Miles v. Jordan, No. 19-5340 (6th Cir. 2021)
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In March 2005, Miles was indicted for murder, wanton endangerment, tampering with physical evidence, and being a persistent felony offender. Eight months later, law enforcement sent a hat recovered at the crime scene to a lab for DNA testing. The court granted the prosecutor several continuances, waiting for the DNA results for the hat. Miles himself filed an unsuccessful speedy-trial motion, arguing that the DNA testing was a “stall tactic.” The hat was negative for Miles’ DNA. Miles’s trial began 21 months after he was indicted.
On appeal, the issues concerned a gun, found under Miles’s mattress but not linked to the shootings, and Miles’s nicknames. Miles appealed to the Kentucky Supreme Court, arguing that the 21-month delay between his indictment and trial violated his Sixth Amendment speedy trial rights. Applying the four-factor test established by the U.S. Supreme Court, that court affirmed his convictions.
In Kentucky habeas proceedings, Miles argued that his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to object to the prosecutor’s references to the gun and to the prosecutor’s use of his nicknames. The Kentucky Supreme Court held that there was not a reasonable probability that the verdicts would have been different if his counsel had objected to the gun or nickname references. The Sixth Circuit affirmed the denial of Miles’s petition for federal habeas relief; the district court appropriately deferred to the Kentucky Supreme Court’s reasonable resolutions of Miles’s claims.
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