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Lavallee Vs Delle Rose - Citation 103321 - Court Judgment | LegalCrystal
Save as PDF Add a Tag Add a Note Semantics Visualize Lavallee Vs. Delle Rose - Court Judgment	LegalCrystal Citationlegalcrystal.com/103321CourtUS Supreme CourtDecided OnMar-19-1973Case Number410 U.S. 690AppellantLavalleeRespondentDelle RoseExcerpt:.....court, feeling unable to accord the state court the presumption of correctness because the state trial judge did not articulate to what extent he credited or rejected evidence and respondent's testimony, held its own hearing, found both confessions involuntary, and ordered respondent discharged from custody unless he was retried without the confessions. the court of appeals affirmed on the ground that the state court's factual determination on the voluntariness issue did not meet the 28 u.s.c. § 2254(d)(1) requirement that it be accorded a presumption of correctness unless it appeared that the merits of the factual dispute were not resolved in the state court hearing.
the state trial judge's determination, on the totality of the circumstances, evidences that he..... Judgment:
LaVallee v. Delle Rose - 410 U.S. 690 (1973)
The state trial judge's determination, on the totality of the circumstances, evidences that he applied correct voluntariness standards and, since the District Court could have been reasonably certain that he would have granted relief if he had believed respondent's testimony, the courts below erroneously concluded that the opinion of the trial court did not meet the requirements of § 2254(d)(1).
of respondent Pasquale Delle Rose. Delle Rose was serving a life sentence for the premeditated murder of his wife in 1963. At his trial, occurring before
v. Denno,
(1964), respondent was convicted by a jury which chose to credit his two confessions over his protestation of accidental involvement, and which presumably found them to be voluntary. On appeal, the New York appellate court directed the trial court to hold a special hearing to determine the voluntariness of his confessions in accordance with
15 N.Y.2d 72, 204 N.E.2d 179 (1965), the State's procedural response to this Court's decision in
In addition, at his "
" hearing, he testified that the officers told him they would beat him up if he did not talk to them; that one of the detectives told him to put his hands in the front seat hole where his wife's blood was and when he did not, the detective took his hands and put them there himself; and that he did not remember anything past the time when he asked to see his wife at the morgue, including the giving of the second statement. He also attempted to explain the reasons for his giving such detailed and factually accurate confession statements.
There was also testimony that he had been offered food, but, as he admitted, he was not hungry. Again at the "
" hearing, he acknowledged that the police had treated him "nice." It was "on this evidence" that the state trial court made its finding and conclusion that the confessions were voluntary.
468 F.2d 1288, 1290. In
-315 (1963), the precursor of 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d), this Court set forth general standards governing the holding of hearings on federal habeas petitions, stating:
Here, not only is there no evidence that the state trier utilized the wrong standard, but there is every indication he applied the correct standards. His determination was made on the "totality of the circumstances" and, in this pre-
(1964), pre-
(1966), situation, the court also considered the facts that respondent was not warned of his rights to the assistance of counsel and against self-incrimination before confessing. And we quite agree with the District Court's statement that it could not go along with the state trial court's conclusion of voluntariness if it "were to find the facts to have been as petitioner's [Delle Rose's] testimony portrayed them."
See, e.g., Spano v. New York,
(1949). Under these circumstances, we think the District Court could have been reasonably certain that the state court would have granted relief if it had believed respondent's allegations.
See Townsend v. Sain, supra,
372 U. S. 315
We therefore hold that the opinion of the state trial court met the requirements of 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1), and that the courts below incorrectly determined it did not. The burden was thus on respondent to establish in the District Court by convincing evidence that the state court's determination was erroneous. The motion of the respondent for leave to proceed
and the petition for certiorari are granted. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and this cause is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
Despite this absence of any reasoned explanation for the state court's action, the Court now assures us that "it can scarcely be doubted from its written opinion that respondent's factual contentions were resolved against him."
410 U. S. 692
. I could not disagree more, and therefore I must respectfully dissent.
Foremost, the Court's certainty as to the basis for the state court's action rests upon the fact that it is clear the state court "applied" the correct legal standard in evaluating the voluntariness of respondent's confession. Without question, the state court in this case ritualistically recited the standard of "totality of the circumstances" which governs the determination of voluntariness with respect to these 1963 confessions.
See, e.g., Clews v. Texas,
(1967). But this recitation, in itself, provided the courts below with no guarantee that the state court had not erroneously applied this standard to the facts of this case, perhaps accepting respondent's version of the circumstances surrounding
The Court, however, places heavy reliance upon our prior statement in
-315 (1963), the source of the test set forth in § 2254(d)(1), that
"the district judge may, in the ordinary case in which there has been no articulation, properly assume that the state trier of fact applied correct standards of federal law to the facts, in the absence of evidence . . . that there is reason to suspect that an incorrect standard was in fact, applied. Thus, if third-degree methods of obtaining a confession are alleged and the state court refused to exclude the confession from evidence, the district judge may assume that the state trier of fact found the facts against the petitioner, the law being, of course, that third-degree methods necessarily produce a coerced confession. [
But this is hardly the limit of the inquiry -- contemplated by
and § 2254(d) --
-316 (emphasis added).
The precise problem encountered by the courts below in evaluating the state court's conclusion -- a problem which the Court now effectively ignores -- is that the issue of voluntariness in this case presents just the sort of "difficult" mixed question of law and fact which
recognized would make federal court speculation concerning the basis for unreasoned state court action wholly inappropriate. To be sure, where, for instance, a defendant alleges simply that a confession was extracted from him by means of a physical beating administered by the police,
it is obvious that, if the defendant's story is believed, the confession would be involuntary. Thus, even if a state court holds the defendant's confession to be voluntary without articulating any reasons, a federal district court may safely assume that, in such an uncomplicated situation, the state court's determination resulted from a rejection of the defendant's factual allegations. But it can hardly be argued that this case involves allegations of the type of straightforward police "third-degree methods of obtaining a confession" which the
Court suggested would entail little possibility of misapplication of the relevant legal standard so that a district court might, with reasonable confidence, assume that an unexplained state court finding of voluntariness rests upon a rejection of the defendant's version of the interrogation, not upon constitutional error. For a review of the state court's opinion following the "
" hearing reveals that here the state court was confronted not with an allegation of a single coercive incident which, if believed, would clearly have resulted in a finding of involuntariness, but rather with allegations of a series of coercive police actions applied to a particularly susceptible suspect.
It is possible, of course, that the state court rejected all of respondent's testimony as incredible, and therefore properly held the confessions voluntary. On the other hand, if the state court had believed all of respondent's contentions, it would undoubtedly have found the confessions involuntary. There remains, however, the third possibility that the state court believed some of respondent's contentions and rejected others. It is this last possibility that makes for substantial uncertainty in a factually complex case such as this as to whether the state court correctly applied the abstract legal standard and did not, instead, commit constitutional error. Due to the unrevealing nature of the state court's decision, it is impossible to say that that court may not have credited a sufficient portion of respondent's story to establish, under the controlling standard, the involuntariness of his confessions and nevertheless have reached an erroneous conclusion of voluntariness because the question may have been a close one on the facts that it accepted. It is this inherent uncertainty as to what the state court may have believed or disbelieved that justified the action of the District Court and the Court of Appeals in this case. To conclude otherwise, I believe, ignores the full import of this Court's reasoning in
concerning those limited situations in
Consequently, in my view, the courts below properly held the State not entitled in this case to the presumption of correctness and the special burden of proof set forth in § 2254(d). [
] As for the merits, I see no basis for this Court to set aside the District Court's finding of involuntariness, a finding sustained by the Court of Appeals as not "clearly erroneous" under Fed.Rule Civ.Proc. 52(a).
Cf. Neil v. Biggers,
409 U. S. 201
Insofar as the Court relies upon this language from
in interpreting § 2254(d)(1), the Court effectively ignores the discretionary character of the decision lodged with the district judge who is faced with a question as to the adequacy of unexplained state court findings.
indicates that "the district judge may, in the ordinary case in which there has been no articulation,
properly assume
" that the state court reached a constitutionally permissible conclusion. (Emphasis added.) Today, however, the Court effectively indicates that the district court often must assume in such cases that the proper standard was applied. Such a rigid standard seems to me wholly improper and unworkable where the question whether the defendant's testimony was simply rejected and the proper standard applied is essentially one of judgment dependent upon the facts of each particular case. These matters are properly left largely to the discretion of the district judge. And here, certainly, it cannot be said such discretion was abused.
The Court, of course, does not hold that the District Court erred in holding a
evidentiary hearing on the voluntariness of respondent's confession. That is a question distinct from the presumption of validity and the special burden of proof established by 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d). Section 2254(d) says nothing concerning when a district judge may hold an evidentiary hearing -- as opposed to acting simply on the state court record -- in considering a state prisoner's petition for federal habeas corpus. So far as I understand, the question whether such a hearing is appropriate on federal habeas corpus continues to be controlled exclusively by our decision in
even after the enactment of § 2254(d).
Developments in the Law -- Federal Habeas Corpus, 83 Harv.L.Rev. 1038, 1141 (1970). And
explicitly recognizes that, apart from the six specific instances described in that opinion as mandating an evidentiary hearing,