Estelle v. Jurek

• Decision Date: 23 March 1981
• Docket Number: No. 80-763,80-763
• Citation: 101 S.Ct. 1724,450 U.S. 1014,68 L.Ed.2d 214
• Parties: W. J. ESTELLE, Jr., Director, Texas Department of Corrections v. Jerry Lane JUREK
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

450 U.S. 1014

101 S.Ct. 1724

68 L.Ed.2d 214

W. J. ESTELLE, Jr., Director, Texas Department of Corrections

v Jerry Lane JUREK

No. 80-763

Supreme Court of the United States

March 23, 1981

Rehearing Denied May 18, 1981.

See 451 U.S. 1011, 101 S.Ct. 2349.

On petition for writ of certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

The motion of respondent for leave to proceed in forma pauperis is granted. The petition for a writ of certiorari is denied.

Justice REHNQUIST, dissenting.

In light of the facts of this case and the legal issues it presents, it is inexplicable to me why this Court fails to grant the petition for certiorari and give the case plenary consideration. Against the backdrop of a death sentence, this case involves the voluntariness of a series of confessions, the proper standard of review of state and federal lower court determinations of "voluntariness" in a habeas corpus proceeding, and the applicability of the harmless-error doctrine. To be sure, the issues presented are difficult. But that is surely no reason for this Court to avoid its responsibility of resolving a case as important to the integrity of our judicial system as this.

Jurek is no stranger to this Court. In early 1974, Jurek was convicted by a jury of the murder of a 10-year-old girl and sentenced to death. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed, rejecting Jurek's contention that his oral and two written confessions were involuntary and should not have been admitted into evidence. Jurek v. State, 522 S.W.2d 934 (1975). We granted certiorari to decide only whether Texas' death penalty statute was constitutional and affirmed, finding that the statute satisfied the principles announced in Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 92 S.Ct. 2726, 33 L.Ed.2d 346 (1972). Jurek v. Texas, 428 U.S. 262, 96 S.Ct. 2950, 49 L.Ed.2d 929 (1976). Jurek then unsuccessfully sought a writ of habeas corpus in the state courts. We denied his petition for a writ of certiorari, after granting a temporary stay of execution pending timely filing for that writ. Jurek v. Estelle, 430 U.S. 951, 97 S.Ct. 1592, 51 L.Ed.2d 800 (1977).

But, as in so many criminal cases these days, Jurek's conviction was still not final. He next commenced habeas corpus proceedings in the federal courts, again challenging the voluntariness of his confessions. The District Court held an exhaustive evidentiary hearing and—like the jury, the state trial court and the state appellate court before it—found the confessions to be voluntary. A panel of the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit nevertheless reversed, concluding that the confessions were involuntary. The 25 judges of the Court of Appeals sitting en banc also reversed, albeit on somewhat different grounds. 623 F.2d 929 (1980). Judge Garza's opinion, embraced in its entirety by only three other judges, represents the result reached by a majority of the court. The majority found that although the oral confession and the first written confession were voluntary, the second written confession was involuntary. Judge Godbold, joined by one other judge, would have found both written confessions involuntary. Judge Frank M. Johnson, joined by six judges would have held all of the confessions involuntary. Judges Brown and Reavely filed separate opinions, joined by 8 and 8 judges respectively, which would have held all of the confessions voluntary.

Briefly stated, these are the facts surrounding the confessions. Jurek was arrested late at night in Cuero, Tex., in connection with the disappearance of Wendy Adams. He was taken to police headquarters, given Miranda warnings and questioned for 45 minutes. He was not questioned again until 9 o'clock the next morning. He asked to take a polygraph test and was driven to Austin, Tex., for that purpose.^* When confronted with the results of the test, he orally admitted killing Wendy and told the police where the body might be found. The police then returned Jurek to Cuero and immediately took him before a Magistrate where Jurek declined a request for counsel. After searching unsuccessfully for the body, the police again questioned Jurek and late that night took a written confession from Jurek, witnessed by two members of the community, in which he stated he killed Wendy because she made disparaging remarks about his family. For security reasons, the police then transferred Jurek for the night to a jail in Victoria, Tex., about 50 miles away. The next day the police found Wendy's body and that afternoon again questioned Jurek. In a second written confession, again witnessed by two other members of the community, Jurek stated that he killed Wendy because she refused to have sexual relations with him.

There are several reasons why this case is worthy of review. In the first place, Judge Garza's attempt to distinguish between the first and second written confession is, to me, wholly unpersuasive. Indeed, other than Judge Garza and the three judges who joined him, no one had ever suggested that the second confession was less voluntary than the first. In cases involving multiple confessions, we have held that some of the confessions may be found involuntary and others not only if such a distinction is justified by a sufficiently isolating "break in the stream of events." Darwin v. Connecticut, 391 U.S. 346, 349, 88 S.Ct. 1488, 1490, 20 L.Ed.2d 630 (1968). There is no such break here.

Judge Garza attempted to distinguish the second confession on the ground that the police were motivated by a desire to secure a death sentence for Jurek. But, as even Judge Johnson recognized in his separate opinion, the record reveals that the prosecutors believed they already had enough evidence to obtain a death verdict. 623 F.2d, at 943. The record shows that the prosecutors sought the second confession simply because they wanted a signed statement of the "true" events. Each time the police learned of something new relating to Wendy's disappearance, they went to Jurek to confirm it. Surely nothing in the Constitution prevents the police from asking questions to discern the facts and solve a crime. Judge Garza also relied heavily on the alleged difference in "style" between the two confessions, that Jurek had less input in the second confession because it contained some "legalese." But even if there is a significant difference in style between the confessions—which I doubt—that may well be explained simply by the fact that the confessions were "transcribed" by two different persons. And all of the witnesses to the second confession have testified that they believed the confession to be voluntary. The opinion also relies on the fact that there was a 16-hour time difference between the two confessions, but such reliance is misplaced in light of our decisions holding that even a 6-month time difference is not enough to constitute a sufficiently isolating break between two confessions. United States v. Bayer, 331 U.S. 532, 67 S.Ct. 1394, 91 L.Ed. 1654 (1947). Finally, Judge Garza criticized the police for not informing Jurek that if he admitted to attempting to have sexual relations with Wendy, he "was in effect" signing his "death warrant." 623 F.2d, at 935. But even if it were true that the police were seeking the death sentence, our cases have never required the police to give such unsolicited legal advice. In short, nothing in the record reveals any police misconduct or any "coercion" visited upon Jurek. Quite the contrary, their performance strikes me as commendable. The evidence simply does not establish that Jurek's will was overborne or that his confession was not the product of a rational intellect and a free will.

If the issue in this case was only whether Jurek's confessions were voluntary, I might acquiesce in the denial of certiorari because of the impracticality of this Court's reviewing such fact-specific questions. But this case involves far more than simply whether a particular confession is voluntary. The decision below reveals tremendous confusion as to the proper standard of review in a federal habeas proceeding after a jury, a state trial court, a state appellate court, and a federal district court have determined a confession to be voluntary. Relying on Beckwith v. United States, 425 U.S. 341, 348, 96 S.Ct. 1612, 1617, 48 L.Ed.2d 1 (1976), Judge Garza held that a court of appeals in a federal habeas case must " 'examine the entire record and make an independent determination of the ultimate issue of voluntariness.' " 623 F.2d, at 931. Judge Brown, on the other hand, found that Jurek's confessions were admissible under even the "in- dependent review" standard, and thus found it unnecessary to choose between that...