Rayborn v. Scully
| Decision Date | 20 September 1988 |
| Docket Number | No. 1247,D,1247 |
| Citation | 858 F.2d 84 |
| Parties | Henry RAYBORN, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Charles SCULLY, Superintendent, Green Haven Correctional Facility, and Robert Abrams, New York State Attorney General, Respondents-Appellees. ocket 87-2314. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit |
Abraham L. Clott, The Legal Aid Soc., Federal Defender Services Unit, New York City, for petitioner-appellant.
Morrie I. Kleinbart, Asst. Dist. Atty., New York City (Robert M. Morgenthau, Dist. Atty. for New York County, Marc Frazier Scholl, Asst. Dist. Atty., New York City, of counsel), for respondents-appellees.
Before OAKES, MESKILL and PIERCE, Circuit Judges.
Henry Rayborn appeals from a judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, Robert J. Ward, Judge, dismissing his petition for a writ of habeas corpus brought pursuant to 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2254. Rayborn contended before the district court that the January 26, 1979, judgment of a New York state court convicting him of second-degree murder was unconstitutional because, inter alia, New York state authorities had violated his sixth amendment right to a speedy trial. The district court dismissed Rayborn's petition by memorandum decision dated July 1, 1987, but granted a certificate of probable cause to appeal to this Court. Despite the considerable pre-trial delay in this case, after reviewing the relevant Barker v. Wingo factors, we affirm the dismissal of appellant's petition for a writ of habeas corpus.
On September 9, 1971, Jesse Lee Starks was shot to death in his basement apartment Detective Dominick Bologna of the New York City Police Department travelled to Philadelphia the same day and attempted unsuccessfully to execute the arrest warrant on the morning of October 6, 1971. Apparently, Rayborn had been released by the city authorities soon after his September arrest on the Philadelphia homicide charge. After this unsuccessful attempt to locate and arrest Rayborn, Detective Bologna filed the warrant with the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas, in which Rayborn's local homicide charge was pending, and returned to New York. That same day, Rayborn failed to appear in court in connection with the Philadelphia homicide charge, and that court issued a bench warrant for his arrest.
in New York City. Shortly after the Starks homicide, Philadelphia police sent a letter to New York police informing them that they had arrested Henry Rayborn, a suspect in the New York murder case, on an unrelated Philadelphia homicide charge. On October 5, 1971, the Criminal Court of the City of New York issued a warrant for Rayborn's arrest.
Other than the events recited above, it is unclear what, if any, additional investigative efforts transpired between September 9, 1971, and July 1974. On July 12, 1974, under circumstances unknown to us, Rayborn was rearrested by the Philadelphia police. Two weeks later, on July 26, 1974, an indictment was filed in New York charging Rayborn with the intentional murder of Jesse Lee Starks in 1971 and unlawful possession of a weapon. Within a week, New York State Supreme Court, New York County, issued a warrant for Rayborn's arrest, based on the July 26th Starks homicide indictment. Although Rayborn apparently had been released again from custody sometime after his arrest on July 12, 1974, in Philadelphia, local police there rearrested Rayborn on the New York warrant one day after it was issued, on July 31, 1974. It appears that Rayborn was informed on that day, for the first time, of the pending New York homicide charge. Rayborn subsequently refused to waive extradition, and the New York County District Attorney's Office commenced extradition proceedings thereafter.
On or about October 30, 1974, the District Attorney's Office obtained an extradition warrant for Rayborn. However, because extradition papers had not been prepared early enough, the Governor of Pennsylvania did not sign them into effect before the expiration of a statutory 90-day period for the submission of such papers. As a result, the Philadelphia court had to release Rayborn on bail in late October 1974. See 42 Pa.Cons.Stat.Ann. Secs. 9136, 9138 (Purdon 1982 & Supp.1988) (incarcerated suspect must be released from custody if state having jurisdiction of the offense allegedly committed by suspect has not filed governor's warrant within 90 days of suspect's incarceration).
In early November 1974, unaware of Rayborn's release, two New York detectives and a New York Assistant District Attorney ("ADA") travelled to Philadelphia to take Rayborn into custody, only to discover that he had been released. At that time, the officers learned that Rayborn was due to appear before the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York in early 1975 in connection with a federal narcotics charge that had been pending against Rayborn since 1966. See United States v. Henry Collins Rayborn, et al., No. 66 Crim. 463 (1966-76, S.D.N.Y.). In either January or February of 1975, however, Rayborn failed to appear in the New York federal court and disappeared.
The record is silent with respect to the period that follows next, between February 1975 and March 1976. On April 23, 1976, however, Rayborn was arrested again in Philadelphia, approximately 14 months after his failure to appear in federal district court. Shortly thereafter, Philadelphia authorities informed New York authorities that Rayborn was once again in custody. Since Rayborn was still opposing extradition to New York at that point, New York and Philadelphia authorities agreed that the latter would prosecute Rayborn first on the Philadelphia homicide charge.
Both the Philadelphia and federal charges against Rayborn were concluded On March 22, 1977, Rayborn was delivered to the Bureau of Prisons to begin serving his federal sentence at the United States Penitentiary in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania; subsequently, he was transferred to the United States Penitentiary in Atlanta, Georgia on June 21, 1977, where he remained until October of 1978.
over the course of the next six months. On August 16, 1976, Rayborn pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas. On September 28, 1976, after having been arraigned in New York earlier in July, Rayborn was produced in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York and pleaded guilty to the illegal sale of heroin in violation of 21 U.S.C. Secs. 173 and 174. On or about October 16, 1976, Rayborn was sentenced to a one-to-ten year term of imprisonment on his Philadelphia homicide charge and was committed shortly thereafter to a Pennsylvania State Correctional Institution. On November 16, 1976, Rayborn was returned to New York and sentenced in federal district court to an indeterminate term of not more than five years on his federal narcotics charge, to run consecutively to the state sentence.
During the period from approximately mid-1976 to April 1978, while Rayborn was serving his sentences, a series of clerical mishaps occurred in the New York District Attorney's Office, and as a result, Rayborn's case was lost in bureaucratic limbo. During 1976, his case was reassigned several times within the District Attorney's Office. Because one of the reassignments was not recorded in the proper files, no particular ADA had responsibility for the case until April 1978, and, as a result, no action was taken by the District Attorney's Office during that period in connection with Rayborn's case.
This lack of oversight continued even though between November 1976 and April 1978 the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office and prison officials at the federal penitentiary in Atlanta attempted to contact the New York District Attorney's Office in order to determine whether it intended to file a detainer against Rayborn while he was in custody. During this period, in September 1977, Rayborn wrote to the District Attorney's Office from federal prison requesting that he be tried on the 1974 indictment, but that office apparently misplaced the letter. On April 7, 1978, after receiving no response to his letter from the New York District Attorney's Office, Rayborn moved in New York State Supreme Court to dismiss the homicide indictment for violation of his sixth amendment right to a speedy trial.
On June 23, 1978, New York Supreme Court Justice George F. Roberts denied Rayborn's motion to dismiss the indictment. Approximately two months later, on August 14, 1978, the District Attorney's Office requested that the federal Bureau of Prisons deliver Rayborn to New York pursuant to the Interstate Agreement on Detainers, and on October 6, 1978, Rayborn was produced in New York and arraigned on the 1974 Starks homicide indictment. On December 14, 1978, after a one-day bench trial, Rayborn was convicted of second degree murder.
During the trial in New York State Supreme Court, the prosecution presented the testimony of two eyewitnesses, several officers, and a medical examiner. Rayborn, represented by counsel, testified on his own behalf.
At trial, the prosecution presented evidence to show that on the afternoon of September 9, 1971, Rayborn had driven with two companions, Chester Washington and William Cody, to the apartment of Jesse Lee Starks and demanded that Starks return money that Starks had allegedly stolen from Rayborn earlier that day. According to the prosecution, Rayborn shot Starks when Starks refused to repay the stolen money. Chester Washington and William Cody both testified against Rayborn at trial, and although neither of them actually saw Rayborn shoot Starks, Cody testified that he saw Rayborn load a revolver in the car on the way to Starks' apartment, and that he did see a gun in Rayborn's hand immediately after the Two other witnesses, Josephine Herron and Pamela Jones, 1 were also present at the...
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