Joseph v. Green, 3:22-cv-00536

Shilo Thomas Joseph was convicted in Kentucky state court of burglary, manslaughter, and being a persistent felony offender after entering his former partner’s apartment and fatally stabbing a man during an altercation.
Joseph argued at trial that he only intended to retrieve his property and acted in self-defense during the killing, but the jury convicted him, and he was sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment.
He appealed to the Kentucky Supreme Court, which affirmed his conviction in 2021; he did not seek certiorari or state postconviction relief.
Joseph filed for federal habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, asserting violations of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, insufficient evidence of burglary intent, prosecutorial misconduct, and improper exclusion of evidence about the victim's threats.
The Magistrate Judge recommended denial of all claims, including a certificate of appealability, finding one claim procedurally defaulted and others lacking merit; Joseph objected to this recommendation.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Commonwealth’s comments on silence violated the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments	Prosecutor’s comments on Joseph's post-arrest silence were unconstitutional	No indication Joseph was Mirandized or invoked right to silence; prosecutor properly questioned Joseph's trial credibility	No violation; questioning and argument were permissible under federal law
Insufficient evidence of intent for burglary conviction	No evidence Joseph intended to commit a crime upon entry; only intended to retrieve property	Testimony supported finding Joseph intended to take property not belonging to him	Ruling not unreasonable; evidence sufficient to support intent requirement
Prosecutorial misconduct by misstating law in closing	Misstatement could have misled jury on burglary law, denying due process	Misstatement was isolated; jury instructed correctly; strong evidence of guilt	Misstatement did not infect trial with unfairness; no due process violation
Exclusion of evidence about victim’s threats/procedural default	Trial court violated rights by excluding threat evidence; claim not defaulted	Claim was not presented as character-evidence issue in state court; now procedurally defaulted	Claim is procedurally defaulted and fails on merits

Fletcher v. Weir, 455 U.S. 603 (post-arrest silence may be used for impeachment if no Miranda warning given)
Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307 (sufficiency of evidence standard for federal habeas review)
Darden v. Wainwright, 477 U.S. 168 (prosecutorial misconduct must so infect trial as to deny due process)
Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (establishes right to silence during custodial interrogation)
Doyle v. Ohio, 426 U.S. 610 (prosecutor cannot use post-Miranda silence to impeach defendant)
Jenkins v. Anderson, 447 U.S. 231 (use of prearrest silence to impeach defendant’s credibility is not unconstitutional)
Brecht v. Abrahamson, 507 U.S. 619 (habeas relief requires showing of substantial/injurious effect of error on jury verdict)
Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473 (standard for issuance of certificate of appealability in habeas cases)