Randolph v. Parker

• Decision Date: 19 May 1978
• Docket Number: Nos. 77-1463,s. 77-1463
• Citation: 575 F.2d 1178
• Parties: James RANDOLPH, Petitioner-Appellee, v. Harry PARKER, Chief, Respondent-Appellant. Wilburn PICKENS, Petitioner-Appellee, v. Harry PARKER, Chief, Respondent-Appellant. Isaiah HAMILTON, Petitioner-Appellee, v. Harry PARKER, Chief, Respondent-Appellant. to 77-1465.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

Page 1178

575 F.2d 1178

James RANDOLPH, Petitioner-Appellee, v. Harry PARKER, Chief, Respondent-Appellant.

Wilburn PICKENS, Petitioner-Appellee, v. Harry PARKER, Chief, Respondent-Appellant.

Isaiah HAMILTON, Petitioner-Appellee, v. Harry PARKER, Chief, Respondent-Appellant.

Nos. 77-1463 to 77-1465.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Argued Feb. 9, 1978.

Decided May 19, 1978.

Brooks McLemore, Jr., Atty. Gen. of Tenn., Michael E. Terry, Asst. Atty. Gen., Nashville, Tenn., for respondent-appellant.

Walter L. Evans, Memphis, Tenn. (court-appointed), for petitioners-appellees in Nos. 77-1463 and 77-1464.

Alan Bryant Chambers, Memphis, Tenn., for petitioner-appellee in No. 77-1465.

Before EDWARDS, PECK and KEITH, Circuit Judges.

EDWARDS, Circuit Judge.

This appeal involves a sequence of events which have the flavor of the old West before the law ever crossed the Pecos. The difference is that here there are no heroes and here there was a trial.

In July of 1970 a Las Vegas gambler named William Douglas came to Memphis with dob ¹ and gun and an assumed name. Using the services of a runner with the improbable name of Woppy Gaddy, who had been promised a cut of the take, Douglas was introduced to Robert Wood, a sometime Memphis gambler. In three evenings of gambling with cards marked by Douglas, Wood was relieved of $5,000. He was also filled with suspicion and plans for recoupment. A fourth encounter of a similar kind left Douglas dead on the floor from a pistol shot fired by Robert Wood, and Robert Wood in possession of some of the money he had lost. In the long denouement, it also resulted in life sentences for murder for Robert Wood, Joe Wood, his brother, and three other Memphis men who are the subjects of this appeal.

These habeas corpus petitions, filed by Randolph, Pickens and Hamilton, were heard in the United States District Court for the Western District of Tennessee and resulted in the issuance of three writs of habeas corpus requiring the state to discharge petitioners unless they are promptly retried. The writs were issued by Chief Judge Bailey Brown of the Western District who, after evidentiary hearings, found violations of the right of confrontation guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment of the United States Constitution as to all three petitioners in their joint state court felony murder trial. Judge Brown based his ruling on the holding of the United States Supreme Court in Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123, 88 S.Ct. 1620, 20 L.Ed.2d 476 (1968). He also found violation of petitioner Pickens' right to counsel, as guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment under the Supreme Court's interpretation of Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1969).

On review of the entire record of the federal habeas hearing and the prior state trial, we find ample support for the District Judge's findings of fact, and we agree with his well-reasoned conclusions of law. We affirm.

We recite the state's theory of this case from the District Judge's summary thereof:

In July, 1970, Robert Woods had lost a considerable amount of money in head-to-head card games with one Douglas and had become convinced that Douglas had been cheating him. In anticipation of still another game, Robert asked his brother, Joe Woods, to arrange to "have the game robbed," and in this way regain most, if not all, of what he had lost. Joe Woods then enlisted petitioner Hamilton, an employee of his, who associated petitioners The state's problems of proof in relation to the two Wood brothers were quite different from those applicable to the current petitioners. Witness Thomas testified explicitly to Douglas' method of cheating Robert Wood at cards and to his (Thomas') complicity in it. He also testified to Joe Wood's producing a pistol (after Robert Wood accused Douglas of cheating him) and that Joe Wood handed the gun to Robert and ran out of the room. Thomas then testified that with only himself, Douglas and Robert Wood in the room, he heard a shot and saw Douglas fall fatally wounded.

Randolph and Pickens,( ²) to carry out this venture. While the card game was in progress, petitioners, by pre-arrangement, were waiting in the vicinity of the apartment where it was being held. Joe Woods and one Tommy Thomas were in the apartment watching the game. Joe left the apartment and brought petitioners back with him, but failed to gain entrance for them when Douglas, hearing strange noises in the hallway, refused to allow the door to be opened. However, later, after petitioners had returned to their place of waiting, Joe did obtain admission for himself into the apartment. Shortly thereafter, Joe pulled a pistol on Douglas and Thomas, and then, handing the pistol to Robert Woods, went to tell petitioners to move in on the game. (Obviously, matters were not going according to plan.) Before petitioners reached the apartment, however, Douglas went for his pistol with the result that Robert Woods shot and killed him. Within seconds after the shooting, Joe and the petitioners knocked the apartment door down and entered, Robert then took all of the cash, and later petitioners Hamilton and Randolph (but not petitioner Pickens) were paid $50.00 for their participation.

Robert Wood was the only one of the five codefendants who testified before the jury at the state court trial. Although he had originally given the police a statement which obviously sought to accuse outsiders to the poker game of killing Douglas, at the trial he admitted firing the fatal shot. His evidence sought to mitigate the shooting by testifying about his reasons for believing that Douglas was cheating him and to present a self-defense theory by claiming that Douglas reached for his own gun before he (Robert Wood) fired.

The state's problems in relation to the three present petitioners were considerably greater. None of them took the stand. Eyewitness Thomas could not identify any of them. Robert Wood, who had originally denied that he killed Douglas, admitted at trial that he had killed Douglas. He also testified that Hamilton (whom he had known as an employee of Joe Wood) was one of the three armed black men who entered the room after he (Robert Wood) had killed Douglas. He was unable to make a clear identification of petitioners Pickens and Randolph as the other two participants at the scene. The state's reliance, as a result, was primarily upon the admission of oral or written statements said by the Memphis police to have been furnished voluntarily by the three petitioners.

While each such statement was redacted to the extent of eliminating the other two petitioners' names, they were such as to leave no possible doubt in the jurors' minds concerning the "person(s)" referred to.

It should also be noted that at the original trial, motions to suppress the Randolph and Pickens statements were made on grounds of physical abuse and threats, but were denied by the state court trial judge after some rather vivid coercion complaints. The District Judge found no federal constitutional abuse in the state trial judge's finding on this score and no issue concerning coercion is presented on this appeal.

The state trial judge also gave in each instance an instruction to the jury that the confession admitted could only be used against the defendant who gave it and not as evidence of guilt of the codefendants.

As indicated above, all five of the defendants in the state court trial were found guilty of first degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.

After their state court trial convictions and sentences, all five defendants appealed. The Tennessee Court of Appeals set the convictions aside on the ground that the Bruton rule, Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123, 88 S.Ct. 1620, 20 L.Ed.2d 476 (1968), had been violated by the admission of confessions by coconspirators who did not testify and were not subject to cross-examination, and because under Tennessee law, felony murder had not been made out in relation to these three parties who had not entered the room at the time of the shooting. The Tennessee Supreme Court, however, reversed on both of these issues. It construed Tennessee felony murder law broadly enough to include these three petitioners because they were parties to a prior robbery plan. The court also held that each defendant's own statement "interlocked with" and corroborated the other statements of the other two defendants. In these contentions it found justification for the admission of all three confessions as to petitioners, citing Harrington v. California, 395 U.S. 250, 89 S.Ct. 1726, 23 L.Ed.2d 284 (1969) and Schneble v. Florida, 405 U.S. 427, 92 S.Ct. 1056, 31 L.Ed.2d 340 (1972), and some Tennessee case law (see O'Neil v. State, 2 Tenn.Cr.App. 518, 455 S.W.2d 597 (1970)).

It should be noted that no court which has dealt with these three petitioners' Bruton contentions has sought to treat the admission of the three confessions as harmless error.

THE BRUTON ISSUE

In Bruton v. United States, supra, the United States Supreme Court set forth the rule of law which we believe governs this case. The Court's opinion said:

(A)s was recognized in Jackson v. Denno, supra (378 U.S. 368, 84 S.Ct. 1774, 12 L.Ed.2d 908), there are some contexts in which the risk that the jury will not, or cannot, follow instructions is so great, and the consequences of failure so vital to the defendant, that the practical and human limitations of the jury system cannot be ignored. Compare Hopt v. Utah, supra (120 U.S. 430, 7 S.Ct. 614, 30 L.Ed. 708); Throckmorton v. Holt, 180 U.S. 552, 567, 21 S.Ct. 474, 45 L.Ed. 663; Mora v. United States, 5 Cir., 190 F.2d 749; Holt v. United States, 10 Cir., 94 F.2d 90. Such a context is presented here, where the powerfully incriminating extrajudicial statements of a codefendant, who stands accused side-by-side with the defendant, are deliberately spread before the jury in a joint trial. Not only are the incriminations...