Paradis v. Arave

• Decision Date: 23 January 1992
• Docket Number: No. 87-4100,87-4100
• Citation: 954 F.2d 1483
• Parties: Donald PARADIS, Petitioner-Appellant, v. A.J. ARAVE, Warden, Idaho State Penitentiary; Al Murphy, Director, Idaho State Correctional Institution, Respondents-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

Page 1483

954 F.2d 1483

Donald PARADIS, Petitioner-Appellant, v. A.J. ARAVE, Warden, Idaho State Penitentiary; Al Murphy Director, Idaho State Correctional Institution Respondents-Appellees.

No. 87-4100.

United States Court of Appeals Ninth Circuit.

Argued, Submission Deferred Aug. 4, 1988.

Resubmitted Dec. 20, 1991.

Decided Jan. 23, 1992.

Edwin S. Matthews, Jr., Coudert Brothers, New York City, for William L. Mauk, Skinner, Fawcett & Mauk, Boise, Idaho, for petitioner-appellant.

Lynn S. Thomas, Deputy Atty. Gen., Boise, Idaho, for respondents-appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Idaho.

Before ALARCON and BEEZER, Circuit Judges, and NIELSEN ^*, District Judge.

ALARCON, Circuit Judge:

Donald Paradis, a state prisoner, appeals from the district court's denial of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus.

Paradis seeks review of his conviction on the following grounds:

One. The evidence was insufficient to demonstrate that Kimberly Palmer was killed in the state of Idaho.

Two. The state failed to preserve exculpatory evidence.

Three. The introduction of evidence of another murder for which he was acquitted deprived him of his right to due process and violated the Double Jeopardy Clause.

Four. He was deprived of the effective assistance of counsel.

Five. He was denied a fair trial by the prosecutor's misconduct.

Six. The state trial judge erred in refusing to grant Paradis' motion for change of venue.

We conclude that Paradis has failed to demonstrate a violation of his federal constitutional rights during the guilt phase of the state-court proceedings. Accordingly, we affirm the district court's denial of that portion of the petition for habeas corpus relief regarding the judgment of conviction for first-degree murder.

Paradis also alleges that Idaho's death-penalty statute is unconstitutional. In our decision in Creech v. Arave, 947 F.2d 873 (9th Cir.1991), we held unconstitutional the portion of Idaho's death penalty challenged in this appeal. Accordingly, habeas corpus relief must be granted concerning the penalty phase of the state-court proceedings.

FACTS

The underlying facts are set forth in great detail in Paradis v. Arave, 667 F.Supp. 1361 (D.Idaho 1987) and State v. Paradis, 106 Idaho 117, 676 P.2d 31 (1983), cert. denied, 468 U.S. 1220, 104 S.Ct. 3592, 82 L.Ed.2d 888 (1984). At about 12:45 a.m. on June 21, 1980, Kimberly Palmer and Scott Currier checked into the Paul Bunyan Motel in Spokane, Washington. This motel was around the corner from Paradis' house. Shortly thereafter, Currier demanded his money back from the motel desk clerk. Currier told the clerk that he had found guns missing from the blue and white Volkswagen van he was driving. Currier also stated that he knew who took them, and he was going to retrieve them.

At approximately 6:45 a.m. on June 21, 1980, Ruth Jones saw a blue and white Volkswagen van with two or three individuals drive up Mellick Road in Post Falls, Idaho. About a half-hour later, Jones saw Paradis, Thomas Gibson, and Larry Evans walking toward her house in the opposite direction. On June 22, 1980, the police found the bodies of Palmer and Currier off of Mellick Road near the overturned Volkswagen van.

I. DISCUSSION

A. Sufficiency of the Evidence

Paradis argues that the physical evidence and medical testimony presented at trial was insufficient for the jury to determine beyond a reasonable doubt that the murder of Palmer occurred in Idaho. He further alleges that evidence relating to a labial tear suffered by Palmer is irreconcilable with her death in Idaho. We have independently reviewed the entire record of the guilt phase of the trial. We conclude that a rational jury could have been persuaded beyond a reasonable doubt that Palmer was murdered in the state of Idaho.

Paradis "is entitled to habeas corpus relief if it is found that upon the record evidence adduced at the trial no rational trier of fact could have found proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt." Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 324, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 2791, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979). The evidence must be reviewed "in the light most favorable to the prosecution." Id. at 319, 99 S.Ct. at 2789. "All reasonable inferences supporting the conviction must be drawn, including decisions regarding the credibility of witnesses." United States v. Beecroft, 608 F.2d 753, 756 (9th Cir.1979). State court factual findings are entitled to a presumption of correctness. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d); Sumner v. Mata, 455 U.S. 591, 591-92, 102 S.Ct. 1303, 1303-04, 71 L.Ed.2d 480 (1982).

The testimony adduced at trial indicates that Palmer's body was found face down in a stream bed. The body was located at the bottom of a steep slope about eighty feet away from the van. The terrain leading to the stream was covered with underbrush and debris. To reach the stream, a high, three-strand barbed wire fence located about halfway down the slope had to be crossed. In contrast, Currier's body was found in a blue sleeping bag about twenty to twenty-five feet down a steep embankment.

Palmer was wearing a pair of jeans, shoes, and socks. The front and back of the jeans were ripped. Her shirt was found beneath her body. An empty red sleeping bag was found about twenty feet in front of the van.

Dr. William J. Brady, the Oregon State Medical Examiner, testified that Palmer died of manual strangulation. Her lungs contained an unusual amount of fluid. He testified that this was consistent with the aspiration of water prior to her death after she had been manually strangled and placed face down in the stream. In addition, he noted that Palmer's body was not as decomposed as Currier's. Dr. Brady stated that in his opinion Currier had been dead a number of hours longer than Palmer.

Dr. Charles Larson, a defense medical expert, testified at the trial in state court that in his opinion Palmer was dead when she was placed in the stream. Dr. Larson stated that water would probably not enter the lungs if the dead body were placed in the stream when rigor mortis were present. After rigor mortis disappeared, the muscles of the throat would loosen and might allow water to enter. Detective Terry Thomason stated at trial that Palmer's body was very stiff when he found it. Dr. Larson further opined that the rates of decomposition of the two bodies would be altered by Palmer's body being put in a stream while Currier's was left in a sleeping bag. Therefore, he did not find it significant that Currier's body was more decomposed than Palmer's body.

Dr. Larson further testified that the tear on Palmer's labia appeared to have been inflicted after death because there was no evidence of blood around the wound. Based on the lack of blood from the wound, Dr. Larson concluded that the wound was probably caused when Palmer's dead body was passed under the barbed wire fence. Pamela Server, a forensic chemist with the Idaho State Crime Laboratory, testified during the state-court proceedings that she saw no blood stains on the jeans when she examined them under ultraviolet light. She did not perform any chemical tests on the jeans.

Detective Thomason testified that most of Palmer's body was lying across the stream. On the day the body was found, there was a heavy rainfall. George Elliot, a lieutenant in the Kootenai County Sheriff's Office, testified that Palmer's jeans were wet when he removed them from her body. William R. Morig, a criminalist for the Eastern Washington State Crime Laboratory in Spokane, testified that exposure to water can interfere with the ability to detect human blood on clothing material.

Clearly, the jury accepted Dr. Brady's testimony and the prosecution's interpretation of the circumstantial evidence, and rejected Dr. Larson's conclusions. The lack of blood on Palmer's jeans does not render the jury's verdict irrational. The jury could have rationally inferred from all the evidence that any blood on the jeans was washed away by the combined effect of rain water and the flow of the stream.

We hold that the circumstantial evidence presented at trial, together with Dr. Brady's testimony, is sufficient, when viewed in the light most favorable to the prosecution, to support the jury's finding that the murder occurred in Idaho.

Paradis' attempts at the evidentiary hearing in the district court to attack the validity of Dr. Brady's testimony, and the cumulative evidence he presented relating to the labial tear does not affect our conclusion that the evidence produced at trial was sufficient to persuade a rational jury that Palmer was murdered in Idaho. In Sumner, 455 U.S. 591, 102 S.Ct. 1303, the Supreme Court reiterated its holding in Sumner v. Mata, 449 U.S. 539, 101 S.Ct. 764, 66 L.Ed.2d 722 (1981) by stating that:

28 U.S.C. § 2254(d) requires federal courts in habeas proceedings to accord a presumption of correctness to state-court findings of fact. This requirement could not be plainer. The statute explicitly provides that 'a determination after a hearing on the merits of a factual issue, made by a State court of competent jurisdiction ..., shall be presumed to be correct.' Only when one of seven specified factors is present or the federal court determines that the state-court finding of fact 'is not fairly supported by the record' may the presumption properly be viewed as inapplicable or rebutted.

Id. 455 at 592, 102 S.Ct. at 1304.

The Idaho Supreme Court concluded from its review of the trial record that "[t]here was evidence at trial suggesting that Palmer was still alive when she was placed in the stream bed." Paradis, 676 P.2d at 33. The determination of a factual issue in a written opinion by a state court "shall be presumed to be correct." 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d). Paradis has not argued or demonstrated that any of the seven exceptions to the presumption of correctness set forth in 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1)-(7) apply to this case. The factual determinations made in the state court...