Kyle v. State, 84-434

• Citation: 364 N.W.2d 558
• Decision Date: 20 March 1985
• Docket Number: No. 84-434,84-434
• Parties: John Thomas KYLE, Appellant, v. STATE of Iowa, Appellee.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

Page 558

364 N.W.2d 558

John Thomas KYLE, Appellant, v. STATE of Iowa, Appellee.

No. 84-434.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

March 20, 1985.

Patricia N. Fetzer and Mark McManigal, Student Legal Intern, of the University of Iowa College of Law Prisoner Assistance Clinic, for appellant.

Thomas J. Miller, Atty. Gen., Sherie Barnett, Asst. Atty. Gen., and James D. Coil, Asst. Co. Atty., for appellee.

Considered by REYNOLDSON, C.J., and McGIVERIN, LARSON, SCHULTZ and WOLLE, JJ.

SCHULTZ, Justice.

Applicant John Thomas Kyle appeals from the district court's dismissal of his application for postconviction relief challenging his conviction and sentence for murder in the first degree in violation of Iowa Code section 690.1 (1962). In 1964 appellant pleaded guilty to an open charge of murder. Following a degree-of-guilt hearing, he was convicted of first-degree murder and was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Shortly after 9:30 a.m. on June 1, 1964, the body of 19-year-old Diane Gable was discovered lying on the floor in the living room of her parents' home in Waterloo. Her body was partially nude. Two stab wounds were found on the left side of her bare chest; the knife had entered her heart, causing her death. Blood had drained from her nostrils; she had been bitten on her nose, and her upper lip was lacerated. Her neck area showed signs of manual strangulation which did not cause her death. The tissue surrounding the external opening of her vagina was bruised prior to her death, and there was a tear in her vagina that the pathologist opined was caused by a blunt object.

The Waterloo police were called following the discovery of the body. While investigating the death they were informed that Kyle had been at the Gable home on the night Diane had been seen last and he had been involved in a fight. Shortly after 11:00 a.m. two officers went to the supermarket where Kyle worked and asked him to accompany them to the police station, which he did since he did not have a vehicle at the supermarket.

After his arrival at the police station and questioning, Kyle made admissions concerning Gable's death. Kyle was 16 years of age at the time. Although his parents, who worked nearby, were called and went to the police station, they were not allowed to see Kyle until after his statement had been typed.

Kyle's parents employed an attorney friend, Mr. Edward Gallagher, to represent Kyle throughout the proceedings. On Mr. Gallagher's suggestion his senior partner, Mr. Paul Kildee, was also retained by the Kyles to represent their son. Kyle underwent psychiatric evaluation at the University Hospitals. The psychiatrist found that he was not legally insane and he was competent to cooperate in his defense.

On October 5, 1964, Kyle pleaded guilty to an open charge of murder. There was no plea agreement. Kyle now asserts that he wanted to go to trial, but decided to plead guilty after an emotional meeting with his parents to save his parents further pain and to avoid the death penalty. The court found insufficient evidence of rape or attempted rape to support a felony-murder charge, but found that Kyle had premeditated the murder. Upon Mr. Gallagher's statement that he did not believe there were grounds for appeal, Kyle chose not to appeal.

On September 26, 1979, Kyle filed an application for postconviction relief which was dismissed on March 30, 1981. This court found error in the summary dismissal. Kyle v. State, 322 N.W.2d 299 (Iowa 1982). We found that a material issue of fact had been raised on two issues: (1) whether Kyle's guilty plea was knowing, intelligent and voluntary; and (2) whether assistance of counsel had been effective.

Following a full evidentiary hearing on remand, the trial court denied Kyle's application. In its detailed finding of fact, the court found Kyle had made a knowing, voluntary and intelligent guilty plea to the murder change and that under the entire record Kyle's counsel was effective in that his counsel was competent and that all of the advice given Kyle was within the normal limits of competency.

On appeal Kyle challenges these findings. He claims that the decision to plead guilty was made by his parents and attorney without meaningful consultation and advice. He further maintains that his counsel failed to adequately advise him that a confession elicited from him would be inadmissible at trial. He further urges that his counsel failed to act effectively in numerous respects which we will detail in the body of this opinion. Finally, Kyle claims denial of due process since he had the burden of disproving the requisite specific intent, based on a claim of intoxication.

I. Guilty plea. Kyle alleges that his conviction was invalid under the due process clause of the fourteenth amendment to the United States Constitution and article I, section 9 of the Iowa Constitution because his plea to an open charge of murder was not knowing, voluntary and intelligent. Kyle gives two reasons for this assertion. First, he claims the decision to plead guilty was made by his parents and attorney rather than himself. Second, he maintains his plea was defective because he was denied effective assistance of counsel through his attorney's failure to advise him that a confession elicited on the day of his arrest would be inadmissible.

A defendant who enters a plea of guilty waives several constitutional rights. For the waiver to be valid under the due process clause of the fourteenth amendment to the United States Constitution, there must be an intentional relinquishment of known rights or privileges. Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U.S. 458, 464, 58 S.Ct. 1019, 1023, 82 L.Ed. 1461, 1466 (1938). A guilty plea which is not both knowing and voluntary is violative of the due process guarantee. McCarthy v. United States, 394 U.S. 459, 466, 89 S.Ct. 1166, 1171, 22 L.Ed.2d 418, 425 (1969). Later examination of a guilty plea proceeding based on a plea rendered with the advice of counsel focuses on the voluntariness of the plea and the competency of the attorney who rendered such advice. McMann v. Richardson, 397 U.S. 759, 770-71, 90 S.Ct. 1441, 1448-49, 25 L.Ed.2d 763, 773 (1970). The merits of other claims of constitutional violations which occurred prior to the guilty plea will not be addressed. Tollett v. Henderson, 411 U.S. 258, 266, 93 S.Ct. 1602, 1607, 36 L.Ed.2d 235, 243 (1973). Consequently, petitioner correctly limits his challenge to questions of voluntariness and incompetency of counsel.

In support of his claim that his plea was entered involuntarily, Kyle claims that he wished to go to trial but pleaded guilty following an emotional meeting with his parents. He maintains that he acquiesced and obediently pleaded guilty to save his parents from further distress. Primary support of his position came from his aunt, Dorothy Kyle, who testified that decisions in the case were made by his parents, together with his attorney, Gallagher, and then were relayed to Kyle. The record does not establish that Dorothy and her husband, Walter Kyle, had much involvement with the proceedings of the case. Dorothy and Walter were dissatisfied with the way the case was conducted and felt it should have been conducted their way. We find there is not a solid basis for Dorothy's testimony. Gallagher testified that, although he advised Kyle, the decision to plead guilty was Kyle's and Kyle never indicated he wanted a jury trial (which directly contradicts Kyle's testimony).

Kyle asserts the guilty plea also resulted from his and his parents fear that he would receive the death penalty if he went to trial. He now claims that his fear was irrational because no juvenile had ever been executed in Iowa. As Gallagher stated: "Whether it was a 40 percent chance or a 60 percent chance, you are just as dead as whether it was a 2 percent chance, so that I don't think statistically it made any difference." The pictures in this case were so grotesque, as was the coroner's description of the condition of the body, that a jury might have given Kyle the death penalty.

The trial court found that Kyle's testimony about an emotional meeting with his parents was not substantiated. The trial court further found that the evidence did not indicate Kyle's parents were making the decisions for Kyle. We agree with the trial court's determination in our de novo review and find that the plea was intelligently and voluntarily made. Nothing in the record indicates that Kyle was incompetent or not in control of his mental faculties. He understood the nature of the charges and the consequences of the plea. The odds against a successful defense, in view of the facts of the case, combined with the higher possibility that a jury might impose the death penalty seemed to be the motivating factors for all concerned. Kyle simply failed to establish that his guilty plea was not intelligently and voluntarily made.

Kyle also attacks the voluntariness of his guilty plea because he was denied effective assistance of counsel. He claims his attorney failed to advise him that a confession elicited on the day of his arrest would be inadmissible.

Kyle relies on Rinehart v. Brewer, 561 F.2d 126 (8th Cir.1977), to support his claim that Gallagher was ineffective because of his failure to investigate the possibility of suppression of his confession. Kyle urges that he was only 16 and did not have the advice of parents and counsel when he signed the statement. He further claims that the confession was the fruit of an unlawful detention. When we are faced with claims that trial counsel was ineffective because of a failure to protect the client from an invasion of his constitutional rights, we must carefully separate the claims.

Once the defendant waives his right to a trial, which would provide the opportunity to litigate his constitutional claims, in order to take the benefits, if any, of a plea of guilty, the State has a right to expect finality in the conviction. Lefkowitz v. Newsome, 420...