Gore v. Secretary for Dept. of Corrections

Citation492 F.3d 1273
Decision Date20 July 2007
Docket NumberNo. 06-11522.,06-11522.
CourtUnited States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (11th Circuit)
PartiesMars L. GORE, a.k.a. Marshall Lee Gore, Petitioner-Appellant, v. SECRETARY FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, Attorney General of Florida, Respondents-Appellees.

Richard Adam Sichta, Frank John Tassone, Jr. (Court-Appointed), Tassone, Gibson, Sichta & Shirk, LLP, Jacksonville, FL, for Petitioner-Appellant.

Carolyn M. Snurkowski, Florida Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, FL, for Respondents-Appellees.

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

Before TJOFLAT, CARNES and HULL, Circuit Judges.

TJOFLAT, Circuit Judge:

On March 14, 1990, a jury in the Circuit Court for Columbia County, Florida, found petitioner Mars L. Gore guilty of the murder, kidnapping, and robbery of Susan Roark, and recommended that he be sentenced to death. Three weeks later, the court accepted the jury's recommendation and imposed the death sentence. After exhausting his state remedies, Gore, proceeding under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, petitioned the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida for a writ of habeas corpus. The court denied his petition. After the district court denied his application for a certificate of appealability, Gore applied to this court for a certificate. We granted his application and issued a certificate of appealability for a single issue: Whether the Florida Supreme Court's decision upholding the trial court's refusal to suppress certain statements Gore made to detectives in the Metro-Dade Police Department infringed his rights under the United States Constitution. The district court, in denying habeas relief, held that the Florida Supreme Court's decision on this issue was neither based on an unreasonable determination of the relevant facts nor contrary to or an unreasonable application of established federal law. Because we agree, we now affirm.

I.
A.

On Saturday, January 30, 1988, Susan Roark told her grandmother, with whom she lived, that she was going to a party thrown by her friend Michelle Trammell at Trammell's trailer home just outside of Cleveland, Tennessee. Roark, a student at nearby Cleveland State University and a close friend of Trammell's, arrived at the party some time between nine and ten in the evening. She was accompanied not by her expected date — who had car troubles — but by a man she had met at the Rocky Top Market in Cleveland on her way to the party. She introduced him to the others at the party as "Tony." A couple hours later, Roark, who planned to spend the night at Trammell's, left the party to drive "Tony" back into Cleveland. Roark had asked Trammell to come with her, but when Trammell fell asleep, Roark decided to take "Tony" back into town on her own. They left the party around midnight in Roark's black 1986 Ford Mustang GT. Roark did not return and was never heard from again.

Roark did not show up for church the next morning, January 31, as she had promised her grandmother she would. When she did not return by Sunday afternoon, her family became concerned. They began trying to track Roark down by calling several of her friends, including Trammell.1 When these efforts ultimately proved futile, Roark's family reported her missing to the Cleveland police.

B.

The Cleveland Police Department launched a missing person investigation headed up by Detective Dewey Chastain. Police interviewed Roark's friends and acquaintances and began combing the area of Bradley County near Trammell's trailer. They issued a "BOLO" ("Be on the Lookout") to local law enforcement agencies placing them on notice of the search for Roark, and providing them with information about her and her car. The Mustang's license plate number was entered into the National Crime Information Center ("NCIC") database — ensuring that should the car be stopped by law enforcement anywhere in the country, the car would be flagged when the officer ran the plates through the computer.2

Roark had given Trammell and the other partygoers the address of a house in Cleveland where she was taking "Tony." Trammell passed this information on to Chastain, and, around February 10, he went to the address and interviewed Brenda Gore. Brenda Gore told Chastain that her son, Mars Gore, had recently been in Cleveland visiting her. Mars Gore resided in Miami, and he had been released from federal prison in Florida after serving time for a firearms conviction. She provided Chastain with pictures of her son, and Trammell and the others at her party all positively identified the man in the pictures as "Tony" — the man with whom Roark had left the party.

On February 11, the Cleveland police used the local media to publicly solicit information regarding Roark's disappearance. They asked that anyone with any knowledge of Roark's whereabouts come forward. The solicitations indicated that there was a prime suspect in the disappearance, but stopped short of giving Mars Gore's name.

Early in the morning on Sunday, February 14, 1988, a black Ford Mustang GT collided with another car in Miami, Florida. The Mustang's driver fled the scene on foot, and the Miami police department had the car towed to an impound lot. The registration in the glove compartment identified the owner as Harold RoarkSusan Roark's father. A traffic citation found inside the car had been issued to a Marshall Lee Gore.3

The discovery of the Mustang in South Florida indicated that, if Roark been abducted, it was likely that she was transported across state lines. As such, the Federal Bureau of Investigation ("FBI" or "the Bureau") opened a potential kidnapping file4 and joined the investigation into Roark's disappearance. While agents in Tennessee assisted the Cleveland Police in their search for any sign of Roark, agents in South Florida were alerted to be on the lookout for Mars Gore.

In early March, after receiving a call from the Knoxville, Tennessee office of the FBI, Agent James Barrow of the Bureau's Tampa, Florida office, began investigating a possible connection between Gore and a University of Tampa student, Susan Brown. Brown had attended high school in Miami with Mars Gore, and the two had dated for a time. Barrow interviewed Brown and learned from her: that Gore had stayed with her in Tampa in January, prior to traveling on to Cleveland, Tennessee, to visit his mother; that Gore had visited her, unexpectedly, in Tampa on January 31, 1988, the day after Roark's disappearance; that Gore had arrived driving a black Ford Mustang; and that, together, Brown and Gore had pawned at several different pawn shops some items of jewelry Gore had in his possession. Agent Barrow visited the pawn shops described by Brown and recovered the jewelry. On March 11, Barrow learned from Brown that Gore was staying in the Miami area with a friend of Brown's named Rosa Lastinger.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Marshals Service was also searching for Mars Gore.5 On March 12, 1988, a deputy U.S. Marshal visited Gore's father's construction site in Miami and asked to speak to Gore. Gore was serving a five-year term of probation handed down by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida for having been convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(a).6 The district court had issued a warrant for Gore's arrest on February 24, 1988 for violating the conditions of his probation.7 Gore had given his probation officer his father's construction site as his place of employment, but when the deputy arrived, Gore was not there.

On March 14, 1988, a woman named Tina Corolis was assaulted, knocked unconscious, and left for dead in a wooded area in Dade County, Florida. Despite being seriously injured, Corolis survived the assault and was able to get to a phone and call for help. Her assailant absconded with her car and Corolis's toddler son, who had been in the back seat of the car, was nowhere to be found. Within twenty-four hours of the assault, Metro-Dade police had identified a prime suspect: Mars Gore.8 Metro-Dade police joined the already on-going coordinated effort by the FBI and the Cleveland, Tennessee police to locate Gore.

On March 17, 1988, a specialist in the Miami Police Department crime lab processed the black Ford Mustang GT, which was still being held in an impound lot, and identified latent prints on the driver's side window. These prints were later matched to Gore. The specialist found traces of blood in the car and a number of the items recovered from the car were later identified as belonging to Roark.

On March 17, the same day the Mustang was being processed by the crime lab specialist, L.B. McGuinty, an FBI agent assigned to the Paducah, Kentucky office, was dispatched to interview a local resident, Rex Gore. McGuinty was told that a probation violation warrant had been issued for Rex Gore's nephew, Mars Gore, and that Mars Gore was also a suspect in several federal and state criminal investigations. McGuinty, accompanied by other agents and local law enforcement, went to Rex Gore's home, where they learned from Rex Gore and his wife that Mars Gore had arrived unexpectedly in Kentucky that week and had remained in the area visiting his cousin. The agents proceeded to Gore's cousin's trailer in Ledbetter, Kentucky, where they found Gore alone, executed the warrant for his arrest for probation violation, and took him into custody.

C.

The agents brought Gore to the FBI office in Paducah, Kentucky, where he was read his Miranda rights and signed a waiver of rights form. See Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966). Agents McGuinty and Larry Faust then began questioning Gore. At first, Gore spoke freely, giving general background information about himself and admitting that he was on probation in the Southern District of Florida. When the agents questioned Gore concerning how he came to be in Kentucky, though, he invoked his right to remain silent, and the...

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