Hill v. Mitchell, No. 13-3492 (6th Cir. 2016)
Annotate this CaseIn 1991, Hill crept into Teresa's Cincinnati apartment and removed their six-month-old daughter, Domika. Days later, police found Domika’s body in a vacant lot behind Hill’s house. A neighbor had heard Teresa telling Hill that she was going to court for child support. Hill responded that he would not pay. Two neighbors saw Hill enter the yard of Teresa’s apartment building on the night Domika was taken. Hill did not participate in the search for the child and was “snickering” as Teresa talked to police. Domika was wrapped in a shirt that “looked like” a shirt Hill owned. The baby formula box, in which Domika was found, was like one that Hill’s aunt had placed next to Hill’s garage. Batch numbers on a can from the aunt’s pantry matched batch numbers on the box. A forensic expert testified that the trash bag wrapped around Domika had been directly attached to a trash bag from Hill’s kitchen. On the day Domika’s body was found, a bus driver overheard a young man, crying, telling another, “he could not believe what he had done to a little baby,” and that “he might get the chair.” The driver contacted police and picked Hill out of a photo array. State courts affirmed Hill’s convictions and rejected his petitions for post-conviction relief. Hill filed a federal habeas petition in 1998. In a second amended petition in 2005, Hill asserted aBrady claim in a “sweeping assertion” without identifying any evidence. In 2007, Hill discovered a suppressed police report. In 2012, Hill moved the court to expand the record to include a transcript of Teresa’s grand jury testimony. The district court granted habeas relief. The Sixth Circuit reversed. Hill's Brady claim, filed beyond the one-year limitations period, 28 U.S.C. 2254(d), is procedurally barred and lacks merit.
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