Holloway v. Cox
| Decision Date | 29 January 1971 |
| Docket Number | No. 14594.,14594. |
| Citation | 437 F.2d 412 |
| Parties | Walter Lee HOLLOWAY, Jr., Appellant, v. James D. COX, Superintendent, Virginia State Penitentiary, Appellee. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit |
Richard A. Behrens (Court-assigned counsel), Washington, D. C., for appellant.
Overton P. Pollard, Asst. Atty. Gen. of Virginia (Andrew P. Miller, Atty. Gen. of Virginia, on the brief), for appellee.
Before BOREMAN, WINTER and BUTZNER, Circuit Judges.
Walter Lee Holloway, Jr., appeals from the district court's denial of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus.
Holloway urges that In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 90 S.Ct. 1068, 25 L.Ed.2d 368 (1970), dictates a revolutionary change in the duties and obligations of the federal courts in habeas corpus proceedings by requiring application of an entirely new standard in considering petitioner's challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence before the trier of fact. In that case a twelve-year-old boy was found guilty in a juvenile proceeding under a New York statute which permitted a finding of guilt upon a mere preponderance of the evidence. The Supreme Court declared that "the Due Process Clause protects the accused against conviction except upon proof beyond a reasonable doubt," 397 U.S. 358, 364, 90 S. Ct. at 1073, thus holding unequivocally that an accused has a constitutional right to proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
In the instant case, however, the trial court properly instructed the jury that Holloway could not be convicted unless the jury was convinced of his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The "reasonable doubt" standard, required by Winship, clearly was applied.
Holloway contends that federal courts must review the sufficiency of the evidence in federal habeas corpus proceedings and determine that petitioner's state court conviction was supported by proof beyond a reasonable doubt. We reject this contention.
In Williams v. Peyton, 414 F.2d 776, 777 (4 Cir. 1969), this court held: "When the sufficiency of the evidence supporting a state conviction is challenged by way of federal habeas corpus, the sole constitutional question is whether the conviction rests upon any evidence at all." In re Winship declares the standard for reviewing sufficiency of the evidence upon direct appeal, but we think the "some evidence" standard is still appropriate in federal courts' review of sufficiency of the evidence before the state trial...
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...fairly litigate Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment search and seizure claim in state court precludes federal habeas corpus); Holloway v. Cox, 437 F.2d 412 (4th Cir. 1971) (federal habeas corpus reviews sufficiency of evidence only for existence of "some evidence" not for probative value beyond......
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