Court Opinion

ID: 9461241
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:09:20.351424+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:57.575343
License: Public Domain

THORNBERRY, Circuit Judge,
with whom WISDOM, GOLDBERG, GOD-BOLD, SIMPSON and RONEY, Circuit Judges, join, dissenting:
I cannot subscribe to the majority opinion’s analysis and respectfully register my dissent.
The majority opinion properly looks to the Georgia court decisions in this case to determine the elements of proof required to convict Park of murder. ' Yet the opinion does not follow that analysis through to its logical conclusion. The net result is an opinion that, in my view, ignores the very first principles of the Supreme Court’s confrontation clause decisions.
The Georgia Supreme Court’s first opinion attempts to set out the elements of proof under Georgia law required to convict Park. Park v. State, 224 Ga. 467, 162 S.E.2d 359 (1968). It is clear that the State’s theory of the case was that the murder was committed in furtherance of the liquor conspiracy. Under that theory, the State had only to show beyond a reasonable doubt that Park participated in the liquor conspiracy. Then, applying the principle of Pinkerton v. United States, 328 U.S. 640, 66 S.Ct. 1180, 90 L.Ed. 1489 (1946), Park was guilty of murder without regard to his actual knowledge of or his active participation in the murder plot.
Arguably the Georgia Supreme Court adopted the State’s theory, and the majority opinion here apparently construes the state court opinion in that fashion. Under that theory, I do not feel this ease presents a significant confrontation problem. There was a wealth of evidence to connect Park with the liquor conspiracy. If the State could obtain a murder conviction merely by showing *864Park’s connection with the liquor conspiracy, then Pinion’s statements were neither “crucial” to the prosecution’s case nor “devastating” to Park’s defense. The case would present a confrontation question very similar to Dutton v. Evans, 400 U.S. 74, 91 S.Ct. 210, 276 L.Ed.2d 213 (1970), and I would think the confrontation question here properly resolved under the rationale of the Dutton plurality, or on a harmless error theory.
I think Park might raise due process objections to the validity of his murder conviction on the Pinkerton theory. See Developments in the Law — Conspiracy, 72 Harv.L.Rev. 920, 993-98 (1959). However, as the majority notes, the confrontation clause issue is the only question ripe for habeas corpus disposition, and Park should first present any due process arguments to the Georgia courts.
My reading of the Georgia Supreme Court opinion, however, convinces me that the Georgia Supreme Court required proof of Park’s connection with the murder plot for conviction. The court rejects Park’s claim of entitlement to a directed verdict of acquittal on the basis that there was evidence of Park’s participation “in a conspiracy to murder Hoard.” Park v. State, 224 Ga. 467, 468, 162 S.E.2d 359, 361 (1968). Further the court required corroboration of Seay’s testimony since he was an accomplice to the murder. In summarizing the evidence on corroboration the court states, “The evidence relied upon by the State as corroborating the testimony of the accomplice Seay tended to connect Park with the murder and was sufficient to support his conviction.” 224 Ga. at 477, 162 S.E.2d at 366. If the Georgia court only required proof of Park’s participation in the liquor conspiracy, corroboration of Seay’s testimony would not be essential to sustain the conviction.
If the Georgia opinion required proof of Park’s participation in the murder plot, then I feel this case presents a confrontation problem significantly different from Dutton. The out of court statements of Pinion and Worley provided the only evidence linking Park to the murder conspiracy. The Georgia Supreme Court’s decision there allowed the State to use out of court statements against Park to establish an essential element of its case. Those statements
were clearly crucial to the prosecution’s case, and Park never had the opportunity to confront and cross-examine the makers of those statements.1
The majority feels the confrontation clause requirements are met here. The opinion states:
The confrontation attack is centered upon the admission, through the testimony of Lloyd Seay, of statements made by co-conspirators Douglas Pinion, and George Worley before the murder was committed. As to this, Seay was subjected to the most rigorous and searching cross-examination. This is exactly what the Confrontation Clause guarantees, see, e. g., Nelson v. O’Neil, 402 U.S. 622, 91 S.Ct. 1723, 29 L.Ed.2d 222 (1971).
I most vigorously disagree. Park’s opportunity to cross-examine Seay does not satisfy the confrontation clause. Seay did not make the inculpatory statements, and therefore cross-examining him as to their meaning is fruitless. It is Pinion and Worley who are the witnesses against Park for Sixth Amendment purposes. The situation in Nelson v. O’Neil was completely different. There, Runnels, the out of court declarant, took the stand, and was subject to cross examination. Here Pinion and Worley, the makers of the extrajudicial statements, never testified, and could not be examined as *865to their perception, memory, narration, and sincerity. See Morgan, Hearsay Dangers and the Application of the Hearsay Concept, 62 Harv.L.Rev. 177, 218 (1948). The majority feels that Seay’s status as a co-conspirator makes him the agent of Pinion and Worley. The majority reasons that Park’s opportunity to cross-examine the “agent” was the confrontation clause equivalent of cross examining the declarants. This is a novel confrontation clause concept to which I do not subscribe.
I think Judge Wisdom’s panel opinion, makes the proper confrontation clause analysis in this case. For the reasons given in that opinion, I would reverse the district court’s denial of Park’s habeas corpus petition.

. As the panel opinion noted, Pinion and Worley were not shown to be unavailable. Each had either exhausted his appellate remedies, or failed to appeal his murder conviction. I do not believe that either man could validly have claimed a fifth amendment privilege. The mere possibility of future collateral attack should not give rise to a valid claim of privilege after final conviction. See Reina v. United States, 364 U.S. 507, 513, 81 S.Ct. 260, 5 L.Ed.2d 249 (1960); United States v. Romero, 249 F.2d 371, 375 (2d Cir. 1957); 8 Wigmore, Evidence § 2279 (McNaughton Rev. 1961).