Martin v. Farley
| Decision Date | 09 June 1993 |
| Docket Number | No. 3:93cv0168 AS.,3:93cv0168 AS. |
| Citation | 872 F. Supp. 551 |
| Parties | Brian Lewis MARTIN, Petitioner v. Robert FARLEY, and Pam Carter, Respondents. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Indiana |
Brian Lewis Martin, pro se.
Michael A. Hostettler, Indianapolis, IN, for respondents.
On March 10, 1993, pro se petitioner, Brian Lewis Martin, an inmate at the Indiana State Prison, filed a petition seeking relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. The return filed by the respondents on May 27, 1993, demonstrates the necessary compliance with Lewis v. Faulkner, 689 F.2d 100 (7th Cir.1982). The court has examined the petitioner's 12-page Traverse filed on June 3, 1993, which is in excellent legal form and quite lawyerlike. The state court record has been filed and examined pursuant to the mandates of Townsend v. Sain, 372 U.S. 293, 83 S.Ct. 745, 9 L.Ed.2d 770 (1963).
This petitioner was convicted of attempted escape from the Indiana State Prison as a result of a jury verdict in the LaPorte Superior Court, and was sentenced on April 27, 1990, to a term of eight years imprisonment therefor. A direct appeal was taken to the Court of Appeals of Indiana, and the Third District of that court, speaking through Judge Garrard on August 28, 1991, entered an unpublished memorandum decision affirming the aforesaid conviction in which Chief Judge Ratliff and presiding Judge Hoffman concurred. No further state court proceedings have been held.
Justice Stewart, speaking for the Supreme Court of the United States in Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979), stated:
A judgment by a state appellate court rejecting a challenge to evidentiary sufficiency is of course entitled to deference by the federal courts, as is any judgment affirming a criminal conviction. But Congress in § 2254 has selected the federal district courts as precisely the forums that are responsible for determining whether state convictions have been secured in accord with federal constitutional law. The federal habeas corpus statute presumes the norm of a fair trial in the state court and adequate state postconviction remedies to redress possible error. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b), (d). What it does not presume is that these state proceedings will always be without error in the constitutional sense. The duty of a federal habeas corpus court to appraise a claim that constitutional error did occur — reflecting as it does the belief that the "finality" of a deprivation of liberty through the invocation of the criminal sanction is simply not to be achieved at the expense of a constitutional right — is not one that can be so lightly abjured.
Id. at 323, 99 S.Ct. at 2791. The Supreme Court in Jackson held:
We hold that in a challenge to a conviction brought under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 — if the settled procedural prerequisites for such a claim have otherwise been satisfied — the applicant is entitled to habeas corpus relief if it is found that upon the record evidence adduced at trial no rational trier of fact could have found proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
Id. (footnote omitted). See also Sumner v. Mata, 449 U.S. 539, 101 S.Ct. 764, 66 L.Ed.2d 722 (1981); Dooley v. Duckworth, 832 F.2d 445 (7th Cir.1987), cert. denied, 485 U.S. 967, 108 S.Ct. 1239, 99 L.Ed.2d 438 (1988); United States ex rel. Haywood v. O'Leary, 827 F.2d 52 (7th Cir.1987); Bryan v. Warden, Indiana State Reformatory, 820 F.2d 217 (7th Cir.1987), cert. denied, 484 U.S. 867, 108 S.Ct. 190, 98 L.Ed.2d 142 (1987); Shepard v. Lane, 818 F.2d 615 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 484 U.S. 929, 108 S.Ct. 296, 98 L.Ed.2d 256 (1987); and Perri v. Director, Department of Corrections, 817 F.2d 448 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 484 U.S. 843, 108 S.Ct. 135, 98 L.Ed.2d 92 (1987).
A review of the record in the light most favorable to the prosecution convinces the court that a rational trier of fact could readily have found the petitioner guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of attempted escape.
Following Jackson, supra, there is an increasingly long line of cases in this circuit that suggest that the facts found by the highest court of a state are presumed correct. The most recent statement of that principle is found in Andersen v. Thieret, 903 F.2d 526, 531 (7th Cir.1990).
It needs to be emphasized that this court does not sit as a trial de novo in state court criminal proceedings and does not sit as a court of general common law review. The collateral review that is envisioned by § 2254 focuses on violations of the federal Constitution. See Bell v. Duckworth, 861 F.2d 169 (7th Cir.1988), cert. den., 489 U.S. 1088, 109 S.Ct. 1552, 103 L.Ed.2d 855 (1989).
The more troubling problem in this record relates to an incident that occurred during the trial in the LaPorte Superior Court. Apparently, this petitioner had a loud verbal disagreement with one of the correctional officers in whose custody he was being held during a lunch recess of that trial. The subject matter was demands with regard to the petitioner's religious dietary needs. A juror overheard this petitioner yelling as she was sitting in the hallway outside the courtroom. Quite appropriately, the state trial judge dealt with the problem immediately and the record manifests a conscientious effort on his part to deal with a situation that was at least in part if not wholly created by the petitioner.
There is no question that the management of jurors during a criminal trial is one that must be approached by a trial judge with great sensitivity. This court has also been sensitive to these kinds of incidents as reflected in Osborne v. Duckworth, 567 F.Supp. 427 (N.D.Ind.1983), but that opinion was reversed in an unpublished Order. See 757 F.2d 1292 (7th Cir.1985). To this court, the situation here is far less egregious than it was in Osborne.
Although not binding on this court, the Indiana Court of Appeals memorandum decision deals with this question under state law principles and finds no reversible error. Obviously, this court must examine the issue under the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States.
One of the salient facts here unlike that in Osborne, is that this outburst was a voluntary act of this petitioner which is far different than the involuntary act of permitting a juror to see a defendant in a criminal case in handcuffs. When one looks at the federal authorities that were quoted by this court in Osborne, and examines this record in terms of those authorities, this court has no difficulty whatsoever in coming to the conclusion that there was no constitutional violation in this instance. This is done without violating the appellate rule on citing unpublished opinions. If this species of voluntary conduct were established as a precedent for a mistrial, a criminal defendant could engage in egregious conduct with the hope that the same would be overheard by some member of the jury and then establish a basis for a mistrial.
It also needs to be emphasized that this court does not sit to correct errors of law that are purely under state law. See Estelle v. McGuire, 502 U.S. 62, 112 S.Ct. 475, 116 L.Ed.2d 385 (1991). With all deference, the standard to which this court must adhere is established in the Constitution of the United States and not specifically in Article I, Section 13 of the Constitution of Indiana, although there may well be parallel provisions in the Constitution of the United States. Although the memorandum of the Attorney General on behalf of the respondents does not address the issue of judicial bias, Argument II of the Traverse filed on June 3, 1993, apparently attempts to show judicial bias.
There are important parallel provisions in the federal statutes and cases which deal with the subject of judicial disqualification.
Title 28 U.S.C. § 144 states:
United States v. Sibla, 624 F.2d 864, 868 (9th Cir.1980), provides that a motion brought under § 144 will raise a question concerning recusal under § 455(b)(1) as well; the test for personal bias or prejudice is the same in both. Section 455 modifies § 144 in requiring the judge to go beyond the § 144 affidavit and consider the merits of the motion pursuant to § 455(a) and (b)(1).
United States v. Bryant, 716 F.2d 1091 (6th Cir.1983), also provides that §§ 144 and 455 must be construed together, and that disqualification under § 455(a) must be predicated as previously under § 144, upon extra judicial conduct, rather than judicial conduct citing City of Cleveland v. Krupansky, 619 F.2d 576 (7th Cir.1980).
United States v. International Business Machines Corporation, 475 F.Supp. 1372 (S.D.N.Y.1979) (hereafter I.B.M.), is an important object lesson provided by Judge David N. Edelstein, who presided over one of the federal judiciary's longest and most complicated antitrust trials, in the middle of which the defendant, not pleased with various rulings of Judge Edelstein, tried to require his recusal. The aforesaid case was affirmed in In re International Business Machines Corporation, 618 F.2d 923 (2d Cir. 1980). The holding in the I.B.M. case is that to be legally...
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