Respondent's conviction for murder was based on his two
confessions that, in subsequent New York court proceedings, were
found to have been voluntary. In federal habeas corpus proceedings,
the District Court, feeling unable to accord the state court the
presumption of correctness because the state trial judge did not
articulate to what extent he credited or rejected evidence and
respondent's testimony, held its own hearing, found both
confessions involuntary, and ordered respondent discharged from
custody unless he was retried without the confessions. The Court of
Appeals affirmed on the ground that the state court's factual
determination on the voluntariness issue did not meet the 28 U.S.C.
§ 2254(d)(1) requirement that it be accorded a presumption of
correctness unless it appeared that the merits of the factual
dispute were not resolved in the state court hearing.
Held: The state trial judge's determination, on the
totality of the circumstances, evidences that he applied correct
voluntariness standards and, since the District Court could have
been reasonably certain that he would have granted relief if he had
believed respondent's testimony, the courts below erroneously
concluded that the opinion of the trial court did not meet the
requirements of § 2254(d)(1).
Certiorari granted; 468 F.2d 1288, reversed and remanded.
PER CURIAM.
The State of New York petitions for certiorari to review the
adverse determination of the Court of Appeals in this federal
habeas corpus proceeding directing the release
* of respondent
Pasquale Delle Rose. Delle Rose was serving a life sentence for the
premeditated murder of his wife in 1963. At his trial, occurring
before
Jackson
Page 410 U. S. 691
v. Denno, 378 U. S. 368
(1964), respondent was convicted by a jury which chose to credit
his two confessions over his protestation of accidental
involvement, and which presumably found them to be voluntary. On
appeal, the New York appellate court directed the trial court to
hold a special hearing to determine the voluntariness of his
confessions in accordance with
People v. Huntley, 15
N.Y.2d 72, 204 N.E.2d 179 (1965), the State's procedural response
to this Court's decision in
Jackson v. Denno, supra.
On remand to the trial court, the State rested on the trial
record, and the respondent, in addition to relying on the record,
testified in his own behalf. After extensively summarizing the
trial evidence and respondent's explanations of certain of his
confession statements, the court concluded:
"On all evidence, both at the trial and at the hearing, and
after considering the totality of the circumstances, including the
omission to warn defendant of his right to counsel and his right
against self-incrimination, I find and decide that the respective
confessions to the police and district attorney were, in all
respects, voluntary and legally admissible in evidence at the
trial. . . ."
On this basis, respondent's conviction was affirmed by the New
York appellate courts, 33 App.Div.2d 657, 27 N.Y.2d 882, 265 N.E.2d
770 (1970), and this Court denied certiorari, 402 U.S. 913
(1971).
Respondent then petitioned the United States District Court for
a writ of habeas corpus alleging his confessions were involuntary.
That court held that, since the state trial judge had "neglected to
say how far he credited -- and to what extent, if any, he
discounted or rejected" respondent's testimony and the evidence
before him, there was no "adequate" determination within the
meaning
Page 410 U. S. 692
of 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d), which would have entitled the state
court's findings to a presumption of correctness and placed on
respondent the burden of establishing by convincing evidence that
the state court's conclusion was erroneous. The District Court
therefore held its own hearing, found both confessions involuntary,
and ordered respondent discharged from custody unless retried. A
divided panel of the Second Circuit affirmed.
The Court of Appeals held that the state court's opinion did not
meet the requisites of 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d) which provides in
relevant part:
"[A] determination after a hearing on the merits of a factual
issue, made by a State court of competent jurisdiction . . .
evidenced by a written finding, written opinion, or other reliable
and adequate written indicia, shall be presumed to be correct,
unless the applicant shall establish or it shall otherwise appear .
. . -- "
"(1) that the merits of the factual dispute were not resolved in
the State court hearing. . . ."
Although it is true that the state trial court did not
specifically articulate its credibility findings, it can scarcely
be doubted from its written opinion that respondent's factual
contentions were resolved against him.
Respondent's wife was killed by a blast from a sawed-off shotgun
device which had been set to shoot through the back of their front
car seat. His confessions indicated that, because of extreme
jealousy, he rigged the device to go off when his wife pulled the
car seat forward. For some reason it failed initially; so when he
was seated with her in the car, he operated it by hand. At trial,
he claimed his confessions were false, and testified that he was
seated in the car with his wife and he noticed a lump on the floor
behind the front seat. When he reached down to investigate, it shot
her.
Page 410 U. S. 693
At trial, in support of his theory of relentless questioning and
police coercion, respondent presented evidence to the effect that,
at the time of his confessions,
"he had had a back injury, and therefore was in pain; that he
was taken to the garage and asked to put his hand in the back seat
where the blood of his wife was; that the police threatened to beat
him up if he did not admit he killed her; that he was compelled to
say by the police that he had killed his wife, but that what he
meant was that he had done so inadvertently, by placing his hand
over the lump; and that, after telling the officer he wanted to see
his wife, he did not remember what happened thereafter until 9:00
o'clock in the morning."
In addition, at his "
Huntley" hearing, he testified
that the officers told him they would beat him up if he did not
talk to them; that one of the detectives told him to put his hands
in the front seat hole where his wife's blood was and when he did
not, the detective took his hands and put them there himself; and
that he did not remember anything past the time when he asked to
see his wife at the morgue, including the giving of the second
statement. He also attempted to explain the reasons for his giving
such detailed and factually accurate confession statements.
The trial court's summary of the State's evidence tended to show
that, although respondent had been taken to the station house about
5 p.m. on the day of the murder, he was not even a suspect as late
as 9 p.m., and he was only giving information. He was taken to the
morgue at his own request, a factor which triggered the first
confession. Further, he had been allowed to sit with his family,
was given coffee by his mother-in-law and police, and he admitted
that his treatment by the police was good during the time of the
questioning.
Page 410 U. S. 694
There was also testimony that he had been offered food, but, as
he admitted, he was not hungry. Again at the "
Huntley"
hearing, he acknowledged that the police had treated him "nice." It
was "on this evidence" that the state trial court made its finding
and conclusion that the confessions were voluntary.
The Court of Appeals stated that it could not tell whether the
state courts
"credited Delle Rose's story of the circumstances surrounding
his confessions but still held these to have been voluntary, a
conclusion to which we could not agree, or based their holding of
voluntariness on a partial or complete rejection of his testimony,
in which event the district judge would have been bound to deny the
petition."
468 F.2d 1288, 1290. In
Townsend v. Sain, 372 U.
S. 293,
372 U. S.
314-315 (1963), the precursor of 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d),
this Court set forth general standards governing the holding of
hearings on federal habeas petitions, stating:
"[T]he possibility of legal error may be eliminated in many
situations if the fact finder has articulated the constitutional
standards which he has applied. Furthermore, the coequal
responsibilities of state and federal judges in the administration
of federal constitutional law are such that we think the district
judge may, in the ordinary case in which there has been no
articulation, properly assume that the state trier of fact applied
correct standards of federal law to the facts, in the absence of
evidence . . . that there is reason to suspect that an incorrect
standard was in fact, applied. Thus, if third-degree methods of
obtaining a confession are alleged and the state court refused to
exclude the confession from evidence, the district judge may assume
that the state trier found the facts against the petitioner, the
law being, of course, that third-degree methods necessarily produce
a coerced confession. "
Page 410 U. S. 695
Here, not only is there no evidence that the state trier
utilized the wrong standard, but there is every indication he
applied the correct standards. His determination was made on the
"totality of the circumstances" and, in this pre-
Escobedo v.
Illinois, 378 U. S. 478
(1964), pre-
Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.
S. 436 (1966), situation, the court also considered the
facts that respondent was not warned of his rights to the
assistance of counsel and against self-incrimination before
confessing. And we quite agree with the District Court's statement
that it could not go along with the state trial court's conclusion
of voluntariness if it "were to find the facts to have been as
petitioner's [Delle Rose's] testimony portrayed them."
See,
e.g., Spano v. New York, 360 U. S. 315
(1959);
Watts v. Indiana, 338 U. S.
49 (1949). Under these circumstances, we think the
District Court could have been reasonably certain that the state
court would have granted relief if it had believed respondent's
allegations.
See Townsend v. Sain, supra, at
372 U. S.
315.
We therefore hold that the opinion of the state trial court met
the requirements of 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1), and that the courts
below incorrectly determined it did not. The burden was thus on
respondent to establish in the District Court by convincing
evidence that the state court's determination was erroneous. The
motion of the respondent for leave to proceed
in forma
pauperis and the petition for certiorari are granted. The
judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and this cause is
remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
* Respondent was ordered released unless retried within 60 days
without the use of his confessions.
MR. JUSTICE MARSHALL, with whom MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS, MR. JUSTICE
BRENNAN, and MR. JUSTICE STEWART concur, dissenting.
Although I am in complete disagreement with this Court's per
curiam decision herein, I see no reason to set
Page 410 U. S. 696
this case for oral argument in light of the majority's firmly
held views.
I cannot accept the Court's holding that both the District Court
and the Court of Appeals improperly concluded that the
voluntariness of respondent's confessions was not adequately
resolved by the state trial court, thereby relieving respondent of
the obligation to establish "by convincing evidence that the
factual determination by the State court was erroneous," 28 U.S.C.
§ 2254(d). The Court does not deny that the state trial court
judge, after summarizing the record evidence and respondent's
testimony on the question of voluntariness, utterly failed to
explain the basis for his conclusion that
"considering the totality of circumstances . . . the respective
confessions to the police and district attorney were, in all
respects, voluntary and legally admissible in evidence at the
trial. . . ."
Despite this absence of any reasoned explanation for the state
court's action, the Court now assures us that "it can scarcely be
doubted from its written opinion that respondent's factual
contentions were resolved against him."
Ante at
410 U. S. 692.
I could not disagree more, and therefore I must respectfully
dissent.
Foremost, the Court's certainty as to the basis for the state
court's action rests upon the fact that it is clear the state court
"applied" the correct legal standard in evaluating the
voluntariness of respondent's confession. Without question, the
state court in this case ritualistically recited the standard of
"totality of the circumstances" which governs the determination of
voluntariness with respect to these 1963 confessions.
See,
e.g., Clews v. Texas, 386 U. S. 707,
386 U. S. 708
(1967). But this recitation, in itself, provided the courts below
with no guarantee that the state court had not erroneously applied
this standard to the facts of this case, perhaps accepting
respondent's version of the circumstances surrounding
Page 410 U. S. 697
the confession, rather than rejecting respondent's version as
incredible. Thus, the able District Judge noted that
"[t]his court cannot be 'reasonably certain' what facts of
possibly coercive or stressful impact the trial judge found from
the disputed testimony"
introduced before him.
342 F.
Supp. 567, 570.
The Court, however, places heavy reliance upon our prior
statement in
Townsend v. Sain, 372 U.
S. 293,
372 U. S.
314-315 (1963), the source of the test set forth in §
2254(d)(1), that
"the district judge may, in the ordinary case in which there has
been no articulation, properly assume that the state trier of fact
applied correct standards of federal law to the facts, in the
absence of evidence . . . that there is reason to suspect that an
incorrect standard was in fact, applied. Thus, if third-degree
methods of obtaining a confession are alleged and the state court
refused to exclude the confession from evidence, the district judge
may assume that the state trier of fact found the facts against the
petitioner, the law being, of course, that third-degree methods
necessarily produce a coerced confession. [
Footnote 1]"
But this is hardly the limit of the inquiry -- contemplated by
Townsend and § 2254(d) --
Page 410 U. S. 698
into whether a state court has adequately resolved the factual
issues presented by the constitutional claim.
"[E]ven if it is clear that the state trier of fact utilized the
proper standard, a hearing is sometimes required if his decision
presents a situation in which the 'so-called facts and their
constitutional significance [are] . . . so blended that they cannot
be severed in consideration.' . . . Unless the district judge can
be reasonably certain that the state trier would have granted
relief if he had believed petitioner's allegations, he cannot be
sure that the state trier, in denying, relief disbelieved these
allegations. If any combination of the facts alleged would prove a
violation of constitutional rights and the issue of law on those
facts presents a difficult or novel problem for decision, an
hypothesis as to the relevant factual determinations of the state
trier involves the purest speculation. The federal court cannot
exclude the possibility that the trial judge believed facts which
showed a deprivation of constitutional rights and yet (erroneously)
concluded that relief should be denied. Under these circumstances,
it is impossible for the federal court to reconstruct the facts,
and a hearing must be held."
Townsend v. Sain, supra, at
372 U. S.
315-316 (emphasis added).
The precise problem encountered by the courts below in
evaluating the state court's conclusion -- a problem which the
Court now effectively ignores -- is that the issue of voluntariness
in this case presents just the sort of "difficult" mixed question
of law and fact which
Townsend recognized would make
federal court speculation concerning the basis for unreasoned state
court action wholly inappropriate. To be sure, where, for instance,
a defendant alleges simply that a confession was extracted from him
by means of a physical beating administered by the police,
Page 410 U. S. 699
it is obvious that, if the defendant's story is believed, the
confession would be involuntary. Thus, even if a state court holds
the defendant's confession to be voluntary without articulating any
reasons, a federal district court may safely assume that, in such
an uncomplicated situation, the state court's determination
resulted from a rejection of the defendant's factual allegations.
But it can hardly be argued that this case involves allegations of
the type of straightforward police "third-degree methods of
obtaining a confession" which the
Townsend Court suggested
would entail little possibility of misapplication of the relevant
legal standard so that a district court might, with reasonable
confidence, assume that an unexplained state court finding of
voluntariness rests upon a rejection of the defendant's version of
the interrogation, not upon constitutional error. For a review of
the state court's opinion following the "
Huntley" hearing
reveals that here the state court was confronted not with an
allegation of a single coercive incident which, if believed, would
clearly have resulted in a finding of involuntariness, but rather
with allegations of a series of coercive police actions applied to
a particularly susceptible suspect.
Respondent claimed that he was held and interrogated, apparently
without rest, from 5 p.m. on the day of the murder until sometime
early the next morning. Throughout this time, respondent
purportedly was suffering pain due to a serious back ailment, and
was undoubtedly handicapped by his lack of facility with the
English language. Meanwhile, without any warnings as to his
constitutional rights, he was questioned repeatedly by police
officers, questioning which allegedly included physical threats if
he refused to confess. During this process, respondent was
compelled by the police to reenact the alleged murder of his wife,
complete with his hand being forced by a police officer into the
torn seatback
Page 410 U. S. 700
which was wet with his wife's blood. Then the police offered to
take respondent on what the District Court properly described as a
"macabre" visit to the morgue to see his dead wife's body. There,
the police obtained the first confession. Subsequently, further
questioning by an assistant district attorney produced a second
confession at about 6 a.m. A defense psychiatrist testified at
trial that respondent was, in his opinion, so exhausted from his
long ordeal at the hands of the police that "he would say yes if
you asked him if the moon were made of green cheese."
It is possible, of course, that the state court rejected all of
respondent's testimony as incredible, and therefore properly held
the confessions voluntary. On the other hand, if the state court
had believed all of respondent's contentions, it would undoubtedly
have found the confessions involuntary. There remains, however, the
third possibility that the state court believed some of
respondent's contentions and rejected others. It is this last
possibility that makes for substantial uncertainty in a factually
complex case such as this as to whether the state court correctly
applied the abstract legal standard and did not, instead, commit
constitutional error. Due to the unrevealing nature of the state
court's decision, it is impossible to say that that court may not
have credited a sufficient portion of respondent's story to
establish, under the controlling standard, the involuntariness of
his confessions and nevertheless have reached an erroneous
conclusion of voluntariness because the question may have been a
close one on the facts that it accepted. It is this inherent
uncertainty as to what the state court may have believed or
disbelieved that justified the action of the District Court and the
Court of Appeals in this case. To conclude otherwise, I believe,
ignores the full import of this Court's reasoning in
Townsend
v. Sain, supra, concerning those limited situations in
Page 410 U. S. 701
which a federal district court on habeas corpus may reasonably
assume that an unexplained state court determination rests merely
upon a rejection of testimony, rather than upon constitutional
error.
Consequently, in my view, the courts below properly held the
State not entitled in this case to the presumption of correctness
and the special burden of proof set forth in § 2254(d). [
Footnote 2] As for the merits, I see no
basis for this Court to set aside the District Court's finding of
involuntariness, a finding sustained by the Court of Appeals as not
"clearly erroneous" under Fed.Rule Civ.Proc. 52(a).
Cf. Neil v.
Biggers, 409 U. S. 188,
409 U. S. 201
(1972) (opinion of BRENNAN, J.).
[
Footnote 1]
Insofar as the Court relies upon this language from
Townsend in interpreting § 2254(d)(1), the Court
effectively ignores the discretionary character of the decision
lodged with the district judge who is faced with a question as to
the adequacy of unexplained state court findings.
Townsend
indicates that "the district judge may, in the ordinary case in
which there has been no articulation,
properly assume"
that the state court reached a constitutionally permissible
conclusion. (Emphasis added.) Today, however, the Court effectively
indicates that the district court often must assume in such cases
that the proper standard was applied. Such a rigid standard seems
to me wholly improper and unworkable where the question whether the
defendant's testimony was simply rejected and the proper standard
applied is essentially one of judgment dependent upon the facts of
each particular case. These matters are properly left largely to
the discretion of the district judge. And here, certainly, it
cannot be said such discretion was abused.
[
Footnote 2]
The Court, of course, does not hold that the District Court
erred in holding a
de novo evidentiary hearing on the
voluntariness of respondent's confession. That is a question
distinct from the presumption of validity and the special burden of
proof established by 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d). Section 2254(d) says
nothing concerning when a district judge may hold an evidentiary
hearing -- as opposed to acting simply on the state court record --
in considering a state prisoner's petition for federal habeas
corpus. So far as I understand, the question whether such a hearing
is appropriate on federal habeas corpus continues to be controlled
exclusively by our decision in
Townsend v. Sain even after
the enactment of § 2254(d).
See Developments in the Law --
Federal Habeas Corpus, 83 Harv.L.Rev. 1038, 1141 (1970). And
Townsend explicitly recognizes that, apart from the six
specific instances described in that opinion as mandating an
evidentiary hearing,
"[i]n all other cases where the material facts are in dispute,
the holding of . . . a hearing is in the discretion of the district
judge. . . . In every case, he has the power, constrained only by
his sound discretion, to receive evidence bearing upon the
applicant's constitutional claim."
372 U.S. at
372 U. S.
318.