clause if it permitted the use of ‘prior crimes’ evidence 
to show propensity to commit a charged crime.’”   ,
640 F.3d at 484
-85    

(quoting
502 U.S. 62
, 75 n. 5,
112 S.Ct. 475
,
116 L.Ed.2d 385
(1991)).                                                                  
    The petitioner does point to two U.S. Supreme Court cases in his search for 
“clearly established Federal law” but his reliance on them for that proposition is 
misplaced.  First, both cases—               ,
519 U.S. 172
(1997) and    
                      ,
335  U.S.  469
(1948)—predate     which        
accurately described the U.S. Supreme Court’s lack of a pronouncement on the due 
process implications of prior bad acts evidence.
640 F.3d at 484-85
.  In  , 
the  U.S.  Supreme  Court  addressed  prior  acts  evidence  but  did  not  do  so  in 

constitutional terms.
519 U.S. at 190-92
.  Neither did  , a 1948 decision that 
predated  the  1975  enactment  of  Rule  404(b),  which  decided  whether,  on  cross 
examination, the prosecution could ask the defendant’s character witness about the 
defendant’s prior arrest.
335 U.S. 473
-87.                              
    In the absence of a U.S. Supreme Court governing rule, the Court is bound to 
consider the broader fair-trial principle.   ,
640 F.3d at 485
.  For an error 

to rise to constitutional magnitude, it must “so infuse the trial with inflammatory 
prejudice as to render a fair trial impossible.’’   ,
587 F.2d 81, 86
(1st  Cir.  1978).    In  the  case  of  an  evidentiary  ruling,  one  that  results  in  a 
fundamentally unfair trial may violate due process.   ,
428 F.3d 41
,      
44 n.2 (1st Cir. 2005).  “But to trigger such relief, the state court’s application of state 
evidentiary law must be ‘so arbitrary or capricious as to constitute an independent 
due process … violation.’”   ,
640 F.3d at 484
(quoting      ,
497        

U.S. 764, 780
,
110 S. Ct. 3092
,
111 L.Ed.2d 606
(1990)).  The U.S. Supreme Court has 
“defined  the  category  of  infractions  that  violate  ‘fundamental  fairness’  very 
narrowly.”   (quoting                ,
493 U.S. 342, 352
,
110 S. Ct. 668
,
107 L.Ed.2d 708
(1990)).                                                  
    The Rhode Island Supreme Court’s ruling on the prior bad acts evidence cannot 
be said to be “so arbitrary or capricious.”     That holding—that the JCLS grant 
evidence was relevant to the petitioner’s intent and proof of his motive, intent, plan, 
scheme, and opportunity—was indeed within “the universe of plausible evidentiary 
rulings.”    at 485.  The same must be said of the court’s decision affirming the 

admission of Detective Elliot’s lay opinion testimony, under R.I. R. Evid. 701.  That 
is, the holding that Detective Elliot’s testimony fell within the limits of Rule 701 was 
a plausible evidentiary ruling.   It was further plausible that she was not required to 
be qualified as an expert under Rule 702 because expert opinion was not necessary 
to “prove that drawing two salaries, or paying for a child’s college tuition from 
Institute  funds,  or  making  a  donation  to  one’s  college  alma  mater  amounts  to 

embezzlement.”      , 235 A.3d at 500–01.                                 
    “The second path to habeas relief runs through a showing that the state court 
decision ‘was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts’ on the record 
before that court.”             ,
35 F.4th 68, 75
(1st Cir. 2022) (quoting
28 
U.S.C. § 2254
(d)(2)).  This demanding showing cannot be made when “‘[r]easonable 
minds reviewing the record might disagree’ about the finding in question.”    
(quoting             ,
576 U.S. 305
, 314,
135 S.Ct. 2269
,
192 L.Ed.2d 356
(2015).  Indeed, a reviewing court in a habeas corpus action must accord s state court’s 
factual findings a presumption of correctness.    ,
640 F.3d 443
, 452     
(1st Cir. 2011).                                                          
    The petitioner has not, with respect to the admission of prior bad acts evidence 
or the testimony of Detective Elliot, identified any determination of the facts upon 
which reasonable minds could not disagree.  For that reason, he cannot be afforded 
habeas corpus relief under
28 U.S.C. § 2254
(d)(2).                        

                        III.  CONCLUSION                                 
    For the foregoing reasons, the Court GRANTS the respondent’s Motion to 
Dismiss (ECF No. 5) and DENIES and DISMISSES Mr. Doyle’s Petition for a Writ of 
Habeas Corpus (ECF No.1).                                                 


IT IS SO ORDERED.                                                         
_________________________________                                         
Mary S. McElroy                                                           
United States District Judge                                              

November 3, 2022