Meadows v. Evans

• Decision Date: 08 April 1977
• Docket Number: No. 74-3362,74-3362
• Citation: 550 F.2d 345
• Parties: Johnny J. E. MEADOWS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Lon EVANS, Sheriff, Tarrant County, Texas, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 345

550 F.2d 345

Johnny J. E. MEADOWS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Lon EVANS, Sheriff, Tarrant County, Texas, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 74-3362.

United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit.

April 8, 1977.

Richard M. Lannen, Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, Dallas, Tex. (Court-appointed not under the Act), for plaintiff-appellant.

Tim Curry, Crim. Dist. Atty., Howard M. Fender, Asst. Dist. Atty., Ft. Worth, Tex., John L. Hill, Atty. Gen., Austin, Tex., for plaintiff-appellant.

Before BROWN, Chief Judge, and TUTTLE, GEWIN, COLEMAN, GOLDBERG, AINSWORTH, GODBOLD, DYER, MORGAN, CLARK, RONEY, GEE, TJOFLAT and HILL, Circuit Judges. ^*

PER CURIAM:

This case was decided by a divided panel of this Court, the opinion being reported at 529 F.2d 385 (5th Cir. 1976). Petition for rehearing en banc was granted. Meadows v. Evans, 529 F.2d 387 (5th Cir. 1976). After additional briefing and oral argument, the en banc court has decided to adhere to the majority opinion of the panel, so that opinion now states the position of the en banc court on this case.

Accordingly, the en banc court reverses and remands this case to the district court first, for consideration of any damage claims made for asserted deprivations during confinement, which can be made without exhaustion, and second, for consideration of whether claims going to the involuntariness of the confession, which claims cannot proceed prior to exhaustion of state remedies, should be held in abeyance rather than dismissed in light of the statute of limitations problem inherent in dismissal.

GOLDBERG, Circuit Judge, with whom TUTTLE and GODBOLD, Circuit Judges, join, concurring in part and dissenting in part:

Judge Tjoflat has explained pointedly and persuasively why collateral estoppel provides the proper conceptual framework for dealing with the problem before the court and why the majority's approach is wholly misguided. I am pleased to join his thoughtful opinion with two brief reservations.

First, I would emphasize that the rigors that are conditions precedent to application of collateral estoppel generally must be scrupulously observed in this context of state prisoner § 1983 claims. Judgments resting on a plea of guilty raise the most serious concerns. Because very little is "litigated" at the acceptance of a guilty plea, the doctrine must here be most sparingly enforced. See 1B Moore's Federal Practice P 0.418(1), pp. 2707-08 (1974). The appellant's claim, however, is directed at the voluntariness of the plea itself. Because the state judge was constitutionally obligated to determine on the record that the plea was in fact voluntary and because the record here demonstrates that appellant was interrogated and affirmed the voluntariness of the plea, giving the judgment collateral estoppel effect on the specific issue of the plea's voluntariness is not unwarranted. Absent either of these conditions, I see no justification for according collateral estoppel effect to a judgment resting on a guilty plea.

Second, I would note that previous cases applying the doctrine elaborated by Judge Tjoflat have justified enforcement of a collateral estoppel bar in part on the availability of the federal habeas forum for redetermination of the prisoner's constitutional claim. See Brazzell v. Adams, 493 F.2d 489, 490 (5 Cir. 1974). Under the recent Supreme Court decision in Stone v. Powell, 428 U.S. 465, 96 S.Ct. 3037, 49 L.Ed.2d 1067, however, alleged violations of the fourth amendment may not be redetermined in federal habeas proceedings once fully and fairly litigated in the state courts. Application of the doctrine developed by Judge Tjoflat to such claims would accordingly preclude any federal forum from inquiring into a fourth amendment claim litigated in state criminal proceedings. I simply note that application of collateral estoppel to claims covered by Stone would raise an additional, troublesome question not involved in the case at bar.

AINSWORTH, Circuit Judge, concurring in part and dissenting in part:

I concur in the remand of this case for trial on the allegations of plaintiff's conditions of confinement in the Tarrant County Jail. However, I dissent from the en banc holding which reverses the district court and remands to permit exhaustion of state remedies.

As to the latter portion of plaintiff's suit, it is based upon allegations of coercion and bribery of an unnamed witness and seeks damages under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against the Sheriff of Tarrant County, Texas, and "law enforcement agents who acted within the Tarrant County Jail." I agree with Judge Tjoflat's concurring and dissenting opinion in this regard and with the rationale there expressed that Meadows is collaterally estopped from litigating this issue since it has been decided adversely to him twice by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals both on direct appeal of the conviction and on collateral habeas corpus. The question is, therefore, res judicata and Meadows is collaterally estopped from continuing to litigate it. There is no valid reason, therefore, to remand the case for further proceedings in this context when the issue has already been fully litigated and decided in the Texas courts.

Though I would remand the case for a hearing on the question of plaintiff's allegation as to conditions of confinement in the jail, I would otherwise affirm the district court. ¹

TJOFLAT, Circuit Judge, with whom TUTTLE, GOLDBERG and GODBOLD, Circuit Judges, join, concurring in part and dissenting in part:

The problem confronting the en banc court today is whether an inmate confined pursuant to a valid state court conviction entered on a plea of guilty may relitigate the voluntariness of that plea by maintaining a civil rights action for damages in federal court. The majority has chosen to solve the problem by engrafting onto 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (1970) the exhaustion requirement of 28 U.S.C. § 2254 (1970) and directing the inmate to launch a collateral attack on his conviction in state court first. In my opinion this novel solution is foreclosed by the plain language of the Supreme Court in Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 475, 93 S.Ct. 1827, 36 L.Ed.2d 439 (1973), and Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 41 L.Ed.2d 935 (1974). Moreover, in reaching its disposition the majority has elected to ignore and, thus, appears to overrule sub silentio previous decisions of this court which clearly suggest a reasonable solution to the problem. The shortcomings of the approach the court now adopts are best understood after reviewing the procedural history disclosed by the record before us and examining the substance of the appellant's section 1983 allegations.

I

The record before the panel in this case was limited to the proceedings in the district court on appellant's section 1983 civil rights claim. That record consisted of the appellant's pro se complaint, the report of the magistrate and the order of the district court, which adopted the findings and conclusions of the magistrate. During oral argument on rehearing en banc this court directed that the record on appeal be supplemented with the records of appellant's state and federal habeas corpus proceedings. ¹ Pursuant to these instructions an addendum to the record was filed.

The augmented record on appeal discloses that appellant was indicted for first degree murder in the 70th Judicial District Court of Ector County, Texas, on February 29, 1972. On April 20, 1972, that indictment was transferred to Criminal District Court No. 3 of Tarrant County, Texas, where all subsequent Texas trial court proceedings involving appellant took place. On October 4, 1972, appellant pled guilty to first degree murder and received a life sentence. On September 25, 1973, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the conviction. ²

Appellant then commenced in the United States District Court the civil rights suit now receiving en banc consideration. His pro se complaint, filed June 13, 1974, was not served on the defendants, ³ and no answer was filed. On June 21, 1974, the magistrate on his own initiative recommended dismissal of the complaint on the ground that it sought habeas corpus relief. (Appellant had not yet pursued state habeas remedies.) The district court on June 21, 1974, entered an order adopting the magistrate's findings and conclusions and dismissing the case without prejudice to appellant's right to seek habeas corpus relief. The appeal from that order was lodged in this court on July 5, 1974.

While this appeal was awaiting oral argument, appellant on September 26, 1974, commenced habeas corpus proceedings in Criminal Court No. 3 of Tarrant County, Texas. On January 27, 1975, that court entered a memorandum order recommending denial of the petition on the merits, and on February 19, 1975, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals adopted that recommendation and denied the petition. ⁴

On April 18, 1975, appellant filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court. An answer to the petition was served on May 13, 1975. As far as can be determined from the augmented record before us, no further action occurred in that case prior to the argument of this appeal before the original panel on October 7, 1975, or the en banc court on September 9, 1976, and none has taken place since.

II

Appellant's complaint in the district court presented a variety of civil rights claims. Some dealt with the conditions of his confinement in the Tarrant County jail, and as to those I fully agree that they should be remanded for trial as the panel and the en banc court have decreed. It is the disposition of appellant's claim that his guilty plea was coerced that in my opinion cannot be reconciled with Supreme Court precedent and the common sense approach found in our prior decisions.

Unfortunately, appellant's claim was not placed in its complete context until the record was supplemented following the en banc argument. Although the disposition...