Winfield v. Steele

Decision Date17 June 2014
Docket NumberNo. 14–2392.,14–2392.
PartiesJohn E. WINFIELD, Plaintiff–Appellee, v. Troy STEELE, Warden, Potosi Correctional Center; Terry Russell, Eastern Reception Diagnostic and Correctional Center; Director George Lombardi, Missouri Department of Corrections, Defendants–Appellants.
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE

Stephen D. Hawke, Assistant Attorney General, Jefferson City, MO, for PlaintiffAppellee.

Joseph W. Luby, Jessica Sutton, Death Penalty Litigation Clinic, Kansas City, MO, for DefendantsAppellants.

Before RILEY, Chief Judge, WOLLMAN, LOKEN, MURPHY, BYE, MELLOY, SMITH, COLLOTON, GRUENDER, SHEPHERD, and KELLY, Circuit Judges, En Banc.

PER CURIAM.

Warden Troy Steele of the Potosi Correctional Center in Missouri moves to vacate a stay of execution entered by the district court on June 12, 2014, in the case of John E. Winfield. Winfield was convicted in Missouri state court of multiple counts of first degree murder, assault, and armed career criminal action and was sentenced to death. See State v. Winfield, 5 S.W.3d 505 (Mo.1999). In September 1996, he shot and blinded his ex-girlfriend and the mother of his children, Carmelita Donald. During the same incident, he shot and killed two of Carmelita's friends, Arthea Sanders and Shawnee Murphy. More than seventeen years after the murders, the Supreme Court of Missouri scheduled Winfield's execution for June 18, 2014.

On June 3, 2014, Winfield filed a lawsuit and moved to stay the execution based on a claim that state actors violated his right to due process of law by obstructing effortsto secure a grant of clemency from the Governor of Missouri. Winfield alleged that employees of the Potosi Correctional Center threatened and pressured Terance Cole, the staff laundry manager at Potosi, not to make statements in support of Winfield's clemency efforts.

The district court held an evidentiary hearing on June 10 and then entered an order on June 12 that stayed Winfield's execution pending further order of the court. The court also preliminarily enjoined state officials “from obstructing, pressuring, discouraging, or otherwise threatening any correctional employees from providing statements in support of John E. Winfield's clemency efforts.”

The gravamen of Winfield's complaint is that staff member Cole was prepared to submit a declaration in support of Winfield's request for clemency, but after an investigator with the Department of Corrections summoned him to investigate an allegation of “over-familiarity” with Winfield, Cole eventually rescinded his support. The record shows that Cole told Winfield's counsel on the weekend of May 17–18, 2014, that he was willing to provide a letter in support of clemency. On May 19, Cole informed his superiors about the contact with Winfield's counsel. On May 20, Cole was contacted by the investigator about alleged “over-familiarity.” On May 22, Cole signed under penalty of perjury a declaration in support of clemency for Winfield.

On May 27, Cole told Winfield's counsel that he wished to rescind the declaration due to the pending investigation. On May 28, the investigator reported to the warden that the allegation against Cole of “over-familiarity” with Winfield was unfounded. On June 10, Cole testified in the district court that while he was not threatened by state officials, he did not wish to have his declaration presented to the governor in support of Winfield's clemency request. On June 12, the Department of Corrections sent Cole's signed declaration of May 22 to the governor's office for inclusion with a clemency package for the governor's consideration.

Winfield argues that state actors violated his due process rights by discouraging Cole from supporting a grant of clemency. Clemency in Missouri is a matter of grace committed to the executive department of the State. SeeMo. Const. art. IV, § 7; Mo.Rev.Stat. §§ 217.800(1), 552.070. In Ohio Adult Parole Authority v. Woodard, 523 U.S. 272, 118 S.Ct. 1244, 140 L.Ed.2d 387 (1998), the Supreme Court addressed the application of the Due Process Clause to state clemency proceedings. A splintered Court rejected a claim that Ohio's clemency proceedings violated an inmate's constitutional right to due process. A plurality of four Justices emphasized that a request for clemency “is simply a unilateral hope,” id. at 282, 118 S.Ct. 1244 (opinion of Rehnquist, C.J.) (internal quotation omitted), and suggested that the Due Process Clause has no application to the discretionary clemency process. A concurring opinion of four Justices concluded that “some minimal procedural safeguards apply to clemency proceedings,” id. at 289, 118 S.Ct. 1244 (O'Connor, J., concurring in part and concurring in the judgment) (emphasis in original), but rejected the inmate's challenge to Ohio's procedures. Justice O'Connor wrote that [j]udicial intervention might, for example, be warranted in the face of a scheme whereby a state official flipped a coin to determine whether to grant clemency, or in a case where the State arbitrarily denied a prisoner any access to its clemency process.” Id. A separate opinion of Justice Stevens agreed with Justice O'Connor that some minimal procedural safeguards apply. Id. at 290–91, 118 S.Ct. 1244 (Stevens, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).

We conclude that Winfield has not demonstrated a significant possibility of success on his claim that the Missouri clemency process violated his rights under the Due Process Clause. See Hill v. McDonough, 547 U.S. 573, 584, 126 S.Ct. 2096, 165 L.Ed.2d 44 (2006). The district court thought Winfield was likely to prove that Cole changed his decision about supporting clemency because of the investigation undertaken by state officials starting on May 20. The court also believed that a finder of fact was not likely to believe the investigator's explanation for the timing of the inquiry—namely, that he was responding to an inmate's report in January 2014 that Cole had made personal visits to Winfield's family and attorney.

Even assuming the validity of those points, however, the Department of Corrections now has furnished Cole's signed declaration in support of clemency to the governor. The governor has before him the favorable information that Cole initially agreed to convey in support of clemency. There is no evidence that any other state employee has been deterred from speaking in support of clemency for Winfield.

Whatever minimal procedural safeguards might be guaranteed by the Due Process Clause in a clemency proceeding are likely satisfied here. The procedures employed by the state actors in this case may not have been ideal, but they do not approach the arbitrariness contemplated by Justice O'Connor in Woodard: a coin flip or an arbitrary denial of access to any clemency process.

The Department of Corrections responded to Winfield's allegations by ensuring that the governor received Cole's signed declaration. Winfield is free to apprise the governor about the events giving rise to this lawsuit if that information is deemed helpful to Winfield's cause. Winfield has been granted access to the clemency process, and any influence on that process by state actors communicating with Cole is insufficient to warrant a stay of execution under the circumstances. The decision in Young v. Hayes, 218 F.3d 850 (8th Cir.2000), is distinguishable on its facts, and we express no view in this opinion on the merits of Young.

For these reasons, we vacate the district court's order of June 12 staying the execution of John E. Winfield.

GRUENDER, Circuit Judge, concurring.

I concur in the court's per curiam opinion vacating the stay entered by the district court. However, for the reasons described below, on en banc review, I would overrule Young v. Hayes, 218 F.3d 850 (8th Cir.2000), and adopt a due-process standard more in line with relevant Supreme Court precedent and the approaches taken by other courts.

I believe that Young misapplied Justice O'Connor's concurring opinion in Ohio Adult Parole Authority v. Woodard, 523 U.S. 272, 118 S.Ct. 1244, 140 L.Ed.2d 387 (1998), which explained that “some minimal procedural safeguards apply to clemency proceedings. Judicial intervention might, for example, be warranted in the face of a scheme whereby a state official flipped a coin to determine whether to grant clemency, or in a case where the State arbitrarily denied a prisoner any access to its clemency process.” Id. at 289, 118 S.Ct. 1244. Young failed to explain how the limited due-process protections recognized in Woodard prohibit the state from preventing a government employee from filing a letter in support of clemency. Instead, Young found—without substantial explanation—a due-process violation despite the fact that the prisoner still could submit a clemency application and in the absence of any evidence that the governor would employ an utterly arbitrary process to consider the application. The same is true in this case. Thus, I conclude that Young lacks support in relevant Supreme Court authority.

Young also runs counter to the weight of authority from other courts. Young is an outlier when compared to the narrower approaches adopted by our sister circuits, which have taken to heart Justice O'Connor's emphasis on the word “minimal.” See Faulder v. Tex. Bd. of Pardons & Paroles, 178 F.3d 343, 344–45 (5th Cir.1999) (focusing on whether the “extreme situations” identified by Justice O'Connor were present); Anderson v. Davis, 279 F.3d 674, 676–77 (9th Cir.2002) (identifying ways in which a state might violate procedural due process in its operation of clemency procedures); Duvall v. Keating, 162 F.3d 1058, 1061 (10th Cir.1998); see generally Daniel T. Kobil, Compelling Mercy: Judicial Review and the Clemency Power, 9 St. Thomas L.J. 698, 726–28 (2012). I agree with the Tenth Circuit's position:

Because clemency proceedings involve acts of mercy that are not constitutionally...

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    • United States
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    ...the inmates received the minimal due process guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. Our en banc decision in Winfield v. Steele , 755 F.3d 629 (8th Cir. 2014) (per curiam), is instructive. In that case, a prison staff member was dissuaded from filing a letter in support of a Missouri inmate......
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