Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-91-05005/USCOURTS-ca10-91-05005-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 530
Nature of Suit: Prisoner Petitions - Habeas Corpus
Cause of Action: 

---

. PILED 

Urmed ~~h1tes Courc a£ J\~,-al ,..,,,,..11· c· · ,,,,... s · ,,. 1rcuu 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS JUN 111991 

.ROBERT L. HOECKER 

Clerk 

BOOKER T. SHEPHARD, 

Petitioner-Appellant, 

v. 

RON CHAMPION, Warden; 

ATTORNEY GENERAL, for the 

State of Oklahoma, 

Respondent-Appellee. 

TENTH CIRCUIT 

No. 91-5005 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

(N.D. Okla. No. 90-C-42-C) 

ORDER AND JUDGMENT* 

Before MCKAY, SEYMOUR, and EBEL, Circuit Judges. 

After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel 

has determined unanimously that oral argument would not materially 

assist the determination of this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 

34(a); 10th Cir. R. 34.1.9. Therefore, the case is ordered 

submitted without oral argument. 

Petitioner Booker T. Shephard was convicted in Oklahoma of 

stealing cattle (Larceny of Domestic Animals, After Former 

Conviction of Two or More Felonies, 21 Okl. St. Ann.§§ 1716, 

5l(b)) and sentenced to a fifty-year prison term. After appealing 

his conviction and pursuing state post-conviction relief in the 

* This order and judgment has no precedential value and shall not 

be cited, or used by any court within the Tenth Circuit, except 

for purposes of establishing the doctrines of the law of the case, 

res judicata, or collateral estoppal. 10th Cir. R. 36.3. 

Appellate Case: 91-5005 Document: 010110118883 Date Filed: 06/11/1991 Page: 1 
Oklahoma courts, petitioner sought federal habeas corpus relief in 

the United States District Court for ·the Northern District of 

Oklahoma. The district court, following the recommendations of 

the United States Magistrate, denied petitioner's request for 

habeas relief. Petitioner now appeals that ruling and raises 

three issues for review. Specifically, he asserts (1) that the 

trial court's failure to instruct the jury on the element of 

"felonious intent" amounted to a violation of due process; (2) 

that there was insufficient evidence on which to convict him of 

the crime of "Larceny of Domestic Animals;" and (3) that the 

evidence found inside petitioner's home was taken in violation of 

his Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights and should have been 

suppressed. We grant petitioner's motion to proceed in forma 

pauperis and note that the district court has already issued a 

certificate of probable cause as required by 28 U.S.C. § 2253 and 

Rule 22(b) of the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure. On the 

merits, we reverse and remand the district court's ruling on issue 

1, and affirm the district court's ruling on issues 2 and 3. 

CRIMINAL INTENT JURY INSTRUCTION 

Petitioner contends that he was deprived of a fair trial when 

the trial court failed to instruct the jury on the definition of 

"felonious intent." According to petitioner, "felonious intent" 

is "an essential element of [the] offense [of] Larceny of Domestic 

[A]nimals" and the trial court's omission effectively denied him 

of due process. App. Br. at 2. The federal district court 

rejected this assertion and adopted the magistrate's conclusion 

-2-

Appellate Case: 91-5005 Document: 010110118883 Date Filed: 06/11/1991 Page: 2 
... 

that "[p]etitioner has not shown fundamental unfairness" as 

required under Brinlee v. Crisp, 608 F.2d 839, 850 (10th Cir. 

1979), cert. denied, 444 U.S. 1047 (1980). Report and 

Recommendation of U.S. Magistrate at 2. 

Although we agree with the general proposition that "[h]abeas 

corpus is not available to set aside a conviction on the basis of 

erroneous jury instructions unless the error has such an effect on 

the trial that it is rendered fundamentally unfair," id., we find 

that the district court overlooked the ruling and reasoning of 

this court's opinion in Rael v. Sullivan, 918 F.2d 874, 875 (10th 

Cir. 1990), cert. denied, 111 S. Ct. 1328 (1991). In that case, 

we specifically held that "a complete failure to instruct on an 

essential element of an offense violates the right to due 

process." Id. We noted that such a decision is but a "logical 

application of the rule of In re Winship, [397 U.S. 358 (1970),l 

requiring proof beyond a reasonable doubt of all acts necessary to 

constitute the offense." Id. See also Patterson v. New York, 432 

U.S. 197, 210 (1977) (prosecution must prove beyond a reasonable 

doubt all of the elements included in the definition of the 

offense). 1 

In the case at hand, petitioner maintains that (1) "felonious 

intent" is an essential element of the offense for which he was 

convicted, and (2) the trial court completely failed to instruct 

the jury on that element of the crime. If these allegations are 

1 Although the ruling in Rael was handed down October 29, 1990 --

almost six years after petitioner's state court trial -- that 

ruling was but "a logical application of" Winship and Patterson. 

As such, it does not present a Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288 

(1989), problem. 

-3-

Appellate Case: 91-5005 Document: 010110118883 Date Filed: 06/11/1991 Page: 3 
true, then appellant has indeed been denied his rights to due 

process as contemplated by Winship. With regard to the first of 

these assertions, there can be no doubt that felonious intent is 

indeed an essential element of the offense of Larceny of Domestic 

Animals. See Bellows v. State, 545 P.2d 1303 (Okla. 1976). 

Petitioner's second point, however, is more problematic. 

Unfortunately, neither the district court nor the magistrate made 

a specific inquiry into whether the trial court did in fact 

overlook the felonious intent element of the crime. Moreover, the 

record on appeal provides little with which to resolve the issue. 

Interestingly, the appellees do not dispute these assertions; they 

merely argue that Brinlee is dispositive in resolving the issue. 

We therefore find it necessary to remand to the trial court for a 

factual determination of whether the trial court completely failed 

to instruct the jury on that element of the crime. 2 

In addition, we note that neither the federal district court 

nor the magistrate seems to have recognized that this claim was 

held to be procedurally barred by the Oklahoma Court of Criminal 

2 We note in passing that Oklahoma does not require the inclusion 

of an instruction on "felonious intent" where words of equivalent 

meaning are used. Cawley v. State, 248 P.2d 273 (1952) (omission 

of the word "felonious" from instruction defining larceny is not 

fatal if words of equivalent meaning -- such as "steal" -- are 

used); McDaniels v. State, 139 P.2d 191 (1943) (in prosecution for 

larceny of livestock, refusal of instruction that state was 

required to prove felonious intent, and giving of instruction to 

convict on finding that the accused did "steal" livestock, was 

sufficient for proving all elements of the crime.). Since the 

record on appeal does not include the trial court's jury 

instructions, and since there is nothing in the federal district 

court's order or magistrate's recommendation to suggest that the 

propriety of the jury instruction was considered below, we find it 

necessary to remand this issue for further consideration. 

-4-

Appellate Case: 91-5005 Document: 010110118883 Date Filed: 06/11/1991 Page: 4 
,. 

Appeals. 3 Under the rule of Harris v. Reed, 489 U.S. 255, 262 

(1989), a claim held to be procedurally barred by a state court 

may not be reviewed by a federal habeas court unless "the habeas 

petitioner can show 'cause' for the default and 'prejudice 

attributable thereto' •.. or demonstrate that failure to 

consider the federal claim will result in a 'fundamental 

miscarriage of justice.'" The federal district court here did not 

engage in such a "cause and prejudice" analysis, and while it 

might be possible to characterize the district court's finding of 

"no fundamental unfairness" as a finding of "no prejudice," we 

have already acknowledged the possibility that that finding was 

erroneous. We therefore remand this issue to the district court 

for a proper application of the "cause and prejudice" test. 4 

3 Petitioner failed to pursue this jury instruction issue at 

trial, on appeal, and on his first petition for state habeas 

relief. He did, however, raise this claim in a subsequent 

petition for state habeas relief. The state district court denied 

the petition, and the Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed. In its 

Order Denying Post-Conviction Application, December 1, 1989, the 

Court of Criminal Appeals stated that "all of the matters raised 

in this post-conviction application were either considered on 

direct appeal or should have been raised. We therefore find no 

error in the denial of post-conviction relief by the trial court." 

This statement of procedural bar meets the "plain statement" rule 

set forth in Harris v. Reed, 489 U.S. 255, 261 (1989). 

4 Petitioner maintains that he was prevented from raising this 

claim at trial and on direct appeal due to incompetent trial and 

appellate counsel. Although the district court addressed other 

claims of ineffective assistance of counsel raised by appellant, 

it did not specifically address whether counsel's failure to 

challenge on this issue amounted to ineffective assistance of 

counsel. 

-5-

Appellate Case: 91-5005 Document: 010110118883 Date Filed: 06/11/1991 Page: 5 
INSUFFICIENCY OF THE EVIDENCE 

Appellant contends that there was insufficient evidence from 

which a jury could convict him in the state court proceeding. The 

federal magistrate dismissed this assertion, noting that "such a 

challenge ..• raises no federal constitutional question and 

cannot be considered in federal habeas corpus proceedings." 

Report and Recommendation of U.S. Magistrate at 4. 

We agree with petitioner that the case cited by the 

magistrate for this proposition, Sinclair v. Turner, 447 F.2d 

1158, 1161 (10th Cir. 1971), cert. denied, 405 U.S. 1048 (1972), 

has been outdated by the Supreme Court's holding in Jackson v. 

Virginia, 443 U.S. 307 (1979) and the Tenth Circuit case of 

Chatfield v. Ricketts, 673 F.2d 330 (10th Cir. 1982). According 

to those cases, "a state prisoner who alleges that [there was 

insufficient] evidence in support of his state conviction ..• 

has stated a federal constitutional claim." Jackson, 443 U.S. at 

321 (emphasis added). Such a petitioner is entitled to federal 

habeas relief if "no rational trier of fact could have found proof 

of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt." Chatfield, 673 F.2d at 332. 

The district court made no inquiry as to whether a "rational 

trier of fact could have found proof of guilt beyond a reasonable 

doubt." However, in its discussion of petitioner's ineffective 

assistance of counsel claims (not raised on appeal), the 

magistrate did recite the evidence presented at trial and 

concluded that it was sufficiently strong to defeat any claim of 

-6-

Appellate Case: 91-5005 Document: 010110118883 Date Filed: 06/11/1991 Page: 6 
. . 

prejudice raised by petitioner. 5 We accept that as a judgment 

that there was more than sufficient evidence in the record to 

sustain the petitoner's conviction. As we find nothing in the 

record on appeal to undermine that conclusion, we must reject 

petitioner's claim of insufficient evidence. We accordingly 

affirm the district court on this issue. 

FOURTH AMENDMENT CLAIMS 

Petitioner finally contends that the search and seizure of 

his person and apartment where the butchered remains of one of the 

stolen cattle was found was violative of the Fourth and Fourteenth 

Amendments. The federal district court, following the 

recommendation of the magistrate, rejected this assertion. We 

agree. 

According to the Supreme Court's opinion in Stone v. Powell, 

428 U.S. 465, 494 (1976), a state prisoner asserting an 

unconstitutional search and seizure may not be granted federal 

habeas relief "where the State has provided an opportunity for 

full and fair consideration of a Fourth Amendment claim." Here, 

5 The magistrate specifically found that: 

The evidence presented at trial of stolen cattle found 

at the stockyards and sold by petitioner, the drive-in 

slips naming him as owner of the cattle to assure he 

would get the sale proceeds, the discovery of newlyslaughtered quarters of beef in petitioner's garage and 

a cow's head in his sink, and the impeachment of 

petitioner's testimony at trial offered strong proof of 

petitioner's guilt .•.• The Magistrate cannot conclude 

that, had his attorney performed as petitioner suggests, 

the outcome would have been different. 

Report and Recommendation of U.S. Magistrate at 4. 

-7-

Appellate Case: 91-5005 Document: 010110118883 Date Filed: 06/11/1991 Page: 7 
, 

t .. 

. -

the trial court granted petitioner an in camera hearing at which 

it concluded that the evidence was admissible. On appeal, the 

Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals revisited this issue and 

affirmed the district court's admission of the evidence. Since 

the State has provided petitioner with a full and fair 

consideration of petitioner's Fourth Amendment claims, it was 

proper for the federal district court to deny this claim for 

habeas corpus relief. 

CONCLUSION 

We REVERSE the district court's resolution on issue 1 and 

REMAND for further findings consistent with this order. We AFFIRM 

the district court's resolution of issues 2 and 3. 

Entered for the Court 

David M. Ebel 

Circuit Judge 

-8-

Appellate Case: 91-5005 Document: 010110118883 Date Filed: 06/11/1991 Page: 8