Opinion ID: 4211658
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Massiah Claim Relating to Bruce Woods

Text: In claim 21, Sanders maintains that the prosecution planted Bruce Woods next to Sanders in a jailhouse van after Sanders’s preliminary hearing in order to obtain an incriminating statement from Sanders in violation of his Sixth Amendment right to counsel. This claim is based on the same evidence cited in support of the claim that Woods testified falsely. In brief review, Woods testified at Sanders’s and Stewart’s joint preliminary hearing about a conversation between Stewart and a mutual friend in August 1980, in which Stewart asked if the friend wanted to make some money by robbing Bob’s Big Boy. At Sanders’s trial, Woods testified about threatening remarks Sanders allegedly made on the way back to county jail after Sanders’s preliminary hearing. The clearly established Supreme Court precedent governing this claim is Massiah v. United States, 377 U.S. 201 (1964). Massiah prohibits the government from “deliberately elicit[ing]” incriminating statements from a defendant after the Sixth Amendment right to counsel attaches. 377 U.S. at 206. United States v. Henry, 447 U.S. 264 (1980) extended this prohibition to “the use of jailhouse informants who relay incriminating statements from a prisoner to the government.” Randolph v. California, 380 F.3d 1133, 1143 (9th Cir. 2004) (describing Henry, 447 U.S. at 270–71). But “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.” Maine v. Moulton, 474 U.S. 159, 176 (1985). “[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 64 SANDERS V. CULLEN 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.” Kuhlmann v. Wilson, 477 U.S. 436, 459 (1986). To show that the State violated his Sixth Amendment rights by obtaining and using Woods’s testimony, Sanders must establish that Woods “was acting as an agent of the State when he obtained the information” and that Woods “made some effort to ‘stimulate conversations about the crime charged.’” Randolph, 380 F.3d at 1144 (quoting Henry, 447 U.S. at 271 n.9). The district court ruled that this claim was reasonably denied because Sanders failed to show either element. We affirm. Sanders relies on the grand jury’s findings about the widespread practice of using jailhouse informants and the “sheer improbability that Woods would have found himself seated next to Sanders by happenstance when there was a keep away order.” But unlike Massiah and Henry, there is no evidence that Woods’s conversation with Sanders was recorded or that Woods had agreed to report back to the government. See Massiah, 377 U.S. at 203 (informant allowed government agent to install a radio transmitter in his car to transmit a conversation with the defendant); Henry, 447 U.S. at 270 (informant acted under government instructions and was paid for his services). Woods testified at trial that he pleaded no contest to a burglary charge on February 23, 1981, roughly one month before Sanders’s and Stewart’s joint preliminary hearing, and he said that he entered his plea before he “ever had any kind of understanding with any law enforcement authorities SANDERS V. CULLEN 65 worked out” related to the Bob’s Big Boy case. The parties stipulated at trial that Woods’s sentencing was held off until after he testified at the preliminary hearing. He was sentenced immediately after the hearing, and Giss informed the sentencing judge that Woods was a witness in the Bob’s Big Boy case. By the time of Sanders’s trial, Woods was no longer in jail and had moved to Alabama. The prosecution paid for Woods to fly back to Los Angeles to testify, but Sanders did not show that Woods stood to gain further benefit from testifying against Sanders; Woods had already finished serving his sentence for the burglary charge. Based on this record, the state court could have reasonably concluded that Sanders did not show that Woods agreed to serve as the prosecution’s agent. There is also no evidence that Woods initiated the conversation with Sanders in the van or made any effort to elicit incriminating statements. Woods did not testify that he asked Sanders any questions or otherwise attempted to engage him in conversation. The state court reasonably denied Sanders’s Massiah claim.