Opinion ID: 778778
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The mixed petition problem

Text: 11 Because Hill's Eighth Amendment mental retardation issue is raised for the first time in this federal habeas proceeding, and has not been raised in state court, it creates a so-called mixed petition. Under the Antiterrorism Act, we may not grant a petition containing unexhausted claims except in a narrow range of special circumstances, not present here, or unless the State explicitly waives the exhaustion requirement, which it has not done. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b). 12 We may deny a mixed petition on its merits, see id. § 2254(b)(2), but we will not do so here because the issue regarding the voluntariness of Hill's confession raises a serious question. [A] confession cannot be used if it is involuntary. United States v. Macklin, 900 F.2d 948, 951 (6th Cir.1990), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 840, 111 S.Ct. 116, 112 L.Ed.2d 86 (1990) (citing United States v. Washington, 431 U.S. 181, 186-87, 97 S.Ct. 1814, 52 L.Ed.2d 238 (1977)). A confession is involuntary only if there is (1) police coercion or overreaching which (2) overbore the accused's will and (3) caused the confession. See Colorado v. Connelly, 479 U.S. at 165-66, 107 S.Ct. 515 (1986); United States v. Brown, 66 F.3d 124, 126-27 (6th Cir.1995). When a suspect suffers from some mental incapacity, such as intoxication or retardation, and the incapacity is known to interrogating officers, a lesser quantum of coercion is necessary to call a confession into question. United States v. Sablotny, 21 F.3d 747, 751 (7th Cir.1994); see also Nickel v. Hannigan, 97 F.3d 403, 410 (10th Cir.1996). 13 According to the record, Hill first came to the attention of police when he inquired about a reward offered for information on Raymond Fife's death. Questioned twice, he consistently denied any involvement in the killing. Then his uncle was assigned to the case. After being brought to the station again and left alone with his uncle for a few minutes, Danny Hill made an abrupt about-face and confessed to involvement in the crime. In evaluating these events, Danny Hill's previous interactions with his uncle are important: twice before, when Hill was in police custody, his uncle struck him when he refused to talk. Even accepting his uncle's version of events, in which Detective Hill simply told Danny Hill he believed he was involved in the killing, this episode raises a serious question of coercion. That any officer had struck a suspect is troubling; of special concern here is that Danny Hill was struck by an officer who was also a close family member. 14 A suspect's mental condition is surely relevant to an individual's susceptibility to police coercion. Colorado v. Connelly, 479 U.S. 157, 165, 107 S.Ct. 515, 93 L.Ed.2d 473 (1986). State courts, including the Ohio Supreme Court, have clearly stated that Hill is retarded. See Hill, 595 N.E.2d at 901. The retarded have, by definition ... diminished capacities to understand and process information, to communicate, to abstract from mistakes and learn from experience, to engage in logical reasoning, to control impulses, and to understand the reactions of others. Atkins, ___ U.S. at ___, 122 S.Ct. at 2250. See also Morgan Cloud et al., Words without Meaning: The Constitution, Confessions, and Mentally Retarded Suspects, 69 U. Chi. L.Rev. 495, 511-12 (2002) (noting that the retarded are unusually susceptible to the perceived wishes of authority figures ..., have a generalized desire to please ..., are often unable to discern when they are in an adversarial situation ..., and have difficulty distinguishing between the fact and the appearance of friendliness); Welsh S. White, What is an Involuntary Confession Now?, 50 Rutgers L.Rev.2001, 2044 (1998) (stating there is ample support for [the] conclusion that mentally handicapped suspects are `especially vulnerable to the pressures of accusatorial interrogation'.). 15 In Zarvela v. Artuz, the Second Circuit faced a similar mixed petition problem. See 254 F.3d 374, 380 (2001), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 122 S.Ct. 506, 151 L.Ed.2d 415 (2001). Crafting a solution consistent with the purposes of the Antiterrorism Act, the court remanded to the district court with instructions to dismiss the unexhausted claim and stay the exhausted claims, but conditioned the stay on the petitioner promptly seeking state remedies and, when the state remedies were exhausted, promptly returning to federal court. See id. at 381. Zarvela has been cited with approval by this Court. See Palmer v. Carlton, 276 F.3d 777, 778 (6th Cir.2002). 16 Here we adopt Zarvela 's approach and remand Hill's case to district court with instructions to dismiss his Atkins claim to be considered by state court and to stay his remaining claims pending exhaustion of state court remedies. To ensure that Hill does not draw out his state court proceedings, we instruct the district court to condition the stay on Hill's seeking relief from a state court on his Atkins claim within 90 days of the date the mandate issues from this Court. 17 Accordingly, it is so ordered.