Court Opinion

ID: 9474433
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:57:08.412916+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:44:04.887349
License: Public Domain

BOWMAN, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
Hamilton stands convicted of a double homicide. His guilt is not in question. Today’s decision renders inadmissible much of the evidence against him and probably means that he soon will be released from *630prison, after serving only a little more than four years1 of a life sentence. I do not believe that Hamilton has been deprived of any constitutionally protected interest requiring us to inflict this kind of injury upon the public interest. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.
With respect to the “fruit of the poisonous tree” argument, the Iowa Supreme Court found as follows:
The police interrogation of Hamilton must be divided into two distinct segments, that preceding the suggestion of help and that following it. The interrogation began at police headquarters at approximately 9:20 p.m. on the day following the shooting. Hamilton was properly advised of his Miranda rights, and no issue is raised in that regard. The interrogation continued without a problem until approximately 11:00 p.m., when the suggestion of help was made, and the tainting of the confession allegedly occurred. During this pre-tainting segment of the interrogation, Hamilton furnished considerable information. He said he had gone to the victims’ house between 3:00 and 3:30 p.m. on the day of the shooting and- that Nick Pappas and Cathy Larson were there at that time. He said he purchased some marijuana from Pappas and left for home, where he and his fiancee, Diane Nystrum, stayed until about 8:00 p.m. when they went shopping and to his mother’s house before returning home. He stated that just prior to going to bed, Diane had seen a shadow outside the house and that he had gone upstairs to get his shotgun. He said he had sat up all night to protect the home with his shotgun. The officers then asked him if he had any guns besides the shotgun. Hamilton replied that he had a .38 caliber revolver and, when asked where it was, responded that it was “over to his mother’s house.” (Investigation of the killing had established that a .38 caliber weapon had been used.) Immediately following the defendant’s statement about his revolver being at his mother’s house, several of the officers left the interrogation room to type up a search warrant application for the mother’s house, apparently for the gun and marijuana. It was at this point, when the other officers had left, that Hamilton asked the remaining officer to lock the door and confided to the officer that he “needed help.” The officer’s response that he would try to help, according to the trial court’s suppression order, then tainted the remainder of the statement.
Before the tainting occurred, the identity and possible involvement of Hamilton’s mother were known to the officers. The later, tainted, portion of the statement, more clearly focused on the extent of her involvement and contradicted por-tiotis of his earlier statement as it pertained to her. For example, in the second half of his statement, he said the gun was not at his mother’s house as he originally said but was, in fact, on the bottom of a river. Nevertheless, at the point at which the tainting occurred, the police had already learned about the mother’s involvement; their investigation was far from an aimless search for evidence which was dependent for direction upon anything Hamilton said later. The police knew at that point the mother’s house had figured prominently in Hamilton’s activities the previous day and had good reason to believe both the marijuana and murder weapon could be found there.
State v. Hamilton, 335 N.W.2d 154, 159 (Iowa 1983). Based on these findings, the Iowa Supreme Court concluded that the identity of Mrs. Hamilton was obtained through a source independent of the tainted confession, and that her testimony thus properly was admitted at trial. Likewise, the court concluded that the testimony of Paul Lincoln and Ann Morrison properly was admitted for the same reason, since these individuals came to light only when the police pursued their leads through Mrs. Hamilton.
Examination of the opinion of the Supreme Court of Iowa leaves no room for doubt that the court made its findings within the proper framework of controlling le*631gal principles. I would treat the court’s ultimate findings regarding the applicability of the independent source doctrine, as well as the court’s subsidiary findings, as determinations of factual issues within the meaning of 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d), and thus would accord them the statutory presumption of correctness.
In my view, a proper allocation of authority between the state courts and the federal courts requires that the section 2254(d) presumption of correctness be applied to the determinations that the Iowa Supreme Court has made. It is not contended that any of the section 2254(d) exceptions applies, and it is plain that the findings of the Iowa Supreme Court are fairly supported by the record. The Iowa Supreme Court is a “State court” for purposes of section 2254(d), and clearly it held a “hearing” within the meaning of section 2254(d). See Sumner v. Mata, 449 U.S. 539, 545-46, 101 S.Ct. 764, 768-69, 66 L.Ed.2d 722 (1981). Nothing in Miller v. Fenton, - U.S. -, 106 S.Ct. 445, 88 L.Ed.2d 405 (1985), or any of the other cases cited in today’s majority opinion, speaks directly to the issue of whether a finding concerning the independent source doctrine is to be treated as a matter for independent federal determination, and language used by the United States Supreme Court in Nix v. Williams, 467 U.S. 431, 104 S.Ct. 2501, 81 L.Ed.2d 377 (1984) (adopting the inevitable discovery doctrine) strongly suggests the contrary. “If the prosecution can establish by a preponderance of the evidence that the information ultimately or inevitably would have been discovered by lawful means ... then the deterrence rationale has so little basis that the evidence should be received.” Id. 104 S.Ct. at 2509 (emphasis added). And as the Supreme Court pointed out in Miller v. Fenton, “an issue does not lose its factual character merely because its resolution is dispositive of the ultimate constitutional question.” - U.S. at -, 106 S.Ct. at 451 (citing Dayton Board of Education v. Brinkman, 443 U.S. 526, 534, 99 S.Ct. 2971, 2977, 61 L.Ed.2d 720 (1979) (finding of intent to discriminate is subject to “clearly erroneous” standard of review)).
The Supreme Court noted in Miller v. Fenton that it has “yet to arrive at ‘a rule or principle that will unerringly distinguish a factual finding from a legal conclusion.’ ” - U.S. at -, 106 S.Ct. at 451 (quoting Pullman Standard v. Swint, 456 U.S. 273, 288, 102 S.Ct. 1781, 1790, 72 L.Ed.2d 66 (1982)). This problem is a particularly sensitive one in federal habeas review of state court convictions. Federal courts should recognize the difference between their role when review is collateral and their role when the supervisional standard comes into play on direct appeal. The opportunity to litigate in the state courts an issue as fact-bound and as imprecise as “independent source” strongly suggests that collateral review by federal courts frequently is redundant, as I believe it to be in the present case.
Even assuming, arguendo, that the matter is one for independent federal determination, the majority opinion is not faithful to the principle that a federal habeas court should “give great weight to the considered conclusions of a coequal state judiciary.” Miller v. Fenton, - U.S. at -, 106 S.Ct. at 451. Instead, reviewing the same record and putting its own spin on the facts, the majority opinion reaches conclusions diametrically opposed to the considered conclusions of the Iowa Supreme Court. The result is not to prevent a miscarriage of justice — the historic purpose of the Great Writ — but to perpetrate one.
I would affirm the judgment of the District Court.