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Full Opinion
In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
____________________
No. 15‐2577
IVAN JOHNSON,
Petitioner‐Appellant,
v.
KAREN JAIMET,
Respondent‐Appellee.
____________________
Appeal from the United States District Court for the
Northern District of Illinois, Western Division.
No. 14 C 50172 — Frederick J. Kapala, Judge.
____________________
ARGUED DECEMBER 6, 2016 — DECIDED MARCH 30, 2017
____________________
Before WOOD, Chief Judge, and ROVNER and SYKES, Circuit
Judges.
WOOD, Chief Judge. Douglas Keefer’s badly beaten body
was found by police in Keefer’s own backyard in Rock Falls,
Illinois, the morning of November 27, 2006. A jury convicted
Ivan Johnson of Keefer’s murder. While Johnson admits he
beat Keefer the night before, in the same backyard, he insists
that he did not kill him. Keefer’s actual murderers, Johnson
2 No. 15‐2577
says, were two men with baseball bats who attacked Keefer
later that night, in the same spot.
Johnson’s theory apparently came from Dustin Manon, a
one‐time occupant of the Whiteside County Jail. Manon told
police that his cellmate there, Donnie Masini, told him that
Masini had hired two men to kill Keefer with bats and that
they did so. Unsurprisingly, Masini denied making the state‐
ment when police questioned him. The trial court barred
Johnson from introducing Masini’s hearsay statement, rea‐
soning that it was too unreliable to allow into evidence. The
Illinois Appellate Court affirmed.
After exhausting other options, Johnson now seeks habeas
corpus relief. He argues, as relevant here, that the state court’s
exclusion of the hearsay evidence was an unreasonable appli‐
cation of Chambers v. Mississippi, 410 U.S. 284 (1973). The dis‐
trict court denied Johnson’s petition, but it granted him a cer‐
tificate of appealability. We agree with our colleague that the
state court’s decision did not run afoul of Chambers and thus
that Johnson is not entitled to habeas corpus relief.
I
At Johnson’s jury trial, the prosecution and the defense
agreed that Johnson repeatedly punched an unarmed Keefer
on the evening of Sunday, November 26, 2006. The critical dif‐
ference between their stories lay in the degree to which John‐
son beat the victim. Johnson argued that he could not have,
and did not, cause Keefer’s death, while the prosecution
maintained that he did. Johnson unsuccessfully sought to in‐
troduce Manon’s report of Masini’s confession. Without that
evidence before it, the jury resolved the factual question in the
prosecution’s favor.
No. 15‐2577 3
Because the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act
(AEDPA) governs this case, the findings of the state court are
entitled to substantial deference. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d). We
therefore begin by recounting the prosecution’s version of
events. The state argued that Johnson beat and killed Keefer
after a dispute about drugs and money. Marie Schlosser, a wit‐
ness to the attack, testified that the two men started arguing
about money shortly after Johnson showed up at Keefer’s
house on the fateful evening. Earlier that weekend, Schlosser
and a pair of men, all from Chicago, teamed up with a man
known as “Little C” to sell drugs in the Rock Falls area, in
northwestern Illinois. Johnson and Keefer visited the dealers
in their hotel room at different times that weekend. On Sun‐
day, Schlosser and Little C drove to Keefer’s house to sell
more drugs, but only Little C went inside. He returned to the
car where Schlosser was waiting a few minutes later, claiming
he had been robbed. He then made a phone call in which he
repeated the accusation.
But if there was a robber, it apparently was not Keefer,
who came outside soon after Little C returned to the car. Little
C demanded that Keefer tell him where the man who robbed
him lived or that Keefer cover the cost of the stolen drugs. At
this point, according to Schlosser, Johnson arrived and started
arguing with Keefer. Johnson reportedly told Keefer that “we
don’t play about our money” and then began punching
Keefer. It was a one‐way fight; Keefer did not hit back, as
Johnson acknowledged at trial. Instead, Schlosser recalled,
Keefer ran behind a parked car, presumably to try to evade
the beating. Johnson followed. Schlosser reported that he
knocked Keefer to the ground, striking him in the face repeat‐
edly and kicking him at least once while he was prone. Even‐
tually Johnson drove away, leaving Keefer on the ground.
4 No. 15‐2577
Schlosser too left the scene. She said that she and her friend
returned that evening to see if Keefer was still there—and “see
if he was really dead.” She saw Keefer in the same spot where
he had lain when she left the yard shortly after Johnson’s at‐
tack, but she did not approach him.
Johnson recalled the evening differently. He testified that
Keefer was arguing with Little C at Keefer’s place Sunday
evening when Johnson arrived. Johnson said he approached
the pair and told Keefer to cool down. Keefer did not; instead,
he started arguing with Johnson, telling him that “if anybody
gonna take a whippin’ it’s gonna be” Johnson. With that,
Keefer “threw up his guards.” Johnson said this was a sign to
fight, and so Johnson did. Johnson admitted that he punched
Keefer when he was standing and continued after Keefer fell
to the ground. But Johnson acknowledged Keefer did not re‐
turn any blows or even swing back. Johnson also admitted
that he had lied to police earlier when he said that Keefer also
threw punches and that Little C had also struck Keefer. John‐
son explained that he told police that Keefer struck back “to
make it look good on [his own] behalf.” By Johnson’s own ad‐
mission, then, he was the sole combatant in the fight with
Keefer. The only difference between his account and the
state’s was the brutality of the beating he administered.
One way or the other, the fight must have ended by 9 p.m.,
because Keefer’s friend, Vern Williams, arrived at Keefer’s
empty house about that time. Williams found it odd that
Keefer’s house was unlocked, yet Keefer was nowhere to be
found. Williams waited inside Keefer’s residence until about
2 a.m. Monday, at which point he wrote Keefer a note and left.
Williams never looked in the back yard.
No. 15‐2577 5
A Rock Falls police officer was dispatched to Keefer’s
house around 10 a.m. Monday to investigate a report of a man
lying in the back yard. There the responding officer, Jeremy
Vondra, found Keefer dead. At trial, Schlosser testified that a
police photograph of the scene where police found Keefer’s
body showed that Keefer’s body was just where Johnson had
left him the night before.
An autopsy showed that Keefer had extensive bruising on
his face and neck, along with a broken jaw and a fractured
throat bone. The forensic pathologist who conducted the au‐
topsy said that Keefer’s injuries were consistent with being
punched in the face, falling to the ground, and being punched
while prone. He noted that most of Keefer’s bruises were
round—like those that would result from a punch—but two
bruises, along his jaw, were linear. These contusions could
have resulted from being struck with a straight object, such as
a rod, a piece of wood, or a shoe. Keefer’s cause of death was
neurogenic shock, brought on by blunt force trauma to the
head and neck. The trauma triggered a hemorrhage inside his
skull. The pathologist theorized that blows to Keefer’s head
while he was on the ground—which was so hard that his body
could not absorb the strikes—might have caused his death.
On January 18, 2007, Johnson was indicted on four counts
of first‐degree murder for Keefer’s death. Before the start of
trial, the prosecution moved to exclude the hearsay testimony
from Manon as inadmissible. See ILL. R. EVID. 802. Johnson
wanted Manon to testify about what Masini allegedly told
him about Keefer’s murder. As we noted, the defense’s theory
was that it was two men with baseball bats who actually killed
Keefer, by attacking him later Sunday evening, after Johnson
had fled the scene. This account attributed the two linear
6 No. 15‐2577
bruises to bats, not something like the kick to which Schlosser
had referred.
The only problem with Johnson’s theory was an utter lack
of evidence backing it up. Manon was his sole source, but all
he had was hearsay from Masini, recounted to Manon while
Manon was in jail facing obstruction of justice charges. There
Masini supposedly told him that Masini had hired two men
to “take [Keefer] out” with baseball bats and that he had “got”
Keefer. Manon added that Masini had asked him to blow up
a woman’s car and burn down her house. The targeted
woman had been the subject of a running dispute between
Keefer and Masini. Indeed, apparently that was why Masini
was in jail: Police arrested him in October 2006, after the
woman reported that Masini had shot Keefer, and investigat‐
ing officers found a loaded gun at Masini’s home. Manon said
Masini gave him a map showing the location of the woman’s
house during this conversation.
Manon had first reported these statements from Masini to
the police around 9 a.m. Tuesday, November 28, less than
three hours after Manon had been released from jail on bond.
This was almost 24 hours after police found Keefer’s body, but
several hours before the local newspaper first published a story
about Keefer’s death that afternoon. Manon gave the police a
hand‐drawn map that showed the woman’s house—artwork
from Masini, he claimed. But there were “no particulars as to
when [Masini’s] statement [to Manon] was made other than it
was made within 24 hours of Doug Keefer’s death,” as the trial
court noted. The news would have traveled fast, under the
defense’s theory, because Masini needed to hear of the suc‐
cessful attack and then share the news with Manon before
Manon was released from jail around 6:30 a.m. Tuesday.
No. 15‐2577 7
Johnson argued that this hearsay was admissible under
the due process exception established in Chambers v. Missis‐
sippi, 410 U.S. 284 (1973), for certain statements against penal
interest. Masini’s testimony, he urged, was highly reliable. The
Illinois court evaluated this argument but concluded that
“justice d[id] not require” the Masini hearsay to be admitted.
Following a jury trial in Whiteside County, Johnson was con‐
victed of first‐degree murder and sentenced to 35 years in
prison.
On direct appeal, the Illinois Appellate Court affirmed the
exclusion of the evidence. Citing Chambers, it reasoned that
the hearsay statement lacked sufficient indicia of reliability to
require it to be allowed in at trial. The court noted the absence
of any indication that Masini and Manon were more than cell‐
mates; nothing suggested that they had a personal relation‐
ship. Furthermore, nothing corroborated the hearsay; the two
linear bruises could have resulted from any kind of a linear
object, not just a bat. Moreover, most of Keefer’s bruises were
consistent with punches. The court also pointed to the evi‐
dence indicating that Keefer’s body was “unmoved from
where it was located when [Johnson] left the crime scene.”
Masini’s purported motive to kill Keefer—their dispute about
a woman—was of no help because it did not relate specifically
to Masini’s purported hiring of men with baseball bats.
Further counseling against admission was the fact that
Masini would be “unavailable” for cross‐examination. During
the murder investigation, Masini denied making the state‐
ments Manon attributed to him. He also disclaimed any re‐
sponsibility for Keefer’s death. The appellate court assumed
that if Masini had been called to testify, he would have as‐
serted his Fifth Amendment privilege or denied making the
8 No. 15‐2577
statement, making him “unavailable” in the evidentiary sense
of the word. This conclusion parted ways with the trial court’s
analysis. That court thought that there was ample oppor‐
tunity to cross‐examine Masini, who was incarcerated again
by then. The only factor weighing in favor of admissibility, in
the Illinois Appellate Court’s view, was the fact that Masini’s
statement was against his penal interest. Overall, the court
concluded, the hearsay statement was too unreliable to be ad‐
mitted.
After exhausting his appeals in state court, Johnson filed
his federal habeas corpus petition on August 6, 2014. See 28
U.S.C. § 2254. The district court denied the petition on July 10,
2015, but certified for appeal the question whether the Illinois
court denied Johnson his right to present a defense by exclud‐
ing the hearsay that implicated another person.
II
Our review of Johnson’s petition is governed by AEDPA,
which strictly limits the circumstances in which a federal
court may grant relief to a petitioner whose claim has been
adjudicated on the merits in state court. Johnson relies on
§ 2254(d)(1), which allows a federal habeas court to grant re‐
lief if the state court’s decision is “contrary to, or involves an
unreasonable application, of clearly established federal law.”
He argues that the state court unreasonably applied Chambers
when it excluded Manon’s account of Masini’s admission.
A state court decision “involves an unreasonable applica‐
tion of [the Supreme] Court’s clearly established precedents if
the state court applies this Court’s precedents to the facts in
an objectively unreasonable manner.” Williams v. Taylor, 529
U.S. 362, 407 (2000). To succeed, Johnson must do more than
No. 15‐2577 9
show that the state court made a mistake. McManus v. Neal,
779 F.3d 634, 649 (7th Cir. 2015). Rather, he must show that the
Illinois court’s decision was “so erroneous as to be objectively
unreasonable.” Id. (internal quotation and citation omitted).
Under this demanding standard, a petitioner’s claim fails if
“fairminded jurists could disagree on the correctness of the
state court’s decision.” Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 101
(2011) (internal citation and quotations omitted).
A
As the Illinois Appellate Court correctly observed, Cham‐
bers provides the controlling Supreme Court precedent.
Chambers similarly concerned the exclusion of hearsay evi‐
dence of another person’s confession to a murder. The murder
defendant in that case, Leon Chambers, had sought to intro‐
duce evidence from third parties that another man, Gable
McDonald, had repeatedly confessed to the crime. 410 U.S. at
292–93. But the state court blocked Chambers from using the
statements at trial by application of a state evidence rule pro‐
hibiting hearsay, despite the existence of evidence that cor‐
roborated the out‐of‐court statements. Id. at 298. Its eviden‐
tiary ruling prevented the jury from considering the defense’s
strongest evidence that someone other than Chambers was re‐
sponsible for the murder. Id. at 292–93.
The Court held that the state court’s hearsay exclusion vi‐
olated Chambers’s due process right to present a complete de‐
fense. Id. at 298–300. It did so notwithstanding the fact, which
it acknowledged, that hearsay evidence as a general matter
“lack[s] the conventional indicia of reliability.” Id. at 298.
Rules barring hearsay are permissible because they protect
triers of fact from considering “untrustworthy infor‐
mation.” Id. at 298 (citing California v. Green, 399 U.S. 149, 158
10 No. 15‐2577
(1970)). But when hearsay statements are made and offered
“under circumstances that provid[e] considerable assurance
of their reliability,” that justification for exclusion disappears.
See Chambers, 410 U.S. at 300–01.
Under Chambers, it is necessary, though not sufficient, for
critical hearsay of this type to be reliable. Rather than pre‐
scribing a litmus test for reliability, however, Chambers in‐
structs trial courts to determine reliability by considering all
the circumstances, including such points as whether the state‐
ment was made by a close acquaintance; whether any evi‐
dence corroborates the statement; whether the statement was
against the declarant’s penal interests; and whether the de‐
clarant will be subject to adequate examination. Id.
In the decades since Chambers, the Supreme Court has re‐
mained steadfast in its recognition that states have “broad lat‐
itude under the Constitution” to restrict the admission of ev‐
idence in criminal trials, but at the same time that there will
be cases in which the defendant’s due process rights must
override those rules. Holmes v. South Carolina, 546 U.S. 319,
324. (2006); Rock v. Arkansas, 483 U.S. 44, 55 (1987); see Kubsch
v. Neal, 838 F.3d 845, 855–56 (7th Cir. 2016) (en banc) (explain‐
ing that “Chambers was not a one‐and‐done opinion” and
summarizing subsequent Supreme Court precedent). We
must decide on which side of the line Johnson’s case falls.
B
The Illinois Appellate Court was not satisfied that
Manon’s hearsay testimony had sufficient “indicia of reliabil‐
ity.” Johnson argues, in essence, that we must take into ac‐
count both how reliable and how essential it was. He then
turns to the latter factor and urges that the exclusion of his
No. 15‐2577 11
evidence had the effect of denying him a meaningful oppor‐
tunity to present a complete defense. It did so by preventing
him from showing that someone else was responsible for
Keefer’s murder. See Crane v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 683, 690
(1986). Given the wealth of evidence against Johnson, includ‐
ing Johnson’s admission that he beat Keefer right before he
died, his best and only hope was to suggest that someone else
was responsible. For purposes of this discussion, we will as‐
sume that the hearsay was critical to Johnson’s defense and
focus on reliability.
We look first at the question whether Masini was available
for cross‐examination. The Illinois trial court said yes, but the
state appellate court disagreed. The appellate court thought
that Masini “likely … would have either asserted his fifth
amendment right against self‐incrimination, or would have
continued to deny having made the statement.” That, it said,
would have made him effectively unavailable. And because
the operative decision for our review is that of the last state
court to adjudicate Johnson’s claim on the merits, we need not
concern ourselves with the trial court’s assessment. Makiel v.
Butler, 782 F.3d 882, 896 (7th Cir. 2015).
In our court, the respondent warden concedes that the ap‐
pellate court’s determination that Masini was “unavailable”
was incorrect; indeed, this was one of the reasons why the dis‐
trict court granted a certificate of appealability to Johnson.
Masini could have been put on the stand “in order that his
demeanor and credibility may be assessed by the jury.” Cham‐
bers, 410 U.S. at 298. To the extent it matters, Masini’s where‐
abouts apparently were known, because he told the police
that he did not make the statement Manon attributed to him,
and it appears that Masini was incarcerated at the time of
12 No. 15‐2577
Johnson’s trial. For present purposes, therefore, we treat this
part of the Illinois Appellate Court’s decision as erroneous.
But as we already have noted, the fact that a decision is in
error does not necessarily make it “unreasonable.” To begin
with, the finding that Masini was available was not the only
reason that the state court gave for finding the hearsay evi‐
dence to be insufficiently reliable. Moreover, AEDPA requires
the federal court to give deference to the state court’s decision,
as opposed to its reasoning. See Harrington, 562 U.S. at 98–99;
Makiel, 782 F.3d at 907. A “bad reason does not necessarily
mean that the ultimate result was an unreasonable applica‐
tion of established doctrine.” Makiel, 782 F.3d at 906 (quoting
Bradley v. Pfister, 711 F.3d 818, 827 (7th Cir. 2013)). We thus
move on to the other reasons offered by the state court in sup‐
port of its finding of unreliability: the absence of evidence cor‐
roborating the hearsay, and the superficial relationship be‐
tween Manon and Masini.
Johnson argues that there was evidence corroborating the
hearsay, but that the state court disregarded it. He points to
the linear contusions on Keefer’s jaw; Masini’s knowledge of
Keefer’s death before it was reported in the media; and
Masini’s motive to kill Keefer as part of their alleged dispute
about the woman. The state court reasonably concluded,
however, that this evidence has little or no bearing on the
hearsay Johnson sought to introduce.
First, there is no proof of what caused the two linear con‐
tusions. While the pathologist opined that they could have
been caused by a bat, he stressed that any linear object, includ‐
ing a foot, would have sufficed. These injuries thus could
have resulted from a kick, such as the one witnessed by
No. 15‐2577 13
Schlosser. This inconclusive physical evidence hardly pro‐
vides “considerable assurance” of the statement’s reliability.
See Chambers, 410 U.S. at 300. The absence of clear physical
evidence supports the state court’s determination that the
statement was not sufficiently reliable. Masini’s purported
motive to kill Keefer is also of limited significance. The contu‐
sions have nothing to do with Masini’s supposed hiring of
two men with bats.
The fact that Manon reported Masini’s confession before
the local paper published a story on Keefer’s death is also at
best weak corroboration. Keefer’s body was found in the
backyard of a “busy thoroughfare and … [his] home was sur‐
rounded by crime scene tape for all of a day before Manon
talked to the police,” according to the prosecution. Schlosser
said that she and a friend returned to the crime scene some
time after Johnson’s beating and saw Keefer’s body in the
same spot. Word of Keefer’s death (no matter the means) eas‐
ily could have traveled fast around Rock Falls, whose popu‐
lation at the last Census did not exceed 10,000. Finally, Manon
had a few hours between his release from jail and his report
of Masini’s statement to police—time during which he could
have learned of Keefer’s death in some way other than
through Masini.
Johnson does not challenge the state court’s conclusion
that Masini and Manon were “mere cellmates,” but he argues
the state court overemphasized this fact in its reliability deter‐
mination. The weight of that fact, however, was for the state
court to determine. Johnson also argues that, even if Masini
was a relative stranger, Chambers recognized that the sponta‐
neity of a statement argues in favor of reliability. See 410 U.S.
14 No. 15‐2577
at 300. True enough. But Chambers also holds that the close‐
ness of the relationship between declarant and witness is a
key component of the reliability assessment of a statement
against the declarant’s penal interests. See id. at 300–01. In re‐
ality, Johnson wants us to analyze the hearsay anew by re‐
weighing these considerations to arrive at a different conclu‐
sion. That is not our role under AEPDA.
We do not find the Illinois Appellate Court’s ultimate re‐
liability determination to be an unreasonable application of
Chambers, given the absence of corroborating evidence and
obvious untrustworthiness of a murder confession to a
stranger‐turned‐cellmate. Johnson’s case is quite different
from the one we faced in Kubsch, where we held that due pro‐
cess required the admission of a police interview of a witness
because it was particularly reliable and essential to the de‐
fense. 838 F.3d at 845. The evidence at issue there was trust‐
worthy, because it was recorded, independent, and almost
contemporaneous, and also because there was some evidence
that corroborated (and more that could have done so, if pur‐
sued) the out‐of‐court statement. Id. at 860–62. While the state
court in Johnson’s case might seen things differently, if for ex‐
ample it had placed more emphasis on the fact that Masini’s
confession was against his penal interest, its decision was well
within the range of reasonable outcomes.
III
Because we hold that the state court did not unreasonably
apply Chambers, we do not need to address whether any error
it might have made was harmless. We simply note that an‐
other reason to leave the state conviction undisturbed is the
fact that any exclusion of the hearsay evidence probably made
No. 15‐2577 15
no difference to the outcome, given the abundance of evi‐
dence against Johnson.
We therefore AFFIRM the judgment of the district court.
Case Information
- Court
- 7th Cir.
- Decision Date
- March 30, 2017
- Status
- Precedential