Opinion
21-0172
08-31-2022
James N. Mauldin, Petitioner Below, Petitioner v. Shelby Searls, Superintendent, Huttonsville Correctional Center, Respondent Below, Respondent
(Berkeley County 2016-C-155)
MEMORANDUM DECISION
Petitioner James N. Mauldin, by counsel S. Andrew Arnold, appeals the Circuit Court of Berkeley County's December 1, 2020, order dismissing his amended petition for a writ of habeas corpus. Respondent State of West Virginia, by counsel Patrick Morrisey and William E. Longwell, filed a response in support of the circuit court's order.
In his notice of appeal, petitioner named the Superintendent of Huttonsville Correctional Center, Marvin C. Plumley, as respondent herein. However, the Superintendent of Huttonsville Correctional Center is Shelby Searls, and the Court reflects the change accordingly.
This Court has considered the parties' briefs and the record on appeal. The facts and legal arguments are adequately presented, and the decisional process would not be significantly aided by oral argument. Upon consideration of the standard of review, the briefs, and the record presented, the Court finds no substantial question of law and no prejudicial error. For these reasons, a memorandum decision affirming the order of the circuit court is appropriate under Rule 21 of the Rules of Appellate Procedure.
This petition for a writ of habeas corpus stems from petitioner's felony convictions of death of a child by a parent, guardian, or custodian by child abuse; child abuse causing serious bodily injury; malicious assault; and two counts of gross child neglect creating substantial risk of injury, in addition to presentation of false information regarding a child's injuries (a misdemeanor), all related to the death of petitioner's three-year-old son, Kaiwon "K.C." Connelly. As a result of his convictions, petitioner was sentenced to a forty-year term of incarceration for death of a child by a parent, guardian, or custodian by child abuse. The remaining sentences were ordered to run concurrently to that sentence.
Prior to filing the instant petition, petitioner directly appealed his convictions to this Court, and we affirmed the convictions by memorandum decision in State v. Mauldin, Case No. 14-1142, 2016 WL 6756794 (W.Va. Nov 15, 2016) (memorandum decision). As we set forth in that memorandum decision:
On direct appeal, petitioner argued that the circuit court erred in admitting inculpatory text messages between himself and his co-defendant. See infra. By a supplemental brief filed by petitioner acting as a self-represented litigant, petitioner also argued that he received ineffective assistance of counsel, that he was denied compulsory process as a result of the co-defendant's severance and absence from his trial, and that he received a disparate sentence from his co-defendant.
The State's evidence at trial revealed that Mauldin lived in Martinsburg, West Virginia with his girlfriend, Jasmine Dawkins, and the couple's infant son. Mauldin shared custody of his other son, three-year-old [K.C.], with the child's mother, Shevecka Connelly, a Maryland resident. K.C. spent Thanksgiving Day 2011 with his mother before being picked up by Mauldin to visit for a few weeks. During the month of December, Ms. Connelly, who was without a vehicle, repeatedly and unsuccessfully attempted to contact Mauldin to arrange for K.C.'s return. On New Year's Eve 2011, an ambulance was dispatched to Mauldin's home in response to a call that K.C. had fallen and "busted his lip." When the ambulance arrived, K.C. was discovered, wet and cold, in full cardiac arrest on the bathroom floor.
Paramedics restored K.C.'s pulse and took him to the hospital. There, K.C. was observed to have visible scrapes, bruising, and swelling to the face, a lesion on both sides of his upper lip, and bruising around the entire circumference of his wrists. A mark on his thigh resembled the shape of a handprint. K.C.'s shorts were stuck to him and difficult to remove; when they were finally stripped away, K.C. was found to have suffered third-degree burns across his entire buttock area and at the top of one thigh. A CT scan disclosed various instances of subdural bleeding throughout both hemispheres of K.C.'s brain. Mauldin explained to a responding trooper that K.C. had fallen in the bathroom. The trooper later arrested Mauldin at the hospital upon being informed of the burns, though Mauldin asserted that K.C. had sustained them during the Thanksgiving stay with his mother.
K.C. was transported by helicopter to Children's National Hospital in Washington, D.C., where he died the next day. An autopsy was performed, confirming K.C.'s myriad traumas and revealing that the child had also been suffering from pneumonia. The medical examiner ruled that K.C.'s death was a homicide caused by multiple acute and chronic injuries.
Dawkins stood trial in November 2013, after which she was convicted by a jury on [two counts of gross child neglect creating substantial risk of bodily injury], but acquitted on [one count of death of a child through child abuse by a parent, guardian, or custodian].
Mauldin's jury trial commenced on March 25, 2014. The prosecution introduced a series of text messages sent in 2011 from late November to mid-December between telephones whose numbers were registered to Mauldin and Dawkins. The messages from Mauldin's phone were to the effect that the sender, inter alia, intended "to beat [K.C.] until he [listens]," agreed that K.C. "like[s] getting spankings," related that "I can't wait till I get home... [t]o beat em" after K.C. had urinated on himself, and, upon being informed of K.C.'s insubordination, threatened to "cave his little chest in."
On April 1, 2016, petitioner filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus. Upon reviewing the petition, the circuit court appointed counsel for petitioner and directed the filing of an amended petition. Petitioner's amended petition was filed on July 9,2019, and included various grounds for relief, including that petitioner received ineffective assistance of counsel and that the prosecuting attorney made prejudicial statements during trial. After conducting an omnibus hearing in August of 2020 and considering all of the evidence and the record in its entirety from the underlying case, the habeas court issued a lengthy order denying petitioner relief on all grounds. Petitioner now appeals the circuit court's December 1, 2020, order denying him habeas corpus relief.
As this matter is an appeal from the circuit court's order denying habeas relief, we review as follows:
"In reviewing challenges to the findings and conclusions of the circuit court in a habeas corpus action, we apply a three-prong standard of review. We review the final order and the ultimate disposition under an abuse of discretion standard; the underlying factual findings under a clearly erroneous standard; and questions of law are subject to a de novo review." Syllabus point 1, Mathena v. Haines, 219 W.Va. 417, 633 S.E.2d 771 (2006).Syl. Pt. 1, Meadows v. Mutter, 243 W.Va. 211, 842 S.E.2d 764 (2020).
"On an appeal to this Court the appellant bears the burden of showing that there was error in the proceedings below resulting in the judgment of which he complains, all presumptions being in favor of the correctness of the proceedings and judgment in and of the trial court." Syl. Pt. 2, Perdue v. Coiner, 156 W.Va. 467, 194 S.E.2d 657 (1973).Syl. Pt. 2, Dement v. Pszczolkowski, 245 W.Va. 564, 859 S.E.2d 732 (2021).
Notably, petitioner's appeal fails to comply with Rule 10(c)(7) of the West Virginia Rules of Appellate Procedure, as he has failed to support his arguments with a single citation to the 956-page appendix record. Rule 10(c)(7) of the West Virginia Rules of Appellate Procedure requires that "[t]he argument must contain appropriate and specific citations to the record on appeal, including citations that pinpoint when and how the issues in the assignments of error were presented to the lower tribunal." Critically, this Rule also provides that "[t]he Court may disregard errors that are not adequately supported by specific references to the record on appeal." Id. As we have previously stated, "[a] skeletal 'argument,' really nothing more than an assertion, does not preserve a claim .... Judges are not like pigs, hunting for truffles buried in briefs." State v. Kaufman, 227 W.Va. 537, 555 n.39, 711 S.E.2d 607, 625 n.39 (2011) (citation omitted).
Therefore, we conclude that petitioner has failed to show that he is entitled to the relief sought. Petitioner's brief to this Court largely makes the same arguments that he made before the habeas court, and he fails to identify or allege any specific error in the habeas court's conclusions on those issues. In light of our conclusion that the circuit court's order and the record on appeal reflect no clear error, we hereby adopt and incorporate the circuit court's well-reasoned findings of fact and conclusions of law from its order and direct the Clerk to attach to this memorandum decision a copy of the circuit court's December 1, 2020, "Order Denying Petitioner's Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus Relief."
For the foregoing reasons, we affirm.
Affirmed.
CONCURRED IN BY:
Chief Justice John A. Hutchison Justice Elizabeth D. Walker Justice Tim Armstead Justice William R. Wooton Justice C. Haley Bunn.
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