Bachynski v. Stewart

Decision Date23 December 2015
Docket NumberNo. 15–1442.,15–1442.
Parties Samantha BACHYNSKI, Petitioner–Appellee, v. Anthony STEWART, Warden, Respondent–Appellant.
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

ARGUED:John S. Pallas, Office of the Michigan Attorney General, Lansing, Michigan, for Appellant. Marilena David–Martin, State Appellate Defender Office, Detroit, Michigan, for Appellee. ON BRIEF:John S. Pallas, Elizabeth Rivard, Office of the Michigan Attorney General, Lansing, Michigan, for Appellant. Marilena David–Martin, Valerie R. Newman, State Appellate Defender Office, Detroit, Michigan, for Appellee.

Before: SUTTON and KETHLEDGE, Circuit Judges; BECKWITH, District Judge.*

OPINION

SUTTON

, Circuit Judge.

When Michigan police officers arrested Samantha Bachynski on suspicion of murder, she invoked her right to remain silent and asked for an attorney. During later interactions between the officers and Bachynski, she changed her mind, eventually pointing to a detective and saying: "I want to talk to you." She then waived her Miranda rights three times and confessed three times to a slew of crimes, including murder. A jury convicted her, and the state courts upheld the conviction over her Fifth (and Fourteenth) Amendment challenge to her confession. A federal district court granted her petition for a writ of habeas corpus, holding that the detectives impermissibly interrogated her without an attorney present. Because the state courts reasonably construed the Supreme Court's teachings in this area, we must reverse.

I.

According to the state appellate court, here is what happened. Bachynski's first two victims were Scott Berels and his pregnant wife Melissa. Bachynski and her boyfriend, Patrick Selepak, an acquaintance of Melissa, came to the Berels' house. At some point, they locked the couple in their bathroom. Then Selepak choked Melissa until she was blue but still alive, all within earshot of her restrained husband. Bachynski "finish[ed] it," pulling a belt around Melissa's neck until she was dead. People v. Bachynski, No. 281550, 2009 WL 723600, at *2 (Mich.Ct.App. Mar. 19, 2009)

. Bachynski took a break to smoke a cigarette, then returned to Scott. Selepak beat Scott "until there was blood everywhere," and Bachynski "moved a knife across [his] neck" and injected him with bleach. Id. Bachynski put her foot on Scott's head and pulled a belt around his neck, killing Scott. Bachynski took another cigarette break. She and Selepak hid the bodies before stealing the couple's money and driving away in their car.

The next day, they befriended a stranger, Frederick Johnson, at a dance club, and they seduced him later that night and in the days that followed—at a hotel and eventually at Johnson's house. They also spent time with him eating and shopping in Frankenmuth, Michigan. They returned to the dance club with him and his son-in-law the next day. And they spent the next two days after that watching movies at Johnson's house. On the last night, they tortured and killed Johnson, apparently in order to steal his truck and other personal items. They loaded his dead body in the bed of Johnson's truck and stole the truck. Police eventually found Bachynski and Selepak in the dead man's stolen truck, with the dead body in the back. They were arrested.

The police read Bachynski her Miranda rights, and she requested an attorney. They did not ask her any questions. Two detectives from another jurisdiction, Charles Esser and Kenneth Stevens, arrived at the police station about an hour later and reread Bachynski her Miranda rights. She again said she wanted an attorney. The conversation ended, and Bachynski was sent back to her cell.

About thirty minutes later, Esser and Stevens realized that Bachynski had no "tools to get a hold of her attorney." Id. at *9. They went to Bachynski's cell and asked her if "she had been given an opportunity to use a phone to contact her attorney." Id. I don't have one, Bachynski responded. Stevens offered her a phone to call her family and a phone book to find an attorney. At this point, Bachynski said that she didn't want to spend the rest of her life in prison and wondered whether she needed an attorney. Esser reiterated that "they could not discuss anything further with her until her attorney was present." Id. Bachynski responded, "with some urgency in her voice": "I can change my mind, can't I?" R. 9–5 at 80. Pointing at Detective Stevens, she said: "I want to talk to you." Id.; see also Bachynski, 2009 WL 723600, at *9

. The detectives obtained the approval of the prosecutor to continue speaking to Bachynski before taking her to another room.

The detectives read Bachynski her Miranda rights and asked her whether she wanted to talk to them without an attorney present. Bachynski "reiterated that she wanted to talk" to them. Bachynski, 2009 WL 723600, at *9

. Acknowledging that she had initially requested an attorney, she said she had "changed [her] mind," "asked to" talk with Detective Stevens, and "would rather just talk to [the detectives]" than get an attorney. R. 9–22 at 6. She signed a waiver of her Miranda rights and confessed to the crimes. Bachynski, 2009 WL 723600, at *3, *9.

About six hours later, Bachynski asked to speak with the officers who had arrested her. The officers administered another Miranda waiver, and Bachynski again confessed to the murders. She did the same thing a third time, this time to Detective Stevens.

Bachynski came to regret her confessions. Her attorney moved to suppress them, arguing that the detectives had "coerce[d]" her into talking through "psychological intimidation." R. 9–5 at 101. As Bachynski remembers the events in her cell, the detectives not only offered her a phone to call her attorney but also mentioned that Selepak had waived his Miranda rights and was talking with other officers about the case and that Selepak's accomplice in a previous case got in more trouble by not talking. All of these statements, her attorney argued, convinced Bachynski to talk and amounted to an improper interrogation.

The state trial court denied Bachynski's motion, making no mention of Bachynski's testimony. It found that Bachynski had initiated the interrogation, not the other way around, and for that reason rejected her claim.

At trial, the jury heard the confessions and observed physical evidence that incriminated Bachynski: her fingerprints were on the duct tape used to wrap the bodies; her sweatshirt had bleach and blood on it; and she was in the driver's seat of a dead man's truck with his dead body in the back when she and her boyfriend were arrested. The jury rejected Bachynski's defense that her boyfriend made her do it and found her guilty of two counts of first-degree murder, among other crimes. The court sentenced her to life without parole.

On direct appeal, Bachynski challenged the admission of her confession, claiming it violated her rights to counsel and against self-incrimination. Bachynski, 2009 WL 723600, at *9–10

. The Michigan Court of Appeals disagreed. It held that the detectives' "communication with [Bachynski] in her holding cell was not an interrogation or the functional equivalent of an interrogation" because it "solely" involved helping her acquire an attorney. Id. at *10. Bachynski, not the detectives, was the one who "insisted on speaking" about the case. Id. At that point, the court held, Bachynski "voluntarily, knowingly and intelligently waived her rights." Id. at *9–10. The Michigan Supreme Court denied discretionary review, and Bachynski did not seek review in the U.S. Supreme Court.

Bachynski filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in federal court, alleging many defects in her conviction. The district court granted relief on one claim—that the state courts unreasonably admitted her confessions in violation of her Fifth Amendment rights—and rejected the others. The State appealed.

II.

Our standard of review is familiar. Federal courts may not disturb a state court's merits decision with respect to a conviction unless it is "contrary to" or an "unreasonable application of" clearly established federal law as determined by the Supreme Court. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1)

. In this instance, the Supreme Court has not "confront[ed] the specific question presented by this case." Woods v. Donald, ––– U.S. ––––, 135 S.Ct. 1372, 1377, 191 L.Ed.2d 464 (2015) (per curiam) (quotation omitted). That means Bachynski must rely on the unreasonable-application prong of § 2254(d)(1). See id. To prevail, Bachynski must show that the state courts' determination was "so lacking in justification that [it] was an error ... beyond any possibility for fairminded disagreement."

Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 103, 131 S.Ct. 770, 178 L.Ed.2d 624 (2011)

. That is not an easy standard to meet. The detectives' conduct must have been so obviously an interrogation that no reasonable judge would think otherwise. It was not.

After a suspect invokes her right to counsel, police may not initiate an "interrogation" of the suspect without counsel present. Edwards v. Arizona, 451 U.S. 477, 484–85, 101 S.Ct. 1880, 68 L.Ed.2d 378 (1981)

. An interrogation occurs when the police "should have known" that their conduct was "reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating response." Rhode Island v. Innis, 446 U.S. 291, 301–02, 100 S.Ct. 1682, 64 L.Ed.2d 297 (1980). That definition naturally includes "express questioning" designed to ferret out the suspect's involvement in the case. Id. at 300–01, 100 S.Ct. 1682. But it also includes the "functional equivalent" of such questioning—"any words or actions on the part of the police (other than those normally attendant to arrest and custody) that the police should know are reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating response." Id. at 301, 100 S.Ct. 1682. If a reasonable person, using all of the facts and circumstances available, would view the police as attempting to obtain a response to use at trial, it is an "interrogation." See id. at...

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