Court Opinion

ID: 9473387
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:28:33.475505+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:43:30.106697
License: Public Domain

CUDAHY, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
This is certainly the proverbial “hard case,” in which a concededly guilty murderer seeks to go free on the strength of a rather marginal Miranda violation.
Nonetheless, and with all respect, I have difficulty accepting the majority’s rejection of Judge Moran’s findings on waiver. The majority says that Judge Moran’s findings are “implausible” and it therefore follows that they are “clearly erroneous”. But credibility determinations are central to the findings here and the relevant facts are numerous and detailed (as the heft of the majority opinion illustrates). I think it is unacceptable for an appellate court in the name of plausibility, see Anderson v. City of Bessemer City, — U.S. -,-, 105 S.Ct. 1504, 1511, 84 L.Ed.2d 518 (1985), to simply “reinterpret” the evidence. Judge Moran’s determination that the police officers’ earlier recollections were more credible than their later ones should stand, and ought rightly to survive the majority’s notions of plausibility.
The Supreme Court has recently considered a case in which a Court of Appeals failed to give proper deference to the district judge’s findings of fact. Anderson v. City of Bessemer City, — U.S. -, 105 S.Ct. 1504, 84 L.Ed.2d 518 (1985). In Anderson the Court went to some lengths to explain the meaning of the clearly erroneous standard. Its words are particularly relevant here.
This standard plainly does not entitle a reviewing court to reverse the finding of the trier of fact simply because it is convinced that it would have decided the case differently. The reviewing court oversteps the bounds of its duty under Rule 52 if it undertakes to duplicate the role of the lower court. “In applying the clearly erroneous standard to the findings of a district court sitting without a jury, appellate courts must constantly have in mind that their function is not to decide factual issues de novo.” ____
When findings are based on determinations regarding the credibility of witnesses, Rule 52 demands even greater deference to the trial court’s findings; for only the trial judge can be aware of the *798variations in demeanor and tone of voice that bear so heavily on the listener’s understanding of and belief in what is said. This is not to suggest that the trial judge may insulate his findings from review by denominating them credibility determinations, for factors other than demeanor and inflection go into the decision whether or not to believe a witness. Documents or objective evidence may contradict the witness’ story; or the story itself may be so internally inconsistent or implausible on its face that a reasonable factfinder would not credit it. Where such factors are present, the court of appeals may well find clear error even in a finding purportedly based on a credibility determination. But when a trial judge’s finding is based on his decision to credit the testimony of one of two or more witnesses, each of whom has told a coherent and facially plausible story that is not contradicted by extrinsic evidence, that finding, if not internally inconsistent, can virtually never be clear error.
Anderson, — U.S. at -, 105 S.Ct. at 1511 (citations omitted). Gorham’s Miranda story is not internally inconsistent; it is not implausible on its face; there is no objective or documentary evidence contradicting it. Therefore, unless the majority means to assert that Gorham is a witness whose testimony is, as a matter of law, incredible, belief in his story is permissible. As the majority concedes, quoting Anderson, “ ‘[wjhere there are two permissible views of the evidence, [here belief in the police version or belief in Gorham’s version,] the factfinder’s choice between them cannot be clearly erroneous’ ” (emphasis added).
In addition, a harmless error analysis is fraught with difficulty as, I think, the opinion in Gorham I suggests. See 675 F.2d at 938. Among other things, the ballistics evidence does not involve any material actually retrieved from the murder scene or from the victim.
On the other hand, I would readily concede that justice does not cry out here for grant of the writ. I can appreciate fully those unseemly aspects of this case which may have moved the majority toward the result it reaches on these difficult facts. But in the long run, adherence to settled principles will, I believe, prove the more rewarding course.
I therefore respectfully dissent.