Knaubert v. Goldsmith

• Decision Date: 09 June 1986
• Docket Number: No. 84-1938,84-1938
• Citation: 791 F.2d 722
• Parties: Michael KNAUBERT, Petitioner-Appellant, v. GOLDSMITH, Warden, et al., Respondents-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

Page 722

791 F.2d 722

Michael KNAUBERT, Petitioner-Appellant, v. GOLDSMITH, Warden, et al., Respondents-Appellees.

No. 84-1938.

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.

Argued and Submitted Feb. 10, 1986.

Decided June 9, 1986.

Atmore L. Baggot, Phoenix, Ariz., for petitioner-appellant.

Greg A. McCarthy, Asst. Atty. Gen., Dept. of Law, Phoenix, Ariz., for respondents-appellees.

On Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Arizona.

Before BROWNING, Chief Judge, TANG and BEEZER, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:

Michael Knaubert appeals the district court's dismissal of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus and denial of his motion for appointment of counsel. We affirm.

I FACTS

In 1975, an Arizona jury found Michael Knaubert guilty of three counts of first-degree rape, two counts of assault with intent to commit murder, one count of armed robbery, and one count of lewd and lascivious acts. His primary defense at trial was insanity at the time of the crime.

On appeal, Knaubert, represented by new counsel, argued that his consent to a search of his bedroom and his confession were not given voluntarily, and that, therefore, evidence obtained from the search and his confession should not have been admitted at trial. Knaubert also contended that the trial court erred in instructing the jury that there was a presumption of sanity when Knaubert had presented evidence that he was not legally sane at the time the alleged crimes occurred. State v. Knaubert, 27 Ariz.App. 53, 550 P.2d 1095, 1098 (1976). The Arizona Court of Appeals rejected Knaubert's claims regarding the validity of the search and seizure and the propriety of the jury instruction, and remanded the case to the trial court for a determination of whether the confession was voluntary. 550 P.2d at 1100-01. The appeals court ordered that, should the trial court find the confession voluntary, the conviction would be affirmed if the defendant did not object within fifteen days from the trial court's ruling.

The trial court, after reviewing the record, found Knaubert's statements to be voluntary. No evidentiary hearing was held after the remand from the Court of Appeals. However, the record included a transcript of a pre-trial evidentiary hearing on the voluntariness of Knaubert's confession. Knaubert did not object to the trial court's finding. His conviction was affirmed.

In 1978, Knaubert petitioned for post-conviction relief on the grounds that he was insane at the time of the crime and that his sentence was excessive. Knaubert was represented by an attorney different from the one he had on direct appeal. The petition was denied.

In 1981, Knaubert filed a second petition for post-conviction relief, alleging that the trial court failed to conduct an evidentiary hearing after remand on the issue of voluntariness, and that Knaubert's attorney on direct appeal was incompetent for failure to object to the trial court's finding of voluntariness within fifteen days. The Arizona Court of Appeals held that the trial court was not required to conduct a full evidentiary hearing; rather, the remand was "for purposes of allowing the trial court to enter its findings on the record." State v. Knaubert, Nos. CR-82468 and CR-82470, slip op. at 5-6 (Ariz.App. April 5, 1983). The court also held that Knaubert was precluded from claiming that his counsel on direct appeal was ineffective because he failed to raise the issue in his first petition for post-conviction relief. Id. at 6-8.

Knaubert petitioned the United States district court for a writ of habeas corpus, alleging that his confession and consent to the search and seizure were not voluntary The district court found that Knaubert's claims were sufficiently clear that appointment of counsel was not necessary. The court later dismissed each of Knaubert's claims, holding that Knaubert was barred from challenging the legality of the search and seizure because the issue had been accorded a full and fair hearing in the state court; that the state factual determination that the police did not make promises in exchange for Knaubert's confession was to be accorded a presumption of correctness; that Knaubert had failed to show cause and prejudice from his procedural default in the state court on the issue of ineffective assistance of counsel; and that the jury instructions, taken as a whole, did not shift to Knaubert the burden of proving sanity. Knaubert timely appeals.

that his counsel was ineffective, and that the jury was improperly instructed on the insanity defense. Knaubert then moved to have counsel appointed to assist him in presenting his petition.

II ANALYSIS

A. Search and Seizure

Knaubert claims that he did not voluntarily consent to a search of his bedroom, and that evidence derived from the search should have been excluded from trial. The district court held that Knaubert was barred from presenting his Fourth Amendment claim under Stone v. Powell, 428 U.S. 465, 482, 96 S.Ct. 3037, 3046, 49 L.Ed.2d 1067 (1976).

Because we agree with the district court finding that Knaubert has had a full and fair hearing on the search and seizure issue in state court, he is barred from relitigating the issue in this federal habeas corpus action. See Stone v. Powell, 428 U.S. at 482, 96 S.Ct. at 3046; Caldwell v. Cupp, 781 F.2d 714, 715 (9th Cir.1986).

B. Jury Instructions

Knaubert contends that the trial court violated Knaubert's right to due process by instructing the jury on the presumption of sanity. The jury was instructed as follows:

You are instructed that the presumption of law is that every person charged with a crime is sane and the presumption therefore is that the defendant was sane when he committed the act.

In considering the mental state of the accused, the jury must always bear in mind that the law never imposes upon a defendant in a criminal case the burden or duty of calling any witnesses or producing any evidence.

Under the defendant's plea of not guilty by reason of insanity, there is an issue as to his sanity at the time of the alleged offense.

The law does not hold a person criminally accountable for his conduct while insane, since an insane person is not capable of forming the intent essential to the commission of a crime.

You may determine from the evidence whether the defendant was sane at the time the crime was committed.

The State must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was sane.

Knaubert argues that the trial court's jury instruction made the presumption of sanity appear irrebuttable and thus unconstitutionally shifted to Knaubert the burden of proof of his sanity. This contention is without merit.

We review allegedly erroneous jury instructions in the context of the whole charge and the whole trial. See Bashor v. Risley, 730 F.2d 1228, 1239 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 105 S.Ct. 137, 83 L.Ed.2d 77 (1984). Here, the state trial court initially instructed the jury on the presumption of sanity. Immediately following this instruction, however, the court carefully instructed the jury that the state had the ultimate burden of proving that Knaubert was sane beyond a reasonable doubt. A reasonable juror, hearing the instructions as a whole, would not have interpreted them as creating an irrebuttable rule of law requiring the jury to find Knaubert sane. See Francis v. Franklin Moreover, the trial court did not unconstitutionally shift the burden of proof of sanity to Knaubert because the presumption of sanity placed on Knaubert only the burden of producing evidence raising a reasonable doubt as to sanity. See State v. Knaubert, 27 Ariz.App. at 60, 550 P.2d at 1102. Such a presumption does not undermine the fact-finder's responsibility at trial, based on the evidence, to find the ultimate facts beyond a reasonable doubt. See County Court of Ulster County v. Allen, 442 U.S. 140, 156, 99 S.Ct. 2213, 2224, 60 L.Ed.2d 777 (1979). ²

--- U.S. ----, 105 S.Ct. 1965, 1971, 85 L.Ed.2d 344 (1985); Sandstrom v. Montana, 442 U.S. 510, 515, 99 S.Ct. 2450, 2454, 61 L.Ed.2d 39 (1979). Although the initial instruction may have had the potential to confuse the jury, the court's final instruction that the state has the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt Knaubert's sanity was sufficient to clear up any initial confusion. ¹

Our decision in United States v. Arroyave, 465 F.2d 962 (9th Cir.1972) is not to the contrary. In Arroyave, the district court instructed the jury that "... until a reasonable doubt as to the sanity of a defendant appears, the law presumes that all defendants are sane. But whenever, from the evidence in the case, you have a reasonable doubt of the sanity of a defendant, that defendant should be found to be insane." Id. at 963. We reversed on the basis that the presumption of sanity was inapplicable. Here, however, the trial court's instruction sufficiently establishes that the state bears the burden to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was sane. Therefore, Arroyave does not control.

C. Voluntariness of Confession

Knaubert argues that the district court erred in refusing to hold an evidentiary hearing regarding the voluntariness of his confession.

Knaubert's sole reason for complaining that his confession was involuntary is that the police allegedly promised him psychiatric help in exchange for the confession. The state trial court did not render an express factual finding as to whether the police offered Knaubert a quid pro quo for his confession. However, Knaubert presented this argument to the trial court. The state trial court held an evidentiary hearing and admitted the confession into evidence. On remand from the Arizona Court of Appeals, the trial court entered an express finding that the confession was voluntary.

In Miller v. Fenton, --- U.S. ----, 106 S.Ct. 445, 451, 88 L.Ed.2d 405 (1985), the Supreme Court indicated that a state court's conclusion that a confession was voluntary is a legal, not a...