Dyer v. Hornbeck

• Decision Date: 06 February 2013
• Docket Number: No. 10–15044.,10–15044.
• Citation: 706 F.3d 1134
• Parties: Stacey Daniella DYER, Petitioner–Appellant, v. Tina HORNBECK, Respondent–Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

706 F.3d 1134

Stacey Daniella DYER, Petitioner–Appellant,

v.Tina HORNBECK, Respondent–Appellee.

No. 10–15044.

United States Court of Appeals,Ninth Circuit.

Argued and Submitted Nov. 6, 2012.

Filed Feb. 6, 2013.

Katherine L. Hart, Fresno, CA, for Appellant.

William K. Kim, Deputy Attorney General, Fresno, CA, for Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California, Oliver W. Wanger, Senior District Judge, Presiding. D.C. No. 1:09–cv–00150–OWW–SMS.

Before: ROBERT D. SACK ^*, RONALD M. GOULD, and MILAN D. SMITH, JR., Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge SACK; Concurrence by Judge M. SMITH.

OPINION

SACK, Senior Circuit Judge:

The petitioner-appellant, Stacey Daniella Dyer, appeals from the judgment entered on December 15, 2009, in United States District Court for the Eastern District of California (Oliver W. Wanger, Judge ) denying her 28 U.S.C. § 2254 petition for a writ of habeas corpus. Dyer contends that the California Court of Appeal unreasonably applied clearly established Supreme Court precedent when it affirmed the trial court's decision to admit as evidence statements made by Dyer during a station-house interview. She maintains that the interview was a custodial interrogation under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), and its progeny, and that because detectives failed to deliver the Miranda warnings required in such circumstances, her statements should have been excluded. Because we conclude that fairminded jurists could disagree as to whether Dyer was “in custody” when she made the statements in dispute, we affirm the district court's denial of Dyer's application for habeas relief.

BACKGROUND¹

On May 19, 2004, a California state jury returned a guilty verdict against Dyer on charges of first degree felony murder, second degree robbery, and kidnaping in connection with the death of 19–year–old D.J. Hunter. The evidence adduced at trial tended to link Dyer and several other alleged participants to a chain of events in the early morning of March 22, 2002, which culminated in Hunter's killing.

Hunter's body was found at approximately 6:00 a.m. He had been shot three times in the head and placed in the bed of his own pickup truck, which had been set on fire. A local business owner found Hunter's cellular telephone nearby, and officers retrieved it later that day. Telephone records revealed a call to Dyer's apartment, which prompted the police to obtain a search warrant for her home in Fowler, California. Officers began executing the warrant at about 10:35 p.m. on March 28, 2002. Dyer was not home at that time, but she arrived five minutes later. The police officers locked her in the rear of a patrol car while they completed their search.

The events of the next six hours, adopted as the factual findings underlying the Court of Appeal's decision, were as follows:

[Detective] Chapman arrived at Dyer's apartment after the warrant had been executed. When he arrived, he found Dyer seated in the back seat of Deputy Simpso[n]'s patrol car, which was parked in the alley outside of Dyer's apartment. The doors to the patrol car were closed and Dyer could not open them from the inside of the back seat. Chapman could not recall if the car was unattended at the time he arrived. Chapman contacted Dyer and told her he was conducting an investigation. Neither Chapman nor his partner, Detective Rasmussen, was in uniform. They did not display a firearm to Dyer. Chapman asked her if she would mind coming to the sheriff's Division to speak to “us.” She was agreeable. Dyer was transported to the Division and her interview began approximately 30 minutes later. She was in the patrol car for over an hour, at the apartment and in transit from her apartment in Fowler.

Dyer was never handcuffed nor was she told she was under arrest. At the outset of the interview, Dyer was told she was not in custody and she was free to leave. The interview room was approximately 15 feet by 15 feet. It contained chairs, a table, and a trash can. Dyer was not under the influence of drugs at the time of the interview. The interview lasted 3 hours and 45 minutes. Two breaks were taken during the interview, one at 1:54 a.m. and one at 3:01 a.m. During the first break Dyer got up, left the room, walked to the restroom (approximately 30 yards away), used the restroom, and returned to the interview room. At each break, Dyer said that no promises or threats had been made to her. For the first hour and a half of the interview, Dyer denied all knowledge and involvement. She later admitted that she had some contact with D.J. on the evening of the 21st. Dyer said she wanted to go home. She was arrested.

During their interview of Dyer, the officers told her that they knew “pretty much” where she was and what she was doing. They told her that people had told them that she was the one that killed D.J.

Lopez, 2007 WL 738787, at *9–10, 2007 Cal.App. Unpub. LEXIS 1978, at *25–27.

Chapman also testified that although Dyer could have left the police station during either of the two breaks, by that time he believed he had probable cause to arrest her, and indeed would have had she attempted to leave. Testimony of Detective Mark Chapman, Transcript of Miranda Hearing, March 19, 2004, Petitioner's Excerpts of Record (“E.R.”), vol. I, ex. 3, at 1776–77.

Before trial, Dyer moved to suppress her statements to the police. Based largely upon what the trial court saw as Dyer's apparent willingness to accompany the detectives to the station, and upon the detectives' indication at the beginning of the interview that she was neither under arrestnor in trouble, the trial court denied the motion. Trial Court Ruling on Miranda Issue, March 25, 2004, E.R. vol. I, ex. 4, at 3001–05. At trial, the prosecution introduced lengthy excerpts of Dyer's interview. The prosecution argued that her statements tended to place her with Hunter on the morning of the murder, and that her tone of voice suggested evasion and lack of remorse. Closing Statement of Dennis Peterson, Deputy District Attorney, Trial Tr., May 17, 2004, E.R. vol. I, ex. 5, at 9287, 9290–92.

The jury found Dyer guilty of first degree felony murder, second degree robbery, and kidnaping, and the court sentenced her on June 17, 2004, to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. On March 12, 2007, her direct appeal was denied on the merits by the California Court of Appeal, Fifth Appellate District, and on June 20, 2007, the California Supreme Court summarily denied her petition for review. Dyer's attempts to obtain habeas relief in the California state courts were similarly unsuccessful. On December 22, 2008, she timely filed this habeas petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California. The district court adopted the findings and recommendation of Magistrate Judge Sandra M. Snyder on December 14, 2009, which recommended that the petition be denied and that a certificate of appealability not issue. Dyer v. Hornbeek [sic] ², 2009 WL 3273284, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 94834 (E.D.Cal. Oct. 9, 2009). Dyer sought a certificate of appealability from this Court, which we granted on July 18, 2011.

DISCUSSION

A. Standard of Review

We review a district court's decision to grant or deny habeas relief de novo. Bailey v. Hill, 599 F.3d 976, 978 (9th Cir.2010).

Dyer's petition for habeas corpus relief is governed by section 2254 of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (“AEDPA”). Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d), as amended by AEDPA, a federal court may not grant an application for a writ of habeas corpus “with respect to any claim that was adjudicated on the merits in State court proceedings” unless the state court's decision was “contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States,” id. § 2254(d)(1), or was “based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding,” id. § 2254(d)(2). “In applying these standards of review, we look to the last reasoned decision in the state court system,” Collins v. Runnels, 603 F.3d 1127, 1130 (9th Cir.2010) (quotation marks omitted), which in this case is the March 12, 2007 opinion of the California Court of Appeal.

B. Merits

We granted a certificate of appealability to allow us to review Dyer's claim that “the trial court violated [her] constitutional right against self-incrimination and right to counsel by denying the motion to suppress [her] statements to the police.” Dyer argues that the state court's decision with respect to this issue was an unreasonableapplication of the Supreme Court's seminal decision in Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), and its progeny.

In Miranda, the Supreme Court established that “the prosecution may not use statements, whether exculpatory or inculpatory, stemming from custodial interrogation of the defendant unless it demonstrates the use of procedural safeguards effective to secure the privilege against self-incrimination,” id. at 444, 86 S.Ct. 1602, a requirement commonly satisfied by delivery to the defendant of the familiar “Miranda warnings.” But “[a]n officer's obligation to administer Miranda warnings attaches ... ‘only where there has been such a restriction on a person's freedom as to render him in custody.’ ” Stansbury v. California, 511 U.S. 318, 322, 114 S.Ct. 1526, 128 L.Ed.2d 293 (1994) (per curiam) (quoting Oregon v. Mathiason, 429 U.S. 492, 495, 97 S.Ct. 711, 50 L.Ed.2d 714 (1977) (per curiam)). The Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court's finding that Dyer was not “in custody” at the time she made the relevant statements, and that Miranda therefore did not apply.

“In determining whether an individual was in custody, a court must examine all of the circumstances surrounding the interrogation, but ‘the ultimate...