Opinion ID: 2974024
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Factual Findings/Credibility

Text: The state next objects to a factual finding made by the district court. We review for clear error a factual finding made pursuant to a habeas court’s evidentiary hearing. Carter v. Mitchell, 443 F.3d 517, 535 (6th Cir. 2006); Sawyer, 299 F.3d at 608. “‘A finding is clearly erroneous when although there is evidence to support it, the reviewing court on the entire evidence is left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed.’” Norris v. Schotten, 146 F.3d 314, 323 (6th Cir.) (quoting Anderson v. City of Bessemer City, 470 U.S. 564, 573 (1985)), cert. denied, 525 U.S. 935 (1998). “‘If there are two permissible views of the evidence, the factfinder’s choice between them cannot be clearly erroneous.’” Caver v. Straub, 349 F.3d 340, 351 (6th Cir. 2003) (quoting United States v. Kellams, 26 F.3d 646, 648 (6th Cir. 1994)). We afford the district court particular deference when its factual findings are based on credibility determinations. Moss v. United States, 323 F.3d 445, 457 (6th Cir.), cert. denied, 540 U.S. 879 (2003); United States v. Oliver, 397 F.3d 369, 374 (6th Cir. 2005). After conducting an evidentiary hearing, the district court found that Satterlee, his mother, and Cipriani were all more credible than Dodge. Satterlee I, 374 F. Supp. 2d at 568-69. Thus, the court concluded that Dodge did not inform Satterlee of the morning offer. Id. at 568. The state contends that this factual finding was clearly erroneous, arguing that Satterlee was not credible because three statements he made at the evidentiary hearing were inconsistent with either his prior pleadings or other parts of his testimony at the hearing. The state first claims that Satterlee changed his story about where he was when Dodge allegedly mailed the letter offer. According to the state, Satterlee claimed before the state courts and in his federal habeas petition that he was in Nevada, but at the evidentiary hearing he admitted he was in Michigan. The first half of the state’s contention is true, as Satterlee did in fact claim in his filings that he was in Nevada. J.A. at 26 (Br. in Supp. of Pet. for Habeas Corpus at 4), 78 (Satterlee Aff. ¶ 6), 104 (Br. in Supp. of Mot. for Relief from J. at 2), 154 (Br. in Supp. of Application for Leave to Appeal at 4). Satterlee did not, however, contradict this position at the evidentiary hearing. Satterlee was never asked for his whereabouts at the time3 the letter offer was allegedly mailed, so he never even had the opportunity to contradict himself. The state next contends that at the hearing Satterlee denied ever being notified of a seven-totwenty-year plea offer, even though elsewhere in his testimony he admitted to receiving a letter 2 Moreover, the IAC claim would be exhausted even if the state were right on the facts (i.e., if Satterlee had not informed the state courts of the morning offer). The Supreme Court has explained that “presentation of additional facts to the district court, pursuant to that court’s directions, [does not] evade[] the exhaustion requirement when the prisoner has presented the substance of his claim to the state courts,” so long as “the supplemental evidence presented by [the prisoner] d[oes] not fundamentally alter the legal claim already considered by the state courts.” Vasquez v. Hillery, 474 U.S. 254, 257-58, 260 (1986). The purportedly new evidence of the morning offer does not “fundamentally alter” the claim that Dodge failed to relay a favorable plea offer that Satterlee would have accepted, as it would fit comfortably within the rule that “[u]nder Vasquez and allied decisions, the petitioner may supplement and clarify the record, inter alia, through . . . introduction of new factual materials supportive of those already in the record [or] presentation of additional instances of the same alleged violation.” 2 RANDY HERTZ & JAMES S. LIEBMAN, FEDERAL HABEAS CORPUS PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE § 23.3c, at 1088-89 (5th ed. 2005) (footnotes omitted). 3 Instead, Satterlee was simply asked whether the address on the letter was correct, and he testified that it was not. J.A. at 367, 374-75 (Evid. Hr’g Tr. at 98, 105-06). Nos. 05-2013/2513 Satterlee v. Wolfenbarger Page 5 containing such an offer.4 This time the second half of the state’s assertion is correct, as Satterlee did in fact acknowledge receiving a letter containing a seven-to-twenty-year plea offer. See J.A. at 375 (Evid. Hr’g Tr. at 106) (referring to letter dated Sept. 16); J.A. at 73-74 (Letter of Sept. 16, 1998) (relaying the offer); see also J.A. at 77 (Satterlee Aff. ¶ 4) (acknowledging awareness of the offer). As for the first part of its assertion (i.e., that Satterlee ever denied being informed of the offer), the state offers no citation to the record in support, but it presumably relies on the following exchange during the direct examination of Satterlee: Q. At that time, at the time that you were sentenced, were you still unaware of any offer of six to 20 or seven to 20? A. No, I was not. Q. Were you aware or unaware? A. I was not aware of any offer. J.A. at 373-74 (Evid. Hr’g Tr. at 104-05). On its face, this testimony would seem to support the state’s assertion that Satterlee denied being aware of the seven-to-twenty-year offer and therefore contradicted himself. However, this exchange followed soon after a discussion of the morning offer of six to twenty years. See J.A. at 370-71 (Evid. Hr’g Tr. at 101-02). Up to that point in the testimony, the topic of the seven-to-twenty-year offer had not been raised. Given this context, it is likely that Satterlee understood the question’s reference to the seven-to-twenty-year offer to be an inadvertent slip, with the question actually directed at the six-to-twenty-year (morning) offer that had just been discussed. Thus, it is difficult to conclude that Satterlee was inconsistent on this point. Finally, the state claims that Satterlee’s testimony that he would have accepted the morning offer of six to twenty years is inconsistent with statements in various pleadings that he did not want a sentence with a twenty-year maximum. This time, the state gets both halves of its assertion right, as Satterlee both testified that he would have accepted the morning offer, J.A. at 371 (Evid. Hr’g Tr. at 102), and said in his filings that he did not want a sentence with a twenty-year maximum, J.A. at 27 (Br. in Supp. of Pet. for Habeas Corpus at 5), 77 (Satterlee Aff. ¶ 4), 103 (Br. in Supp. of Mot. for Relief from J. at 1), 155 (Br. in Supp. of Application for Leave to Appeal at 5 n.1). However, these two positions are not necessarily inconsistent, for at least two reasons. First, one may very well decide to accept a plea offer if its minimum sentence is low enough, even if its maximum sentence is otherwise unappealing. In other words, Satterlee could have found the morning offer’s six-to-twenty-year term palatable because of its six-year minimum, even if he did not like the twenty-year maximum. Second, and more fundamentally, Satterlee testified that he “thought that . . . the whole idea behind cooperating and doing everything they asked, giving statements, making trips to Lansing, was to get the very best deal; that it was not to go to trial.” J.A. at 371 (Evid. Hr’g Tr. at 102) (emphases added). Maintaining the negotiating position of being unwilling to accept a twenty-year maximum is consistent with the objective of obtaining the best possible deal, while accepting an offer of six to twenty years made immediately before trial is consistent with the objective of avoiding trial. Cf. Griffin, 330 F.3d at 738 (“[The defendant’s] repeated declarations of innocence do not prove, as the government claims, that he would not have accepted a guilty plea.”). Satterlee was not incredible simply because he had these two objectives, which are probably held by most criminal defendants. The above analysis demonstrates that Satterlee never really contradicted himself. In any event, to the extent that certain statements were arguably inconsistent, we are not “‘left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed,’” Norris, 146 F.3d at 323 (quoting Anderson, 470 U.S. at 573), especially because the factual findings hinged on credibility determinations. Therefore, we conclude that the district court’s findings of fact were not clearly 4 The letter discussed in this paragraph is different from the “letter offer.” Nos. 05-2013/2513 Satterlee v. Wolfenbarger Page 6 erroneous. The state does not dispute that, given these facts, the state courts’ denial of Satterlee’s IAC claim “was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law,” i.e., Strickland and Hill. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1). Accordingly, we affirm the grant of the conditional writ. IV. The Unconditional Writ (No. 05-2513) A. Unconditional Release The district court issued a conditional writ, allowing Satterlee to apply for immediate release unless the state made within sixty days a plea offer of six to twenty years. Satterlee I, 374 F. Supp. 2d at 569-70. Because the state made no such offer in the allotted time, the district court granted an unconditional writ ordering Satterlee’s immediate release. Satterlee II, 2005 WL 2704877, at . The state contends that the district court did not have the power to order this remedy. What the state appears to have forgotten is that it did not comply with the conditional writ. As a sister circuit has explained, “[c]onditional [writs] are essentially accommodations accorded to the state. They represent a [habeas] court’s holding that a[n] . . . infirmity justifies petitioner’s release. The conditional nature of the order provides the state with a window of time within which it might cure the . . . error.” Phifer v. Warden, 53 F.3d 859, 864-65 (7th Cir. 1995). When the state fails to cure the error, i.e., when it fails to comply with the order’s conditions, “[a] conditional grant of a writ of habeas corpus requires the petitioner’s release from custody.” Fisher v. Rose, 757 F.2d 789, 791 (6th Cir. 1985) (emphasis added); accord, e.g., Wilkinson v. Dotson, 544 U.S. 74, 87 (2005) (Scalia, J., concurring) (“Conditional writs enable habeas courts to give States time to replace an invalid judgment with a valid one, and the consequence when they fail to do so is always release.”); Henderson v. Frank, 155 F.3d 159, 168 (3d Cir. 1998); Phifer, 53 F.3d at 864-65; 2 RANDY HERTZ & JAMES S. LIEBMAN, FEDERAL HABEAS CORPUS PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE § 33.3, at 1684 (5th ed. 2005) (“If the state fails to act within the time set for retrial (or for some other proceeding) to occur, the petitioner must be released from custody immediately.”).5 The state offers no authority contrary to those cited above; instead, it offers an argument that we reject for the reasons stated in the margin.6 Thus, we conclude that the district court acted well within its power by ordering Satterlee’s immediate release. 5 In accordance with these principles, this court has consistently endorsed the use of conditional writs, whether by affirming district courts that grant them, e.g., Madrigal v. Bagley, 413 F.3d 548, 553 (6th Cir. 2005); Jamison v. Collins, 291 F.3d 380, 392 (6th Cir. 2002), instructing district courts to grant them, e.g., Hodge v. Hurley, 426 F.3d 368, 389 (6th Cir. 2005); Miller v. Webb, 385 F.3d 666, 678 (6th Cir. 2004), or granting them itself, e.g., Clinkscale v. Carter, 375 F.3d 430, 446 (6th Cir. 2004), cert. denied, 543 U.S. 1177 (2005). Such decisions would be meaningless if a habeas court could not order a noncompliant state to release a prisoner. 6 From what we can determine, this is the state’s argument: (1) if the state had made (and Satterlee had accepted) the offer mandated by the conditional writ, then Satterlee would now be in prison, subject to release only via parole; (2) thus, the subsequent grant of immediate release was a “usurpation of the authority of the Michigan Parole Board.” Appellant Br. (05-2513) at 8. The state is basically asking us to ignore the well-settled precedent and practice (cited above) establishing that the consequence of a state’s failure to comply with a conditional writ is release of the prisoner. We decline to do so. The state’s argument also fails as a matter of common sense. Put in general terms, the state contends the following: (1) The law says you must do A, or else sanction B will be imposed; (2) even if it is undisputed that you failed to do A, you can avoid sanction B simply by pointing out that if you had done A after all, then sanction B would not have been imposed. We think it apparent that this argument is illogical and merits no further discussion. Nos. 05-2013/2513 Satterlee v. Wolfenbarger Page 7 B. Expungement Finally, the state objects to the portion of the unconditional writ ordering the expungement of the record of Satterlee’s conviction. Satterlee II, 2005 WL 2704877, at . The state argues that this remedy was improper because a district court’s only power when granting a writ of habeas corpus is to order the release of the prisoner. It appears that we have never expressly addressed whether habeas courts have the power to order the expungement of the record of a conviction. We conclude that they do. The habeas statute provides that “[t]he court shall . . . dispose of the matter as law and justice require.” 28 U.S.C. § 2243 (emphasis added). Based on this broad language, the Supreme Court has explained that the remedial power possessed by habeas courts is not limited to ordering a prisoner’s discharge from physical custody. Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 475, 487 (1973); Carafas v. LaVallee, 391 U.S. 234, 239 (1968); Peyton v. Rowe, 391 U.S. 54, 66-67 (1968). Accordingly, other circuits have already recognized the power to order expungement. A.M. v. Butler, 360 F.3d 787, 802 (7th Cir. 2004); United States v. Sumner, 226 F.3d 1005, 1012 (9th Cir. 2000); United States v. Pinto, 1 F.3d 1069, 1070 (10th Cir. 1993); White v. White, 925 F.2d 287, 292 (9th Cir. 1991); Mizell v. Att’y Gen., 586 F.2d 942, 948 (2d Cir. 1978), cert. denied, 440 U.S. 967 (1979); Woodall v. Pettibone, 465 F.2d 49, 53 (4th Cir. 1972), cert. denied, 413 U.S. 922 (1973); 2 HERTZ & LIEBMAN, supra, § 33.4, at 1688, 1698-99 (“[P]otentially appropriate remedies include . . . [o]rders requiring . . . expungement of criminal records . . . .”). Once again, the state cites no authority limiting the power of a habeas court in the manner that it suggests. Therefore, we affirm the unconditional writ’s order of expungement.