Holland v. Donnelly

• Decision Date: 14 May 2002
• Docket Number: No. 01 Civ. 2292(GEL).,01 Civ. 2292(GEL).
• Citation: 216 F.Supp.2d 227
• Parties: Darryl HOLLAND, Petitioner, v. Edward R. DONNELLY, Superintendent, Wende Correctional Facility, and Hon. Eliot Spitzer, Attorney General of the State of New York, Respondents.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of New York

216 F.Supp.2d 227

Darryl HOLLAND, Petitioner, v. Edward R. DONNELLY, Superintendent, Wende Correctional Facility, and Hon. Eliot Spitzer, Attorney General of the State of New York, Respondents.

No. 01 Civ. 2292(GEL).

United States District Court, S.D. New York.

May 14, 2002.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Salvatore A. Gaetani (Stephen J. Pittari, on the brief), White Plains, NY, for Petitioner.

Robin Lamont, Assistant District Attorney (Jeanine Pirro, District Attorney of

Westchester County, and Joseph M. Latino, Assistant District Attorney, on the brief), White Plains, NY, for Respondents.

OPINION AND ORDER

LYNCH, District Judge.

In this petition for habeas corpus, petitioner Darryl Holland challenges his conviction for first-degree murder and other crimes in the County Court, Westchester County (Hon. Mark C. Dillon, Judge), and resulting sentence of life imprisonment without parole. The evidence at trial, taken in the light most favorable to the prosecution, established that Holland murdered Philip Kaufman on August 30, 1996. The prosecution's theory, amply supported by the evidence, was that Holland met Kaufman, a long-time acquaintance, in the parking lot of the supermarket where Kaufman worked, and asked him for a ride. During the ride, Holland stabbed and strangled Kaufman, stole his money, and smashed his head with a rock

Holland raises four constitutional challenges to his conviction, arguing that (1) incriminating statements he made while in police custody were involuntary products of psychologically coercive interrogation; (2) the statements resulted from renewed interrogation after he had invoked his right to remain silent; (3) his sentence to life imprisonment without parole is unconstitutional because it was not imposed by the jury; and (4) the trial court erroneously rejected his claim that the prosecutor had unconstitutionally challenged a juror on the basis of race. Because none of these claims have merit, the petition is denied.

BACKGROUND

I. The Crime

Since Holland does not challenge the sufficiency of the evidence to support his conviction, the facts of the offense can be summarized briefly. The evidence recounted in this section is drawn from the transcript of the trial.

Philip Kaufman left work at the supermarket at about 11:30 p.m. on Friday night, August 30, 1996. The police found Kaufman's body at about 1:00 a.m. that same night on a nearby road, lying about ten feet from his car. His wallet was empty, although he had been paid and had cashed his paycheck earlier that day. The victim had been stabbed and he had suffered severe head injuries, apparently having been beaten by a large rock that was found on his head, covered with blood. (The medical examiner was later to testify that two of the stab wounds, as well as the head injuries, would have been sufficient to cause death; the victim had also been strangled, apparently with an electric cord found at the scene, though not mortally.) A white T-shirt stained with blood (later identified by DNA testing as Kaufman's) was also recovered from the scene, as was a knife similar to one Holland had been seen carrying.

Holland, whose girlfriend was a co-worker of Kaufman's, had spent the day smoking crack with a friend. He left the friend's home at around 9:00 p.m., wearing a white T-shirt and black shorts, as well as a blue sweatshirt borrowed from the friend, to get money to buy more drugs. A supermarket employee, who knew Holland, observed him speaking to Kaufman in the parking lot after Kaufman left work; he last saw the two men walking toward Kaufman's car. Holland returned to his friend's home about midnight, shirtless and with blood on his body and shorts, and gave him money to buy more crack. Asked what had happened, he said that "Philip put up a fight."

A search of Holland's apartment, conducted pursuant to a warrant not challenged here, recovered various items including bloodstained black shorts and sneakers. Other physical evidence also linked Holland to the murder. A fingerprint matching his was recovered from Kaufman's car; fibers under the victim's fingernails matched the blue sweatshirt, which was recovered near the crime scene; similar fibers were also found on the bloody white T-shirt.

In addition to all of this evidence, the prosecution introduced a number of statements made by Holland, including a detailed confession, first made orally to the officers, and then repeated on videotape. The circumstances surrounding Holland's confession are the subject of the first two claims in the instant petition.

II. The Statements

The following account of the events leading up to Holland's confession are taken primarily from the thorough findings of fact made by the trial judge after an evidentiary hearing on Holland's motion to suppress his statements. These findings of historical fact must be "presumed to be correct" for purposes of this petition, 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(1); Boyette v. Lefevre, 246 F.3d 76, 88 (2d Cir.2001), and in any event Holland makes no effort to challenge or refute them.

At about 5:00 p.m. on Sunday, September 1, police officers, having learned that Holland had been seen with Kaufman on the night of the murder, visited Holland at his apartment. In a statement whose admissibility is not questioned, Holland admitted that he was in the vicinity of the supermarket late on the night of August 30, and agreed to accompany the officers to police headquarters. In response to police questioning, conducted in an unlocked conference room and lasting about 35-40 minutes, Holland claimed that he had asked Kaufman for a ride home, which was refused, and then walked home.

The police left Holland in the interview room at about 6:05 p.m. He never asked if he could leave, and was never told by the police that he either was or was not free to go. At around 8:00 p.m., the officers left to interview Holland's girlfriend, who contradicted his account, stating that he had never returned home that night. After that interview, the officers considered Holland a suspect. They returned to the police station at about 9:15 p.m., administered Miranda warnings, and obtained Holland's signature on a form acknowledging and waiving his rights. The state trial judge later concluded that from this point on, Holland was in custody, as a reasonable person would no longer have felt free to leave. People v. Holland, No. 96/1266, Decision and Order at 13-14, 15 (Westchester County Court Sep. 24, 1997) ("Decision and Order").

The officers then confronted Holland with his girlfriend's statement. Holland "did not verbally respond, but appeared nervous, rocked back and forth in his chair, and banged his head on the conference table." Decision and Order at 5. The principal interrogator then went over Holland's earlier statement with him; Holland adhered to what he had previously said. This interrogation ended by 11:00 p.m.

Holland spent the night in the conference room at the police headquarters, sleeping in his chair at least some of that time. The officers, meanwhile, spent the night preparing a search warrant application for Holland's apartment and executing the warrant.¹ At 9:00 a.m. on the morning of September 2, the officers returned and confronted Holland with the bloody clothing. He acknowledged that the shorts and sneakers were his, but did not respond when asked to explain the blood.

At 10:45 a.m., after officers had recovered additional items from the crime scene, including the blue sweatshirt and knife, two detectives re-interviewed Holland. One detective, LaRotunda, attempted to persuade Holland to confess by referring to the penalties that might face him:

LaRotunda used two coffee cups and a cigarette lighter to draw analogies of the defendant's options—the cigarette lighter representing the death penalty, a coffee cup representing life in prison, and the second coffee cup representing "seven to ten" years in jail. LaRotunda advised that the lenient option would allow Holland to see his son grow up. LaRotunda made no promises of guarantees to the defendant at any time.... When LaRotunda made reference to the defendant's parents, Holland began to sob and then described, in detail, how he killed Philip Kaufman.

Decision and Order at 9. The defendant was then moved to a different room, where, beginning at 11:30, the confession was repeated on videotape. Holland was re-advised of his rights, executed a written waiver, and stated that he was willing to speak to the police. He declined coffee, stated that he was not hungry, and then repeated in chilling detail how he had stabbed and strangled Kaufman as Kaufman was driving him home, causing the car to crash into an embankment, stolen his money, and then beaten Kaufman to death when he asked to go to the hospital, in fear of being held accountable for the stabbing and robbery. He also identified as his the various items that had been recovered from the crime scene and at his apartment.

Holland was with the police from 5:00 p.m. on Sunday evening through about 12:30 Monday afternoon, a total of over 19 hours; for all but the first four of those hours he was in custody. He was offered food and drink on two occasions during the period of his detention, which he declined the first time and accepted the second. He was allowed to use the toilet whenever he asked. He was not interrogated continuously; after the two relatively brief periods of interrogation referred to above, he was questioned again at 9:00 a.m. the following morning, and then yet again from 10:45 until he confessed shortly thereafter, a confession repeated in a videotaped interview that lasted from 11:30 to 12:05. (Decision and Order at 8-9, 11, 18.) Although he was not provided with a bed, he was not disturbed from 11:00 p.m. until 9:00 a.m. the following morning, and was observed sleeping in the conference room during at least some of that period. During the videotape interview, he declined coffee, indicated that he was not...