Grooms v. Solem, Civ. 81-3024.
Decision Date | 02 September 1981 |
Docket Number | No. Civ. 81-3024.,Civ. 81-3024. |
Citation | 520 F. Supp. 1184 |
Parties | Daniel GROOMS, Petitioner, v. Herman SOLEM, Warden, South Dakota State Penitentiary, and Mark V. Meierhenry, Attorney General, State of South Dakota, Respondents. |
Court | U.S. District Court — District of South Dakota |
Scott C. Petersen, Sioux Falls, S. D., for petitioner.
Douglas E. Kludt, Asst. Atty. Gen., Pierre, S. D., for respondents.
Petitioner filed an application for writ of habeas corpus, claiming that he had been deprived of his right to appeal his 1979 conviction by ineffective assistance of counsel. Having found that petitioner did not waive his right to appeal, and that his rights were in fact violated, this Court provisionally grants the writ of habeas corpus.
The basic facts of this case are essentially undisputed. The briefs of both petitioner and respondent adopted an account of testimony given at a December 1, 1980 hearing on petitioner's petition for post-conviction relief in state court.
Following this hearing, the state trial judge filed a memorandum opinion and order denying the petition for post-conviction relief. Among the conclusions of law the state court made was number IV, which stated "That petitioner submitted no authority or evidence at the post-conviction hearing establishing errors at trial that would serve as grounds for an appeal of his conviction."
The petitioner subsequently exhausted his available state remedies and on May 29, 1981, commenced this habeas corpus action.
Respondent argues first that since there was "a hearing on the merits of a factual issue ... evidenced by a written finding," the state trial judge's denial of petitioner's claims is presumptively correct under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d), and that this action should therefore be dismissed. While respondent is correct that findings of fact by a state court are presumptively valid in federal habeas corpus proceedings, "`on the other hand, State adjudications of questions of law cannot, under the habeas corpus statute, be accepted as binding ... the mandate of the supremacy clause (is) that the ultimate decision of federal constitutional law remains in the federal courts.'" Zemina v. Solem, 438 F.Supp. 455, 464 (D.S.D.1977), aff'd. 573 F.2d 1027 (8th Cir. 1978).
It is not disputed that Conclusion of Law IV related to the state trial court's belief that to obtain relief from a violation of petitioner's right to appeal, petitioner was obligated to specify the trial errors that would have provided the grounds for appeal.1 This view of the law was erroneous. As the case o...
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