Bueno v. Beto

• Citation: 458 F.2d 457
• Decision Date: 27 April 1972
• Docket Number: No. 71-1806 Summary Calendar.,71-1806 Summary Calendar.
• Parties: Oscar A. BUENO, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Dr. George J. BETO, Director, Texas Department of Corrections, Respondent-Appellee.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (5th Circuit)

458 F.2d 457 (1972)

Oscar A. BUENO, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Dr. George J. BETO, Director, Texas Department of Corrections, Respondent-Appellee.

No. 71-1806 Summary Calendar.^*

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

April 4, 1972.

Rehearing Denied April 27, 1972.

George G. Brin, Corpus Christi, Tex. (court appointed), for petitioner-appellant.

Crawford C. Martin, Atty. Gen., Nola White, First Asst. Atty. Gen., Alfred Walker, Executive Asst. Atty. Gen., Roland Daniel Green, III, Robert C. Flowers, Asst. Attys. Gen., Austin, Tex., for respondent-appellee.

Before JOHN R. BROWN, Chief Judge, and INGRAHAM and RONEY, Circuit Judges.

INGRAHAM, Circuit Judge:

Appellant, a state prisoner presently serving a life term, was convicted by a jury in Nueces County, Texas, of robbery by assault with one enhancement count. His conviction was affirmed by the Court of Criminal Appeals on December 14, 1966, and a petition for writ of habeas corpus to the same court was denied on July 7, 1969. Appellant, having thus exhausted his state remedies, applied to the Federal district court sitting in Corpus Christi, Texas, for a writ of habeas corpus. A hearing was held and the writ was denied. This appeal followed.

Bueno was arrested on October 2, 1965, pursuant to a warrant based on complaint. The following day two witnesses, Manuel Jimenez and Arnold Munoz, two of the employees on duty at the time of the robbery, viewed the appellant in a five man line-up and identified him as one of the participants in the crime. On October 21st a third store employee, Joseph Hernandez, identified petitioner from a picture of the previously held line-up. The October 2nd arrest was held to have been invalid. A grand jury indicted appellant on December 16 for the offense of robbery with firearms and as an habitual criminal. The state waived the capital portion of the indictment. During his trial the appellant, by bill of exception, introduced evidence to show that the in-court testimony of the three store employees was tainted, either directly or indirectly, by their prior identification of appellant, appellant here arguing that the line-up was constitutionally defective. Each time this issue has been litigated, appellant has lost. Bueno v. State, 409 S.W. 2d 421 (Tex.Cr.App.1966)

On appeal appellant raises the following arguments:

A—The testimony of witnesses Hernandez, Jimenez and Munoz identifying him as one of the participants in the robbery was tainted by the earlier identification of appellant by the witnesses during the five man line-up, which was unfairly and suggestively conducted during a period of time when appellant was being illegally detained and was without counsel.

B—The indictment returned by the grand jury and read to the jury at the commencement of appellant's trial failed to state an offense under the Texas Penal Code.

C—The use of appellant's fingerprints obtained during a period when he was being illegally detained for purposes of identifying him with prior convictions, introduced for enhancement purposes, was in violation of his rights under the Fourth Amendment.

Taking appellant's arguments in reverse order, he argues that the fingerprints obtained from him on December 7, during a period of illegal detention, were improperly admitted into evidence for the purpose of identifying him with prior convictions which were then introduced for enhancement purposes. However, the district court found, as a matter of fact, that the allegedly tainted fingerprints were not utilized as the exclusive means of relating the appellant to the prior conviction, and the procedure employed must be deemed constitutionally adequate, particularly in view of the Court of Criminal Appeals affirmance of petitioner's conviction. In this conclusion the district court finds support in Murphy v. Beto, 416 F.2d 98 (5th Cir., 1969).

Appellant's second argument that the indictment returned by the grand jury failed to state an offense under the Texas Penal Code was likewise correctly handled by the district court. The indictment in the instant case was upheld on direct appeal by the Court of Criminal Appeals and was further considered by that court and found sufficient on appellant's habeas corpus application. In such circumstances a Federal court should not inquire further into the wisdom of the judgment. Murphy v. Beto, supra.

Appellant's first argument, however, raises a substantial question. His conviction and the line-up occurred prior to the Supreme Court's holding in the case of United States v. Wade, 388 U.S. 218, 87 S.Ct. 1926, 18 L.Ed.2d 1149 (1967), and its companion case, Gilbert v. California, 388 U.S. 263, 87 S.Ct. 1951, 18 L.Ed.2d 1178 (1967). In these cases the Supreme Court extended the Sixth Amendment guarantee of a right to counsel to post-indictment line-up proceedings. In Stovall v. Denno, 388 U.S. 293, 87 S.Ct. 1967, 18 L.Ed.2d 1199 (1967), the Supreme Court held that the Wade rule was to be of prospective application only. Appellant, however, argues that Wade made no new law and was merely an extension of the right to counsel which the Supreme Court articulated in Escobedo v. Illinois, 378 U.S. 478, 84 S.Ct. 1758, 12 L.Ed.2d 977 (1964). In this we must rely on Stovall v. Denno, supra, and hold that this count asking for retroactive application of Wade must be denied.

Appellant also contends that the lineup took place during a period of illegal detention, and that this circumstance taints the subsequent court room identification. As to the illegality of his detention at the time the line-up in fact occurred, appellant is, of course, correct. At his trial the State trial judge found that his arrest on October 2nd was invalid and that the line-up occurred on October 3rd, whereas the grand jury indictment was not handed down until December 16, all in the same year. By motion during the course of the trial, appellant has preserved his objections to the introduction of the in-court identification. He asserts that the in-court identification by all three witnesses was based to some degree on the line-up, and that the line-up was unfairly and suggestively conducted.

The question before this court is whether the confrontation at the line-up was so unnecessarily suggestive that he was denied due process of law, or that the confrontation resulted in such unfairness that it infringed his right to due process of law. Both of these questions were left open to persons convicted prior to June 12, 1967 by the Supreme Court's decision in Stovall, supra. See also Simmons v. United States, 390 U.S. 377, 88 S.Ct. 967, 19 L.Ed.2d 1247 (1968). The court may properly consider these questions as the appellant, through the State habeas corpus proceedings and the direct attack on his conviction, has raised the same issues before the State court.

The test which this circuit applies...