Anderson v. State of SC

• Citation: 542 F. Supp. 725
• Decision Date: 28 June 1982
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 80-862-8.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of South Carolina
• Parties: John Paul ANDERSON, Petitioner, v. The STATE OF SOUTH CAROLINA and the Attorney General of the State of South Carolina, Respondents.

542 F. Supp. 725

John Paul ANDERSON, Petitioner, v. The STATE OF SOUTH CAROLINA and the Attorney General of the State of South Carolina, Respondents.

Civ. A. No. 80-862-8.

United States District Court, D. South Carolina, Columbia Division.

June 28, 1982.

Betty McBride Sloan, Columbia, S. C., for petitioner.

Daniel R. McLeod, Atty. Gen., Columbia. S. C., for respondents.

BLATT, District Judge.

This habeas corpus action, brought pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254, is before the court upon petitioner's and respondents' cross motions for summary judgment under Fed.R.Civ.Pro. 56. Petitioner challenges his conviction and subsequent incarceration by South Carolina authorities as violative of the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States. The record includes a report and recommendation of the United States Magistrate made in accordance with the local rule of this District concerning reference of prisoner cases under 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(B). In the Matter of Authority of United States Magistrates Rule 3(a) (May 9, 1977) (local rule). See, e.g., Wingo v. Wedding, 418 U.S. 461, 94 S.Ct. 2842, 41 L.Ed.2d 879 (1974); Mitchell v. Beaubouef, 581 F.2d 412 (5th Cir. 1978), reh. denied, 586 F.2d 842 (5th Cir. 1973), cert. denied, 441 U.S. 966, 99 S.Ct. 2416, 60 L.Ed.2d 1072 (1979); Schleicher v. Wyrick, 529 F.2d 906 (8th Cir. 1976); Bowman v. Bordenkircher, 522 F.2d 209 (4th Cir. 1975). Under 28 U.S.C. § 636,

a judge of the court shall make a de novo determination of those portions of the report or specified proposed findings or recommendations to which objection is made. A judge of the court may accept, reject, or modify, in whole or in part, the findings or recommendations made by the magistrate. The judge may also receive further evidence or recommit the matter to the magistrate with instructions.

28 U.S.C. § 636(b). E.g., Blasingame v. Estelle, 604 F.2d 893 (5th Cir. 1979); Orand v. United States, 602 F.2d 207 (9th Cir. 1979); United States v. Raddatz, 592 F.2d 976 (7th Cir. 1979). See also Rule 8(b)(4), Rules Governing Section 2254 Cases. Absent timely objection from a dissatisfied party, however, the scope of this court's review of the magistrate's report is more limited. Park Motor Mart, Inc. v. Ford Motor Co., 616 F.2d 603 (1st Cir. 1980). See 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(B); Bowman v. Bordenkircher, 522 F.2d 209 (4th Cir. 1975). Cf. United States v. Walters, 638 F.2d 947 (6th Cir. 1981) (failure to object to Magistrate's report constitutes a waiver of right to appeal from district court's order adopting that report). Nonetheless, while the level of scrutiny entailed by the district court's review of the report and recommendation of the magistrate depends on whether objections thereto have been filed, e.g., Webb v. Califano, 468 F.Supp. 825 (E.D.Cal.1979), in either case "the district judge is free, after review, to accept, reject or modify any of the magistrate's findings or recommendations." United States ex rel. Henderson v. Brierley, 468 F.2d 1193 (3d Cir. 1972). See Bowman v. Bordenkircher, 522 F.2d 209 (4th Cir. 1975).

In the instant case, both petitioner¹ and respondents have advanced objections to certain portions of the magistrate's report, and petitioner has filed a reply² to respondents' objections. The contested findings and recommendations of the magistrate's report have been accorded the de novo review mandated by 28 U.S.C. § 636(b), Rule 8(b)(4) of the Rules Governing Section 2254 Cases, and the relevant case law, and the remainder of the record has been reviewed to assure that the magistrate's findings and recommendations are just and proper.

A careful review of the record indicates that the magistrate's report accurately and exhaustively³ recounts the facts of this case, and that report is hereby incorporated into this order by specific reference thereto. Although the record created during the convoluted history of this case is extensive, the question presently before this court is fairly narrow. As correctly noted by the magistrate,

prior litigation has eliminated all justiciable federal issues the petitioner has advanced over the years except for the question of whether the petitioner's right to a fair trial was denied by the circumstances of the failure of his defense attorney in 1965 to obtain before trial a copy of the autopsy report prepared by the pathologist who testified at the trial, and copies of two reports compiled by investigating officers before trial.

Report at 3. Of course, this "question arises because of Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963), and its progeny." Id. at 4, n.4.

Briefly, petitioner was convicted in December, 1965, of drowning his young bride, Brenda Lee Minton, in the ocean off Folly Beach, South Carolina, on June 19, 1965, ostensibly to collect a life insurance policy purchased during their courtship. While defense counsel argued that petitioner's wife had drowned accidentally after a scuba diving lesson, the prosecution contended that petitioner had purposefully murdered her by grasping her upper arms and holding her under water until she drowned. In support of their contention, the prosecution "repeatedly pointed to faint bruises on her arms after her body washed ashore ...." Report at 14. Testimony concerning these bruise marks was elicited from numerous witnesses and emphasized by the prosecution in its jury arguments.⁴

Moreover, "the circumstantial evidence of the petitioner's guilt, including the motive for the slaying of his wife, was very strong." Id. at 12. Prior to his marriage to Brenda, petitioner had wooed a succession of young women by pretending that he was a wealthy and educated naval officer or businessman. According to the testimony of these girlfriends,⁵ as well as certain insurance agents, petitioner "discussed marriage and insurance on the lives of most of these women with them, or with insurance agents, on the premise that large insurance policies for each of the women would enhance their future security together after marriage to him." Report at 13. In December, 1964, prior to his engagement to Brenda Lee Minton, petitioner acquired a life insurance policy⁶ on her life, naming first her parents, and, eventually, himself as beneficiary.

In addition to the large body of circumstantial evidence marshalled by the prosecution, petitioner's trial counsel faced other serious hurdles in presenting his defense. As the magistrate charitably observes in his report, "petitioner's testimony contained several internal inconsistencies ... and was lacking in credibility in several particulars ...." Report at 15.

It would be difficult for any factfinder to credit the petitioner's accounts of his free-wheeling love affairs, even after his marriage, his strained explanation of the financial arrangement he worked out for the father of Brenda's unborn child ... to pay for the financial burden Brenda had incurred or expected to incur later because of the pregnancy, and his wholly unconvincing explanation of why he admittedly asked some of his friends after Brenda's death to line up "Tillies" (his term for witnesses willing to testify falsely for a fee) to give him an alibi of sorts by perjured testimony.

Id. at 15-16 (footnotes omitted).

Petitioner's trial was quite lengthy, involving more than forty witnesses and numerous exhibits over the course of seven days. Not surprisingly, the jury's deliberations were also lengthy, eventually culminating in a guilty verdict to the murder charge. This conviction was subsequently affirmed by the South Carolina Supreme Court. State v. Anderson, 253 S.C. 168, 169 S.E.2d 706 (1969).⁷ On February 12, 1969, petitioner filed a petition for federal habeas corpus relief, which was docketed as Civil Action No. 69-137 and assigned to the Honorable Robert W. Hemphill, United States District Judge. At the time this petition was filed, the South Carolina Supreme Court had not yet decided his direct appeal, and Judge Hemphill therefore dismissed the petition for failure to exhaust the available state remedies. Petitioner appealed this dismissal to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals; during the course of this appeal, the South Carolina Supreme Court rejected petitioner's direct appeal and the Fourth Circuit consequently remanded his federal habeas corpus petition to the district court. Anderson v. State of South Carolina, No. 13360 (4th Cir. April 7, 1970).

Subsequent to remand, petitioner submitted a pro se⁸ motion to disqualify Judge Hemphill, which resulted in the petition being reassigned to this court. An evidentiary hearing was conducted beginning August 23, 1973, focusing on the grounds for relief originally raised in the petition.⁹ Although the court denied relief on all of these grounds, the latent Brady issue concerning the autopsy report and investigative notes became apparent during the course of this hearing. The court directed that petitioner's counsel be given access to all available prosecutorial files, and the hearing was reconvened on February 1, 1974; after hearing arguments on the Brady issue, this court issued oral findings of facts and conclusions of law and granted petitioner relief on this issue. On appeal, the Fourth Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of petitioner's original grounds for relief, but vacated the relief granted on the Brady issue since that issue had only arisen during the course of the federal proceeding and had not been presented to the South Carolina courts. Anderson v. State of South Carolina, No. 74-1225 (4th Cir. September 27, 1974).

Consequently, petitioner filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the Court of Common Pleas for the Ninth Judicial Circuit, which was treated as an application under the Uniform Post-Conviction Procedure Act, S.C. Code Ann. §§ 17-27-10 et seq. (1976). In an order filed July 8, 1977, the Honorable Klyde Robinson, Resident Judge of the Ninth Judicial Circuit, granted petitioner post-conviction...