Harris v. Kuhlmann
| Decision Date | 10 October 2003 |
| Docket Number | No. 00-2740.,No. 01-2139.,00-2740.,01-2139. |
| Citation | 346 F.3d 330 |
| Parties | Curtis HARRIS, Petitioner-Appellee-Cross-Appellant, v. Robert KUHLMANN, Superintendent, Sullivan Correctional Facility, Respondent-Appellant-Cross-Appellee,. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit |
Brian Sheppard, New Hyde Park, NY, for Petitioner-Appellee-Cross-Appellant.
Margaret E. Mainusch, Assistant District Attorney (Denis Dillon, District Attorney, on the brief, Peter A. Weinstein, Tammy J. Smiley, Assistant District Attorneys, of counsel), Nassau County, Mineola, NY, for Respondent-Appellant-Cross-Appellee.
Before: VAN GRAAFEILAND, CABRANES, and F.I. PARKER,* Circuit Judges.
Respondent-appellant-cross-appellee Robert Kuhlmann, Superintendent of the Sullivan Correctional Facility, appeals from that portion of the October 17, 2000 judgment of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York (Joanna Seybert, Judge) which granted petitioner-appellee-cross-appellant Curtis Harris's petition for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254, as amended by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 ("AEDPA"), Pub.L. No. 104-132, 110 Stat. 1214, vacated Harris's state conviction for two counts of murder and other related crimes, and directed that Harris be released unless the State of New York retried him within sixty days. The District Court granted Harris's petition after finding that Harris's Fourteenth Amendment rights were violated by the state prosecutor's use of peremptory strikes in a racially discriminatory manner. See Harris v. Kuhlmann, 115 F.Supp.2d 326, 328, 336-38 (E.D.N.Y.2000) ( Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986)). Kuhlmann also appeals from that portion of the District Court's November 28, 2000 order which denied his motion for reconsideration of the court's judgment granting the writ, or, in the alternative, reconsideration of the court's judgment granting Harris a new trial, rather than a hearing on the reasons why the prosecutor peremptorily struck the jurors that he did.
Harris filed a cross-appeal, challenging: (1) that portion of the District Court's October 17, 2000 judgment which denied the part of his habeas petition that was based on the contention that his constitutional right to present a defense was violated when the state trial court failed to hold a competency hearing despite evidence that Harris was incompetent at the time of his trial; and (2) the District Court's May 6, 2002 order denying Harris's motion for reconsideration.
For the reasons set forth herein, we conclude that the District Court correctly concluded that the state court's denial of Harris's Batson claim was inappropriate under federal law, but that the District Court erred by ordering that Harris be granted a new trial without first conducting a reconstruction hearing to determine, if possible, whether the state prosecutor had valid reasons for using his peremptory strikes as he did. With respect to the issues Harris raised in his cross-appeal, we find no error in the District Court's rulings.
On January 10, 1985, a jury in Nassau County Court found Harris guilty of one count of intentional murder, two counts of felony murder, one count of burglary in the first degree, and one count of robbery, as a result of an incident in which Harris and another man, Julio Giano, robbed and killed Giano's former girlfriend, Vicki Kestoglou. Harris was sentenced to an indeterminate term of twenty-five years to life on each of the three murder counts, and twelve-and-one-half to twenty-five years on each of the burglary and robbery counts.
Harris's habeas petition challenges two aspects of the proceedings in the state courts: (1) the trial court's failure to order a competence hearing after Harris was shot in the head; and (2) the prosecutor's use of peremptory strikes. Therefore, in order to evaluate the merits of Harris's habeas petition, it is first necessary to recount certain portions of the proceedings below.
In June and July of 1984, the state trial court conducted a hearing on Harris's motion seeking suppression of oral, written, and videotaped statements Harris made to the police. Harris argued that the statements should be suppressed because his waiver of his right to an attorney was involuntary due to his low intelligence (and consequent inability to understand parts of the Miranda warnings he was given).
In support of this motion, Harris presented testimony from Dr. Roger P. Feldman, a psychiatrist. Dr. Feldman examined Harris for an hour in March 1984 and for a half hour in July 1984. Resp't-Appellant-Cross-Appellee's App. at 382 (hereafter "App."). The first examination focused on Harris's "competence to stand trial and whether [Dr. Feldman] felt there was any indication for insanity at the time of the alleged crime." Id. at 252. "The second examination [focused] on [Harris's] understanding of his Miranda rights, specifically ...." Id. During the course of these examinations, Dr. Feldman observed and spoke to Harris but did not conduct any formal diagnostic testing. Id. at 251-52. Dr. Feldman also reviewed Harris's school records from the time Harris was nine years old until he dropped out of high school. Id. at 249. Dr. Feldman did not review any records from the time period after Harris dropped out of high school, despite the fact that he was aware that Harris had been enrolled in various educational programs during that period. Id. at 288.
Dr. Feldman testified that Harris had "borderline intellectual functioning," which is "not considered a mental retardation diagnosis." Id. at 381. Instead, "[i]t's considered somewhere in between normal and in between [sic] retarded, so that any individual with low-borderline intellectual functioning, even though their IQ may be between 75 and 80, still have [sic] the ability to function in life adequately." Id. Dr. Feldman opined, based on his conclusion that Harris was in the "borderline intellectual functioning" category, that Harris's IQ was in the range between seventy and eighty. Id. at 259-60. Dr. Feldman noted that, though he did not rely on the Hartford school department records in making his assessments, those records were consistent with his conclusion about Harris's I.Q. Id.
Dr. Feldman concluded that Harris was competent to stand trial in March 1984 because Harris understood at that time: (1) "the nature of the charges"; (2) "the consequences if convicted"; and (3) "the role of the prosecuting attorney, of the judge, of the jury, if there was a jury, and what would happen if he was found guilty." Id. at 257. However, Dr. Feldman had the impression that, at the time of his confession, Harris did not understand that he was entitled to speak with an attorney before speaking to the police. Id. at 256.
On cross examination, the prosecutor challenged the validity of and the sufficiency of the evidentiary basis for a number of Dr. Feldman's conclusions. For example, on cross-examination Dr. Feldman acknowledged that he was aware that Harris "attended ... rehabilitative programs [and] educational programs" in some of the institutions he was in after he dropped out of high school, and that he knew that Harris's intellectual functioning had improved as a result of the training Harris had received since age seventeen. Id. at 288, 388. Nonetheless, Dr. Feldman did not attempt to obtain any records from any of those programs. Id. at 388.
The prosecutor also pointed out on cross-examination that Dr. Feldman initially classified Harris as being in the "low-normal" intellectual functioning category, which is the category above the "borderline intellectual functioning" category. Id. at 383, 386. Only after the second interview, when Harris's ability to understand the Miranda warnings was the focus, did Dr. Feldman's assessment of Harris's intellectual capability drop from "low-normal" to "borderline intellectual functioning." However, as Dr. Feldman pointed out, between the first and second interviews Dr. Feldman had received Harris's Hartford school records, which indicated that Harris had "severe learning disabilities." See id. at 387-88.
Finally, the prosecutor raised the possibility that Harris was malingering when Dr. Feldman interviewed him. Id. at 280. Although Dr. Feldman testified that he did not believe that Harris was malingering, he conceded that he had not conducted any tests to determine the accuracy of the information Harris provided. Id. at 280-81. Moreover, Dr. Feldman testified that the issue of Harris's understanding of the Miranda warnings did not come up until the second interview, at which time, according to Dr. Feldman: (1) Harris had discussed with his attorney in detail the meaning of the Miranda rights, id. at 254; (2) Harris had been "researching or reading law books on this particular topic," id. at 287; and (3) Harris understood that it was in his best interest to have his statements to the police suppressed, id.
On September 21, 1984, before the trial court ruled on Harris's motion to suppress, Harris and Giano escaped from the custody of a court officer at the County Court-house in Mineola, New York. During the ensuing shootout, Harris shot a court officer in the head.1 Harris himself was also shot in the head. The bullet, which has never been removed, passed through the midline of his skull and lodged in the central ventricle of his brain.
In October 1984, Harris filed a motion seeking a competence examination pursuant to N.Y.Crim. Proc. Law § 730.30 (McKinney 1995).2 In support of this motion, Harris's counsel filed an affirmation in which he stated that it was impossible to communicate with Harris about the case due to the combined effects of Harris's low IQ, Harris's head...
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