Hall v. State of Iowa

• Decision Date: 15 April 1983
• Docket Number: No. 82-1391,82-1391
• Parties: Jeffrey Linn HALL, Appellant, v. STATE OF IOWA and Attorney General of Iowa, Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

Page 283

705 F.2d 283

Jeffrey Linn HALL, Appellant, v. STATE OF IOWA and Attorney General of Iowa, Appellees.

No. 82-1391.

United States Court of Appeals Eighth Circuit.

Submitted Nov. 12, 1982.

Decided April 15, 1983.

Harold W. White of Fitzgibbons Brothers, Estherville, Iowa, for appellant.

Thomas J. Miller, Atty. Gen. of Iowa, Julie F. Pottorff, Asst. Atty. Gen., Des Moines, Iowa, for appellees.

Before LAY, Chief Judge, HENLEY, Senior Circuit Judge, and ARNOLD, Circuit Judge.

LAY, Chief Judge.

In this habeas corpus proceeding, Jeffrey Hall attacks his state jury conviction for manslaughter. The federal district court, the Honorable Edward J. McManus presiding, denied relief for reasons including nonexhaustion of some claims. On appeal, we find that the petitioner did exhaust all federal claims, but find that Hall is not entitled to succeed on the merits of those claims.

Hall's conviction in the state district court of Emmet County, Iowa, stemmed from the stabbing death of his 17-year-old girlfriend, Barbara Johnson, at her residence in Estherville, Iowa, on June 13, 1977. A neighbor of the Johnsons, Mrs. Joselyn Herke, was awakened at approximately 10:00 p.m. by a scream. From her window, Mrs. Herke saw motions of two people on the Johnson patio and heard bits of conversation and more screams. She watched someone exit through the patio door and go to a small brown car parked in the driveway, then make two more trips into the patio and back to the car before driving off. A few minutes later, Mrs. Herke watched the same or a similar brown car, which was Hall's car, pull into the driveway; Hall ran into the patio, leaving his motor running and door on the driver's side open. Mrs. Herke watched him drag a body out the patio door across the yard almost to the car. She yelled at him; he dropped the body. Another neighbor, David Brent, said Jeffrey Hall, covered with blood, came to his door claiming that someone had killed his girlfriend and asking for help. Brent went with Hall over to the body in the Johnson yard. Hall opened his hand and showed Brent a knife, broken in two pieces, that he said he had pulled off or out of her. Hall claimed he had left before 10:00 p.m. and upon returning had found Barbara lying on the patio floor; thinking she was still alive, he had tried to drag her to the car to take her to the hospital.

The police arrived at the Johnson home about 10:15 p.m., and shortly thereafter took Hall and Brent to the police station. Terry Johnson, an agent for the Iowa Bureau of Criminal Investigation, read Hall his Miranda rights and interrogated him. The 19-year-old Hall then was allowed to call his parents who lived nearby.

After Hall's parents arrived, about 12:15 p.m. they called attorney Leo Fitzgibbons, who was asleep at his home about 20 miles away. Fitzgibbons talked over the telephone to Agent Johnson and the Emmet County Attorney, William Ridout. Johnson and Ridout agreed with Fitzgibbons not to ask Hall any further questions that night, with the understanding that Fitzgibbons would contact Ridout and Johnson first thing in the morning.

Despite the agreement, at about 12:45 p.m., Agent Johnson requested Hall to sign a consent to surrender his clothing, allow fingernail scrapings and an examination for fresh cuts or wounds, give blood, urine, and hair samples, and permit a search of his car. County Attorney Ridout prepared the consent form for Hall to sign. Hall signed the consent and the items were surrendered. Hall was not formally arrested at that time and was allowed to leave. In the morning, a magistrate issued a warrant for the search of Hall's car.

A grand jury handed down an indictment of murder against Hall on July 7, 1977. In a three week trial, a jury, after 3 1/2 days of deliberation, found Hall guilty of manslaughter. Hall appealed to the Iowa Supreme Court which affirmed the conviction. State v. Hall, 297 N.W.2d 80, 92 (Iowa 1980). The United States Supreme Court denied Hall's petition for certiorari. 450 U.S. 927, 101 S.Ct. 1384, 67 L.Ed.2d 359 (1981).

Hall filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus with the United States District Court for the Northern District of Iowa. In the petition Hall asserted that:

1) his consent to search was involuntary and the evidence obtained through the consent was admitted in violation of the fourth and fourteenth amendments;

2) the allowance of expert testimony which analyzed the blood splatter on Hall's clothing was without proper foundation, thereby depriving him of the fourteenth amendment right to due process;

3) the exclusion of expert psychological testimony placed a heavier burden on Hall for admission of evidence than was placed on the State, which deprived Hall of the fourteenth amendment right to due process;

4) the manner in which the consent to search was obtained, in violation of the agreement with Hall's attorney, denied Hall the right to effective assistance of counsel under the sixth and fourteenth amendments; and

5) the State's communication with Hall after he had obtained counsel was a violation of the Iowa Code of Professional Responsibility For Lawyers and a violation of the sixth and fourteenth amendments.

In an amended order on March 1, 1982, Chief Judge Edward J. McManus denied the petition. The claim of involuntary consent was dismissed under Stone v. Powell, 428 U.S. 465, 96 S.Ct. 3037, 49 L.Ed.2d 1067 (1976). The two issues concerning expert testimony were denied for failure to exhaust available state remedies or alternatively on the merits. The two claims concerning sixth amendment rights were denied for failure to exhaust state remedies.

I. Exhaustion of State Remedies.

If there is a mixture of exhausted and nonexhausted federal claims in a petition for habeas corpus, a district court must either dismiss the petition under the total exhaustion rule of Rose v. Lundy, 455 U.S. 509, 522, 102 S.Ct. 1198, 1205, 71 L.Ed.2d 379 (1982), or if that decision is not deemed to be retroactive, see Richards v. Solem, 693 F.2d 760, 763-64 (8th Cir.1982), pass only on those claims that have been exhausted. We need not confront the Rose v. Lundy issue since we find that all federal claims were exhausted in the state court.

A. Expert Testimony.

The claim concerning the expert testimony about the blood splatter on Hall's clothing, as well as the contention regarding the exclusion of psychological testimony, although alleging in conclusory terms "a denial of due process," do not state federal constitutional claims. As the district court held when denying Hall's habeas corpus petition, "Petitioner's allegations regarding the admission and exclusion of expert testimony are essentially evidentiary matters which are not on their face so egregious or eroding to the fundamental fairness of the trial process to rise to the level of a violation of due process or otherwise implicate constitutional rights." Hall v. State, No. 1C 81-3007, slip op. at 9 (D.Iowa Dec. 10, 1981). Thus, they should not be reviewed on a petition for writ of habeas corpus. See Batten v. Scurr, 649 F.2d 564, 571 (8th Cir.1981) (Lay, C.J., concurring); Morrow v. Wyrick, 646 F.2d 1229, 1234 (8th Cir.), cert. den., 454 U.S. 899, 102 S.Ct. 401, 70 L.Ed.2d 216 (1981). We view the doctrine of Rose v. Lundy, 455 U.S. at 522, 102 S.Ct. at 1205, as being confined to federal claims. Nonexhausted state claims included in a federal habeas petition and having no constitutional relevance should not deprive a federal district court of the right to entertain other exhausted claims which do have their roots under the federal Constitution.

B. Sixth Amendment Right To Counsel.

Hall initially contended in the state court that the manner in which his consent to search was obtained violated DR 7-104(A)(1) of the Iowa Code of Professional Responsibility for Lawyers. ¹ However, Hall's argument in his state brief quoted from United States v. Howard, 426 F.Supp. 1067, 1071-72 (W.D.N.Y.1977), a case which directly dealt with the sixth amendment issue under similar facts.

In response to Hall's discussion of the State's conduct leading to the consent, the State devoted five pages of its brief to the Iowa Supreme Court to distinguish Brewer v. Williams, 430 U.S. 387, 97 S.Ct. 1232, 51 L.Ed.2d 424 (1977). In Brewer, the Court found that the right to effective assistance of counsel was violated when police interrogated the defendant in the absence of his counsel and in breach of an agreement with the attorney not to question the defendant. Id. at 392, 399-405, 97 S.Ct. at 1236, 1239-40.

Hall's reply brief identified the State's conduct as raising "an issue with constitutional dimensions." Additionally, Hall quoted the Court in Brewer, 430 U.S. at 401 n. 8, 97 S.Ct. at 1240 n. 8, that " 'we do not deal here with notions of offer, acceptance, consideration, or other concepts of the law of contracts. We deal with constitutional law.' "

The Iowa Supreme Court, concluding from the totality of the circumstances that Hall's consent was voluntary, discussed the sixth amendment issues although in a negative manner. That court asserted:

The defendant does not allege a sixth-amendment violation, such as addressed in Brewer v. Williams, 430 U.S. 387, 97 S.Ct. 1232, 51 L.Ed.2d 424 (1977) (violation of agreement not to interrogate), nor would the effective-counsel protections of the sixth amendment appear to be applicable because, when the agreement was made, no adversary criminal proceedings had been initiated, see Kirby v. Illinois, 406 U.S. 682, 688, 92 S.Ct. 1877, 1881, 32 L.Ed.2d 411, 417 (1972). Rather, the defendant asks that we fashion an exclusionary rule based only upon violations of the ethical standard in DR7-104(A)(1). While we view violations of these standards as serious matters, they fall short of constitutional dimensions and, like the court in Coughlan, we are reluctant to expand the concept of Miranda to these circumstances. Coughlan v. United States, 391 F.2d...