Rinehart v. Brewer

• Decision Date: 19 August 1977
• Docket Number: No. 76-2090,76-2090
• Parties: Michael Timm RINEHART, Appellee, v. Lou V. BREWER, Warden of the Iowa State Penitentiary, Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

Page 126

561 F.2d 126

Michael Timm RINEHART, Appellee, v. Lou V. BREWER, Warden of the Iowa State Penitentiary, Appellant.

No. 76-2090.

United States Court of Appeals,

Eighth Circuit.

Submitted May 16, 1977.

Decided Aug. 19, 1977.

Ray W. Sullins, Asst. Atty. Gen. (argued), and Richard C. Turner, Atty. Gen., Des Moines, Iowa, on brief, for appellant.

Mark E. Schantz, Prisoner Assistance Clinic, Iowa City, Iowa, argued and filed brief, for appellee.

Before STEPHENSON and WEBSTER, Circuit Judges, and BENSON, ^* District Judge.

STEPHENSON, Circuit Judge.

The state of Iowa, on behalf of Warden Brewer, has appealed from a grant of habeas corpus. The district court ¹ granted Michael Timm Rinehart's motion for summary judgment pursuant to his petition for writ of habeas corpus filed under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. The district court's opinion is reported at 421 F.Supp. 508 (S.D.Iowa 1976).

The writ was granted upon three due process grounds: (1) Rinehart's plea of guilty to a murder charge was not, when viewed in the totality of circumstances, entered voluntarily and understandingly; (2) Rinehart received ineffective assistance of counsel in the proceedings leading to his conviction; and (3) Rinehart was denied his due process right to a disinterested and impartial tribunal at his arraignment and sentencing. These three grounds constitute the three substantive issues on appeal. Preliminarily, the state of Iowa also raises two procedural grounds for denying the writ that Rinehart has allegedly failed to exhaust or has deliberately bypassed available state remedies.

In passing upon the motion for summary judgment, the district court was required to view the case in the light most favorable to the state, and to give it the benefit of all reasonable inferences to be chosen from the materials before the court. In connection with this appeal, we are required to apply the same standards. Klinge v. Lutheran Charities Ass'n of St. Louis, 523 F.2d 56, 61-62 (8th Cir. 1975). We agree that no genuine issue exists as to any material fact and that Rinehart is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. ² Accordingly, we affirm.

On April 9, 1963, Rinehart, age 15, was arrested for the murder of a 19-year-old girl who died of stab wounds the same day near Manson, Iowa. After over five hours of intensive police questioning which began shortly after his arrest, Rinehart signed a statement at about 3:00 a. m. on April 10 which implicated himself in the girl's death. Neither an attorney nor Rinehart's parents were present during this questioning. In addition, several officers took Rinehart to his home and confiscated, without obtaining a search warrant, a knife and some clothing believed to be of evidentiary significance. Later on April 10 Rinehart's parents obtained a local attorney to represent him. Rinehart was sent to the Mental Health Institute at Cherokee, Iowa, and to the State Psychopathic Hospital at Iowa City, Iowa, for psychiatric examinations. On July 18, 1963, an attorney from a nearby town was engaged as co-counsel. On August 12, 1963, Rinehart pled guilty to the murder charge, a degree of guilt hearing was held, and Judge R. K. Brannon found Rinehart guilty of second degree murder and sentenced him to life imprisonment that same day. On August 16, 1963, Rinehart filed a motion in arrest of judgment. After a hearing that motion was denied. That denial was affirmed by the Iowa Supreme Court. ³

On September 5, 1972, Rinehart filed a pro se petition for writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Iowa. That petition was dismissed for failure to exhaust state remedies. Subsequently, Rinehart filed an application for post-conviction relief pursuant to Chapter 663A, Code of Iowa, in state district court based upon due process violations now reasserted in this habeas action involuntary guilty plea, ineffective assistance of counsel, and judicial impropriety in the sentencing procedure. ⁴ After an evidentiary hearing, the Honorable James C. Smith, District Judge for the Calhoun County District Court, found in favor of Rinehart on all three due process grounds. Although Judge Smith determined that Rinehart's plea was involuntary and that his counsel was ineffective, he held as a matter of state procedural law that Rinehart had waived his right to raise those issues since he failed to raise them in his earlier motion in arrest of judgment. See Horn v. Haugh, 209 N.W.2d 119 (Iowa 1973). But Judge Smith found that the third ground, judicial impropriety in the sentencing procedure, had not been waived, and reduced Rinehart's sentence to a term of 55 years. On appeal, the Iowa Supreme Court held that all three grounds had in substance been procedurally waived and further held that the sentencing procedure had not been in violation of due process. Appellee's sentence of life imprisonment was reinstated. ⁵ Thereafter, Rinehart filed this petition for writ of habeas corpus.

Prior to filing the instant habeas action, Rinehart had exhausted his available state remedies as required by 28 U.S.C. § 2254. Since the Iowa Supreme Court held that Rinehart had waived all of his claims under state procedural law, Rinehart has clearly exhausted his due process arguments at the state level.

The state contends that since Rinehart failed to raise the issues of ineffective assistance of counsel, impartial tribunal and improper sentencing in his 1963 motion in arrest of judgment, he has deliberately bypassed state procedures with respect to those federal constitutional claims. Therefore, he should be barred from asserting those claims in this habeas corpus action. However, the district court found and the state concedes that the issue of deliberate bypass was not raised in the pleadings below. The state failed to affirmatively plead deliberate bypass in the return, but it did raise the issue in a brief before the district court. Although the district court was not required to consider the deliberate bypass issue, it found that even if the issue had been timely raised, Rinehart did not deliberately bypass state procedures.

We agree that state procedures were not deliberately bypassed here. In spite of the state's contrary contention, the Iowa Supreme Court's holding of waiver under state procedural law is not determinative in this habeas action. The waiver ruling under state procedural law bars federal habeas review of the underlying federal claims only if the defendant deliberately bypasses state procedures. Federal courts are required to apply federal constitutional standards to the waiver problem, that standard being whether the defendant made a "considered choice" to waive the federal claim in state court. Fay v. Noia, 372 U.S. 391, 438-39, 83 S.Ct. 822, 9 L.Ed.2d 837 (1963). A choice made by counsel not participated in by the defendant does not automatically bar habeas review. Fay v. Noia, supra, 372 U.S. at 439, 83 S.Ct. 822. Since Rinehart's attorneys prepared and filed the motion in arrest of judgment without discussing with him the grounds to be alleged in the motion, Rinehart cannot be said to have participated in the choice by counsel. We conclude after examining the record below that Rinehart made no "considered choice" to waive the federal constitutional claims in state court. We are satisfied that he did not knowingly and understandingly forego the privilege of asserting those claims in state court. ⁶ See Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U.S. 458, 58 S.Ct. 1019, 82 L.Ed. 1461 (1938), and Losieau v. Sigler, 421 F.2d 825 (8th Cir. 1970).

The first substantive issue is whether Rinehart's guilty plea was made voluntarily and understandingly. Since this case arose prior to Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U.S. 238, 89 S.Ct. 1709, 23 L.Ed.2d 274 (1969), the voluntariness of the plea must be determined by a comprehensive examination of the totality of the circumstances. There are a number of factors present in this case which, when considered aggregately, compel the conclusion that Rinehart's guilty plea was involuntary as a matter of law.

Rinehart was only 15 years old at the time he made the guilty plea and was somewhat immature for his age. Although he had at least average intelligence, he had no prior experience with the legal system and no other basis for understanding what was happening to him. In addition, Rinehart had difficulty in communicating with respect to the underlying events. His failure to fully grasp the situation is perhaps best illustrated by his requests as to whether he would be able to have a car in jail. Under these circumstances, a particularly stringent duty is imposed upon both defense counsel and the trial court to make certain that the defendant understands the charges and the consequences of his plea. That duty was not fulfilled as to Michael Rinehart.

Rinehart understood neither the nature of the charge nor the consequences of his guilty plea because of the inadequate explanations of the law given to him by defense counsel and the court. There is uncontradicted evidence in the record which suggests that Rinehart was not informed of the elements of the crime of second-degree murder. Since his own defense counsel were confused as to the distinctions among first- and second-degree murder, and manslaughter, it is inconceivable to conclude that Rinehart would have known of the intent element required to convict him of second-degree murder or that a guilty plea would be an admission of the existence of the intent to kill. In addition, the trial judge did not explain the charge to Rinehart. If the defendant was not informed that intent to cause the victim's death is an essential element of the crime charged, his guilty plea was not voluntarily entered. Henderson v. Morgan, 426 U.S. 637, 96 S.Ct. 2253, 49 L.Ed.2d 108 (1976).

In addition, defense counsel gave little or no attention to the very real possibility that manslaughter should be the appropriate outcome. ⁷ One of the defense lawyers...