Opinion ID: 2982502
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Jailhouse Conversations

Text: March challenges the introduction of his jailhouse conversations with co-inmate Nathaniel Farris, the details of which surrounded the plot to kill the Levines. Specifically, March Although March alleges that the cumulative effect of the errors at trial rendered his trial fundamentally unfair in violation of due process, he is without remedy. “The law of this Circuit is that cumulative error claims are not cognizable on habeas because the Supreme Court has not spoken on this issue.” Williams v. Anderson, 460 F.3d 789, 816 (6th Cir. 2006); see also Moore v. Parker, 425 F.3d 250, 256 (6th Cir. 2005). 11 March v. McAllistei; 13-58 70 alleges that the government knowingly circumvented his Sixth Amendment right to counsel by eliciting incrimination that was to be introduced in a criminal matter for which he was already represented. The Tennessee appellate court disagreed. Relying on State v. Berry, 592 S.W.2d 553 (Tenn. 1980), McNeil v. Wisconsin, 501 U.S. 171 (1991), and Texas v. Cobb, 532 U.S. 162 (2001), the court held that under the “offense specific” doctrine, because the statements pertained to a future, uncharged crime, the Sixth Amendment right to counsel did not attach. The district court agreed. The Sixth Amendment provides that “[i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right . . . to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.” The right to counsel safeguards the other rights deemed essential for the fair prosecution of a criminal proceeding. Maine v. Moulton, 474 U.S. 159, 169 (1985). Recognizing that the right to the assistance of counsel is shaped by the need for the assistance of counsel, we have found that the right attaches at earlier, “critical” stages in the criminal justice process “where the results might well settle the accused’s fate and reduce the trial itself to a mere formality.” Id. at 170. Once judicial proceedings have been initiated against the defendant, the right attaches, and the right to counsel must be honored. Id. Where the defendant has been indicted and the case “involves incriminating statements made by the accused to an undisclosed and undercover Government informant while in custody and after indictment,” the right has attached. United States v. Henry, 447 U.S. 264, 269 (1980); see also Massiah, 377 U.S. at 206 (noting that the right must be especially safeguarded where the defendant is unaware of the informant’s role as a government agent). At the very least, “the prosecutor and police have an affirmative obligation not to act in a 12 March v. McAllister, 13-58 70 manner that circumvents and thereby dilutes the protection afforded by the right to counsel.” Moulton, 474 U.S. at 171. March urges us to conclude that Maine v. Moulton, 474 U.S. 159, 171 (1985), is “materially indistinguishable” from this case. Williams, 529 U.S. at 406. Although the facts are somewhat similar, we cannot so conclude. In Moulton, the police sent a co-defendant turned informant to elicit incriminating statements from the other co-defendant. The police did so with express knowledge that the government agent and the defendant were to discuss both prior and future crimes. The government introduced this testimony in the case which pertained to the prior crime, for which the Sixth Amendment right had attached. The court held that the defendant’s Sixth Amendment rights were violated pursuant to the elicitation of incriminating statements. Critically, however, most of the testimony admitted at trial corresponded to the prior, already charged offenses. In this case, Farris and March almost exclusively discussed the future plot to kill the Levines, eluding discussion of the already-charged murder offense. Nevertheless, Moulton made two important rulings. The first was the actual holding that, “incriminating statements pertaining to pending charges are inadmissible at the trial of those charges, notwithstanding the fact that the police were also investigating other crimes, if, in obtaining this evidence, the State violated the Sixth Amendment by knowingly circumventing the accused’s right to the assistance of counsel.” Id. at 180. The second was to reaffirm the holding in Massiah that “the defendant’s own incriminating statements, obtained by federal agents under the circumstances here disclosed, could not constitutionally be used by the prosecution as evidence against him at his trial.” 377 U.S. at 207. Indeed, the Massiah Court went on to hold that a defendant is denied “the basic protections of [the Sixth Amendment] when 13 March v. McAllister, 13-58 70 there was used against him at his trial evidence of his own incriminating words, which federal agents had deliberately elicited from him.” Id. at 206. At first blush, it would seem that the Tennessee authorities violated Moulton on the grounds that the State solicited “incriminating statements pertaining to pending charges notwithstanding the fact that the police were also investigating other crimes.” Moulton, 474 U.S. at 180. However, relying on the “offense specific” nature of the Sixth Amendment, the Tennessee appellate court held that the State did not knowingly circumvent the accused’s right to the assistance of counsel. State v. March, 395 S.W.3d 738, 779 (Tenn. Crim. App. 2011). Indeed, the court clarified that “a defendant’s invocation of his or her right to counsel as to an indicted offense is not an invocation of the right to counsel in future prosecutions.” Id. at 776; see also McNeil, 501 U.S. at 176. The cases which opine on the “offense specific” nature of the Sixth Amendment present scenarios in which incriminating statements made with respect to future crimes are always introduced in those corresponding future trials; no Supreme Court case exists with respect to evidence of future crimes being used to assist in the conviction of past crimes, for which the defendant’s right to counsel has already attached. Indeed in McNeil, the defendant, originally held on armed robbery charges, was questioned about murder and burglary charges in a completely different town. McNeil, 501 U.S. at 173-76. Evidence of these statements, obtained in the absence of counsel, was admitted to help convict that defendant of the murder and burglary charges, but was not specifically admitted to show his guilt in the original armed robbery charges. Id. Thus, McNeil is inapposite. 14 March v. McAllister, 13-5870 Texas v. Cobb is likewise unhelpful. In that case, the defendant confessed to burglarizing the home of a woman and her infant daughter who, contemporaneous to the burglary, also went missing. The defendant later confessed to murdering both the woman and her child in the process of the burglary. The defendant was convicted of capital murder for murdering more than one person in the course of a single criminal transaction. Id. at 166; see Tex. Penal Code. Ann. § 1 9.03(a)(7)(A)( 1994). The defendant contended that, as he was represented by counsel after the burglary case, his Sixth Amendment right to counsel had attached, and thus any statements made with respect to the double murder were inadmissible. Cobb is factually inapposite: there, the defendant made incriminating statements as to a second, uncharged offense (murder), which were then used against him in the trial of that second offense. The case sub judice concerns statements about the second offense used against the defendant at the trial of the first offense, for which the right has already attached. 6 Thus, the facts are neatly wedged between the principle that a) a person is “denied the basic protections of [the Sixth Amendment’s] guarantee when there was used against him at his trial evidence of his own incriminating words, which federal agents had deliberately elicited from him after he had been indicted and in the absence of his counsel,” Massiah, 377 U.S. at 206; and b) the tenet that a defendant’s voluntary statements concerning a crime for which he has not yet been charged are admissible at a subsequent trial of the inchoate offense. Cobb, 532 6 In addition to McNeil’s and Cobb’s factual dissimilarity, the Sixth Amendment’s “offense specific” nature actually cuts in March’s favor. The Sixth Amendment gives a defendant the right “to rely on counsel as a ‘medium’ between him and the State.” Moulton, 474 U.S. at 176. McNeil and Cobb make clear that it is the first offense, and not the second, uncharged offense for which the defendant may rely on counsel. As the facts in this case show, March was unable to rely on counsel as a medium in his murder case if he was being induced to give incriminating statements as to his murder case by a State authority; that he was being questioned on an unrelated offense is inconsequential. 15 March v. McAllister, 13-58 70 U.S. at 173. The Supreme Court has not authored a case in which the government has intentionally placed an agent to elicit incriminating testimony as to a future plot, but not past actions, with the intention of using the future plot as evidence of a guilty mind. 7 Contra Maine v. Moulton, 474 U.S. 159, 163-65 (1985) (police intentionally send co-defendant-turnedinformant to elicit information, both to discuss future plots but also “to discuss the charges for which [the other co-defendant] were already under indictment.”). In spite of McNeil and Cobb, we are unconvinced that the “offense specific” doctrine limits the applicability of Massiah’ s holding that “the defendant’s own incriminating statements, obtained by federal agents under the circumstances here disclosed, could not constitutionally be used by the prosecution as evidence against him at his trial,” 377 U.S. at 207, in this case. We are aware of no precedent which distinguishes amongst elicited incriminating statements— whether they pertain to a charged offense, to an uncharged offense, or to no offense whatsoever. So long as the incriminatory statements are introduced in a matter in which the defendant’s right to counsel has already attached, a violation occurs. It was clear that questioning March about the plot to murder government witnesses would result in March making incriminating statements as to the murder charge, for which he was already represented. March had a right to counsel present as a medium if the government The First Circuit has done so, however, in United States v. Bender, 221 F.3d 265 (1st Cir. 2000), a case which provides nearly identical facts. According to that court: “Instead, the government contends, primarily, that, since the incriminating statements concerned different and future crimes, unrelated, it says, to the pending charges, the Sixth Amendment does not apply. We disagree. The statements were incriminating not only as to future crimes (perjury, conspiracy to kidnap and murder) but also as to the pending charges. So long as the statements were incriminating as to the pending charges and were deliberately elicited by government agents, they cannot constitutionally be admitted in the trial of those charges.” Id. at 269. Indeed, as here, the First Circuit found that the evidence of future malfeasance constituted strong evidence of a guilty mind at work. The court held that it was obvious that the intentional elicitation of evidence of future related crimes, in the absence of counsel, was in clear violation of the Sixth Amendment. Accord Mealer v. Jones, 741 F.2d 1451, 1453-55 (2d Cir. 1984). Bender, of course, is a circuit case, and is thus impotent under the AEDPA framework. 16 March v. McAllister, 13-58 70 planned on using the testimony in his murder case. Farris’ questions were likely to be incriminating as to the pending charges, and, although they would be admissible at the second prosecution for murder conspiracy, we conclude that using his statements to his original murder case was a violation of his Sixth Amendment right to counsel. See Fellers v. United States, 540 U.S. 519, 524 (2004) (police are prohibited from the “deliberate elicitation” of information from a represented defendant without a waiver of his right to counsel or his counsel’s consent). We are compelled to comment on the issue in light of the possibility for abuse; we will not undermine the right to have counsel as a medium between the defendant and the government. Indeed, were we to find otherwise, State authorities could, through well-architected subterfuge, elicit incriminating information from defendants under the pretext of conducting an investigation into fabricated or trumped-up future charges. 8 Using this tactic to solicit evidence of a guilty mind would befall many potential future defendants. We urge caution in similar cases to ensure that government officials do not subvert “the basic dictates of fairness in the conduct of criminal cases and the fundamental rights of persons charged with crime.” Massiah, 377 U.S. at 205. Nevertheless, our review is not simply whether this was error, but, under AEDPA, whether the case involved an unreasonable application of federal law. 28 U.S.C.A. § 2254(d)(l) (An unreasonable application of federal law sufficient to support a writ of habeas corpus is different from an incorrect application of federal law). To satisfy this standard, March must show that the state court correctly identified the governing legal rule but applied it unreasonably to the facts of his case, or that it either unreasonably extended or unreasonably refused to extend 8 We need look no further than the two-step interrogation employed in Missouri v. Seibert, 542 U.S. 600, 602 (2004) for an example of deliberate legal exploitation. (“[Ujnwarned interrogation was conducted in the station house, and the questioning was systematic, exhaustive, and managed with psychological skill.”). 17 March v. McAllister, 13-58 70 a legal principle from Supreme Court precedent to a new context. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d); Sanborn v. Parker, 629 F.3d 554, 564 (6th Cir. 2010). Indeed, this standard gives more deference to the state court than would a “clear error” approach. Loclcyer v. Andrade, 538 U.S. 63, 75—76 (2003). We disagree with the District Court’s conclusion that the Tennessee court applied the correct legal rule—the governing law is not the McNeil-Cobb line of cases but rather Massiah, and, to an extent, Moulton. However, we would be remiss to conclude that the debate is “beyond any possibility for fairminded disagreement,” O’Neal v. Bagley, 728 F.3d 552 (6th Cir. 2013); rather we think that a somewhat fair argument may be made to the contrary. Indeed, to extend Massiah ‘s holding that the elicitation of information—irrespective of its pertinence to charged or uncharged crimes—was called into question in the four-Justice Moulton dissent. 474 U.S. at 188 n. 3 (1985) (“The Court’s opinion seems to read Massiah as if it definitively addresses situations where the police are investigating a separate crime.”). That the Supreme Court has not opined on this unusual factual scenario almost ipso facto allows us to conclude that the state court did not unreasonably err. Accordingly, even though we find that the Tennessee appellate court incorrectly applied the right legal rule, with no Supreme Court case resolving this unsettled legal quandary, we are unable to conclude that the court unreasonably applied clearly established federal law. See Fleming v. Metrish, 556 F.3d 520, 527—28 (6th Cir. 2009) (“the fact that a federal court might disagree with the [state court’s] application of [federal law] does not justify the conclusion that the [state court] unreasonably applied the Supreme Court’s decision.”). As such, we AFFIRM the district court’s denial of March’s writ of habeas corpus. 18