Holland v. McGinnis

• Decision Date: 14 May 1992
• Docket Number: No. 91-1553,91-1553
• Citation: 963 F.2d 1044
• Parties: Daniel HOLLAND, Petitioner-Appellee, v. Kenneth McGINNIS, Warden, and Michael P. Lane, Director, Illinois Department of Corrections, Respondents-Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Page 1044

963 F.2d 1044

Daniel HOLLAND, Petitioner-Appellee, v. Kenneth McGINNIS, Warden, and Michael P. Lane, Director, Illinois Department of Corrections, Respondents-Appellants.

No. 91-1553.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued Dec. 3, 1991.

Decided May 14, 1992.

Donald S. Honchell, argued, Office of the Cook County Public Defender, Chicago, Ill., for petitioner-appellee.

Roland W. Burris, Office of the Atty. Gen., Terence M. Madsen, Jack Donatelli, Asst. Attys. Gen., Kathryn M. Frost, Steven J. Zick, argued, Office of the Atty. Gen., Criminal Appeals Div., Chicago, Ill., for respondents-appellants.

Before WOOD, Jr., ^* and FLAUM, Circuit Judges, and ESCHBACH, Senior Circuit Judge.

FLAUM, Circuit Judge.

The state appeals from the district court's grant of Daniel Holland's petition for a writ of habeas corpus.

A Cook County jury convicted Holland of deviate sexual assault, rape, armed robbery, and aggravated kidnapping, and the trial judge sentenced him to a lengthy prison term. The Illinois appellate court determined that Holland's confession, which the prosecution introduced at trial, had been coerced, and reversed the convictions. People v. Holland, 147 Ill.App.3d 323, 100 Ill.Dec. 868, 497 N.E.2d 1230 (1986). The Illinois Supreme Court reversed in turn, finding that Holland's confession was voluntary and rejecting Holland's other contentions. People v. Holland, 121 Ill.2d 136, 117 Ill.Dec. 109, 520 N.E.2d 270 (1987). Holland, who is white, sought certiorari in the United States Supreme Court on the sole ground that the prosecution had violated his sixth amendment rights by discriminatorily exercising its peremptory challenges to exclude black venirepersons from the petit jury. The Court granted certiorari, 489 U.S. 1051, 109 S.Ct. 1309, 103 L.Ed.2d 579 (1989), and affirmed on the ground that the sixth amendment's fair cross-section requirement does not extend to the petit jury. Holland v. Illinois, 493 U.S. 474, 110 S.Ct. 803, 107 L.Ed.2d 905 (1990). Nonetheless, the Court indicated, through concurring and dissenting opinions representing the views of five Justices, that Holland may have prevailed had he advanced his claim under the equal protection clause as interpreted by Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986).

Holland then filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. The district court, in a thoughtful opinion, granted the writ on two grounds. 754 F.Supp. 1245 (N.D.Ill.1990). First, it held that Holland's confession had been physically coerced and obtained through subterfuge, that admitting it at trial had violated his rights under the fifth and fourteenth amendments, and therefore that Holland was entitled to a new trial. Id. at 1255-59. In the alternative, the court held that the state's alleged discriminatory use of its peremptory challenges violated Holland's equal protection rights under Batson, that a federal habeas court's application of Batson in a cross-racial context did not violate the retroactivity principles of Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288, 109 S.Ct. 1060, 103 L.Ed.2d 334 (1989), and therefore that Holland was entitled to a Batson evidentiary hearing to prove his allegations. 754 F.Supp. at 1250-55. We reverse.

I.

We first examine the propriety of admitting Holland's confession at trial. Actually, Holland twice confessed to the crimes of which he was ultimately convicted--first to police officers in the Schiller Park police station, and again about six hours later to a state prosecutor in the Des Plaines police station. The state trial judge suppressed the Schiller Park confession on the ground (perhaps, see Section II.A infra ) that it had been physically coerced; the admissibility of that confession is not at issue here. The trial judge nonetheless admitted, over Holland's objection, the Des Plaines confession, which Holland tendered after waiving his Miranda rights. Holland has properly preserved his objection to the admissibility of this second confession on direct and collateral review. The district court ruled that the Des Plaines confession had been coerced (or, more accurately, that Holland's waiver of his Miranda rights had been coerced), and hence inadmissible. 754 F.Supp. at 1255-59. It is this ruling that the state appeals.

Before proceeding, we provide the necessary factual background. The crimes underlying Holland's conviction have been described in detail by the Illinois appellate court, Holland, 100 Ill.Dec. at 870, 497 N.E.2d at 1232-33, the Illinois Supreme Court, Holland, 117 Ill.Dec. at 114-15, 520 N.E.2d at 275-76, and the district court, 754 F.Supp. at 1246-47, so we need only briefly summarize here. On May 4, 1980, slightly after midnight, the victim and her boyfriend were driving home from a party when they realized that their car had a flat tire. They pulled over, went to sleep, awoke at dawn, and began to walk along the shoulder of the road to seek assistance. Holland, who was driving along the same road, spotted the couple and offered them a ride home, which they accepted. Shortly thereafter, Holland stopped the car, brandished a knife against the victim's throat, and ordered the boyfriend out of the car. Holland then drove away, pulled into a parking lot, and forced the victim to perform an act of oral sex on him. He subsequently drove to an alley, where he twice raped her and once again forced her to perform oral sex. Holland finally released the victim with a warning that he would kill her if she reported the incident to the police.

The Schiller Park police arrested Holland, who was in possession of the victim's high school identification card and other incriminating evidence, at 8:15 a.m. that same morning. It is undisputed that Holland sustained numerous injuries while in their custody. At the suppression hearing before the state trial court, Holland attributed his injuries to a beating administered by the Schiller Park police; he testified that they "kicked, hit, and knocked [him] to the ground, punched and beat[ ] [him] with a nightstick, raised [him] off the floor by elevating his handcuffed arms behind him, and [pulled] his hair." Holland, 117 Ill.Dec. at 126, 520 N.E.2d at 287 (Simon, J., dissenting). The record does not reflect whether the Schiller Park police explicitly refuted this testimony, but the fact that they filed charges against Holland for aggravated battery indicates to us that they believed, or wanted others to believe, that Holland instigated the physical encounter. Holland tendered the Schiller Park confession either during or shortly after his alleged beating. Sometime after noon, a Des Plaines police officer transported Holland from Schiller Park to the Des Plaines police station. The officer and two state prosecutors questioned him there--the Schiller Park officers who allegedly beat him were not present--and at 2:30 p.m. Holland delivered the Des Plaines confession to one of the prosecutors.

The state trial judge, in suppressing the Schiller Park confession, reasoned as follows:

[T]here is no question that some degree of confrontation took place in Schiller Park because the officers in those cases are complainants, and there is no question that the defendant apparently sustained some injury. Whether or not he sustained those in being apprehended ..., or whether he was beaten shall be for me to weigh upon, but there was a physical confrontation between the Schiller Park police officers and the defendant. Under the circumstances, when it was that this occurred, it is not really necessary for me to make a determination.

I find, and I do find inasmuch as there was a physical, apparently very physical confrontation from that night, [the police] had obtained leave and obtained a complaint, and have filed informations alleging aggravated battery.

* * * * * *

I feel that that degree of physical confrontation contaminates any statements defendant would have made at the Schiller Park Police Station, and accordingly any statements made relevant to this cause made by the defendant in the Schiller Park Police Station are hereby suppressed, and suppressed in toto.

Holland, 100 Ill.Dec. at 874, 497 N.E.2d at 1236 (quoting suppression hearing transcript). In admitting the Des Plaines confession, the judge explained that any contamination from the Schiller Park incident had dissipated in the interim.

The Illinois Supreme Court agreed with the trial judge's finding that Holland had voluntarily delivered the Des Plaines confession, but, unlike the trial judge, did not do so on the ground that any taint from the Schiller Park episode had dissipated. Rather, the Court maintained that there was "no coercion available to infect" the Des Plaines interrogation in the first instance because "there was no affirmative showing that the defendant was beaten by Schiller Park police." Holland, 117 Ill.Dec. at 118, 520 N.E.2d at 279. The trial judge, according to the Court, "did not find that the defendant had been beaten [in Schiller Park] but, rather, that there had been some sort of 'physical confrontation.' " Id.

The district court emphatically rejected the Illinois Supreme Court's factual characterization, stating that "there can be no doubt that Holland was beaten at the Schiller Park police station." 754 F.Supp. at 1256. ¹ It then went on to hold that the lingering effects of that beating, along with subterfuge employed by state officials in Des Plaines, rendered the Des Plaines confession involuntary. The district court's ruling raises two issues: first, whether the Des Plaines confession was in fact coerced under prevailing constitutional standards, and, second, whether the district court erred by not deferring to the Illinois Supreme Court's finding of fact (i.e., that there had been no beating) under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d). We consider the second question first, for its resolution bears heavily upon our examination of the coercion issue.

A.

The state argues...