Opinion ID: 781164
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Self-Representation and Prosecutorial Misconduct Claims

Text: 43 Miranda's claims that he was deprived of the right to represent himself at trial and was deprived of a fair trial by prosecutorial misconduct were not expressly mentioned in the Appellate Division's opinion affirming his conviction. Presumably these claims were rejected in that court's catch-all sentence stating that Miranda's remaining contentions are unpreserved for appellate review, without merit, or do not require reversal. People v. Miranda, 243 A.D.2d at 585, 665 N.Y.S.2d at 508. However, that disjunctive phrasing does not reveal whether a particular remaining claim was rejected on the ground that it was unpreserved or on the ground that it lacked merit, and the record does not make it clear that either claim was rejected for lack of merit. Because the state court may not have decided these two claims on their merits, no AEDPA deference by the district court was warranted. Further, because the Appellate Division's opinion posits alternative grounds, the district court's adoption of that opinion in its entirety leaves the district court's ruling ambiguous as to the grounds on which these two claims were rejected. 44 Although the district court also adopted the memorandum of law filed by the State in opposition to Miranda's petition, that memorandum likewise proffered alternative grounds for rejecting the claims of prosecutorial misconduct and denial of self-representation, and the wholesale adoption of the State's Memorandum leaves the district court's ground or grounds for rejecting these claims ambiguous. In addition, the State's positions on these claims present other difficulties. 45 As to the self-representation claim, the State's Memorandum raised factual issues that required resolution before its arguments could be accepted. Miranda's habeas petition asserted that he had asked the state trial court to allow him to represent himself at trial; his petition attached copies of pages from the brief submitted to the Appellate Division by his attorney, which stated that defendant requested to represent himself. The State's Memorandum to the district court, however, arguing the merits of this habeas claim, stated that petitioner did not request to proceed pro se at any time.... (State's Memorandum at 14.) Issue seems to have been squarely joined. However, the district court adopted the reasons proffered in the State's Memorandum without explanation. The court made no finding that there had been no such request by Miranda; nor did it make any statement that it relied on some other ground for dismissal that made findings on this question unnecessary. 46 In addition, the State argued that even if Miranda had made a timely request to represent himself at trial, his claim should be rejected because his anger and hostility would have led him to be unruly at trial and hence his right of self-representation would have been waived. Although it is difficult to believe that this highly conjectural contention was a ground on which the district court summarily rejected Miranda's self-representation claim, we must assume that it was since it was one of the reasons the State proffered for rejecting Miranda's petition, and the district court unqualifiedly adopted the State's Memorandum. 47 As to Miranda's claim that prosecutorial misconduct deprived him of a fair trial because he was subjected to unfair cross-examination and because the prosecutor manipulated evidence he elicited from a complaining witness, the State argued that the claim was procedurally barred, meritless, or involved only nonprejudicial error. Some of its arguments would have seemed unlikely candidates for adoption by the district court. For example, as to the cross-examination, the State's Memorandum argued, inter alia, that [t]he Appellate Division held that [the prosecutorial misconduct] claim was unpreserved for review ( id. at 8). That court, however, had dealt with that claim only as one of the remaining claims that the court stated were either unpreserved for appellate review, without merit, or d[id] not require reversal, People v. Miranda, 243 A.D.2d at 585, 665 N.Y.S.2d at 508 (emphasis added). The State's representation of what the Appellate Division held is thus not supported by the Appellate Division's opinion. 48 The State's Memorandum also made seemingly contradictory factual representations. It argued that the cross-examination aspect of the fair trial claim was procedurally defaulted and thus barred from review here (State's Memorandum at 7) because Miranda did not object to the prosecutor's cross-examination at trial ( see id. at 8). Yet the State also argued that, applying the cause-and-prejudice standard, Miranda could not show prejudice because the claim was meritless, the trial court having admonished the prosecutor to conduct a professional examination ( id. at 10-11)  [a]fter petitioner's counsel objected to this line of questioning  ( id. at 10 (emphasis added)). Thus, the State's Memorandum represented that Miranda both did, and did not, object to the unfair cross-examination. 49 We hasten to note that if Miranda's challenge to the prosecutor's unprofessional cross-examination were the only basis for his fair trial claim, it would not warrant the granting of a certificate of appealability, for prosecutorial misconduct cannot give rise to a constitutional claim unless the prosecutor's acts constitute egregious misconduct, Donnelly v. DeChristoforo, 416 U.S. 637, 647-48, 94 S.Ct. 1868, 40 L.Ed.2d 431 (1974). However, in order to determine whether relief is warranted, prosecutorial misconduct must be assessed in the context of the entire trial, id. at 639, 94 S.Ct. 1868, and Miranda makes the more serious claim that the prosecutor manipulated trial evidence. 50 At his robbery trial, Miranda contended that the wallet he was accused of stealing belonged to him; the State sought to prove that the wallet belonged to alleged robbery victim Sam Notghi. The trial record indicates that the police inventory of the items seized from Miranda had listed the wallet and currency found in it but had made no mention of any contents that would identify the wallet as belonging to Notghi; when the wallet was marked by the prosecution for identification as an exhibit at trial, there was no mention of any contents. Before the wallet was admitted in evidence, the prosecutor showed it to the three defense attorneys, who inspected it and found nothing inside. However, when Notghi was called as a witness and asked if he could identify the wallet as his, he did so by reaching into the wallet and pulling out, inter alia, a Social Security card belonging to him. Upon questioning by defense counsel outside the presence of the jury, Notghi said he had been told by the prosecutor that morning that he would find his Social Security card in the wallet when he testified. When the prosecutor was questioned by the court, he said he assumed that defense counsel had conducted a thorough inspection of the wallet; he said he found the card in an obscure recess of the wallet and had put it back into the wallet, though he could not say that he put it back into the obscure area. He did not mention the card to the defense. The trial judge criticized the prosecutor for his lack of forthrightness (Trial Transcript at 711), calling his failure to disclose to the defense the presence of documents inside the exhibit absolutely outrageous ( id. at 713). The court excluded the card from evidence and admonished the jury to strike ... from your minds all testimony regarding this item of Sam Notghi's personal identification, which was allegedly recovered from inside the brown and checkered leather wallet which is People's Number 2 in evidence. ( Id. at 762). 51 The Supreme Court has long condemned egregious [prosecutorial] misconduct such as manipulation of the evidence. Donnelly v. DeChristoforo, 416 U.S. at 647, 94 S.Ct. 1868; see id. at 646-48, 94 S.Ct. 1868 (discussing Miller v. Pate, 386 U.S. 1, 6-7, 87 S.Ct. 785, 17 L.Ed.2d 690 (1967)) (prosecutor's knowing misrepresentation of the nature of proffered evidence), and Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 86, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963) (prosecutor's knowing withholding of evidence material to the defense). Although the merits of a fair trial claim will depend on the likely impact of the misconduct in light of the trial proceedings as a whole, see, e.g., Donnelly v. DeChristoforo, 416 U.S. at 647, 94 S.Ct. 1868, and Miranda's claim may ultimately be found to be nonmeritorious in light of the strength of the State's evidence and the curative measures taken by the trial court in the wake of the surprise presence of important documents inside of an exhibit, we lean toward concluding that, as to this claim, in light of the trial court's view of the prosecutor's conduct as outrageous, Miranda has made a substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right and is entitled to a certificate of appealability. However, since, as discussed above, we require clarification from the district court of the basis on which it denied Miranda's claim of violation of his right to represent himself at trial, we seek enlightenment as to the basis for the district court's denial of the prosecutorial misconduct claim as well.