Chandler v. State of Maryland

• Decision Date: 25 September 1972
• Docket Number: No. 70-475-K,70-475-K
• Citation: 360 F. Supp. 305
• Parties: James E. CHANDLER v. STATE OF MARYLAND.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Maryland

360 F. Supp. 305

James E. CHANDLER v. STATE OF MARYLAND.

No. 70-475-K, Case B.

United States District Court, D. Maryland.

September 25, 1972.

James E. Chandler, pro se.

Francis B. Burch, Atty. Gen., of Md., John P. Stafford, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., for respondent.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

FRANK A. KAUFMAN, District Judge.

Chandler, in 1968, was convicted of first degree murder in the Criminal Court of Baltimore and was sentenced by that Court to life imprisonment. He then, with the assistance of counsel, unsuccessfully appealed to the Court of Special Appeals of Maryland. Chandler v. State, 7 Md.App. 646, 256 A.2d 695 (1969). Subsequently, the Court of Appeals of Maryland denied Chandler's certiorari application for further review. Thereafter, Chandler unsuccessfully filed in this Court, pro se, his first petition for a writ of habeas corpus, basing his claim for relief therein on only one of the four contentions he had raised on direct appeal in the Maryland courts, specifically that the prosecutor's inflammatory remarks to the jury denied him due process of law.

Returning to the courts of the State of Maryland in his quest for relief, Chandler next filed a petition under the Maryland Post Conviction Procedure Act raising again the same four contentions which he had previously presented to the Court of Special Appeals on direct appeal and, in addition, raising new claims that illegal identification procedures were used during his trial, that he was inadequately represented by trial counsel, and that he was denied the right to a review of his sentence pursuant to Md.Ann.Code art. 27, § 645A.¹ After a hearing at which Chandler was represented by court-appointed counsel and at which he testified in support of his claims, post-conviction relief was denied on February 3, 1971 by order of Chief Judge Dulaney Foster of the Criminal Court of Baltimore.² Application for leave to appeal was denied by the Court of Special Appeals on August 2, 1971.

Chandler then filed in this Court his present application for a writ of habeas corpus. By a Memorandum and Order of November 2, 1971, this Court dismissed all claims based upon alleged improper and prejudicial remarks made by the prosecutor to the jury but, in accordance with the Fourth Circuit's instructions in Johnson v. Copinger, 420 F.2d 395 (4th Cir. 1969), gave Chandler the opportunity to amend his present petition to show why the other contentions raised in that petition had not been raised in his first application for federal habeas corpus relief. Chandler complied with this Court's Order to amend his petition by alleging that (literally transcribed):

Petitioner respectfully submits to This Court, that he did not deliberately withhold the newly asserted grounds, for he had no knowledge what so ever of how or what he should file before This Court. The petitioner did in fact have to, at that time rely on the advice of inexperienced persons to proceed to This Court, and that although petitioner was not satisfied with the preparance of the Writ, he had no other alternative, or knew of no other alternative, so he did file, but he did not realize he could have abused the writ. * * *

* * * Although these issues were not known to the petitioner at the time of a previous writ before This Court, there were present in the record for direct appeal, but counsel did not raise them, and at that time, petitioner did not know any proceedings, nor did he know the name of certain courts.

* * * * *

The petitioner did not wilfully omit deliberately the issues now raised in his original writ, for he did not know of these issues, nor did he at that time know how to file a petition. These are the petitioners reasons for not previously presenting certain contentions to This Court in his first application for a writ of habeas corpus.

This Court does not find persuasive Chandler's response that the grounds asserted in his second and present federal habeas corpus petition were not known to him at the time he filed his first application for a writ of habeas corpus. Three of the grounds which were omitted from the first petition but included in the second—the insufficiency of the evidence, the admission of hearsay statements, and the search and seizure question—were raised on direct appeal before Chandler filed his first petition in this Court. It is, therefore, difficult to give credence to Chandler's statement that he did not know of those three grounds when he filed that first federal habeas corpus petition. Chandler's failure to assert those known grounds in his first petition might well serve as an independent, and indeed as a threshold, basis for dismissing his second petition for fragmentation of claims.³ However, bypassing that issue, this Court, after reviewing the trial and post-conviction hearing transcripts, finds that Chandler's claims are, on the merits, devoid of substance.

Insufficiency of the Evidence

Federal habeas corpus review of the sufficiency of the evidence supporting a state court conviction is limited to a determination of whether the conviction rests upon any evidence at all. Thompson v. City of Louisville, 362 U.S. 199, 80 S.Ct. 624, 4 L.Ed.2d 654 (1960); Williams v. Peyton, 414 F.2d 776 (4th Cir. 1969); Young v. Boles, 343 F.2d 136 (4th Cir. 1965). Chandler has never denied that he killed one George Graves by shooting him with a shotgun. The Court of Special Appeals of Maryland, after reviewing the evidence in detail, held that there was sufficient evidence to support a conviction for first degree murder. Chandler v. State, 7 Md.App., supra, at 649-652, 256 A.2d 695 (1969). An independent reading and consideration of the trial transcript convinces this Court that, at the very least, there was some evidence that Chandler did have time to deliberate and form the intent to kill. Accordingly, Chandler's lack of evidence contention is lacking in merit herein as a basis for habeas corpus relief.

Seach and Seizure

Shortly after Chandler shot Graves, two police officers entered the Chandler home without a search warrant, conducted a search, and seized a 12 gauge shotgun, one expended 12 gauge shotgun shell, a box of unexpended 12 gauge shotgun shells, a blood-stained shirt and a blood-stained handkerchief. The shotgun and the spent and unexpended shotgun shells were admitted into evidence over objection of defense counsel that they were obtained by an unlawful search and seizure. One of the police officers testified that he found the blood-stained shirt and handkerchief. Chandler was cross-examined extensively on why there was blood on those two articles of clothing. However, neither the shirt nor the handkerchief was introduced into evidence.

The Court of Special Appeals held, in affirming Chandler's conviction on direct appeal, that the warrantless search and seizure was not constitutionally invalid because Chandler's wife consented to the search. Chandler v. State, 7 Md.App., supra at 653-654, 256 A.2d 695. This Court agrees with that holding. Mrs. Chandler testified at her husband's trial that she invited the police officers to come into the house, that she told one of the officers that the shotgun could be found under a bed in one of the second floor bedrooms, and that she took the officer up to the second floor.⁴ Mrs. Chandler had the authority to consent to a search of the house. United States v. Mix, 446 F.2d 615 (5th Cir. 1971) (consent by mother); United States v. Mojica, 442 F.2d 920 (2d Cir. 1971) (consent by brother); United States v. Thompson, 421 F.2d 373, 375-376 (5th Cir.), vacated and remanded, 400 U.S. 17, 91 S.Ct. 122, 27 L.Ed.2d 17 (1970) (consent by wife); United States v. Alloway, 397 F.2d 105 (6th Cir. 1968) (consent by wife); Roberts v. United States, 332 F. 2d 892 (8th Cir. 1964), cert. denied, 380 U.S. 980, 85 S.Ct. 1344, 14 L.Ed.2d 274 (1965) (consent by wife); Stein v. United States, 166 F.2d 851, at 852 (9th Cir. 1948) (consent of woman residing with defendant "as man and wife"; Wade v. Warden, 278 F.Supp. 904, 905-906 (D.Md.1968) (Northrop, J.). See Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 487, 91 S.Ct. 2022, 29 L.Ed.2d 564 (1971); Frazier v. Cupp, 394 U.S. 731, 740, 89 S.Ct. 1420, 22 L.Ed.2d 684 (1969); Amos v. United States, 255 U.S. 313, 317, 41 S.Ct. 266, 65 L.Ed. 654 (1921); United States v. Retolaza, 398 F.2d 235, 242-243 (4th Cir. 1968).

In Coolidge v. New Hampshire, supra, Mr. Justice Stewart wrote (at 487 of 403 U.S., 91 S.Ct. at 2048):

We need not consider the petitioner's further argument that Mrs. Coolidge could not or did not "waive" her husband's constitutional protection against unreasonable searches and seizures.

Had Mrs. Coolidge, wholly on her own initiative, sought out her husband's guns and clothing and then taken them to the police station to be used as evidence against him, there can be no doubt under existing law that the articles would later have been admissible in evidence. Cf. Burdeau v. McDowell, 256 U.S. 465, 41 S.Ct. 574, 65 L.Ed. 1048 1921.

Thus, Mr. Justice Stewart did not reach the question herein posed. That fact was specifically noted by the Fifth Circuit in United States v. Mix, supra, at 619-620 of 446 F.2d, involving the search of and a seizure in a home, and in which the Court found that defendant's mother —

enjoyed equal rights in the premises (including the room in which appellant slept) with appellant and voluntarily gave the detectives permission to search. The trial judge committed no error in denying appellant's motion to suppress the three weapons found by the detectives.3

3. We withheld decision in this case pending the Supreme Court's ruling in Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 1971, 403 U.S. 443, 91 S.Ct. 2022, 29 L.Ed.2d 564. Because the Supreme Court held that no search and seizure took place when police officers went to the defendant's house and obtained from his wife a rifle and articles of clothing belonging to the defendant, it did not reach the issue of whether the defendant's wife

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