Singleton v. Estelle

• Decision Date: 12 April 1974
• Docket Number: No. 72-2517.,72-2517.
• Citation: 492 F.2d 671
• Parties: Joe Cephas SINGLETON, Petitioner-Appellant, v. W. J. ESTELLE, Director, Texas Department of Corrections, Respondent-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

492 F.2d 671 (1974)

Joe Cephas SINGLETON, Petitioner-Appellant, v. W. J. ESTELLE, Director, Texas Department of Corrections, Respondent-Appellee.

No. 72-2517.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

April 12, 1974.

Theodore R. Johns, Elmo R. Willard, III, Walter M. Sekaly, Beaumont, Tex., for petitioner-appellant.

John L. Hill, Atty. Gen., Howard M. Fender, E. L. Hamilton, Attys., Austin, Tex., for respondent-appellee.

Before GEWIN, SIMPSON and RONEY, Circuit Judges.

SIMPSON, Circuit Judge:

We review here a district court order denying appellant's petition for a writ of habeas corpus. For reasons set out below, we affirm the district court's ruling.

I. THE FACTS

Joe Cephas Singleton, the appellant, is a black male who was charged in April, 1960, with the rape of a white female in Beaumont, Texas. At trial in the Criminal District Court of Jefferson County, Texas the State introduced as evidence against Singleton a signed confession and a single thumbprint, matching Singleton's left thumbprint, found on the venetian blind covering the window through which the assailant had entered the victim's house. An all white jury convicted Singleton and recommended the death sentence. Judgment was entered accordingly, and the sentence of death pronounced on July 29, 1960. Singleton's motion for new trial was denied by the trial court, and his conviction was affirmed by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on March 22, 1961. Singleton v. State, 171 Tex.Cr.R. 196, 346 S.W.2d 328. Two successive petitions for rehearing were denied by the appellate court. Singleton's petition for certiorari to that court was denied by the United States Supreme Court on October 9, 1961. Singleton v. Texas, 1961, 368 U.S. 867, 82 S.Ct. 118, 7 L.Ed.2d 64.

Before execution of the death sentence counsel for Singleton filed a motion supported by affidavit in the trial court alleging that Singleton had become insane since his conviction. A jury hearing on this question resulted in a finding of present insanity. Singleton was, accordingly, committed to the Rusk State Hospital where he remained until August, 1968. He was then declared in the opinion of hospital authorities to have regained his sanity and returned to the custody of the sheriff of Jefferson County for retrial before a jury upon the sanity issue. Three trials were required for resolution of this issue, the first two resulting in mistrials. Singleton was found to be sane by the trial jury in February, 1970, and in March, 1970, the Criminal District Court of Jefferson County again ordered the death sentence executed.

Singleton's counsel thereupon sought a writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. The petition was denied without prejudice for failure to exhaust Texas post-conviction remedies. Thereafter, on May 7, 1970, Singleton filed a state habeas petition in his trial court, the Criminal District Court of Jefferson County, Texas. After a full evidentiary hearing on the petition that court denied relief by a lengthy opinion-order which included findings of fact as to each of the issues raised. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed this order April 1, 1971 without written opinion by remanding the petitioner to custody. Vernon's Ann.C.C.P., Art. 11.07. Eight days before Singleton's scheduled execution in November, 1971¹ his attorneys returned to the district court below with their petition for a writ of habeas corpus and for a stay of execution pending consideration of the habeas petition. Stay was granted and an evidentiary hearing on Singleton's petition was conducted on January 5, 1972. The district court, in its order of February 9, 1972, ruled that Singleton had failed to discharge his burden of proof under Title 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2254 and that the state court opinion denying the petition for writ of habeas corpus was fairly supported by the record of the proceedings below. On this reasoning the district court denied the petition and this appeal followed. We affirm.

II. ISSUES ON APPEAL

In his brief, Singleton raises two primary issues. First, he challenges the jury selection system in use in Jefferson County, Texas, at the time of his trial on grounds that blacks were systematically excluded from petit juries trying black defendants in capital cases. Second, he asserts error of constitutional proportions occurred with the admission into evidence of fingerprints taken from him by the police because he was illegally detained at the time that the prints were obtained.

The jury selection issue was squarely before the state courts, and we need only review the district court decision on this point to determine its correctness as a matter of law. With respect to the fingerprint evidence issues, there are questions whether and to what extent these issues were presented to the state courts. Considerations of federal-state comity require that we initially determine that appellant has exhausted his available state remedies before considering his claims regarding the fingerprint evidence on the merits. Imhoff v. Jones, 5 Cir. 1972, 453 F.2d 894; Hall v. Wainwright, 5 Cir. 1971, 441 F.2d 391, 393.

III. THE FINGERPRINT ISSUE: EXHAUSTION VEL NON OF AVAILABLE STATE REMEDIES

The rape with which Singleton was charged occurred on the night of April 1 or early morning of April 2, 1960. On the night of April 2-April 3 Beaumont police conducted an investigatory roundup arrest of approximately 140 young black males in the Beaumont area. These individuals were taken to the Beaumont police station and processed in the following manner: individuals with no prior police arrest record were photographed and fingerprinted, information concerning address, occupation, etc. was obtained, and the individuals then released; individuals as to whom the police already had "rap" sheets (cards containing fingerprints, photographs and other information) were simply questioned as to the accuracy of the information shown on the cards and then released. The appellant was among this mass of individuals arrested. His processing at the police station consisted of pulling a "rap" sheet and updating the information contained thereon. The sheet contained fingerprints of Singleton which had been obtained in 1959. Appellant testified at his state habeas corpus hearing that he was released from police custody sometime during the morning hours of April 3.

Police investigators had discovered a latent fingerprint on the bottom slat of the venetian blind covering the window through which the rapist had entered the home of his victim. Comparison of this latent print with the cards obtained or produced from police files as a result of the roundup arrest resulted in a matching with appellant's left thumbprint. A warrant was obtained for Singleton's arrest, under which he was arrested and charged with rape by Beaumont police on the afternoon of April 3, 1960. On the following day, April 4, 1960, Singleton was again fingerprinted by Beaumont police. The fingerprints of April 4 and the latent print from the scene of the crime, together with a signed confession obtained from Singleton on April 3, constituted the state's principal evidence at Singleton's trial in July 1960.

In his brief, appellant raises three questions with respect to the admission of fingerprint evidence against him at his trial. First, appellant charges that the fingerprints obtained in May 1959 were illegally obtained because the arrest which led to the fingerprinting was purely investigatory in nature in violation of the principles announced in Davis v. Mississippi, 1969, 394 U.S. 721, 89 S.Ct. 1394, 22 L.Ed.2d 676. He urges that for this reason the 1959 prints were inadmissible as evidence against him at his trial. Appellant did not raise in the state court proceedings the legality of the 1959 arrest. Indeed, the issue was not presented to the federal district court below, since appellant chose there merely to rely on the record made in the state habeas proceedings. We decline therefore to consider the admissibility of the 1959 fingerprints, without prejudice of course, to the appellant's raising this issue in a federal court after exhausting his available state court remedies.²

The second point raised is as to fingerprints taken during the earlier detention of appellant prior to his arrest for rape on April 3, 1960. We construe this point to question the legality as evidence of any prints obtained as a result of the dragnet arrest of April 2-3. But the facts as developed at trial showed that no prints were obtained from appellant at the time of his investigatory arrest. Rather, the Beaumont police merely pulled from their files an extant "rap" sheet containing the May 1959 fingerprints. The record therefore refutes the existence of any pre-arrest 1960 fingerprints, and we need devote no further consideration to this question.³

The third attack is upon the validity of the prints obtained April 4, 1960 after appellant's April 3 arrest on the warrant for rape. The asserted ground is that the arrest itself was invalid under Aguilar v. Texas, 1964, 378 U.S. 108, 84 S.Ct. 1509, 12 L.Ed.2d 723, and Giordenello v. United States, 1958, 357 U.S. 480, 78 S.Ct. 1245, 2 L.Ed.2d 1503, since the affadavit underlying the arrest warrant specified no facts from which a neutral magistrate could determine whether the complaining police officers had probable cause to believe that Singleton had committed the crime with which he was subsequently charged. Appellant asserts that the arrest being invalid, the fingerprints obtained as a result thereof would be inadmissible at trial. An examination of the record again discloses appellant's failure to present this issue to the courts of the State of Texas before attempting to proceed in federal court on the matter. The first mention of an attack upon the validity of appellant's arrest upon a warrant was made by amendment in the hearing in state trial court on appellan...