Cooper v. Taylor
| Decision Date | 31 December 1996 |
| Docket Number | No. 93-7352,93-7352 |
| Citation | 103 F.3d 366 |
| Parties | Kamathene Adonia COOPER, Petitioner-Appellant, v. P. Douglas TAYLOR, Warden; T. Travis Medlock, The Attorney General of the State of South Carolina, Respondents-Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit |
ARGUED: Bonnie Ilene Robin-Vergeer, Supervising Attorney, Appellate Litigation Program, Georgetown University Law Center, Washington, DC, for Appellant. Donald John Zelenka, Assistant Deputy Attorney General, Columbia, SC, for Appellees. ON BRIEF: Steven H. Goldblatt, Adam G. Ciongoli, Student Counsel, Susan Curtin Gouldin, Student Counsel, Appellate Litigation Program, Georgetown University Law Center, Washington, DC, for Appellant.
Before WILKINSON, Chief Judge, and RUSSELL, WIDENER, HALL, MURNAGHAN, ERVIN, WILKINS, NIEMEYER, HAMILTON, LUTTIG, WILLIAMS, MICHAEL, and MOTZ, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed by published opinion. Judge NIEMEYER wrote the opinion for the court, in which Chief Judge WILKINSON and Judges RUSSELL, WIDENER, HALL, WILKINS, LUTTIG, and WILLIAMS joined. Judge WIDENER wrote a concurring opinion. Judge LUTTIG wrote a concurring opinion, in which Chief Judge WILKINSON and Judges WIDENER and WILLIAMS joined. Judge HAMILTON wrote a dissenting opinion, in which Judge MURNAGHAN joined. Judge MOTZ wrote a dissenting opinion, in which Judges MURNAGHAN, ERVIN, HAMILTON, and MICHAEL joined.
Kamathene Adonia Cooper confessed to South Carolina law enforcement officers on three separate occasions that he had murdered Rheupert W. Stewart in Lake City, South Carolina. After conducting a hearing, the South Carolina trial court found those confessions voluntary and otherwise constitutionally sound. Based on those confessions, a jury convicted Cooper, and the court sentenced him to life imprisonment. The Supreme Court of South Carolina affirmed the judgment.
In his petition for a writ of habeas corpus, filed under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, Cooper argued that his confessions were admitted at his state criminal trial in violation of his right to counsel under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. He contended that police took his confessions without honoring his desire to remain silent or his request for an attorney.
Cooper's habeas petition was referred to a magistrate judge who reviewed the entire record and concluded that Cooper's first two confessions were voluntary and not otherwise constitutionally infirm. While finding that Cooper's third confession had been admitted in violation of his right to counsel under Edwards v. Arizona, 451 U.S. 477, 101 S.Ct. 1880, 68 L.Ed.2d 378 (1981), the magistrate judge held that the state trial court's erroneous admission of that confession was harmless because the confession was cumulative and the jury would have convicted Cooper solely on his first two valid confessions. Accordingly, the magistrate judge recommended that the district court deny the petition for the writ of habeas corpus.
The district court reviewed the matter de novo and agreed with the magistrate judge, concluding that Cooper's first two confessions were not constitutionally infirm and that the admission of the third confession in violation of Cooper's right to counsel was harmless. Accordingly, the district court denied Cooper's petition.
On appeal, a panel of this court, in a divided opinion, reversed the district court's judgment, concluding that admission of the third confession was not harmless because it was "impossible to conclude with any fair assurance" that the third confession did not have a " 'substantial and injurious effect or influence' on the jury's verdict." Cooper v. Taylor, 70 F.3d 1454, 1456 (4th Cir.1995) (citations omitted). The panel ordered that the district court grant Cooper the writ of habeas corpus. In ordering a rehearing en banc, we vacated the panel decision, and now we affirm the judgment of the district court.
Rheupert Stewart was found murdered in his home on December 1, 1984. The den where his body was found was in disarray, with pieces of a broken chair scattered about his body. The right rear pocket of his pants had been turned out. An autopsy revealed that Stewart had been beaten with a blunt object and stabbed in the head and chest with a knife. The coroner concluded that Stewart had died the day before from a stab wound to his brain.
A few days after Stewart's body was found, the manager of a local department store informed the police that Cooper had cashed a check drawn on Stewart's account. Cooper had written his driver's license number on the back of what appeared to be a forged check. Based on that information, a warrant was issued for Cooper's arrest.
After Cooper was arrested for forgery, officers advised him of his Miranda right and then asked if he had any questions. He responded, "Yes, what forgery?" When custody of Cooper was transferred to other officers, they too advised him of his rights. Although Cooper did not invoke his right to counsel, he indicated that he did not wish "to make any comments."
Cooper was thereafter taken to the Florence County Sheriff's Department and delivered to Agent Vause. Agent Vause read Cooper his rights a third time and asked him if he wished to take a polygraph examination. Cooper responded affirmatively.
On the way to Columbia, South Carolina, where Cooper's polygraph test was to be conducted, the officers stopped in Lake City to drop off an officer. While the car was stopped in Lake City, Cooper saw Philip Grimsley, an officer of the State Alcoholic Beverage Commission whom Cooper had known for some time. Cooper said, "There goes Phil. I would like to talk to him."
Cooper informed Grimsley that he had been arrested "for stealing a check and cashing it," but insisted, "I ain't killed no man." Grimsley then asked for and obtained permission from Cooper's custodial officers to talk to Cooper in private. Before proceeding, Grimsley asked the officers whether Cooper had been advised of his Miranda rights. When informed that he had, Grimsley returned to the room with Cooper and, nevertheless, read Cooper his rights for a fourth time. Grimsley then asked Cooper if he had anything to say. In response, Cooper indicated only that he had cashed a check in Lake City. According to Grimsley's account, the following then occurred:
[Cooper] became upset. He was nervous. Tears came into his eyes. I could tell there was something definitely bothering him. I asked him if there was something he needed to say. Something he needed to get off his chest, now was the time to do it.
At this time, he reached over and grabbed my hand and held onto it tightly. And he asked me if I did do it, what would happen to me? What would I get. I looked at him. I asked him, I said you don't want me to lie to you, do you? If you killed Mr. Stewart and you're convicted in Court, you could die in the electric chair or you could receive a life sentence. That would strictly be left up to a judge and jury. At this time, he told me, I did it.
Upon hearing Cooper's admission, Grimsley asked Cooper to be more specific so that he could verify Cooper's statement. Although Cooper initially expressed reluctance "to go back through it," he then continued his confession without interruption. Explaining in detail how he had murdered Stewart, Cooper told Grimsley that he had hit Stewart over the head with a chair and stabbed him in the head and chest. Cooper also agreed to make a taped statement in front of other officers.
When the officers in whose custody Cooper was traveling were brought into the room, Agent Vause asked Cooper if he understood his rights as read to him by Officer Grimsley and whether he would talk to the other officers. Cooper responded that he understood his rights and repeated his confession to those officers. Cooper stated that he had visited Stewart's home to discuss repairs to the house that the Cooper family rented from Stewart. Cooper also indicated that he had asked Stewart for a basketball. As Stewart bent over to pick up the basketball, Cooper took a chair and hit Stewart over the head with it three times. Cooper also admitted taking Stewart's checkbook and throwing both the checkbook and the knife he had used to kill Stewart behind a Lake City warehouse.
After confessing twice, Cooper was asked to give yet another confession, this time tape-recorded, which described Stewart's murder in greater detail. At the outset of this confession, Cooper was asked twice whether he wanted a lawyer present. He responded, "Yeah." He was then asked whether he wished to answer "these questions without a lawyer," and again he responded, "Yeah." Finally, the following question was posed, "Kamathene, [do] you wish to answer these questions without your attorney present, without an attorney present?" Cooper answered, "Yes." The officers then proceeded to question Cooper without a lawyer present, and Cooper gave a yet more detailed account of the murder, which was later transcribed and signed by Cooper.
At trial, the prosecution presented the first two confessions as well as the signed transcript of Cooper's taped third confession to the jury. The prosecution also played the tape of the third confession in its entirety. The prosecution relied heavily upon the taped confession and referred to it several times during closing argument. Cooper presented no defense, and the jury convicted Cooper of murder and forgery.
Cooper's petition for habeas corpus relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, as amended by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, Pub.L. No. 104-132, 110 Stat. 1214 (1996) 1 presents us with the question of whether the state trial court's decision to admit this third confession into evidence at his murder trial unconstitutionally undermined the reliability of his conviction.
The process already afforded Cooper by the State of South Carolina deserves mention. South Carolina authorities...
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