Court Opinion

ID: 9577331
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:33:53.282988+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:20:20.873518
License: Public Domain

ROYNER, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
Before I turn to my point of dissension, I must begin with the many ways in which I am in almost complete agreement with the majority. The majority concludes that the state court of Wisconsin need not treat coerced statements of non-defendant witnesses the same way as coerced statements of defendants. Although the latter *572must be suppressed, the former need not. With this premise I agree. I also agree with the majority’s reasoning as to why this is so. As the majority correctly concludes, coerced statements by non-defendant witnesses do not implicate a defendant’s Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. The only threat they pose to due process stems from their inherent unreliability. If, for example, (again, as the majority points out) a conviction rests entirely on a coerced witness statement that is unreliable, such a conviction would deprive a defendant of due process of law, “[f]or in such a case no reasonable judge or jury could find that the defendant’s guilt had been proved beyond a reasonable doubt.” Ante at 569 (citations omitted). If the state court gains evidence from a non-defendant witness in a manner that violates her rights, the majority states, and I concur, that the remedy is not to suppress that evidence, but for the aggrieved witness to be made whole (to the extent the law is capable) by filing a civil claim against the wrongdoers. Thus far I have merely recited what the majority has said, far more eloquently than I. Nevertheless, in order to understand where we differ, I must begin with where we agree.
In short, both the majority and I agree that our concern, as a federal court reviewing a petition for habeas corpus, is with due process rights of the defendant. More specifically, where a defendant complains about the admission of a coerced statement from someone other than himself, our focus must be on the reliability of that statement and the state court’s assessment of that reliability. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1). Any state rules or standards that the state court may have applied in evaluating the admissibility of the statement are irrelevant to our analysis. Kubat v. Thieret, 867 F.2d 351, 358 (7th Cir.1989) (“[o]n habeas review our role is not to mandate optimal procedures to the state courts. Rather, our role is to protect against constitutional error.”). Our concern is with the bottom line — the reliability of the witness’ statement — and whether that bottom line reflects a reasonable application of United States Supreme Court precedent. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1).
The first (and, as I will argue shortly, the only) determination we must make, therefore, is whether Tisha’s coerced statement was so unreliable as to deprive Stanley Samuel due process of law. There were plenty of reasons one could think that Tisha’s statement was unreliable. The most obvious of which is that a mother threatened with the loss of her newborn infant is likely to say anything to keep her child. And there are others as well. The majority opinion makes short shrift of some of the more unseemly facts surrounding Tisha’s statement, but those facts are as follows: forty hours after having given birth, (and about three days after being reunited with her father after thirteen months on the run with a forty-seven-year-old pedophile) sixteen-year-old Tisha was summoned to a meeting at the office of the corporation counsel to determine whether she could keep her baby in her custody. At that meeting Tisha was surrounded by eight adults — a police officer, several attorneys, many members of the Wisconsin Department of Health and Family Services or the county equivalents (together, “social services”) and her parents. She was exhausted from a difficult delivery, she was medicated, she was frightened and undoubtedly disoriented from her reentry into her community after thirteen months on the run with a criminal. Tisha testified that she was told that she would have to co-operate and tell the police officers about her sexual activity with Samuel if she wanted to keep her baby. (9-18-97 Tr. at 13, 15, 18, 27-28, 31-32) (12-2-97 Tr. at 159-162) (12-3-97 Tr. at *573202-206, 209). Her father, Peter, testified that he was given the same impression and that social workers specifically told him the types of information that Tisha needed to provide. (9-18-87 Tr. at 37-39, 40-41, 43) (12-1-97 Tr. at 195-97) (12-3-97 Tr. at 144-147). Significantly, Tisha’s attorney also testified that it was his impression that Tisha had to give a statement to the investigating police officer before she could get her baby back. (9-18-97 Tr. at 47). Even the state’s main witness, social worker Rodney Schraufnagel, testified that during the hearing and conference to determine where the baby would go, Tisha was told numerous times that in order to make a determination about the baby’s placement, the social workers would “need her cooperation,” including disclosing information about what she had done during her time with Samuel. (12-3-97 Tr. at 76-77, 111, 115-116). Officer Sagmeister, the police officer in charge of the investigation into Samuel’s illegal behavior, agreed that at the hearing to determine the baby’s placement, Tisha had been told that she would have to cooperate. (12-3-97 Tr. at 55). When Tisha refused to cooperate and turn in the father of her child, her baby was taken away. Then, less than twenty-four hours after yielding to the state’s pressure and telling the police exactly what they needed to prosecute Samuel, the baby was back in her arms.
Despite these unseemly facts, the state presented an overwhelming amount of corroborating evidence that supported the version of events that Tisha reported in her post-partum meetings with social services and the police thus demonstrating the reliability of the statements. In any event, the jury was free to weigh the evidence of unreliability of the statement (there was plenty of it, as described above, and the defense had ample opportunity to put all of it into evidence) against the weight of the other evidence. In short, we cannot conclude that Tisha’s coerced statement was so inherently unreliable as to deny Samuel due process.
I part company with the majority when the opinion comments on the legitimacy of the state’s actions in removing Tisha’s baby from her physical custody. My colleagues opine that the state court could reasonably conclude that the Wisconsin state authorities had a legitimate concern for the welfare of the infant — a concern fueled, primarily, by Tisha’s failure to cooperate with the criminal investigation of Samuel. The majority enters this arena, ostensibly, in its effort to determine whether the state court decision was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in the light of the evidence presented in the state court proceedings. Ante at 571; see also 28 U.S.C. 2254(d)(2). In Samuel’s state court proceedings, the Wisconsin Supreme Court concluded that in order to suppress an alleged involuntary statement by a non-defendant witness, “the coercive police misconduct at issue must be egregious such that it produces statements that are unreliable as a matter of law.” State v. Samuel, 252 Wis.2d 26, 648 N.W.2d 423, 426 (Wis.2002). The majority then proceeds to determine whether the state court reasonably could have found the facts surrounding Tisha’s statement to be “not egregious.”
Wisconsin may require that the coercion be so egregious as to be unreliable, but in this way Wisconsin has engrafted an extraneous factor onto the due process analysis. As both the majority and I have explained, the only inquiry we must make for federal due process purposes is whether the statement was so unreliable as to deprive Samuel due process of law. The egregiousness of the coercion of the non-defendant witness (although worthy of our comment as human beings), is of no moment to a federal court reviewing the criminal defendant’s *574due process claim. In cases where the Wisconsin court thinks that the state actors behaved egregiously, it might exclude a statement based on that egregiousness when that statement is in fact reliable. Conversely, it might allow the admission of statements that are not the product of egregious coercion but that are nonetheless completely unreliable. Because egregiousness is an extraneous factor not necessarily determinative of reliability, it is beyond our power to review. “Errors of state law in and of themselves are not cognizable on habeas review. The remedial power of a federal habeas court is limited to violations of the petitioner’s federal rights, so only if a state court’s errors have deprived the petitioner of a right under federal law can the federal court intervene.” Perruquet v. Briley, 390 F.3d 505, 511-12 (7th Cir.2004) (internal citations omitted). The touchstone of due process, for our purposes, is the reliability of Tisha’s statement rather than the egregiousness of the state’s actions. Consequently, the state’s actions, even if egregious, did not deprive Samuel of due process.
For these reasons, the majority’s exploration into the legitimacy of the infant’s removal is unnecessary to our limited review. Nonetheless, because I think reasonable minds could differ, and because I am concerned that we not place our imprimatur of approval on the state’s actions, particularly when unnecessary, I am compelled to follow the piper into the river.
When the state removes a child from the custody of its parents, it is trampling on one of the most fundamental and personal rights — the right to parent a child. It is a drastic measure and made even more so when the state removes a baby just days after birth, when mother-infant bonds are forming, when milk production begins, and when women are adjusting to a number of physical and emotional changes and demands of motherhood. A state may not turn to such a drastic remedy — even in compelling circumstances — unless there is no other more narrow method of protecting a child. Indeed, the State of Wisconsin reflects this constitutional requirement in its legislation which states that it will remove a child from the custody of a parent “only where there is no less drastic alternative.” Wis. Stat. § dS.SSSil).1
The majority opinion indicates that the state authorities had a legitimate concern with the baby’s welfare due to Tisha’s failure to cooperate with the criminal investigation and her weeks on the run while pregnant. Indeed, the principal social worker involved in the case indicated that the primary reason for removing Tisha’s daughter was that social services workers feared that Tisha would abscond with the baby and seek refuge with the same persons who had aided Samuel during their thirteen months on the run. Removing Tisha’s baby seems to be far from the “least drastic” measure possible, however. Tisha’s father and live-in girlfriend had custody of Tisha and indicated their willingness to monitor Tisha and the baby closely, but there is no testimony in the record as to why their competence was doubted. See e.g. Wis. Stat. § 48.355(1) (“If there is no less drastic alternative for a child than transferring custody from the parent, the judge shall consider transferring custody to a relative whenever possible.”). Tisha and her child could have been held together in a secure facility— perhaps in the medical unit of a youth facility or in another facility where female youth offenders who have just given birth *575are held. Even adult criminal offenders in Wisconsin are eligible to maintain physical custody of their very young children in the Mother-Young child care program. Wis. Stat. § 301.049. There are, of course, other possibilities, and surely social services was familiar with many of them in light of its obligation to preserve the family units whenever possible in conformity with the legislative purpose of the Children’s Code governing the Department of Health and Family Services. See e.g. Wis. Stat. § 48.01(a).
The state had a few other toothless justifications for its concern about the baby’s welfare, but these can be quickly dismissed. Any concerns about STDs and HIV could have easily been addressed by testing both Tisha and her baby for STDs and HIV with Tisha’s informed consent. (See 12-3-97 Tr. at 77). (In fact, since the CDC recommends that all pregnant women receive an HIV test and that those who have had no prenatal care be encouraged to have a rapid HIV test when arriving at the hospital, it is likely that Tisha was indeed tested. See http://www.cdc.gov/ mmwR/pr eview/mmwrhtml/rr5514al .htm.) The state also expressed some concern over Tisha’s lack of prenatal care, but this is hardly a reason to take the drastic step of removing a child from parental custody. In 1996 alone, 2,146 women in the state of Wisconsin gave birth to babies who had received late or no prenatal care (3.2% of all births statewide). See http://www.dhfs. state.wi.us/WISH/index.htm. Furthermore, more than seven thousand births in Wisconsin in 1996 (10.58% of all births statewide) were to women ages nineteen and younger. See http://wish.dhfs.state.wi.us/. Surely the state does not conduct hearings to determine the appropriate placement for all babies born to unmarried teenage mothers. Consequently, without much meaningful rationale for questioning Tisha’s competency as a mother, it does indeed appear that social services used the baby’s placement hearings as pretext to garner information for Samuel’s criminal prosecution.
In short, rather than exploring any less drastic alternatives, the state authorities dangled the infant before Tisha. Once Tisha gave the police all the information the state needed to prosecute Samuel, the authorities returned Tisha’s baby to her. Civilized governments do not take babies away to coerce a victim’s testimony — even in the name of protecting that victim and others.
The dissenting justice on the Wisconsin Supreme Court stated, “[IJower courts will ask, with some degree of confusion, if these facts do not [constitute egregious police misconduct], what does?” State v. Samuel, 252 Wis.2d 26, 643 N.W.2d 423, 436 (Wis.2002). The majority of that court believed otherwise. This is not, however, our battle to enter. Whether the state’s behavior was egregious or not, the use of Tisha’s statement did not violate the defendant, Samuel’s, due process rights. The injury from the state’s behavior was to Tisha and it was Tisha who had the option of seeking a remedy.

. Although this language comes from a statute describing the considerations of judges in more complete fact-finding hearings — as opposed to the more preliminary kind to which it appears Tisha was subjected — due process requires a state to have a narrowly tailored solution to any intrusion on the right to parent.