Court Opinion

ID: 9459541
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:23:37.766967+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:12.669399
License: Public Domain

COLEMAN, Circuit Judge
(dissenting) :
I respectfully dissent.
It is to be regretted, I think, that in this collateral attack on a Louisiana manslaughter conviction the majority opinion is likely to have far-reaching future consequences for the federal courts in this Circuit.
*455The majority opinion quite correctly states that under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d) factfindings by a state court are as a general rule presumptively valid.
It then proceeds to knock a great hole in the statute by holding that an appraisal of asserted factual inconsistencies in the case now before us is a question of law not of fact. In my view this puts us right back where we were before § 2254(d) was enacted. It means that in the future the federal courts will have to “retry” similar inconsistencies as questions of law, thus adding to the hopeless mound of litigation under which we are presently smothered. I personally believe that a comparison of facts is just another question of fact and that under § 2254(d) the judgment of the District Court should have been affirmed per curiam.
Moreover, there were no material or prejudicial inconsistencies in the statements, even if we are to weigh them legally rather than factually. By all means, there was not such inconsistency as would have required the State sua sponte to have tendered them to the defense.
The opinion of the District Court [Judge Alvin B. Rubin] is reported, 350 F.Supp. 958-971. In an unusually thorough analysis of Davis’ claims Judge Rubin found no federal constitutional grounds for relief. I unhesitatingly agree.
As to the background, I feel that I can do no better than to quote from Judge Rubin’s published opinion, 350 F. Supp., beginning at 960:
“The applicant was convicted of manslaughter in Louisiana state court on September 20, 1968. A motion for a new trial was made by his court-appointed counsel, but was denied by the trial court. Evidentiary material was attached to the state’s response to the application for a new trial. Counsel for the defendant filed a motion for appeal, but failed to perfect the appeal, submit a brief, or appear for argument. Almost two years later, represented by new counsel, the applicant sought a writ of ha-beas corpus in state court, alleging denial of an effective appeal, and requested relief by way of an out-of-time appeal. The state court granted an out-of-time appeal. The evidentiary material attached to the state’s response to the application for a new trial was presented to the Louisiana Supreme Court on the appeal. The issues raised in the state courts, which are the same as those now urged as bases for a federal writ of ha-beas corpus, were that Mr. Davis had been convicted in violation of the due process and confrontation clauses of the United States Constitution because the state had withheld the pre-trial statements of witnesses and photographs that both supported his defense and contradicted the testimony of major State witnesses, and further because, by sustaining objections to two questions put by defense counsel to one of the state’s witnesses, the State trial judge had denied Mr. Davis the right of cross-examination.
“On June 7, 1971, the Louisiana Supreme Court decided both issues adversely to the appellant and affirmed his conviction, State v. Davis, 1971, 259 La. 35, 249 So.2d 193.
“In order to understand the issues, it is necessary to review the events before and during the trial in state court.
“New Orleans police arrested the applicant, Linroy Davis, for the murder of James Dyer on July 26, 1966. The Grand Jury return was ‘Not a true bill’. Then the Orleans Parish District Attorney filed an information charging manslaughter. Almost two years later, and just three days before the prosecution would have prescribed, LSA-C.Cr.P. art. 578, the case was set for trial. After being continued, the trial commenced one day before the lapse of the time within which prosecution is permitted. The jury returned a verdict of guilty by a 10-2 vote. The events recounted at the trial were these:
“On Sunday, July 24, 1966, Linroy Davis, who was in an automobile with *456another man, spoke from the car to Miss Brenda Mae Dyer, a sister of the deceased, in front of the deceased’s home. Mr. Davis and Miss Dyer were not acquainted. When James Dyer, the deceased, went to Davis’ car to protest Mr. Davis’ remarks to his sister, Mr. Davis got out of the auto and slapped Mr. Dyer on the side of his head with a pistol. Miss Dyer picked up a brick to throw at Mr. Davis, but Mr. Davis returned to his automobile and drove off, pointing the pistol at her. Mr. Davis circled the block and, seeing the decedent’s twin brother, pointed the gun at him and drove off.
“Later that afternoon the Dyers’ father, the Reverend John Dyer, a minister, returned from church. His family told him of the events that had just occurred, and he drove in an automobile with his sons, James, Joseph, and John, looking for Mr. Davis. He saw a car that he recognized as Davis’ from the description, and, as he drove up, he saw Mr. Davis standing in the doorway of the house in front of which the car was parked. The Reverend Dyer left his sons in the car and walked up to Mr. Davis.
“Much of the testimony of the Davis trial consisted of varying accounts of what happened thereafter. The Reverend Dyer testified his objective was to ‘reform the boy;’ after the conversation began, Mr. Davis pulled out a gun; he tussled with Mr. Davis; his sons came to his aid; the gun went off; and James Dyer was shot. Joseph Dyer’s testimony was substantially in accordance with his father’s. John Dyer was absent in the armed forces, stationed in Germany, and did not testify.
“The defense called the defendant’s mother who testified that she came into the room before the shot was fired, and that, in effect, the Dyers were the aggressors in the fray then going on. Mr.; Davis testified that the Reverend Dyer grabbed him and, in the struggle they fell to the floor. The older man began to choke him. Then the other Dyers joined in the fray. He managed to grab the gun, the Dyers tried to take it away, and it went off. Other witnesses confirmed parts of these accounts.
“The Dyers were subjected to vigorous cross-examination by appointed counsel who was then defending Mr. Davis. When the state answered the defense motion for a new trial in 1968, defense counsel learned for the first time that the District Attorney had taken written statements from the Dyers before the trial and also had three photographs of the accused taken shortly after the fray. The failure to produce these at the trial is the basis of the first claim by the applicant.
“These statements and photographs were before the state Supreme Court when it heard Mr. Davis’ out-of-time appeal. Counsel for the applicant was offered an opportunity to file additional evidence in this court. However, no evidence has been offered that was not adduced at the time of the second state appeal, except an affidavit by applicant’s former counsel that he didn’t know of the existence of the written statements and photographs until after the trial; ‘the statements would have been extremely helpful if not crucial for the defense of Davis at the trial;’ they were ‘essential to a fair trial;’ and he believed that with them, he could have obtained a verdict of acquittal.”
This ends the quotation from Judge Rubin’s reported opinion.

MY DISSENTING VIEWS

What kind of manslaughter case was this?
The defense of self-defense was not interposed and there were no jury instructions on self-defense.
Therefore, the only available defense was that the killing was accidental and this was the defense on which the case was tried.
With this beginning, I would weigh this appeal in the light of the following:
1. Judge Rubin found that “The State did not use perjured testimony, *457did not suppress truth, it did not knowingly foist error on the jury”, 350 F. Supp. at 968;
2. In the State Court, trial counsel made no request for any pre-trial statements made by the Dyers. Reverend John Dyer and Joseph Dyer took the witness stand and were vigorously cross-examined but they were not asked, even then, if they had given any pretrial statements. If counsel had asked for such statements and if they had been furnished what could they have been used for? Obviously, for attempted impeachment only and there was not enough material inconsistency to support impeachment of any worthwhile vitality.
The majority opinion concedes that there were no “inconsistencies” on the part of Reverend John Dyer, so as to his testimony his prior statement would have been wholly useless.
That narrows the controversy, so far as the trial was concerned, to alleged inconsistencies of federal constitutional dimensions between Joseph Dyer’s pretrial statement and his testimony. The Supreme Court of Louisiana found that the statements were “essentially the same”. The majority applies its views to the facts and overturns the findings of the Louisiana Supreme Court, as well as those of the Federal District Court. In my view, the findings are not erroneous; indeed, I agree that they are right.
In his pre-trial statement Joseph Dyer said that the shooting took place in the house. At the trial he said the same. In his pre-trial statement Joseph said that he saw Davis coming out of his pocket with a gun and when he went to aim it James Dyer (the deceased) grabbed his arm (without saying which arm) and at this time Davis pulled the trigger. At the trial, Joseph testified that the Dyers tried to take the gun from Davis while Reverend Dyer whs holding him on the sofa in the house. However, with one hand free and no one holding his arm (presumably his shooting arm) Davis aimed the gun at James Dyer and shot him. The question is: which arm was which? How much impeachment could this have provided? Very little, I daresay.
So, for this minor evidentiary hang-up the Court of Appeals steps in once again to void a state conviction after the State Supreme Court and the United States District Court have held otherwise on the same, identical point. This is particularly regrettable when one recalls that defense counsel never attached enough importance to possible prior statements to ask for them. I doubt, too, that the state prosecutor is to be faulted for not furnishing them sua sponte, when two courts have agreed that there existed no material inconsistency.
The majority opinion surmises that if Davis or his counsel had known of the allegedly inconsistent prior statements of Joseph Dyer and John Dyer, the younger, they might have pleaded self-defense. This flies in the face of facts which the majority opinion does not mention. Shortly before the fatal difficulty, at another place, at a time when he could have been in no real or apparent danger of death or great bodily harm, Davis, the defendant, had slapped James Dyer, whom he later killed, on the side of the head with a pistol. Then he pointed the weapon at Brenda Mae Dyer. Still later he pointed it at another Dyer brother. Furthermore, Davis admitted that from the beginning of the fatal encounter he had the pistol in his belt. At the time of the shooting the Dyers were unarmed. All this makes very poor food for thoughts of self-defense. It also negates the proposition that the same man who met the visitors with pistol in belt committed an accidental homicide, and that is true regardless of whether he pulled the pistol on the porch or after they got in the house. The whole truth is that the deadly encounter ended within two or three minutes of its inception and testimonial inconsistencies in such a situation are known by experience to be the rule rather than the exception.
It is further said, however, that the defense might have asked for a continuance had it known of the prior statement *458of John Dyer, the younger, then in Germany. I think it is only reasonable to suspect that such a motion would have been denied. The statement could have been used only to impeach him, but he did not testify. Moreover, his testimony would have been purely cumulative. The record provides no basis for assuming that John would have testified as per his prior written statement, even if it were1 inconsistent. My educated guess is that the defense was glad that John, Jr. was “across the waters” and thus unable to assist the prosecution.
For two reasons, I would affirm the judgment of the District Court:
1. Section 2254(d) has been satisfied, adversely to the appellant;
2. As a matter of fact, not as a matter of law, the allegedly inconsistent statements were not so materially inconsistent, if inconsistent at all, as to have required the state prosecutor to have tendered them sua sponte.
Again with deference, I am of the opinion that the majority has in effect retried this sudden, swirling, quickly completed physical encounter, a function which belonged entirely to the Louisiana courts.
I respectfully dissent.