Court Opinion

ID: 9472714
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:08:15.021769+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:43:05.497569
License: Public Domain

WIDENER, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent.
In my view the majority in this habeas corpus appeal has elevated a Fourth Circuit rule of procedure into a rule of constitutional significance, and then found a noncompliance with the new-found rule.
In so doing, the majority, I think, has fallen into error, not the least parts of which are that it relied upon the death of the state trial judge as a reason to nullify the West Virginia procedure; it did not follow, and indeed made no mention of, 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d) which requires a presumption by us that the findings of the West Virginia courts were correct; and in elevating our rule of procedure to constitutional significance, as had to be done to arrive at its conclusion of reversal, it did not take account of procedural precedent from the numerous courts considering the matter, including the Supreme Court of the United States.
While the setting of the case by the majority is not inaccurate, neither is it complete enough, I think. There is nothing new or startling about the rule that a prisoner should not be manacled in court. *919West Virginia applied that common law rule at least as long ago as 1898 in State v. Allen, 45 W.Va. 65, 30 S.E. 209 (1898). Neither is the suggestion that unnecessary restraint may be unconstitutional, as Professor Beale points out in § 58 of his Treatise on Criminal Pleading and Practice (1899). So the rule has been settled for years. In West Virginia the rule is that of the common law. State v. Brewster, 261 S.E.2d 77 at 82 (W.Va.1979). In West Virginia, until the Brewster case, the rule had been that if the record was silent the appellate court would presume that the trial court exercised a sound and reasonable discretion in not causing shackles to be removed. Brewster at p. 81. And in that case the West Virginia court adhered to its common law rule forbidding the in-court shackling of prisoners absent manifest necessity, but changed the rule with respect to a silent record so that it is now "... error to try a defendant in physical restraints over his objection without having developed an appropriate record to justify their use.” Brewster at p. 82. This right cannot be defeated on the basis that the defendant failed to invoke a pre-trial hearing on the issue. Brewster, p. 82, n. 5. The same rule was expressed in this circuit in United States v. Samuel, 431 F.2d 610 (4th Cir.1970): "... the reasons ... must be disclosed in order that a reviewing court may determine if there was an abuse of discretion.... We will require the district judge to state for the record out of the presence of the jury the reasons therefor and give counsel an opportunity to comment thereon____” Thus, the West Virginia rule and the Fourth Circuit rule are so nearly identical as to make any distinction meaningless. In Samuel we applied our rule prospectively, p. 615, and did not decide the case but directed the district judge “... to supplement the record with a succinct statement of all the reasons and facts and matters from which he concluded to require defendant to be tried before a jury while wearing handcuffs.” p. 616. Following the supplement of the record by the district judge, we affirmed the conviction. 433 F.2d 633 (4th Cir.1970). The West Virginia court went further than did we in Samuel. It remanded and required the trial court to “... hold an evidentiary hearing to determine if there were sufficient facts to warrant trying the defendant in handcuffs.” 261 S.E.2d at 83. Following that hearing, if the trial court found the defendant should have been so tried, his conviction was ordered to be reentered. If not, the trial court was directed to grant a new trial. 261 S.E.2d at 83. And, remarkably enough, the West Virginia court, in choosing its remedy, relied in terms and specifically on Samuel, 261 S.E.2d at 83, the very case upon which the majority principally bases its nullification of the West Virginia procedure. I will confess that it is beyond me why a state court which not only does as we do, but also says as we say, should have its action nullified for its emulation of our example.
Not the least of the error committed by the majority is its reliance upon the death of the trial judge as a reason to nullify the West Virginia procedure adopted by that court in Brewster. In terms, the majority refuses to consider whether a West Virginia trial judge should be permitted to supplement the state record as a federal trial judge was permitted to supplement a federal record in Samuel. The majority is quite clear on that point: “In any event, we have no occasion to consider that question, inasmuch as Judge Conaty’s regrettable death makes it impossible to employ such a technique.”
We thus refuse to ascertain Judge Conaty’s state of mind because he is dead. Yet, state of mind is daily ascertained by all the courts of the United States, state and federal, in civil cases ranging from fraud to the delivery of a deed, and in criminal cases from murder down to a warrant for a $5 bad check. And if an action for fraud, for example, may be defeated by the death of the man committing the fraud, that is a new proposition to me. The statement of Lord Justice Bowen in Edgington v. Fitz-maurice, 29 L.R., Ch.Div. 459, 483 (1884), that “[t]he state of a man’s mind is as much a fact as the state of his digestion” *920has not been improved upon to my knowledge. No reason exists to fault West Virginia’s application of that principle in this case.
Had the case been tried in a federal court and the trial judge died after the verdict, as here, then his duties on remand could have been performed by “any other judge” regularly sitting in or assigned to the court. That is explicit under FRCrP 25(b) which has been literally construed. E.g. Connelly v. United States, 249 F.2d 576 (8th Cir. 1957).
Remand for further findings by a trial court in criminal cases (without necessarily ordering a new trial or reversal) is universally recognized. E.g. United States v. Kolod, 390 U.S. 136, 88 S.Ct. 752, 19 L.Ed.2d 962 (1968) (remand to consider questions regarding improperly obtained wiretap evidence); United States v. Truong Dink Hung, 629 F.2d 908 (4th Cir. 1980), cert. den. 454 U.S. 1144, 102 S.Ct. 1004, 71 L.Ed.2d 296 (1982) (remand to determine if documents contained Jencks Act material); United States v. Stoddart, 574 F.2d 1050 (10th Cir.1978) (remand for further inquiry on speedy trial claim). That same rule applies in habeas corpus proceedings. Jackson v. Denno, 378 U.S. 368, 84 S.Ct. 1774, 12 L.Ed.2d 908 (1964).
Thus, I suggest that I have demonstrated that in remanding the case for further fact finding, albeit with a different judge, West Virginia has done no more than that which is explicitly authorized by the federal rules of criminal procedure and the decisions of the United States Supreme Court as well as this circuit. In this respect, I especially note that the decisions I have cited illustrate that it is an appropriate procedure to remand in a criminal case without necessarily ordering a new trial or reversal, although the question to be inquired into may be a constitutional question. As with our nullification of the state proceeding requiring remand, I am at a loss to understand why the actions of the West Virginia court should be held to be invalid as violations of the federal constitution when the federal courts take the same actions daily pursuant to their rules and decisions.
By its elevation of the West Virginia procedure to constitutional magnitude, the majority completely overlooks the merits of the claim. The claim of the prisoner is that his constitutional rights were violated because he was manacled during the trial. His rights were not violated because the trial judge failed to insert into the record out of the presence of the jury why the prisoner was manacled. Indeed, the effect on the prisoner is the same whether or not the judge properly made up the record. The jury saw him in handcuffs, and he, of course, is indifferent as to the reason for the handcuffs, for the prejudicial effect on him is the same whatever the record may reveal to be the reason for them. So the inquiry ought to be whether or not the prisoner’s rights were violated by his being handcuffed, not whether the trial judge violated a Fourth Circuit procedural rule now elevated to constitutional magnitude.
28 U.S.C. § 2254(d) provides that in any habeas corpus proceeding in a federal court where the prisoner is in custody pursuant to the judgment of a state court “... a determination after a hearing on the merits of a factual issue, made by a State court of competent jurisdiction ..., evidenced by a written finding, written opinion, or other reliable and adequate written indicia, shall be presumed to be correct____” unless certain conditions exist, none of which are seriously claimed to be applicable here.
On remand, the state judge conducted an evidentiary hearing. He was ever so careful and placed the burden of proof on the State. He found that on the day of the trial the by then deceased trial judge knew or had been advised or had good reason to believe that Brewster was charged with robbery with the use of a pistol, and also with felonious assault in that he shot the robbery victim. Brewster also had pending at the time of the trial a charge against him for escape from the Cabell County jail (the court was sitting in Cabell County), and three other armed robbery charges. Brewster had previously been convicted of *921unarmed robbery in Wayne County, West Virginia, and of armed robbery in the State of Arizona. The Arizona robbery apparently occurred during the period he was at liberty following his escape from the West Virginia state penitentiary. Brewster’s character and reputation were poor, and he enjoyed the reputation of being an escape artist. Brewster had escaped from the Ca-bell County jail only a few months prior to his trial, and had unsuccessfully attempted to escape from the state penitentiary in 1971, prior to his successful attempt in 1972. Brewster also escaped from the penitentiary twice in 1974. The trial court knew that the jailer had received five or six telephone calls stating that Brewster was planning an escape, and several individuals had been to the jailer telling of a proposed escape. The state judge hearing the evidence on remand found that merely using an additional guard for security would not have prevented the defendant from attempting an escape by way of threatening physical harm such as by taking a hostage, this because of the serious nature of the present charge, the defendant’s history of violence during confinements, and history of escapes. The trial court on remand was of opinion that a manifest necessity existed which required the use of physical restraints. The trial court, following the hearing, filed its written opinion and reentered Brewster’s conviction rather than ordering a new trial. Serious exception is not taken to any of the findings of fact of the state court, which in all events are presumed to be correct under § 2254(d), and no evidence sufficient to refute them is in the record. Certainly the facts of this case are far more aggravated than those in Samuel considered after the trial judge supplemented the record. In Samuel it will be remembered we affirmed the conviction. 433 F.2d 633 (4th Cir.1970).
Finally, I should say that the action of the majority in reversing this case seems to me to be a reaching out to establish a constitutional norm where none existed before, and then finding the new norm violated. I am of opinion that procedurally and substantively the decision of the majority is not in accord with established precedent.