A man convicted of murdering his wife loses his federal habeas challenge.

Record source: CourtListener

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT DISTRICT OF OREGON BOURNE HUDDLESTON, Case No. 6:23-cv-00531-AB Petitioner, OPINION AND ORDER v. COREY FHUERE, Respondent. Julie Pitt Vandiver Office of the Federal Public Defender District of Oregon 101 SW Main Street Suite 1700 Portland, OR 97204 Attorney for Petitioner Nick M Kallstrom Oregon Department of Justice 1162 Court Street, NE Salem, OR 97301-4096 Attorney for Respondent INTRODUCTION Petitioner brings this habeas corpus case pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254 challenging his state-court convictions for Murder, Attempted Aggravated Murder, and Unlawful Possession of a Firearms Silencer. For the reasons that follow, the Amended Petition (ECF No. 24) is denied. BACKGROUND I. Trial Court Proceedings In November 2011, Petitioner unsuccessfully solicited Michael Yorrie and Joe Nuckolls to kill his wife, Kristy Huddleston. On March 23, 2012, Petitioner shot and killed Kristy in their family home, while their 10-year-old son, E, was sleeping. On March 30, 2012, a Jackson County grand jury indicted Petitioner for Murder (Count 1), Attempted Aggravated Murder (Counts 2 and 6), Solicitation to Commit Aggravated Murder (Counts 3 and 7), Attempted Murder (Counts 4 and 8), Solicitation to Commit Murder (Counts 5 and 9), and Unlawful Possession of a Firearms Silencer (Count 10). Resp’t Ex. 102 (ECF No. 21- 1). Attorney Robert Abel was appointed to represent Petitioner. Petitioner proceeded to a jury trial in May 2014. The Oregon Court of Appeals summarized the evidence presented at Petitioner’s trial: [Petitioner] was married to the victim, and they had a son, E. [Petitioner] was having an affair with [Lori] Roberts, of which the victim was aware. [Petitioner] was enrolled as a full-time student at Rogue Community College and was in the paramedics program. He was taking an EMT class with his friend, Yorrie. In early November 2011, [Petitioner] and Yorrie were on a 15-minute break from their EMT class, when [Petitioner] told Yorrie that he “could not stand [the victim] and just wanted her gone.” He offered Yorrie $20,000 to kill her. [Petitioner] outlined a detailed plan to have Yorrie kill the victim in the morning as she was headed to work. [Petitioner] wanted the shooting to appear as an “armed robbery gone bad.” He planned to pay Yorrie from the proceeds of the victim’s life insurance policy. Yorrie declined [Petitioner]’s offer, but arranged for [Petitioner] to meet his cousin at a McDonald’s in White City. Around Thanksgiving 2011, [Petitioner] met with Yorrie’s cousin, Nuckolls, and [Petitioner] offered to pay Nuckolls $20,000 to kill the victim. [Petitioner] articulated a plan to have Nuckolls lie in wait in a field near the victim’s home with a sniper rifle and shoot her as she was leaving her home. [Petitioner] discussed an alternative plan to have Nuckolls shoot the victim at point-blank range as she was going up the stairs into her home. Nuckolls told [Petitioner] that he would consider the offer. Eventually, Yorrie and Nuckolls met [Petitioner] in a parking lot behind a Superior Athletic Gym, where Nuckolls declined [Petitioner]’s offer. [Petitioner] responded, “Either way I’m going to get it done. I’ll find somebody else. It doesn’t matter.” Neither Nuckolls nor Yorrie took any steps toward killing the victim. Instead, [Petitioner] offered to pay Yorrie $5,000 in exchange for an alibi, if [Petitioner] ended up committing the murder. On the night of March 22, 2012, [Petitioner] was assisting Yorrie with a project for one of his classes at Roberts’s house. [Petitioner] left Roberts’s home to run some errands and asked Roberts and Yorrie not to call or text him while he was out. At around 3:00 a.m. on the morning of March 23, 2012, E, who was 10 years old at the time, was awakened by a scream. E saw [Petitioner], his father, leave his parents’ bedroom, walk out to his truck with a gun, and drive away. E entered his parents’ bedroom and found the victim lying on her bed covered in blood. He called 9–1–1 and followed the operator’s instructions on how to perform CPR. The victim died shortly after the paramedics arrived. Meanwhile, Roberts finished the class project with Yorrie and drove him home. About an hour later, at 2:40 a.m., [Petitioner] called Yorrie. [Petitioner] told Yorrie, “Hey I’m going to make front line * * * newspaper. You earned your five grand.” Yorrie initially provided an alibi to detectives, claiming that [Petitioner] never left Roberts’s house, but eventually retracted it. Investigators traced [Petitioner]’s phone to Roberts’s home and arrested [Petitioner]. There, in the bushes, they found parts of the pistol used to shoot the victim and latex gloves in [Petitioner]’s truck. Detectives brought [Petitioner] to the Jackson County Sheriff's office for questioning. [Petitioner] told detectives that, on the night the victim died, he had had an argument with the victim in their bedroom regarding his extramarital affair with Roberts. He claimed that, after he left and shut the door, he heard a gunshot from within the bedroom. At trial, [Petitioner] claimed that the victim committed suicide. A medical examiner, who performed an autopsy on the victim, concluded that she was shot at a distant range, and he classified the manner of her death as a homicide. State v. Huddleston, 278 Or. App. 803, 804-06, rev. den., 360 Or. 604 (2016); Resp’t Ex. 112.1 1 While Petitioner was awaiting trial, he solicited another inmate to kill Nuckolls. Resp’t Ex. 188 at 1. Petitioner ultimately elected to plead guilty to one count of Attempted Aggravated Murder. Id. at 2. He challenged that conviction in a separate federal habeas proceeding, and the Oregon Petitioner was convicted on all counts. Tr. 1212.2 At sentencing, the trial court merged several of those convictions, ultimately concluding that only Petitioner’s convictions for Murder (Count 1), two counts of Attempted Aggravated Murder (Counts 2 and 6), and Unlawful Possession of a Firearms Silencer (Count 10) should not merge. Resp’t Ex. 108 at 11. Petitioner was sentenced to life imprisonment with the possibility for parole after 300 months of incarceration on the Murder conviction. Id. On the two convictions for Attempted Aggravated Murder, Petitioner was sentenced to 120-month sentences, to be served consecutive to each other and to the 300 mont

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