Coleman v. Johnson
| Decision Date | 29 September 1983 |
| Docket Number | Civ. A. No. 82-0017-A. |
| Citation | 574 F. Supp. 360 |
| Parties | Charles L. COLEMAN, Petitioner, v. G.M. JOHNSON et al., Respondents. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Western District of Virginia |
Robert I. Asbury, Marion, Va., for petitioner.
Linwood T. Wells, Richmond, Va., for respondents.
Charles L. Coleman was convicted in the Circuit Court of Smyth County of statutory burglary, Va.Code § 18.2-91, as amended, and of grand larceny, Va.Code § 18.2-95, as amended. For each charge, he was sentenced to confinement in the penitentiary for a term of ten years.
The Supreme Court of Virginia denied Coleman's petition for a writ of error. The plaintiff then petitioned this court, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254, for a writ of habeas corpus in which he alleged eleven errors entitling him to relief. The court denied the petition on December 27, 1982. Next, the petitioner petitioned the court for a rehearing based on only one ground. The court granted the petition to rehear and scheduled oral argument on two different occasions. Because of certain circumstances, however, oral argument was not held.
After a detailed analysis of the case, the court is of the opinion that any oral argument by the petitioner would not contribute significantly to the decisional process of the court. The decision is that the petition for a writ of habeas corpus will be dismissed. By means of this Memorandum Opinion, the court will now expound the rationale on which it bases its decision.
The petitioner set forth the central issue in the original petition for a writ of habeas corpus, by saying:
Petitioner's rights under the 5th and 14th Amendments to the Constitution of the United States were violated by the admission of hearsay evidence as to the ownership of the automobile which was the object of the warrantless search and petitioner's rights to confrontation provided by Article 1, Section 8, of the Virginia Constitution were also violated by the same evidence.
In other words, the petitioner contends that his custody is in violation of federal constitutional law because his convictions were based on hearsay testimony admitted into evidence during the trial and on the subsequent denial of his right of confrontation of his witnesses.
The Court examined three elements of the petitioner's claim. Specifically, it determined: first, whether the proffered statement concerning the ownership of the automobile was hearsay and erroneously was admitted into evidence by the trial court; second, if it was hearsay evidence, whether its admission then violated the petitioner's sixth amendment right to confront his witnesses; and third, even if the evidence was hearsay, whether the other evidence presented by the Commonwealth was sufficient for a rational trier of fact to have found the petitioner guilty as charged. An exposition of the court's analysis of each element follows.
Hearsay is defined as "testimony given by a witness who relates, not what he knows personally, but what others have told him, or what he has heard said by others." (Citation omitted.) Cross v. Commonwealth, 195 Va. 62, 74, 77 S.E.2d 447, 453 (1953). Generally speaking, (Footnotes omitted.) 7 Michie's Jur. Evidence § 195, at 609 (1976). In other words, out-of-court statements traditionally are excluded because they lack the conventional indicia of reliability. Thus, cross-examination is the essential procedure by which accuracy is ensured and truth is discovered.
A careful review of the trial court's record showed that Deputy Sheriff Kenney's testimony concerning the ownership of the automobile was indeed hearsay. (Tr. 53-55). The deputy sheriff testified that the car in which the belongings had been found was registered to the petitioner: He was inferring, of course, a link between the petitioner's ownership of the car and his commission of the criminal offense. The deputy sheriff, however, was repeating the statement of an anonymous declarant. That declarant was not subjected to cross-examination at the trial or at the time the statement was first made. In fact, the declarant was not even identified so that the petitioner could have called him or her as a witness.
Thus the deputy sheriff did not have first-hand knowledge concerning the ownership of the automobile and could not attest under cross-examination to the reliability of the information or to the method of its compilation. His proffered statements erroneously were admitted into evidence by the trial court.
This error of evidential admission stands in spite of the fact that the reliability of the information could have been established by one of two procedures: namely, by the calling of the actual compiler of the report as a witness; or, pursuant to the Va.Code §§ 46.1-34 and 46.1-34.1, as amended, by the proffering of the certificate of the license plate number of the motor vehicle as prima facie evidence of ownership. This error, however, does not hinder the efforts of the court to inquire into the petitioner's right to a writ of habeas corpus.
The United States Supreme Court has held that "the Sixth Amendment's Confrontation Clause, made applicable to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment, ... provides: `In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right ... to be confronted with witnesses against him'" Ohio v. Roberts, 448 U.S. 56, 62-63, 100 S.Ct. 2531, 2537-2538, 65 L.Ed.2d 597 (1980). Thus, the essence of the Confrontation Clause is that a constitutionally required threshold level of inquiry is afforded the accused.
Often, a discussion of the Confrontation Clause is linked with issues concerning the evidentiary hearsay rule and its exceptions. The Court in Dutton declared, for example, that Dutton v. Evans, 400 U.S. 74, 86, 91 S.Ct. 210, 218, 27 L.Ed.2d 213 (1970). (Footnotes omitted.) On the other hand, when a defendant in a criminal prosecution invokes the hearsay exclusionary rule, he is fortified by the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
The Confrontation Clause, however, does not require that "no hearsay evidence can ever be introduced." Dutton v. Evans, 400 U.S. at 80, 91 S.Ct. at 215. By distinguishing the cases argued by the petitioner, the Court in Dutton interpreted the nature of the admissibility of hearsay evidence in these words:
Dutton v. Evans, 400 U.S. at 87, 91 S.Ct. at 219. Essentially, the Court held that the admission of an out-of-court statement into evidence would not result in the denial of the defendant's right of confrontation if the hearsay evidence was of peripheral significance at most and if it bore the indicia of reliability that fully warranted its being placed before the trier of fact. Id. at 87-89, 91 S.Ct. at 219-220. Stated another way, a defendant's trial will not be marred by a substantial constitutional error if this two-pronged standard of admissibility is used to place a statement before the jury even though its declarant is not confronted.
The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals also has been presented with the constitutional question of a defendant's right to confront his accusers. The Court in the Freeman case, for example, reversed a federal district court's order granting a writ of habeas corpus to the state prisoner whose conviction of the possession of a shotgun allegedly was based on hearsay evidence. Freeman v. Slayton, 550 F.2d 909 (4th Cir.1976), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 1111, 97 S.Ct. 1150, 51 L.Ed.2d 566 (1977). Judge Widener wrote that by using the test of "any evidence at all," the court found that the conviction was based on sufficient evidence unobjected to on ground of hearsay. Thus, the court did not have to consider the constitutional question or the petitioner's rights under the Confrontation Clause. Id. at 910, 911.
In his dissent from the denial of certiorari, Mr. Justice Marshall expressed grave concerns that the court did not consider the problem of the Confrontation Clause. He then analyzed whether the Confrontation Clause was violated in this case by using the two-pronged standard developed in Dutton. Cf. Dutton v. Evans, 400 U.S. at 87-89, 91 S.Ct. at 219-220.
More recently, the Fourth Circuit has rendered decisions concerning the hearsay rule and the Confrontation Clause. United States v. West, 574 F.2d 1131 (4th Cir. 1978); United States v. Garner, 574 F.2d 1141 (4th Cir.1978). The Court held in both cases that sworn grand jury testimony may be admitted under the exceptions to the hearsay rule of the Federal Rules of Evidence when it possesses, under the circumstances, the indicia of essentiality and trustworthiness. The Court in Garner stated, for example, that "the admission of such sworn testimony is not a violation of the Confrontation Clause of the Constitution if it bears...
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Ingram v. Com., 0012-84
...have been perceived to lack the conventional indicia of reliability, and are not susceptible to cross-examination. Coleman v. Johnson, 574 F.Supp. 360, 361 (W.D.Va.1983). The Division of Motor Vehicles' transcript of the appellant's driving record was hearsay because it was offered to show ......