Court Opinion

ID: 9790553
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 01:54:52.258017+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:30.180209
License: Public Domain

Green, C.J.
(dissenting)—The majority holds that where a federal court grants a writ of habeas corpus involving a state court conviction in a criminal case, a civil judgment *51based on that conviction should be automatically vacated. I respectfully dissent.
The order granting the habeas corpus here was based on constitutional grounds, i.e., certain requested tests to determine the presence of a contraceptive agent or blood type were not performed on vaginal samples taken from the victim, Annette Fahlen. The sample had been used up in the laboratory's effort to determine the presence of sperm. The federal judge found the State's failure to take a large enough sample was the equivalent of failure to preserve evidence bearing on the issue of consent—a constitutional reason, the federal judge holds, for granting the writ.
The failure of the State to take a large enough sample to test for the presence of a contraceptive agent and blood type was argued to the jury; yet, even without this evidence, the jury found Mr. Mounsey guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. The evidence presented to that jury is as credible now as it was before the federal judge entered his order granting habeas relief. It is the same evidence that the majority now holds must be presented to another jury in the civil action involving a lesser burden of proof—preponderance of the evidence. In these circumstances, I find no rational basis for overturning the civil judgment. For what purpose does the majority set aside the civil judgment and require a trial on the same evidence and arguments made in the criminal trial? If that evidence was sufficient to convince a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Mounsey raped Ms. Fahlen, it is certainly sufficient to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that Mr. Mounsey assaulted her. Moreover, the civil action was not commenced until the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court of this State had reviewed and affirmed the conviction. It was not until then that Ms. Fahlen proceeded to obtain her summary judgment as to liability and later obtained a damage award of $140,000. To vacate this civil judgment based on a rule applicable to criminal, not civil, cases is to promote form over substance and gives too wide a sweep to a federal judge's grant of habeas relief.
*52Thus, I would find an exception to the general rule stated by the majority and hold that a federal order granting a writ of habeas corpus in the circumstances presented here does not operate to void the civil judgment. I would affirm the trial court's refusal to vacate the civil judgment.
Review denied by Supreme Court March 3, 1987.