Church v. Secretary, Department of Corrections (Pinellas County)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

MIDDLE DISTRICT OF FLORIDA

TAMPA DIVISION

TYRONE CHURCH,

Petitioner,

v. Case No. 8:25-cv-784-WFJ-NHA

SECRETARY, DEPARTMENT

OF CORRECTIONS,

Respondent.

/

ORDER

Tyrone Church, a Florida prisoner, timely filed a pro se petition for writ of habeas

corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. (Doc. 1). Respondent filed a response opposing the

petition. (Doc. 7). Although afforded the opportunity, Mr. Church did not file a reply. After

careful review, the petition is DENIED.

I. Background

This case arises from a shooting that took place outside a convenience store in St.

Petersburg, Florida. Around 5:00 a.m. on April 16, 2022, Paul Watson parked his truck and

walked toward the store. (Doc. 8-2, Ex. 8, at 208). Before Mr. Watson’s arrival, Mr. Church

had been “walking up and down in [ ] front of the store.” (Id. at 248). Mr. Church said to

Mr. Watson, “Pop, pop, pop, 21 shots to the eyes, it’s a good day to die.” (Id. at 208). Mr.

Watson responded, “You’re a motherf*cking ass, it’s a good day for me to die? It might be

a good day for someone else, but I’m not him.” (Id.) Mr. Watson entered the store, bought

a cup of coffee, and returned to his truck. (Id.) He was joined by his friend, Earnest Wright.

(Id. at 210). As the two were talking, Mr. Church approached the truck, “got down on one

knee,” and said, “Oh, gee, I respect you, man.” (Id.) Mr. Church walked back toward the

store, and an employee “asked him to leave.”1 (Id.)

Approximately two minutes later, Mr. Church fired several shots into Mr. Watson’s

truck. (Id. at 220-21, 230). Mr. Watson escaped unharmed, but Mr. Wright suffered a non-

fatal gunshot wound to the back of his neck. (Id. at 221, 250-51, 253). Shortly after the

shooting, Mr. Church placed a “tote bag” on a nearby porch. (Id. at 271, 283). The bag

contained several items, including a machete, a Smith & Wesson revolver, and a “baggie”

with 38 rounds of live ammunition. (Id. at 358). The revolver held “six spent cartridge

cases.” (Id. at 361). A firearms analyst compared the revolver to a projectile recovered

from the scene of the shooting. (Id. at 501). He concluded that, although there were

“similarities and agreement” between the two items, the similarities were “insufficient” to

“meet [the] threshold for identification.” (Id. at 505-06).

Mr. Church was charged with two counts of attempted second-degree murder and

one count of felon in possession of a firearm. (Id., Ex. 5). He went to trial on the attempted-

murder charges. The jury found him guilty as charged, determining that he possessed and

“personally discharge[d] a firearm” during the offenses. (Id., Ex. 10). Mr. Church then

stipulated that he had a prior felony conviction for organized fraud. (Id., Ex. 8, at 681, 684-

85). Based on the stipulation and the jury’s finding that Mr. Church possessed a firearm,

the court found him guilty of felon in possession of a firearm. (Id. at 687). He received a

1 Mr. Church was a stranger to both Mr. Watson and Mr. Wright. (Doc. 8-2, Ex. 8, at 228-29, 253).

mandatory-minimum sentence of 20 years’ imprisonment on each count of attempted

murder, as well as a 15-year sentence for felon in possession of a firearm. (Id. at 691; see

also id., Ex. 11). The sentences were run concurrently. (Id., Ex. 8, at 691). Following an

unsuccessful direct appeal, Mr. Church sought federal habeas relief. (Id., Ex. 16; Doc. 1).

II. Standards of Review

A. AEDPA

The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (“AEDPA”) governs this

proceeding. Carroll v. Sec’y, DOC, 574 F.3d 1354, 1364 (11th Cir. 2009). Habeas relief

can be granted only if a petitioner is in custody “in violation of the Constitution or laws or

treaties of the United States.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(a). Section 2254(d) provides that federal

habeas relief cannot be granted on a claim adjudicated on the merits in state court unless

the state court’s adjudication:

(1) resulted in a decision that was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable

application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme

Court of the United States; or

(2) resulted in a decision that was based on an unreasonable determination of

the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding.

A decision is “contrary to” clearly established federal law “if the state court arrives

at a conclusion opposite to that reached by [the Supreme] Court on a question of law or if

the state court decides a case differently than [the Supreme] Court has on a set of materially

indistinguishable facts.” Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 413 (2000). A decision involves

an “unreasonable application” of clearly established federal law “if the state court identifies

the correct governing legal principle from [the Supreme] Court’s decisions but

unreasonably applies that principle to the facts of the prisoner’s case.” Id.

AEDPA was meant “to prevent federal habeas ‘retrials’ and to ensure that state-

court convictions are given effect to the extent possible under law.” Bell v. Cone, 535 U.S.

685, 693 (2002). Accordingly, “[t]he focus . . . is on whether the state court’s application

of clearly established federal law is objectively unreasonable, and . . . an unreasonable

application is different from an incorrect one.” Id. at 694; see also Harrington v. Richter,

562 U.S. 86, 103 (2011) (“As a condition for obtaining habeas corpus from a federal court,

a state prisoner must show that the state court’s ruling on the claim being presented in

federal court was so lacking in justification that there was an error well understood and

comprehended in existing law beyond any possibility for fairminded disagreement.”).

The appellate court in Mr. Church’s case affirmed his convictions without

discussion. This decision warrants deference under § 2254(d)(1) because “the summary

nature of a state court’s decision does not lessen the deference that it is due.” Wright v.

Moore, 278 F.3d 1245, 1254 (11th Cir. 2002). When a state appellate court issues a silent

affirmance, “the federal court should ‘look through’ the unexplained decision to the last

related state-court decision that does provide a relevant rationale” and “presume that the

unexplained decision adopted the same reasoning.” Wilson v. Sellers, 584 U.S. 122, 125

(2018).

B. Exhaustion of State Remedies; Procedural Default

A federal habeas petitioner must exhaust his claims in state court before presenting

them in his federal habeas petition. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b)(1)(A); O’Sullivan v. Boerckel, 526

U.S. 838, 842 (1999) (“[T]he state prisoner must give the state courts an opportunity to act

on his claims before he presents those claims to a federal court in a habeas petition.”). The

exhaustion requirement is satisfied if the petitioner fairly presents his claim in each

appropriate state court and alerts that court to the federal nature of the claim. Picard v.

Connor, 404 U.S. 270, 275-76 (1971).

The doctrine of procedural default provides that “[i]f the petitioner has failed to

exhaust state remedies that are no longer available, that failure is a procedural default which

will bar federal habeas relief, unless either the cause and prejudice or the fundamental

miscarriage of justice exception is established.” Smith v. Jones, 256 F.3d 1135, 1138 (11th

Cir. 2001). A fundamental miscarriage of justice occurs in an extraordinary case where a

constitutional violation has probably resulted in the conviction of someone who is actually

innocent. Schlup v. Delo, 513 U.S. 298, 327 (1995); Henderson v. Campbell, 353 F.3d 880,

892 (11th Cir. 2003). To establish cause for a procedural default, a petitioner “must

demonstrate that some objective factor external to the defense impeded the effort to raise

the claim properly in state court.” Wright v. Hopper, 169 F.3d 695, 703 (11th Cir. 1999).

A petitioner demonstrates prejudice by showing that “there is at least a reasonable

probability that the result of the proceeding would have been different” absent the

constitutional violation. Henderson, 353 F.3d at 892.

III. Discussion

A. Ground One—Sufficiency of the Evidence

Mr. Church argues that the prosecution failed to “present sufficient evidence” to

support his convictions for attempted second-degree murder. (Doc. 1 at 5). He appears to

contend that the evidence was insufficient to establish his identity as the shooter. (Id.)

Specifically, Mr. Church notes that the prosecution “provided no fingerprint evidence, no

DNA evidence, no gunshot residue,” and no surveillance footage “depict[ing] the shooter.”

(Id.)

The Court liberally construes this claim as asserting a federal constitutional

challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence. As Respondent correctly contends, Mr. Church

is not entitled to relief because his sufficiency challenge is unexhausted and procedurally

defaulted. (Doc. 7 at 9-13).

Proper exhaustion requires petitioners to “present their claims to the state courts

such that the reasonable reader would understand each claim’s particular legal basis and

specific factual foundation.” Kelley v. Sec’y for Dep’t of Corr., 377 F.3d 1317, 1344-45

(11th Cir. 2004). Mr. Church raised a sufficiency challenge on direct appeal, but he did not

argue—as he does in his § 2254 petition—that the evidence was insufficient to establish

his identity as the shooter. (Doc. 8-2, Ex. 14, at 18-21). Instead, he claimed that the

prosecution “failed to prove that [he] acted with ill will to sustain an attempted second-

degree murder conviction.” (Id. at 19). According to Mr. Church, the “evidence established

only that the shooting was reckless,” which was “insufficient to support an attempted

second-degree murder conviction.” (Id. at 17).

Thus, “while state appellate counsel attacked the sufficiency of the evidence

regarding [Mr. Church’s intent], there was no appeal on the separate and distinct issue of

whether there was sufficient evidence that” he was the shooter.2 Johnson v. Alabama, 256

F.3d 1156, 1170 (11th Cir. 2001). “Insufficiency of the evidence is simply too broad and

malleable an objection to hold . . . that a direct appeal in state court challenging the

sufficiency of the evidence on one theory is enough to preserve for federal habeas review

a challenge to the adequacy of proof on a factually and legally distinct theory never fairly

presented to the state courts.” Id. For this reason alone, Mr. Church’s sufficiency challenge

is unexhausted.

Even if Mr. Church had argued in his § 2254 petition that the prosecution failed to

establish the necessary intent, he still would not be entitled to relief. That is because he

never informed the state court that his sufficiency challenge raised any federal issue. To

properly exhaust a claim, a petitioner must “make the state court aware that the claims

asserted present federal constitutional issues.” Jimenez v. Fla. Dep’t of Corr., 481 F.3d

1337, 1342 (11th Cir. 2007). “A litigant wishing to raise a federal issue can easily indicate

the federal law basis for his claim in a state-court petition or brief, for example, by citing

in conjunction with the claim the federal source of law on which he relies or a case deciding

such a claim on federal grounds, or by simply labeling the claim ‘federal.’” Baldwin v.

Reese, 541 U.S. 27, 32 (2004). A petitioner must do more, however, than “scatter some

makeshift needles in the haystack of the state court record.” McNair v. Campbell, 416 F.3d

1291, 1303 (11th Cir. 2005). Moreover, a petitioner “does not ‘fairly present’ a claim to a

2 In support of his § 2254 petition, Mr. Church attached a letter he received from appellate counsel. (Doc.

1-1 at 30). In the letter, counsel informed Mr. Church that he “could not argue that the State failed to prove

that you were the shooter because this issue was not raised by trial counsel” in the motion for judgment of

acquittal. (Id.) Instead, appellate counsel “could only argue that the State failed to prove the required

element of intent.” (Id.)

state court if that court must read beyond a petition or a brief” to find the “federal claim.”

Baldwin, 541 U.S. at 32.

Mr. Church failed to present the federal dimension of his claim on direct appeal. As

noted above, he argued that the prosecution “failed to prove that [he] acted with ill will.”

(Doc. 8-2, Ex. 14, at 19). But he did not cite the United States Constitution or any other

source of federal law. Nor did he “label[ ] the claim ‘federal.’” Baldwin, 541 U.S. at 32.

Instead, Mr. Church relied entirely on Florida caselaw to support his argument that the

evidence was insufficient to establish his “ill will.” (Doc. 8-2, Ex. 14, at 18-21). Because

Mr. Church “did not raise any federal claims or cite to any federal cases in state court when

presenting his argument on the sufficiency of the evidence,” he “failed to fairly present his

federal sufficiency-of-the-evidence claim to the Florida state courts and thus did not

exhaust his state court remedies as to that claim.” Cascante v. Florida, 816 F. App’x 429,

431 (11th Cir. 2020); see also Preston v. Sec’y, Fla. Dep’t of Corr., 785 F.3d 449, 459

(11th Cir. 2015) (holding that federal sufficiency-of-the-evidence claim was not exhausted

because petitioner “asserted in his [state appellate] brief that his conviction rested on

insufficient evidence, without clarifying whether he intended to bring a federal or a state

sufficiency of the evidence claim”); Gallagher v. Sec’y, Fla. Dep’t of Corr., No. 22-13954,

2024 WL 3289639, at *2 (11th Cir. July 3, 2024) (“[B]ecause [petitioner] never cited . . .

any [ ] federal case when arguing in the state court that there was insufficient evidence for

a conviction that would alert the state courts to the federal nature of his claim, he did not

‘fairly present’ the issue to the state courts.”).

Mr. Church cannot return to state court to present his unexhausted sufficiency

challenge in a second, untimely direct appeal. See Fla. R. App. P. 9.140(b)(3) (stating that

a notice of appeal must be filed within thirty days of the rendition of a sentence). As a

result, Ground One is procedurally defaulted. See Smith, 256 F.3d at 1138 (“If the petitioner

has failed to exhaust state remedies that are no longer available, that failure is a procedural

default which will bar federal habeas relief, unless either the cause and prejudice or the

fundamental miscarriage of justice exception is established.”). Because Mr. Church offers

no basis to excuse the default, his sufficiency challenge is barred from federal habeas

review.3

B. Ground Two—Allegedly Unlawful Sentence Enhancement

Mr. Church contends that his “20-year mandatory sentence” for attempted second-

degree murder was unlawful because the jury failed to make the factual findings necessary

to support an enhanced sentence. (Doc. 1 at 7). Even under de novo review, this claim

fails.4

“[A]ny fact that increases the mandatory minimum sentence for a crime must be . .

. submitted to a jury and found beyond a reasonable doubt.” United States v. Payne, 763

F.3d 1301, 1304 (11th Cir. 2014) (citing Alleyne v. United States, 570 U.S. 99, 116 (2013)).

Under Florida law, a defendant who “discharge[s] a firearm” during an attempted second-

3 Even if the sufficiency challenge were exhausted, Mr. Church would not be entitled to relief. For the

reasons given in the State’s appellate brief, a rational jury could find beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr.

Church committed attempted second-degree murder. (Doc. 8-2, Ex. 15, at 20-24).

4 Respondent argues that Ground Two is procedurally defaulted, but “a federal court may skip over the

procedural default analysis if a claim would fail on the merits in any event.” Dallas v. Warden, 964 F.3d

1285, 1307 (11th Cir. 2020).

degree murder faces a “20-year minimum mandatory sentence.” Blandin v. State, 916 So.

2d 969, 970 (Fla. 2d DCA 2005); see also McKenzie v. State, 31 So. 3d 275, 276 (Fla. 2d

DCA 2010) (defendant was convicted of “an attempt to commit a felony during which he

discharged a firearm, an offense that carries a minimum mandatory term of 20 years in

prison”). Therefore, a court cannot impose the 20-year mandatory minimum without “a

clear jury finding that [the defendant] discharged a firearm” during the offense. Muldrow

v. State, 842 So. 2d 240, 242 (Fla. 2d DCA 2003).

The jury made the required finding here. As noted above, the jury convicted Mr.

Church of two counts of attempted second-degree murder. (Doc. 8-2, Ex. 10). As part of

its verdict, the jury specifically found that Mr. Church “personally discharge[d] a firearm”

during the offenses. (Id.) Thus, the fact that “increase[d] the mandatory minimum

sentence”—Mr. Church’s discharge of a firearm—was “submitted to [the] jury and found

beyond a reasonable doubt.” Payne, 763 F.3d at 1304. Contrary to Mr. Church’s assertion,

the court properly imposed the 20-year mandatory minimum for attempted second-degree

murder with the discharge of a firearm.

C. Ground Three—Allegedly Erroneous Felon-in-Possession Conviction

Lastly, Mr. Church argues that he was “convicted in error” of felon in possession of

a firearm. (Doc. 1 at 8). According to Mr. Church, he did not have a qualifying prior

conviction because adjudication had been “withheld” on the predicate offense of

“organized fraud.” (Id.)

Respondent correctly contends that this claim is unexhausted and procedurally

defaulted. (Doc. 7 at 19-20). It is unexhausted because Mr. Church never raised it in any

state-court filing. (Doc. 8-2). It is procedurally defaulted because Mr. Church cannot return

to state court to raise the issue in a second, untimely direct appeal. See Fla. R. App. P.

9.140(b)(3); Smith, 256 F.3d at 1138. Because Mr. Church offers no basis to excuse the

default, Ground Three is barred from federal habeas review.

IV. Conclusion

Accordingly, the Court ORDERS:

1. Mr. Church’s petition (Doc. 1) is DENIED.

2. The CLERK is directed to enter judgment against Mr. Church and to CLOSE this

case.

3. Mr. Church is not entitled to a certificate of appealability. A prisoner seeking a writ

of habeas corpus has no absolute entitlement to appeal a district court’s denial of his

petition. 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(1). “A certificate of appealability may issue . . . only

if the applicant has made a substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional

right.” 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(2). To obtain a certificate of appealability, Mr. Church

must show that reasonable jurists would find debatable both the merits of the

underlying claims and the procedural issues he seeks to raise. See Slack v.

McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 484 (2000). Mr. Church has not made the requisite

showing. Because Mr. Church is not entitled to a certificate of appealability, he is

not entitled to appeal in forma pauperis.

DONE AND ORDERED in Tampa, Florida, on September 2, 2025.

litho,

UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

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