Jefferson v. Fountain, No. 02-16059.

Citation382 F.3d 1286
Decision Date01 September 2004
Docket NumberNo. 02-16059.
PartiesEddie Lee JEFFERSON, Petitioner-Appellee, v. Ronald FOUNTAIN, Respondent-Appellant.
CourtUnited States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (11th Circuit)

Ruth M. Pawlak, Wylencia Hood Monroe, GA Dept. of Law, Atlanta, GA, for Respondent-Appellant.

Courtland L. Reichman (Court-Appointed), King & Spalding, Atlanta, GA, for Petitioner-Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Georgia.

Before ANDERSON, CARNES and MARCUS, Circuit Judges.

CARNES, Circuit Judge:

The State of Georgia, through Warden Ronald Fountain, appeals the district court's grant of habeas corpus relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 to Eddie Lee Jefferson, a state prisoner convicted of rape and related crimes in Turner County, Georgia. The district court granted that relief based on Jefferson's claim that his counsel in the state trial was ineffective for failing to file a motion to suppress evidence arising out of an allegedly illegal stop and arrest. The procedural twists and turns of this case and the legal issues it brings us are unusual.

Jefferson was convicted of charges stemming from three rapes in two Georgia counties. He was first convicted in Turner County of two of the rapes and related charges, and those convictions were upheld through the state court system. Then Jefferson was convicted of the third rape and related charges in Irwin County. Those convictions from that later trial, unlike the convictions from the earlier one in Turner County, were set aside by the Georgia courts on grounds of ineffective assistance of trial counsel. More specifically, counsel was held to have been ineffective for failing to move to suppress crucial evidence resulting from a vehicular stop by law enforcement officers.

That stop gave rise to essentially the same evidence against Jefferson in both trials, and that evidence was as important to one set of convictions as to the other. Nonetheless, even after Jefferson's convictions on the Irwin County charges had been set aside, the state habeas court denied relief in regard to Jefferson's convictions in Turner County. The district court concluded that the state court's decision denying relief was unreasonable enough within the meaning of 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d) to justify federal habeas relief and granted it. In order to explain why we disagree, we begin with the particulars of the factual and procedural history.

I.
A.

Between December 21, 1989, and August 2, 1990, three rapes occurred in Turner and Irwin Counties, Georgia: (1) the December 21, 1989 rape of Shannon Tucker in Irwin County; (2) the December 29, 1989 rape of Christina Bacon in Turner County; and (3) the August 2, 1990 rape of Candace Greer in Turner County. Jefferson was prosecuted in each county for the rapes occurring there. The Turner County prosecution came first.

The Turner County indictment charged Jefferson with two counts of rape (one of Greer and the other of Bacon), two counts of burglary, one count of armed robbery, and one count of aggravated assault. The state trial court appointed Herbert Benson to represent Jefferson in relation to those charges. All three victims testified at the Turner County trial, even though the charges covered only the two rapes that occurred in that county.

Candace Greer testified that at about 2 a.m. on August 2, 1990, a man broke into her trailer in Sycamore, which is in Turner County, Georgia. She was asleep on her sofa in the living room. Her children— daughters aged 4 and 5—were asleep in the bedroom right next to the living room. Greer was awakened when the assailant put his hand over her eyes, told her not to open them, and put a knife to her throat. The assailant took the pillowcase off the pillow she had been using and blindfolded her with it. He then asked where her wallet was, and she told him it was in the kitchen. He walked her to the kitchen and got her purse and took money out of it. After confirming that was all the cash she had, he said "that he guessed he was going to have to rape [her] now to get ... something out of it[;] that he couldn't come without getting something."

The assailant then told Greer to take her clothes off. She begged him to just take the money and not to do it, but he told her that he had to. He moved her to the living room and raped her on the couch. Then he moved her to the floor and raped her again. He held a knife to her throat the whole time, and also told her that he would kill her and her two daughters if she did not comply. She never actually saw the assailant, but said that she could tell by his voice he was black.

Christina Bacon testified that on December 29, 1989, she was 13 years old. Sometime between 5:10 and 6:13 a.m. on that date she was awakened by the sound of someone going through her things in the bathroom of the house where she lived in Sycamore, Georgia. The light was on in the bathroom and the door was ajar. Thinking it was her mother or sister in the bathroom, she went back to sleep.

Bacon awoke when someone's hand covered her mouth. She tried to scream, but her assailant hit her over the head twice with something that appeared to be a crowbar and told her that if she didn't shut up he would hit her again. At some point after saying that, he hit her again—she was hit with it a total of four times during the course of the attack, but she never lost consciousness. After hitting her, the assailant took off his clothes and raped her. At some point during the rape, he told her that "before he could leave first he had to come" and then it would be over and she could get a doctor. She told him she needed a doctor. She asked if he had a gun, and he said yes. She asked him to shoot her. He replied "shoot you?" and laughed. He asked "why would I want to do that?" and she told him she was in so much pain she wanted him to either shoot her or get her a doctor.

After the rape, the assailant told Bacon not to move for ten minutes, and put a pillow over her face. He was in her home a total of 25 to 45 minutes, and she had the opportunity to observe his face, face-to-face, for about three to four minutes. She identified Jefferson in court as the man who had assaulted her.

Shannon Tucker lived in Irwin County. She testified that on December 21, 1989, when she was 15 years old, she was baby-sitting her cousin, Sarah McCranie, who was 7 or 8 years old. At about 9:30 or 10 a.m. that day a black man whom she did not know entered the bedroom where she was. He was wearing underwear on his head. Tucker and McCranie began screaming. The man told them to shut up or he would kill both of them. They became quiet and begged him not to hurt them. The man came over to Tucker and put his hand over her mouth and dragged her off the bed. He told McCranie to stay in the bedroom, and forced Tucker down the hall, holding her around the neck under his arm. Around this time the underwear came off his head. Tucker told him he could take anything he wanted and asked that he not hurt her or McCranie.

The man dragged Tucker into the kitchen where he grabbed a butcher knife. While holding the butcher knife to her neck, he told Tucker not to look at him or he would kill her. He then took Tucker to the living room and placed her standing in front of the couch. He began undressing her and again told her not to look at him or he would kill her. Tucker was crying and trying to get away. He took her clothes off, held her down, and raped her. During the attack Tucker had the opportunity to look at his face for 3 to 5 minutes or so. At the Turner County trial, Tucker identified Jefferson as her assailant. Her young cousin, McCranie, also testified that Jefferson was the man who broke into their house that morning.

B.

The facts involving the investigation of the Greer rape in the early morning hours of August 2, 1990, are of particular importance to the legal issues arising from the stop of Jefferson later that day, and thus to the ineffective assistance claim against his trial counsel for failing to move to suppress the fruits of the stop.

Although unsure of the time, Candace Greer's best estimate is that she was raped around 2:00 a.m. that morning. The same day it had happened, Georgia Bureau of Investigations Agent J.B. Rickenson, the chief investigator in the case, canvassed the neighborhood surrounding the Greer house to see if anyone had heard or seen anything during the night. He learned from the Mayos that sometime between 5:15 and 5:25 a.m. Eddie Jefferson, a black man, had come to their house seeking help. His truck was stuck in a ditch beside a cornfield, approximately four-tenths of a mile from the Greer house. They helped him get it out.1

That same day Agent Rickenson examined both the ditch where the truck had been stuck, and Greer's house and its surroundings. He photographed tire tracks and shoe prints around the ditch as well as shoe prints around Greer's house. The record is silent about whether any comparative analysis of the shoe prints was done that day.

Based on the information from the Mayos that Jefferson had been in the area of the rape early that morning and had gotten his truck stuck in a ditch, investigators wanted very much to question him. Around 10 p.m. the day of the rape, Jefferson was driving his truck on a public street with his children when he was pulled over by two police cars flashing their blue lights. After Jefferson pulled over, the blue lights were turned off. Jefferson got out of his car, and three officers approached him while one remained in one of the police cars. The officers identified themselves and spoke with Jefferson for a few minutes. It is unclear whether weapons were drawn or only showing because some of the officers were in uniform.2 One of the officers asked Jefferson if he would be willing to come down to the sheriff's office to discuss an investigation that was underway in Turner County. Jefferson replied very positively, saying "Sure."

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