Opinion ID: 203757
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Challenge to state court factual findings

Text: John challenges the state trial court's determination, which was affirmed by the SJC, that John's statements and grand jury testimony were not protected by a grant of immunity. [5] John, 812 N.E.2d at 1223. In challenging this ultimate factual finding, John relies solely on evidence presented in the state court proceedings. John's has framed his fact-based habeas challenge under both § 2254(d)(2) and § 2254(e)(1). He asserts that the trial court's finding was objectively unreasonable in light of the evidence presented in the trial court proceeding, see § 2254(d)(2), and that he has presented clear and convincing evidence sufficient to overcome the presumption of correctness we afford state court factual findings in the habeas context. See § 2254(e)(1). As we observed in Teti, `the relationship between the standards enunciated in § 2254(d)(2) and § 2254(e)(1) remains unclear.' 507 F.3d at 58 (quoting Lambert v. Blackwell, 387 F.3d 210, 235 (3d Cir.2004)). Both standards, however, `express the same fundamental principle of deference to state court findings.' Id. As dictated by Teti, we apply a presumption of correctness to the trial court's factual findings and also examine whether there has been an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the state court proceeding. See id. The trial court ultimately found that John's confession was not obtained under a promise of immunity. Supporting this determination, the trial court found that John expressed a willingness to assist in the prosecution of Poison Clan leaders and that Novak concluded that John was willing to assist in the prosecution because he harbored animosity toward Dean Beckford, one of the Poison Clan leaders whom Novak was prosecuting; that John refused court appointed counsel in connection with this assistance; and that John also refused to sign a proffer letter that provided that nothing contained in the oral proffer ... will be used against you. The trial court also found that the only agreement that existed between Novak and John was the one Novak identified during John's grand jury testimony: that federal prosecutors had agreed to notify the Brooklyn D.A.'s office of John's cooperation in the federal prosecution of the Poison Clan. The trial court determined that although Novak stated in the 1997 notice that John has use immunity for his statements, this statement meant simply that John had immunity for his anticipated testimony at the Beckford trial. In making this finding, the trial court relied on other evidence in the record. The court noted that John had previously told Novak that he did not want to cooperate further in the prosecution and, specifically, that he would refuse to testify at Beckford's trial. When Novak heard this, the trial court found, he informed John that he had to testify because Novak could immunize him formally or informally, effectively stripping him of his Fifth Amendment right to not testify. Seeking to adduce clear and convincing evidence sufficient to rebut the presumption of correctness we give these factual findings, John identifies two documents which he argues establish that, prior to his confession, Novak offered him unrestricted use immunity not limited to future trial testimony. He additionally criticizes the record evidence the trial court relied on when making its factual findings. We first address John's reliance on the two documents  the 1997 notice referred to above and a letter sent by Novak to the Suffolk County DA in September 2000 (2000 letter) [6] . We start with piece of evidence that is the most helpful to John's position  the 2000 letter. Novak wrote: In the spring of 1997, Mr. John began having problems while housed at the Northern Neck Regional Jail and indicated that [sic] may not cooperate with our office. I orally told him that he had use immunity for his statements to us, meaning that anything that he said cannot be held against him. I told him that this was conditioned upon him providing truthful evidence to us. Again, during this time period, he was telling us that he had not killed anyone. In early June of 1997, prior to the trial of the defendants in United States v. Beckford, I provided the defendants with a notice regarding Mr. John that informed them that I had conferred use immunity on Mr. John.... We did not call Mr. John to testify at the [Beckford trial]. (emphasis added). Viewed in isolation, the 2000 letter could be interpreted as indicating that Novak had indeed conferred conditional use immunity on John that was not limited to his anticipated testimony at the Beckford trial. But, when placed in the context of the record as a whole, the 2000 letter's capacity to call into question the correctness of the trial court's ultimate factual finding is significantly undermined. To begin, John's discordant use of the 2000 letter in the prior state court proceedings detracts from his attempted use of it in this appeal. Although he attached the 2000 letter to his suppression motion in the trial court proceeding, John failed to advance any argument based on the letter in that proceeding. And, before the SJC, John mentioned the 2000 letter only to effectively argue that it should be ignored. Specifically, John identified one statement made by Novak in the 2000 letter  Novak's statement that John's immunity was conditioned on him providing truthful information  and characterized it as a late attempt to amend the unrestricted use immunity granted Mr. John in 1996-1997. Driving this point home further, John contended to the SJC that the 1997 Notice, not the 2000 letter, was the best evidence of the immunity agreement. [7] Putting aside the question of whether John has waived his newly minted argument regarding the significance of the 2000 letter, it is apparent that, at least before the state courts, he did not rely on the 2000 letter itself to establish the existence of a broader use immunity agreement. That John chose not to rely on the 2000 letter for this purpose before the state courts is certainly something those courts could have taken into account when resolving the factual question. But more importantly, when viewed against the backdrop of all of the other record evidence, the 2000 letter can be harmonized with the trial court's finding that John's confession was not obtained under a grant of immunity. We examine the key statement in the letter, Novak's statement that, I orally told him that he had use immunity for his statements to us, meaning that anything he said cannot be held against him. (emphasis ours). As we have noted, this statement may be interpreted to suggest that Novak offered John use immunity prior to his confession. For example, Novak's use of the word had may reasonably be read as indicating that the government had already bestowed a form of immunity on John distinct from any immunity contingent on future trial testimony. And, moreover, the phrase statements to us, could be read as referring to out-of-court statements made to federal authorities. But another interpretation of this statement is undoubtedly plausible. In the 2000 letter, immediately preceding Novak's statement about immunity, Novak stated that John had indicated that [sic] may not cooperate with our office. It was then that Novak stated that he, orally told [John] that he had use immunity for his statements to us, meaning that anything he said cannot be held against him. (emphasis ours). This indicates that Novak's statement about immunity was directed at ensuring John's future cooperation. In other words, Novak communicated to John that he had immunity for statements to be made at trial, immunity that would preclude him from successfully asserting a Fifth Amendment right not to testify at Beckford's trial. This interpretation of Novak's statement in the 2000 letter is bolstered by Novak's testimony at the suppression hearing held by the trial court. Novak testified that, when he visited John in 1997, John informed him that he would not testify at Beckford's trial. Novak further testified that, after hearing this, he told John that he [didn't] have a choice and that he would strip[ ] him of his Fifth Amendment rights by giving him informal immunity. In this context, the 2000 letter's statements to us phrase can be read to mean statements to be elicited from John by federal prosecutors at Beckford's trial. And Novak's use of the word had may be read to mean that John had immunity in the sense that he no longer possessed it at the time that the 2000 letter was written, or simply to mean that John would have immunity for statements made at Beckford's trial, as the trial court found. To be sure, if Novak meant to clearly convey this arrangement in the 2000 letter he could have chosen his words more carefully. And had this letter been sent to John prior to his confession for the purpose of memorializing an agreement or understanding, this would be a different case entirely. But, in the end, the 2000 letter, though imprecisely worded, may be interpreted consistently with the other evidence in the record and harmonized with the trial court's other factual findings. In addition to the 2000 letter, John relies on the 1997 notice. John contends that this notice, which contained no explicit condition on the use immunity conferred by Novak, is the only written representation of the terms of immunity made reasonably contemporaneous with the events at issue. This may be so, but given the interaction between Novak and John in the days leading up to the Beckford trial, this notice could be interpreted to simply indicate that John had immunity for anticipated trial testimony. This reading is particularly plausible given the purpose the 1997 notice served  to identify John as a prospective trial witness who had use immunity for his statements. In attempting to satisfy his burden of providing clear and convincing evidence to rebut the presumption of correctness, John also criticizes the evidence relied on by the trial court. Basically, John argues that none of the evidence presented in the trial court squarely contradicts his view of the agreement he had with Novak. He says that Novak failed to make any notes, send John any letters, write any memos, or give notice to John's lawyer about an immunity grant conditional on John's testimony at Beckford's trial. And he observes, moreover, that the grand jury transcripts also fail to indicate that he had an immunity grant conditional on future testimony. None of these alleged shortcomings cast serious doubt on the trial court's findings. At bottom, John's argument boils down to a request that we simply adopt his version of events and subsequently read all the evidence consistently with it. Where the record evidence can be interpreted to support a different version, the case here, we must reject such a request. In sum, we cannot conclude that there has been an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding or that John has introduced clear and convincing evidence to rebut the presumption of correctness attached to the trial court's findings of fact. In the end, the trial court was presented with two competing accounts of events and conversations that took place between John and federal authorities. Each of these accounts was supported by record evidence. In the face of this competing evidence, the trial court accepted the government's version of events. And partly tied up in the trial court's ultimate finding were credibility determinations it made at a suppression hearing, determinations we are reluctant to revisit in this posture. See Teti, 507 F.3d at 59 ([T]he state trial judge's implicit credibility determinations, adopted by the [state appellate court], are exactly the type of factual determinations to which we defer, at least short of any indication of serious error.) (citing Rice v. Collins, 546 U.S. 333, 341-42, 126 S.Ct. 969, 163 L.Ed.2d 824 (2006)).