Riddick v. Edmiston, 89-5321

• Decision Date: 14 December 1989
• Docket Number: No. 89-5321,89-5321
• Citation: 894 F.2d 586
• Parties: James RIDDICK, Appellant, v. Robert EDMISTON, Superintendent of Southern State Correctional, and The Attorney General of the State of New Jersey, Appellees. . Submitted Under Third Circuit Rule 12(6)
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit

Page 586

894 F.2d 586

James RIDDICK, Appellant, v. Robert EDMISTON, Superintendent of Southern State Correctional, and The Attorney General of the State of New Jersey, Appellees.

No. 89-5321.

United States Court of Appeals Third Circuit.

Submitted Under Third Circuit Rule 12(6)

Dec. 14, 1989.

Decided Jan. 16, 1990.

Barbara M. Donovan, Federal Public Defender, Office of Federal Public Defender, Newark, N.J., for appellant.

Mildred Vallerini Spiller and Catherine A. Foddai, Office of Atty. Gen., Trenton, N.J., for appellees.

Before HUTCHINSON, COWEN and WEIS, Circuit Judges.

OPINION OF THE COURT

HUTCHINSON, Circuit Judge.

I.

Appellant, James Riddick (Riddick), appeals an order of the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey denying his petition for a writ of habeas corpus brought pursuant to 28 U.S.C.A. Sec. 2254 (West 1977). The petition sought a writ directed to appellees, Robert Edmiston (Edmiston), Superintendent of the New Jersey State Prison in which Riddick is held, and the Attorney General of New Jersey. By order dated August 10, 1989, a motions panel of this Court granted Riddick's motion for a certificate of probable cause. The case is now ready for decision, following submission on the merits on December 14, 1989.

Riddick raises two issues. He contends first that the district court erred in finding that he had knowingly and intelligently waived his Sixth Amendment right to counsel when two investigators from the Hudson County, New Jersey prosecutor's office gave him Fifth Amendment Miranda warnings without telling him that the State of New Jersey had already indicted him for murder. ¹ Second, Riddick argues that the district court erred in denying his equal protection claim based on the New Jersey prosecutor's alleged racially discriminatory use of peremptory challenges contrary to Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986). ²

In Patterson v. Illinois, 487 U.S. 285, 108 S.Ct. 2389, 101 L.Ed.2d 261 (1988), the United States Supreme Court concluded that there is no analytical distinction between the validity of a Fifth Amendment waiver and a Sixth Amendment one. Several of our sister courts of appeals have also rejected Riddick's argument that a person cannot knowingly and intelligently waive his post-indictment Sixth Amendment right to counsel unless he is advised of the indictment beforehand. However for support, Riddick cites a line of decisions in the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit illustrated by United States v. Mohabir, 624 F.2d 1140, 1145-53 (2d Cir.1980), Carvey v. LeFevre, 611 F.2d 19, 21-22 (2d Cir.1979), cert. denied, 446 U.S. 921, 100 S.Ct. 1858, 64 L.Ed.2d 276 (1980), and United States v. Satterfield, 558 F.2d 655 (2d Cir.1976), where the failure to adequately inform defendants of pending indictments in certain situations precluded knowing waivers of their Sixth Amendment rights.

This presents a question of first impression in this Circuit. After considering it, we are constrained to reject the reasoning of the cases in the Second Circuit and instead hold that the Miranda warnings the investigators gave Riddick were sufficient, on this record, to advise him of his Sixth Amendment post-indictment right to counsel. Accordingly, we hold that he knowingly and voluntarily waived that right when he made his custody statements to the investigators and that those statements were properly admissible at trial.

We also reject Riddick's claim that he is entitled to an evidentiary hearing in the district court on the issue of whether the state prosecutor utilized peremptory challenges in a discriminatory manner. The record shows that the district court conducted an inquiry on this issue when it was raised, as required by Batson; received an explanation from the prosecutor that it found credible; and then found that the prosecutor's use of peremptory challenges was without racial basis. The record supports this finding. Therefore, we hold that the district court did not err in refusing Riddick an evidentiary hearing. The decision of the district court will be affirmed.

II.

Riddick is a prisoner presently incarcerated at the Southern State Correctional Facility in Delmont, New Jersey. He was indicted by a Hudson County, New Jersey grand jury on November 9, 1984 for murder, possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose, and unlawful possession of a handgun. On November 1, 1984, he was arrested in the State of Virginia on a warrant issued as a result of the alleged New Jersey crimes. There he signed a waiver of extradition on a form that stated he had been charged with murder in New Jersey. See Appendix of Appellant (App.) at 2a.

On December 14, 1984, Riddick entered a plea of not guilty to all counts of the indictment. After a jury trial, he was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and unlawful possession of a handgun. He was sentenced to an extended fifteen year custodial term, with a seven and one-half year period of parole disqualification, on the manslaughter charge and a concurrent four year custodial term on the weapons charge. He was also assessed a fine of $50.00.

Riddick appealed these convictions to the Superior Court of New Jersey, Appellate Division. There he raised the several grounds for relief that were the subject of his habeas corpus action in the district court. The appellate division affirmed the trial court per curiam. Id. at 17a. Riddick then petitioned the Supreme Court of New Jersey for certification, again raising the issues he later presented to the district court. The Supreme Court of New Jersey denied certification. Id. at 25a. Riddick then brought an action for a writ of habeas corpus under Sec. 2254 in federal district court.

III.

Riddick's convictions arose out of a dispute over money with a person named Dewey Badger (Badger). In June of 1984, Badger was shot and left lying in a vacant lot in Jersey City, New Jersey. Badger later died from the wounds caused by the shooting. Before he died, Badger identified the person who shot him by the names "James" and "Gump." Riddick's nickname is Gump.

After Riddick had been arrested for killing Badger in Suffolk, Virginia, and had waived extradition, two New Jersey investigators were sent to Virginia to return him to New Jersey. In Virginia, upon first seeing Riddick, these investigators greeted him with the name "Gump." Riddick responded to this greeting and expressed confusion as to why he was arrested. The investigators then informed Riddick orally and in writing of his constitutional rights, in accordance with the requirements of Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), and proceeded to question him about the homicide charge. Riddick responded by raising a claim of alibi, claiming that he did not even know Badger and saying that the accusation of murder was unjust. Riddick sought to suppress his statements but, after a suppression hearing, the New Jersey trial court ruled that they were admissible. At trial, the prosecutor put Riddick's statements into evidence as part of his case-in-chief.

During jury selection in October 1985, Riddick, who is black, objected to the prosecutor's use of a peremptory challenge to excuse Sheila Reynolds (Reynolds), a black secretary for the Jersey City Board of Education. Riddick claimed that she was the third black juror excused by the prosecutor. The prosecutor responded to Riddick's objection by noting that he had pronounced the jury satisfactory several times when blacks were on the venire. The record confirms this. See App. at 262a. The prosecutor went on to specifically explain that he excused Reynolds because he had often been involved in investigations of the Jersey City Board of Education while she was employed there and he believed she recognized him. Id. With this explanation, the trial court rejected defense counsel's claim that the state was using its peremptory challenges in a racially discriminatory way. Id.

At trial, the state introduced the testimony of Riddick's friend, John Burt (Burt), in addition to the statement Riddick had given to the New Jersey investigators in Virginia. Burt testified that Riddick was in New Jersey on the day Badger died and that Riddick had told Burt that he had had a confrontation with Badger, that Badger was armed, and that he had taken the gun from Badger. Id. at 20a. Riddick did not testify. The jury found Riddick guilty of manslaughter and possession of a handgun without a permit.

IV.

Before a United States district court can entertain a state prisoner's petition for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to Sec. 2254, the prisoner must exhaust state remedies. See 28 U.S.C.A. Sec. 2254(b); Rose v. Lundy, 455 U.S. 509, 510, 102 S.Ct. 1198, 71 L.Ed.2d 379 (1982). The district court did not explicitly deal with the exhaustion issue, but proceeded to the merits. We are, however, satisfied that Riddick exhausted state remedies in this case. All of the issues he raised in the district court had been raised before the Appellate Division of the Superior Court of New Jersey as well as in his petition for certification to the Supreme Court of New Jersey. This is not a case in which the claims were raised before a state supreme court for the first time on a petition for discretionary review. See Castille v. Peoples, --- U.S. ----, 109 S.Ct. 1056, 103 L.Ed.2d 380 (1989) (raising a claim for the first and only time to the state's highest court on discretionary review does not satisfy the fair presentation requirement of the exhaustion doctrine).

We have plenary review over Riddick's contention that the district court erred in finding that his waiver of the Sixth Amendment right to counsel was knowing and voluntary. See Miller v. Fenton, 474 U.S. 104, 110, 106 S.Ct. 445, 449, 88 L.Ed.2d 405 (1985) (" 'voluntariness' is a legal question requiring independent federal determination"). In reviewing the district court's decision to dismiss, without an evidentiary...