Portage County Legal News

Murderer serving life loses appeal

ANNIE YAMSON
Special to the Legal News
Published: February 26, 2016

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently affirmed the denial of habeas corpus relief for Reginald Clement, a Cleveland man who was sentenced to life in prison for aggravated murder.

Appealing from the judgment of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, Clement argued that he should have been granted federal habeas relief based on the alleged improper admission of a statement that he made while in the hospital and an alleged Confrontation Clause violation, both errors that he claimed marred his murder trial.

“The district court dismissed Clement’s habeas petition, concluding that relevant rulings by the Ohio state courts were neither contrary to nor unreasonable applications of established federal law,” Judge Martha Craig Daughtrey wrote on behalf of the 6th Circuit. “We agree and affirm.”

Clement’s convictions stemmed from the shooting death of Gregory Williams during a drug deal gone awry.

Case summary states that Williams and his friend, Tramel Wallace, arrived at a home where they planned to purchase marijuana. Unknown to them was that Williams was the target of a robbery.

With Wallace in the driver’s seat, the pair pulled into the driveway of the home.

At that point, Lavonte Green jumped into the back seat and pointed a gun at Williams who proceeded to climb over the seat into the back of the car and began to wrestle with Green for the gun.

Wallace quickly backed the car out of the driveway but when he stopped backing up in order to shift into drive, Clement stuck his arm in the passenger side window and shot Williams in the chest.

Several days later, Clement was in a local hospital being treated for a gunshot wound to the leg when police took a statement from him. He denied shooting Williams.

A jury found Clement guilty of aggravated murder, aggravated robbery, kidnapping and having a weapon under disability.

He was sentenced to life in prison with parole eligibility after 36 years.

On direct appeal and in his habeas corpus petition, Clement argued that the trial court erred in admitting the written statement that he provided to the police while he was in the hospital.

Significant pain and the fact that he was on painkillers made the statement involuntary, he said.

Clement also argued that the trial court erred when it allowed the state to offer the prior testimony of Alfred Rodgers who, in exchange for an agreed-upon sentence, testified at Green’s trial.

At Green’s trial, Rodgers implicated Clement as the shooter as substantive evidence of guilt.

But at Clement’s trial, Rodgers claimed that his memory was failing him; he was treated as a hostile witness and his testimony from Green’s trial was read into evidence.

The defense was allowed to cross-examine Rodgers and pursued a line of questioning that implicated him as the shooter rather than Clement.

“The Ohio Court of Appeals held that Rodgers’ prior testimony was not hearsay and could be admitted as substantive evidence of guilt because it was given under oath and was subject to cross-examination by the party against whom it was offered,” Daughtrey wrote.

The 6th Circuit court agreed, noting that under the Confrontation Clause, a testimonial statement from a witness who does not testify at trial cannot be admitted, but when the declarant appears for cross-examination, the Confrontation Clause does not apply.

“We conclude that the admission of Rodgers’ prior sworn testimony did not present a Confrontation Clause problem under clearly established Supreme Court precedent because he was present at Clement’s trial and was cross-examined by Clement’s attorney during trial,” Daughtrey wrote.

With regard to Clement’s argument that his statement in the hospital was involuntary, the appellate panel consulted the record of the visit, which was thoroughly documented by the investigating detective and hospital records.

According to medical records, nurses told the detective that Clement was “okay for conversation” and that he had been given two painkiller tablets 30 minutes before the visit.

When the detective entered the room, Clement was sitting up, coherent, alert and talking with family members.

Clement was read his rights and he indicated that he understood each one before he read and signed a waiver form.

After orally answering the detective’s questions, Clement said that he would like to make a statement and again signed a form that indicated he understood his rights.

The court of appeals held that there is no Supreme Court precedent requiring a finding that Clement’s statement was per se involuntary under the circumstances.

“Moreover, although the district judge observed that Clement ‘made a good argument’ that his statement could be deemed involuntary given his medical condition at the time, federal habeas relief is precluded as long as fair-minded jurists could disagree on the correctness of the state court’s decision,” Daughtrey wrote.

Considering the evidence and the prior proceedings, the federal court’s appellate panel could find no merit to Clement’s claims.

“Because we cannot say that the Ohio court’s determinations that Clement’s statement was voluntary and that Rodgers’ prior testimony was admissible were contrary to or unreasonable applications of federal law, it follows that the district court correctly denied habeas relief in this case,” Daughtrey wrote. “We therefore affirm the judgment of the district court.”

Judges Deborah Cook and Helene White concurred.

The case is cited Clement v. Kelly, case No. 14-3070.

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