Source: http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/477/436/case.html
Timestamp: 2014-03-08 20:16:18
Document Index: 195732475

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 2254', '§ 2244', '§ 2244', '§ 2254', '§ 2254', '§ 2255']

Kuhlmann v. Wilson - 477 U.S. 436 (1986) :: Justia US Supreme Court Center
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Kuhlmann v. Wilson - 477 U.S. 436 (1986)
Case	U.S. Supreme CourtKuhlmann v. Wilson, 477 U.S. 436 (1986)Kuhlmann v. WilsonNo. 84-1479Argued January 14, 1986Decided June 26, 1986477 U.S. 436CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR
After his arraignment on charges arising from a 1970 robbery and murder in New York, respondent was confined in a cell with a prisoner, named Benny Lee, who had previously agreed to act as a police informant. Respondent made incriminating statements, and Lee reported them to the police. Prior to trial in a New York court, respondent moved to suppress the statements on the ground that they were obtained in violation of his Sixth Amendment right to counsel. After an evidentiary hearing, the trial court denied the motion, finding that Lee had obeyed a police officer's instructions only to listen to respondent for the purpose of identifying his confederates in the robbery and murder, but not to question respondent about the crimes. The court also found that respondent's statements to Lee were "spontaneous" and "unsolicited." In 1972, respondent was convicted of, and sentenced to imprisonment for, common law murder and felonious possession of a weapon, and the Appellate Division affirmed. In 1973, respondent sought federal habeas corpus relief, asserting that his statements to Lee were obtained by police investigative methods that violated his Sixth Amendment rights. The District Court denied the writ, and the Court of Appeals affirmed. After the 1980 decision in United States v. Henry, 447 U. S. 264 -- which applied the "deliberately elicited" test of Massiah v. United States, 377 U. S. 201, to suppress statements made to a paid jailhouse informant -- respondent unsuccessfully sought to have his conviction vacated by the state courts on the basis of his Sixth Amendment claim. In 1982, respondent filed the instant habeas corpus petition in Federal District Court, again asserting his Sixth Amendment claim. The District Court denied relief, but the Court of Appeals reversed. As an initial matter, the Court of Appeals concluded that, under Sanders v. United States, 373 U. S. 1, the "ends of justice" required consideration of this petition for habeas corpus, notwithstanding the adverse determination on the merits of respondent's Sixth Amendment claim in the earlier federal habeas corpus proceedings. The court then held that, under Henry, respondent was entitled to relief. Page 477 U. S. 437
Held: The judgment is reversed, and the case is remanded. 742 F.2d 741, reversed and remanded.
JUSTICE POWELL delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I, IV, and V, concluding that the Court of Appeals erred in holding that respondent was entitled to relief under United States v. Henry, supra, which left open the question whether the Sixth Amendment forbids admission in evidence of an accused's statements to a jailhouse informant who was placed in close proximity but made no effort to stimulate conversations about the crime charged. Pp. 477 U. S. 456-461.
(a) The primary concern of the Massiah and Henry line of decisions was secret interrogation by investigatory techniques that are the equivalent of direct police interrogation. Since the Sixth Amendment is not violated whenever -- by luck or happenstance -- the State obtains incriminating statements from the accused after the right to counsel has attached, a defendant does not make out a violation of that right simply by showing that an informant, either through prior arrangement or voluntarily, reported his incriminating statements to the police. Rather, the defendant must demonstrate that the police and their informant took some action, beyond merely listening, that was designed deliberately to elicit incriminating remarks. Pp. 477 U. S. 456-459.
(b) Under the circumstances of this case, the Court of Appeals' conclusion that respondent's right to counsel was violated because the police "deliberately elicited" incriminating statements was clear error in light of the provisions and intent of 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d), which requires that the state trial court's factual findings be accorded a presumption of correctness. Pp. 477 U. S. 459-461.
JUSTICE POWELL, joined by THE CHIEF JUSTICE, JUSTICE REHNQUIST, and JUSTICE O'CONNOR, delivered an opinion with respect to Parts II and III, concluding that the Court of Appeals erred in holding that the "ends of justice" would be served by entertaining respondent's present "successive" petition for habeas corpus, and that the District Court and the Court of Appeals should have dismissed this successive petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b) on the ground that the prior judgment denying relief on respondent's identical Sixth Amendment claim was final. Sanders v. United States derived its "ends of justice" test directly from language of the then-applicable statute, and left for another day the task of defining the considerations that properly support a decision to entertain a successive petition. Although § 2244(b) makes no reference to the "ends of justice," that phrase still may be used generally to describe the standard for identifying those cases where successive review may be appropriate. However, specific guidance should be given to the federal courts as to the kind of proof that a state prisoner must offer to establish that the "ends of justice" will be served by relitigation Page 477 U. S. 438 of claims previously decided against him. Balancing the State's interests in finality of convictions and the prisoner's interest in access to a forum compels the conclusion that the "ends of justice" are served by successive review only where the petitioner supplements his constitutional claim with a colorable showing of factual innocence. The prisoner must make his evidentiary showing even though -- as argued in this case -- the evidence of guilt may have been unlawfully admitted. Here, the Court of Appeals conceded that the evidence of respondent's guilt "was nearly overwhelming," and respondent's constitutional claim did not itself raise any question as to his guilt or innocence. Pp. 477 U. S. 444-455.
POWELL, J., announced the judgment of the Court and delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I, IV, and V, in which BURGER, C.J., and WHITE, BLACKMUN, REHNQUIST, and O'CONNOR, JJ., joined, and an opinion with respect to Parts II and III, in which BURGER, C.J., and REHNQUIST and O'CONNOR, JJ., joined. BURGER, C.J., filed a concurring opinion, post, p. 477 U. S. 461. BRENNAN, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which MARSHALL, J., joined, post, p. 477 U. S. 461. STEVENS, J., filed a dissenting opinion, post, p. 477 U. S. 476.
In the early morning of July 4, 1970, respondent and two confederates robbed the Star Taxicab Garage in the Bronx, New York, and fatally shot the night dispatcher. Shortly Page 477 U. S. 439 before, employees of the garage had observed respondent, a former employee there, on the premises conversing with two other men. They also witnessed respondent fleeing after the robbery, carrying loose money in his arms. After eluding the police for four days, respondent turned himself in. Respondent admitted that he had been present when the crimes took place, claimed that he had witnessed the robbery, gave the police a description of the robbers, but denied knowing them. Respondent also denied any involvement in the robbery or murder, claiming that he had fled because he was afraid of being blamed for the crimes.
Before respondent arrived in the jail, Lee had entered into an arrangement with Detective Cullen, according to which Lee agreed to listen to respondent's conversations and report his remarks to Cullen. Since the police had positive evidence of respondent's participation, the purpose of placing Lee in the cell was to determine the identities of respondent's confederates. Cullen instructed Lee not to ask respondent any questions, but simply to "keep his ears open" for the names of the other perpetrators. Respondent first spoke to Lee about the crimes after he looked out the cellblock window at the Star Taxicab Garage, where the crimes had occurred. Respondent said, "someone's messing with me," and began talking to Lee about the robbery, narrating the same story that he had given the police at the time of his arrest. Lee advised respondent that this explanation "didn't Page 477 U. S. 440 sound too good," [Footnote 1] but respondent did not alter his story. Over the next few days, however, respondent changed details of his original account. Respondent then received a visit from his brother, who mentioned that members of his family were upset because they believed that respondent had murdered the dispatcher. After the visit, respondent again described the crimes to Lee. Respondent now admitted that he and two other men, whom he never identified, had planned and carried out the robbery, and had murdered the dispatcher. Lee informed Cullen of respondent's statements and furnished Cullen with notes that he had written surreptitiously while sharing the cell with respondent.
After hearing the testimony of Cullen and Lee, [Footnote 2] the trial court found that Cullen had instructed Lee "to ask no questions of [respondent] about the crime but merely to listen as to what [respondent] might say in his presence." The court determined that Lee obeyed these instructions, that he "at no time asked any questions with respect to the crime," and that he "only listened to [respondent] and made notes regarding what [respondent] had to say." The trial court also found that respondent's statements to Lee were "spontaneous" and "unsolicited." Under state precedent, a defendant's volunteered statements to a police agent were admissible in evidence because the police were not required to prevent talkative defendants from making incriminating statements. See People v. Kaye, 25 N.Y.2d 139, 145, 250 N.E.2d 329, 332 (1969). The trial court accordingly denied the suppression motion. Page 477 U. S. 441
The jury convicted respondent of common law murder and felonious possession of a weapon. On May 18, 1972, the trial court sentenced him to a term of 20 years to life on the murder count, and to a concurrent term of up to 7 years on the weapons count. The Appellate Division affirmed without opinion, People v. Wilson, 41 App.Div.2d 903, 343 N.Y.S.2d 563 (1973), and the New York Court of Appeals denied respondent leave to appeal.
On December 7, 1973, respondent filed a petition for federal habeas corpus relief. Respondent argued, among other things, that his statements to Lee were obtained pursuant to police investigative methods that violated his constitutional rights. After considering Massiah v. United States, 377 U. S. 201 (1964), the District Court for the Southern District of New York denied the writ on January 7, 1977. The record demonstrated "no interrogation whatsoever" by Lee, and "only spontaneous statements" from respondent. In the District Court's view, these "fact[s] preclude[d] any Sixth Amendment violation."
A divided panel of the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed. Wilson v. Henderson, 584 F.2d 1185 (1978). The court noted that a defendant is denied his Sixth Amendment rights when the trial court admits in evidence incriminating statements that state agents "had deliberately elicited from him after he had been indicted and in the absence of counsel.'" Id. at 1189, quoting Massiah v. United States, supra, at 377 U. S. 206. Relying in part on Brewer v. Williams, 430 U. S. 387 (1977), the court reasoned that the "deliberately elicited" test of Massiah requires something more than incriminating statements uttered in the absence of counsel. On the facts found by the state trial court, which were entitled to a presumption of correctness under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d), the court held that respondent had not established a violation of his Sixth Amendment rights. [Footnote 3] We denied a Page 477 U. S. 442 petition for a writ of certiorari. Wilson v. Henderson, 442 U.S. 945 (1979).
Following this Court's decision in United States v. Henry, 447 U. S. 264 (1980), which applied the Massiah test to suppress statements made to a paid jailhouse informant, respondent decided to relitigate his Sixth Amendment claim. On September 11, 1981, he filed in state trial court a motion to vacate his conviction. The judge denied the motion, on the grounds that Henry was factually distinguishable from this case, [Footnote 4] and that. under state precedent, Henry was not to be given retroactive effect, see People v. Pepper, 53 N.Y.2d 213, 423 N.E.2d 366 (1981). The Appellate Division denied respondent leave to appeal.
On July 6, 1982, respondent returned to the District Court for the Southern District of New York on a habeas petition, again arguing that admission in evidence of his incriminating statements to Lee violated his Sixth Amendment rights. Respondent contended that the decision in Henry constituted a new rule of law that should be applied retroactively to this case. The District Court found it unnecessary to consider retroactivity, because it decided that Henry did not undermine the Court of Appeals' prior disposition of respondent's Sixth Amendment claim. Noting that Henry reserved the question whether the Constitution forbade admission in evidence of an accused's statements to an informant who made "no effort to stimulate conversations about the crime charged," see United States v. Henry, supra, at 447 U. S. 271, n. 9, Page 477 U. S. 443 the District Court believed that this case presented that open question, and that the question must be answered negatively. The District Court noted that the trial court's findings were presumptively correct, see 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d), and were fully supported by the record. The court concluded that these findings were "fatal" to respondent's claim under Henry, since they showed that Lee made no "affirmative effort" of any kind "to elicit information" from respondent.
A different, and again divided, panel of the Court of Appeals reversed. Wilson v. Henderson, 742 F.2d 741 (1984). As an initial matter, the court stated that, under Sanders v. United States, 373 U. S. 1 (1963), the "ends of justice" required consideration of this petition, notwithstanding the fact that the prior panel had determined the merits adversely to respondent. 742 F.2d at 743. The court then reasoned that the circumstances under which respondent made his incriminating statements to Lee were indistinguishable from the facts of Henry. Finally, the court decided that Henry was fully applicable here, because it did not announce a new constitutional rule, but merely applied settled principles to new facts. 742 F.2d at 746-747. Therefore, the court concluded that all of the judges who had considered and rejected respondent's claim had erred, and remanded the case to the District Court with instructions to order respondent's release from prison unless the State elected to retry him. [Footnote 5] Page 477 U. S. 444
We granted certiorari, 472 U.S. 1026 (1985), to consider the Court of Appeals' decision that the "ends of justice" required consideration of this successive habeas corpus petition and that court's application of our decision in Henry to the facts of this case. We now reverse.
In concluding that it was appropriate to entertain respondent's successive habeas corpus petition, the Court of Appeals relied upon Sanders v. United States, 373 U. S. 1 (1963), which announced guidelines for the federal courts to follow when presented with habeas petitions or their equivalent claimed to be "successive" or an "abuse of the writ." [Footnote 6] The narrow question in Sanders was whether a federal prisoner's motion under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 was properly denied without a hearing on the ground that the motion constituted a successive application. Id. at 373 U. S. 4-6. The Court undertook not only to answer that question, but also to explore the standard that should govern district courts' consideration of successive petitions. Sanders framed the inquiry in terms of the requirements of the "ends of justice," advising district courts to dismiss habeas petitions or their equivalent raising claims determined adversely to the prisoner on a prior petition if Page 477 U. S. 445 "the ends of justice would not be served by reaching the merits of the subsequent application." Id. at 373 U. S. 15, 373 U. S. 16-17. While making clear that the burden of proof on this issue rests on the prisoner, id. at 373 U. S. 17, the Court in Sanders provided little specific guidance as to the kind of proof that a prisoner must offer to establish that the "ends of justice" would be served by relitigation of the claims previously decided against him.
The Court of Appeals' decision in this case demonstrates the need for this Court to provide that guidance. The opinion of the Court of Appeals sheds no light on this important threshold question, merely declaring that the "ends of justice" required successive federal habeas corpus review. Failure to provide clear guidance leaves district judges "at large in disposing of applications for a writ of habeas corpus," creating the danger that they will engage in "the exercise not of law, but of arbitrariness." Brown v. Allen, 344 U. S. 443, 344 U. S. 497 (1953) (opinion of Frankfurter, J.). This Court therefore must now define the considerations that should govern federal courts' disposition of successive petitions for habeas corpus.
Since 1867, when Congress first authorized the federal courts to issue the writ on behalf of persons in state custody, [Footnote 7] this Court often has been called upon to interpret the language of the statutes defining the scope of that jurisdiction. It may be helpful to review our cases construing these frequently used statutes before we answer the specific question before us today.
Until the early years of this century, the substantive scope of the federal habeas corpus statutes was defined by reference Page 477 U. S. 446 to the scope of the writ at common law, where the courts' inquiry on habeas was limited exclusively "to the jurisdiction of the sentencing tribunal." Stone v. Powell, 428 U. S. 465, 428 U. S. 475 (1976). See Wainwright v. Sykes, 433 U. S. 72, 433 U. S. 78, 433 U. S. 79 (1977); see also Oaks, Legal History in the High Court -- Habeas Corpus, 64 Mich.L.Rev. 451, 458-468 (1966). Thus, the finality of the judgment of a committing court of competent jurisdiction was accorded absolute respect on habeas review. See Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U. S. 218, 412 U. S. 254-256 (1973) (POWELL, J., concurring). During this century, the Court gradually expanded the grounds on which habeas corpus relief was available, authorizing use of the writ to challenge convictions where the prisoner claimed a violation of certain constitutional rights. See Wainwright v. Sykes, supra, at 433 U. S. 79-80; Stone v. Powell, supra, at 428 U. S. 475-478. The Court initially accomplished this expansion while purporting to adhere to the inquiry into the sentencing court's jurisdiction. Wainwright v. Sykes, 433 U.S. at 433 U. S. 79. Ultimately, the Court abandoned the concept of jurisdiction and acknowledged that habeas
"review is available for claims of 'disregard of the constitutional rights of the accused, and where the writ is the only effective means of preserving his rights.'"
Ibid., quoting Waley v. Johnston, 316 U. S. 101, 316 U. S. 104-105 (1942).
Our decisions have not been limited to expanding the scope of the writ. Significantly, in Stone v. Powell, we removed from the reach of the federal habeas statutes a state prisoner's claim that "evidence obtained in an unconstitutional search or seizure was introduced at his trial" unless the prisoner could show that the State had failed to provide him "an opportunity for full and fair litigation" of his Fourth Amendment claim. 428 U.S. at 428 U. S. 494 (footnotes omitted). Although the Court previously had accepted jurisdiction of search and seizure claims, id. at 428 U. S. 480, we were persuaded that any "advance of the legitimate goal of furthering Fourth Amendment rig