Lufkins v. Solem, Civ. No. 81-3060.

• Decision Date: 10 January 1983
• Docket Number: Civ. No. 81-3060.
• Citation: 554 F. Supp. 988
• Parties: Dennis LUFKINS, Petitioner, v. Herman SOLEM, Warden; Mark V. Meierhenry, Attorney General, State of South Dakota, Respondents.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of South Dakota

554 F. Supp. 988

Dennis LUFKINS, Petitioner, v. Herman SOLEM, Warden; Mark V. Meierhenry, Attorney General, State of South Dakota, Respondents.

Civ. No. 81-3060.

United States District Court, D. South Dakota, C.D.

January 10, 1983.

Richard P. Tieszen, Duncan, Olinger, Srstka, Lovald & Robbennolt, P.C., Pierre, S.D., for petitioner.

Mark V. Meierhenry, Atty. Gen., Mikal Hanson, Asst. Atty. Gen., Pierre, S.D., for respondents.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

DONALD J. PORTER, District Judge.

Petitioner Dennis Ray Lufkins was convicted of voluntary manslaughter on July 1, 1980, in the Fifth Judicial Circuit Court of South Dakota. He is currently serving a term of life imprisonment in the South Dakota State Penitentiary. He has applied to this Court for a writ of habeas corpus as provided by 28 U.S.C. § 2254 and § 2241(c)(3). Petitioner contends that his Fourteenth Amendment rights to due process of law were violated by the procedures used to determine the voluntariness of a statement given by him to law enforcement authorities and that he was denied effective assistance of counsel at trial in violation of the Sixth Amendment. Having reviewed all the files and records of petitioner's state criminal case, and based further on its own evidentiary hearing, this Court determines that petitioner's rights under the United States Constitution have been violated.

FACTS AND PROCEDURE

A drinking party on December 4, 1979, at the residence of Ernest Hayes in Sisseton, South Dakota, culminated in the death of one of the participants, Sylvester Johnson. Clubbed in the head with an axe handle, Johnson died apparently while being driven to a hospital by Ernest Hayes. Mr. Hayes aborted his drive to the hospital and left the decedent on a church lawn. There the body was discovered on December 5, 1979. An autopsy determined that the victim's death was caused by a subdural hematoma, consistent with trauma inflicted by a blunt instrument.

On January 31, 1980, petitioner signed an inculpatory statement provided by Sisseton County Sheriff Neil Long and Division of Criminal Investigation Agent Delbert Peterson. Petitioner was, at that time, nine days into a sixty-day jail term in the Roberts County Jail for DWI. On April 21, 1980, petitioner was arraigned on both first-degree manslaughter and habitual criminal informations.¹ Petitioner pled not guilty to both charges.

On June 2, 1980, petitioner changed his plea to guilty to the manslaughter charge, bringing to a halt a jury trial then underway. Petitioner filed with the trial judge a handwritten list of objections to the proceedings against him. On June 12, 1980, the trial judge refused to accept petitioner's guilty plea and rescheduled his trial. Petitioner's two-day trial began June 30, 1980. Ernest Hayes, Eugene Hedine and Matthew Blue Dog testified that they spent December 4, 1979, drinking wine and rubbing alcohol with petitioner, Ruth Titus and the victim. All testified that petitioner hit the victim with an axe handle. Petitioner's incriminating statement was also received in evidence. Petitioner's sister testified that petitioner had been at her home from December 4 to December 5. Following his conviction of first degree manslaughter, petitioner pled guilty to the habitual offender charge, whereupon he was sentenced to life imprisonment.

On appeal, the South Dakota Supreme Court resolved five issues against petitioner and affirmed his conviction. State v. Lufkins, 309 N.W.2d 331 (S.D.1981). Included among these issues were the claim that petitioner was denied due process of law by the admission of his incriminating statement without a prior determination of its voluntariness and the claim that petitioner was denied effective assistance of counsel. Id. at 333.

Petitioner filed in this Court for a writ of habeas corpus. This Court received briefs from both sides and directed the expansion of the record to include transcripts of proceedings in state court. 28 U.S.C. § 2254 Rule 7. Determining that petitioner's claim could not be resolved on the basis of the expanded record alone, id. Rule 8, this Court convened an evidentiary hearing on September 27, 1982.

EXHAUSTION OF STATE CLAIMS

The United States Supreme Court has ruled that habeas petitioners must completely exhaust state remedies before asking a federal court to hear their claims. Rose v. Lundy, 455 U.S. 509, 102 S.Ct. 1198, 71 L.Ed.2d 379 (1982). As stated above, the South Dakota Supreme Court ruled on both claims presented in petitioner's habeas petition when it decided his appeal from conviction.

The exhaustion requirement is a rule of comity designed to prevent undue friction between state and federal courts. The requirement is satisfied when the federal claim has been fairly presented to the state courts. Picard v. Connor, 404 U.S. 270, 275, 92 S.Ct. 509, 512, 30 L.Ed.2d 438 (1971). The claim presented to the federal court must be the same as the claim presented to the state court. Id. at 276, 92 S.Ct. at 512. There is no requirement that the state court have more than one opportunity to rule on the claim. Thompson v. White, 661 F.2d 103, 106 n. 6 (8th Cir.1981); Mucie v. Missouri State Dept. of Corrections, 543 F.2d 633, 636 (8th Cir.1976). Once petitioner has brought his claim to the highest state court, and that court has passed on the claim, a federal court may hear petitioner's application for a writ of habeas corpus. Brown v. Allen, 344 U.S. 443, 448 n. 3, 73 S.Ct. 397, 403 n. 3, 97 L.Ed. 469 (1953); Irby v. Missouri, 502 F.2d 1096, 1098 (8th Cir.1974); Maggitt v. Wyrick, 533 F.2d 383 (8th Cir.), cert. den., 429 U.S. 898, 97 S.Ct. 264, 50 L.Ed.2d 183 (1976).

Petitioner has presented to the Supreme Court of South Dakota both claims included in his writ application. The Supreme Court has denied him relief from each claim. Since the highest court of South Dakota has ruled on petitioner's claims, petitioner has satisfied the exhaustion requirement, and his petition is properly before this court.

VOLUNTARINESS OF ADMISSION

A federal court hearing a state prisoner's petition for a writ of habeas corpus is not convened to retry the petitioner's case or to decide issues of state law. It has as its limited but important function to ensure that petitioner, in his trial, received the protections afforded by the United States Constitution. In re Parker, 423 F.2d 1021 (8th Cir.1970). Moreover, a federal court's power when hearing constitutional questions is plenary, Townsend v. Sain, 372 U.S. 293, 312, 83 S.Ct. 745, 756, 9 L.Ed.2d 770 (1963), and the federal court is not bound by a state court's adjudication of federal law. Brown v. Allen, supra, 344 U.S. at 506, 73 S.Ct. at 445. See also, Wainwright v. Sykes, 433 U.S. 72, 87, 97 S.Ct. 2497, 2506, 53 L.Ed.2d 594 (1977). On the other hand, absent constitutional deficiency, the habeas statute in 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d) instructs the federal court that state court factual findings are presumptively correct when supported by sufficient evidence and arrived at with procedural fairness. In re Parker, supra, 423 F.2d at 1024.

The Supreme Court has recently emphasized the limitations placed on federal courts when asked to make a collateral evaluation of state court findings under the habeas statute. Sumner v. Mata, 449 U.S. 539, 544-549, 101 S.Ct. 764, 767, 66 L.Ed.2d 722 (1981). The teaching of Sumner is that federal courts must explicitly state their reasons for differing from state court findings. Id. at 548, 101 S.Ct. at 770. See e.g., Taylor v. Lombard, 606 F.2d 371 (2d Cir. 1979), cert. denied 445 U.S. 946, 100 S.Ct. 1346, 63 L.Ed.2d 781 (1980). As developed below, this Court has reviewed the state trial proceedings and has determined that the state appellate court's finding that petitioner's trial judge made a determination as to the voluntariness of petitioner's statement not entitled to deference. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(8).

The question presented by petitioner's voluntariness claim requires a determination of the procedures the Constitution mandates for a hearing on the voluntariness of a defendant's inculpatory statement. The importance of the voluntariness question cannot be overstated, because "it is now axiomatic that a defendant in a criminal case is deprived of due process of law if his conviction is founded, in whole or in part, upon an involuntary confession, without regard for the truth or falsity of the confession". Jackson v. Denno, 378 U.S. 368, 376, 84 S.Ct. 1774, 1780, 12 L.Ed.2d 908 (1964). The Supreme Court has stated: "A defendant objecting to the admission of a confession is entitled to a fair hearing in which both the underlying factual issues and the voluntariness of his confession are actually and reliably determined." Id. at 381, 84 S.Ct. at 1783. In Jackson, the Supreme Court struck down a New York procedure which allowed the jury that was to determine a defendant's guilt simultaneously to determine the voluntariness of the defendant's confession. Emphasizing that the evaluation of an inculpatory statement is always a sensitive task, the Supreme Court reasoned that placing the double determination of voluntariness and guilt in the same hands ran too great risk of collapsing the double into a single determination. Id. at 389-90, 84 S.Ct. at 1787. The Constitution does not nominate any particular agent to decide the voluntariness question. Id. at 391 n. 19, 84 S.Ct. at 1788 n. 19. To comport with the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, however, the "procedures must ... be fully adequate to ensure a reliable and clear-cut determination of the voluntariness of the confession, including the resolution of disputed facts upon which the voluntariness issue may depend."²Id. at 391, 84 S.Ct. at 1788.

The record of petitioner's trial reveals that the evidence on the voluntariness of petitioner's statement to Sheriff Long and Agent Peterson was taken during the course of the trial, in open court, and before the jury (Trial Transcript 79-104)....