Court Opinion

ID: 9484507
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 09:55:21.377955+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:50:17.184930
License: Public Domain

McWILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge,
dissents.
I dissent. In my view, the majority’s recital of the testimony of witnesses Bell and *810Walker is amply sufficient to support the determination that Kelly was an aider and abettor.
I would emphasize that there is evidence that, although Kelly may have borrowed Hick’s car on more than one occasion, Kelly did borrow Hick’s vehicle on the night of the robbery-murder. In this regard, Walker testified that on one particular occasion Kelly, accompanied by-Pink and Baldwin, borrowed Hick’s car. This occurred in a room at the Sunset Motel in Wichita, Kansas, where Walker was living with Hicks and her son. After borrowing Hicks’ car, Kelly, Pink and Baldwin took off. According to Walker, the three returned to the Sunset Motel an hour or so later on the same night and had in their possession what the majority states “may have been the spoils of the robbery,” which consisted of coins, currency, keys and jewelry, the jewelry having been taken from the purse of one of the victims, along with a weapon of the same caliber as was used in the robbery-murder. Walker further testified that after Kelly and Hicks left the motel to buy drugs, Pink volunteered that she told an employee not to move, and when the employee moved, she shot her, to which comment Baldwin merely shrugged her shoulders. And, then when Kelly and Hicks returned, Walker testified that they, along with Baldwin and Pink, watched a TV newscast which carried a news story of the robbery-murder. This testimony could very easily, I suggest, convince a rational trier of the facts that even if Kelly had borrowed Hick’s car on other occasions, Kelly did borrow the vehicle on the night of the robbery-murder.
Certainly, Walker’s testimony, if believed, showed that Kelly, with Pink and Baldwin at his elbow, borrowed Hick’s car on the night of the robbery-murder. Walker’s credibility was of course a matter for the jury, not for the Kansas Supreme Court on direct appeal, and certainly not for us on appeal from the district court’s denial of Kelly’s 28 U.S.C. § 2254 habeas corpus petition. Walker’s testimony, incidentally, was not disputed at trial by Kelly, Pink or Baldwin, none of whom testified.
I also dissent from that part of the majority opinion which directs that the mandate issue forthwith. The robbery-murder, which formed the basis for the present prosecution, occurred on May 3, 1983. Trial occurred in September 1983. In March 1985, the Kansas Supreme Court on direct appeal affirmed the convictions. State v. Pink, 236 Kan. 715, 696 P.2d 358 (1985). In so doing, the Kansas Supreme Court considered and rejected the three defendants’ argument that, inter alia, there was insufficient evidence to support the jury’s guilty verdicts. A motion for state post-conviction relief filed pursuant to Kansas statute was denied by the trial court on November 29, 1988. The Kansas Court of Appeals affirmed on September 22,1989, and the Kansas Supreme Court denied a petition for review on November 9,1989. Nearly two years thereafter Kelly filed the present proceeding in the United States District Court for the District of Kansas on May 13, 1991. Over a year later, that court denied his petition on September 2, 1992. In view of this protracted chronology extending over ten years, I see no reason to have the mandate issue forthwith. Kelly may well be on the street before the State of Kansas has time to file a petition for rehearing.