Daugherty v. Welborn
| Citation | 813 F. Supp. 655 |
| Decision Date | 30 November 1992 |
| Docket Number | No. 92-1406.,92-1406. |
| Parties | Randy C. DAUGHERTY, Plaintiff, v. George WELBORN, Warden, Menard Correctional Center, and Roland W. Burris, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Central District of Illinois |
Randy C. Daugherty, pro se.
Charles M. Schiedel, State Appellate Defender, Karen Alice Kloppe, Atty. Gen., Springfield, IL, for defendants.
In November 1991, Randy Daugherty applied for a Writ of Habeas Corpus in the Springfield Division of the Central District of Illinois pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254 (Case No. 91-3323). Judge Richard Mills transferred the Petition to Chief Judge Michael Mihm in September of 1992 (new Case No. 92-1406). Judge Mihm reassigned the Petition to Judge Joe B. McDade on September 17, 1992. The Court now RESERVES RULING on the Petition for a Writ of Habeas Corpus, pending resolution of Taylor v. Gilmore, 954 F.2d 441 (7th Cir.1992), cert. granted, ___ U.S. ___, 113 S.Ct. 52, 121 L.Ed.2d 22 (1992) in the United States Supreme Court.
On January 12, 1982, Randy Daugherty was convicted of murder in the Circuit Court of Pike County, Illinois.1 He was sentenced to 70 years imprisonment. The record indicates that Petitioner perfected his direct appeal in the state court system. The Illinois Appellate Court affirmed the conviction,2 and the Illinois Supreme Court denied him leave to appeal in 1983.3 Petitioner also perfected his collateral appeal in the state court system. In his petition for post-conviction relief, he attacked his conviction on the grounds that: (1) the murder/manslaughter pattern jury instructions given by the trial court denied him due process by their failure to properly allocate the burden of proof upon the state; and (2) the ineffective assistance of counsel.4 Relief was denied by the Illinois Circuit Court on the basis that People v. Reddick, 123 Ill.2d 184, 122 Ill.Dec. 1, 526 N.E.2d 141 (1988), the controlling legal authority on the instructions at issue, could not be given retroactive application because the decision was handed down subsequent to Petitioner's conviction.5 The Illinois Appellate Court affirmed the Circuit Court's decision,6 and the Illinois Supreme Court again denied the Petitioner leave to appeal.7 Petitioner's habeas petition repeats this postconviction ground as a basis for habeas relief.
In its Response to the Petition, the State concedes that Petitioner has completely exhausted his state court remedies for this claim and does not raise any issues of procedural default. The State also concedes that the instructions given at trial were in error and merit habeas relief, citing United States ex rel. Flowers v. Illinois Dept. of Corrections, 767 F.Supp. 880 (N.D.Ill.1991), aff'd, Flowers v. Illinois Dept. of Corrections, 962 F.2d 703 (7th Cir.1992), petition for cert. filed, 61 U.S.L.W. 3150 (Aug. 5, 1992) (No. 92-253)8 and Taylor v. Gilmore, 954 F.2d 441 (7th Cir.1992), cert. granted, ___ U.S. ___, 113 S.Ct. 52, 121 L.Ed.2d 22 (1992), but argues that this error was "harmless."9
It appears that both Petitioner and the State premise Petitioner's entitlement to habeas relief upon the notion that federal due process concerns are implicated by the defective murder/manslaughter instructions given at Daugherty's trial. Their erroneous rationale for a due process violation is that these instructions failed to properly allocate to the State the burden of proof with respect to the various mental states that could have supported a voluntary manslaughter conviction. This burden of proof question was the central issue in People v. Reddick, 123 Ill.2d 184, 122 Ill. Dec. 1, 526 N.E.2d 141 (1988), which was controlled solely by state law and did not implicate federal due process principles. See Taylor v. Gilmore, 954 F.2d 441, 448 (7th Cir.1992), cert. granted, ___ U.S. ___, 113 S.Ct. 52, 121 L.Ed.2d 22 (1992). Having incorrectly adopted Reddick as the controlling law for habeas relief, Petitioner — blindly followed by the State — argues now (as it did in state post-conviction proceedings) that Reddick should be applied retroactively to invalidate his conviction on federal due process grounds.
The parties' briefs indicate that they both perceive that the burden of proof issue decided in Reddick implicated federal due process concerns, a notion suggested in Falconer v. Lane, 905 F.2d 1129 (7th Cir. 1990) (cited by Petitioner).10 In Falconer, the Seventh Circuit wrote:
The murder instruction ... read as though voluntary manslaughter did not exist as a crime. No matter how clearly either the State or the defense proved the existence of the mitigating "manslaughter defenses," the jury could nevertheless return a murder verdict in line with the murder instruction as given. Far from setting aside an interpretation of state law by state courts, the district court's decision in this case effectuated the holding of Reddick through the vehicle of the Due Process Clause.
Id. at 1136. In reliance upon Falconer, the parties have erroneously extended Reddick to include federal due process as a ground for its decision to invalidate Illinois' defective murder/manslaughter instructions. The confusion surrounding Falconer's relationship to Reddick was put straight, however, in Taylor v. Gilmore, 954 F.2d 441 (7th Cir.1992), cert. granted, ___ U.S. ___, 113 S.Ct. 52, 121 L.Ed.2d 22 (1992):
... some of our cases may have left the lingering impression that we still believed there was some federal constitutional content in Reddick.... We take this opportunity to dispel any such impressions. Reddick according to its own terms, was controlled by § 3-2 of the Illinois Criminal Code. The question here is whether the case was also controlled by the federal constitution. Reddick left this question unaddressed because of its grounding in state law. We find that it was not. First, any links with the due process principles in Falconer are illusory. Falconer, as we shall see, did not rest on burden of proof questions, but rather upon the fact that the instructions were confusing and could permit a jury to completely ignore whether the defendant had a mitigating mental state — regardless of who bore the burden of proof.
Id. at 448-49. Taylor v. Gilmore is the controlling law in this Circuit which this Court is bound to follow with reference to the federal due process issues implicated by the murder/manslaughter instructions involved in this case.11
In Taylor, the petitioner had been convicted of murder. Similar to the case at bar, at trial, the jury was given the standard pattern jury instructions on murder and voluntary manslaughter (back-to-back) without clarifying that, to obtain a murder conviction, the State bore the burden of disproving any mitigating factors raised by the defendant as an affirmative defense — in addition to the elements of murder — beyond a reasonable doubt. Taylor, 954 F.2d at 443-44. In his habeas petition, Taylor claimed that these instructions violated his right to procedural due process under the Federal Constitution. To support this claim, the petitioner apparently cited People v. Reddick, 123 Ill.2d 184, 122 Ill.Dec. 1, 5, 526 N.E.2d 141 (1988) — which held that because Illinois' murder/manslaughter instructions relieved the prosecution of its burden of proof, they violated state law — and Falconer v. Lane, 905 F.2d 1129, 1136 (7th Cir.1990) — which held that because these instructions were confusing, they violated federal due process.
In Taylor I, the State conceded that the murder/manslaughter instructions were defective under both Reddick and Falconer, and contended that because they announced "new rules" under the retroactivity principles of Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288, 109 S.Ct. 1060, 103 L.Ed.2d 334 (1989) and its progeny, they could not be applied retroactively to benefit the petitioner. The district court agreed and denied the petition for habeas corpus. U.S. ex rel. Taylor v. Gilmore, Taylor I, 770 F.Supp. 445 (C.D.Ill.1990).12
The Seventh Circuit, however, never reached the "new rule" question on Reddick, holding that a "Reddick instruction," which misstates the prosecution's burden of proof, is simply a violation of state law, not federal due process, Taylor, 954 F.2d at 449. This holding effectively reversed the district court's finding that Reddick incorporated due process principles and that Falconer gave Reddick federal constitutional stature.13 The Court of Appeals distinguished the holding in Falconer v. Lane from the one in Reddick, stating that a federal due process violation occurs if the two pattern instructions on murder and voluntary manslaughter, given in a consecutive manner, are so confusing that they "could permit the jury to completely ignore whether the defendant had a mitigating mental state — regardless of who bore the burden of proof." Taylor, 954 F.2d at 449. The Court then held that Falconer was not a "new rule," applied it to Taylor's conviction, and granted the writ.
In Taylor, the petitioner apparently raised a Falconer due process claim in his habeas petition, because the Court of Appeals granted the writ on that basis. Arguably, however, Mr. Daugherty has made no such claim — neither facially nor in substance — neither in his state post conviction petition nor in his habeas petition. Instead of Falconer, Daugherty has relied upon Reddick as the basis for his claim, a claim which did not implicate federal due process principles.
Title 28 U.S.C. § 2254(a) states that a federal court may only hear a habeas claim if the petitioner alleges that "he is in custody in violation of the Constitution or laws ... of the United States." This statute further states that:
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