Rinehart v. Brewer

• Decision Date: 20 October 1976
• Docket Number: Civ. No. 75-322-2.
• Citation: 421 F. Supp. 508
• Parties: Michael T. RINEHART, Petitioner, v. Lou V. BREWER, Warden of the Iowa State Penitentiary, Respondent.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of Iowa

421 F. Supp. 508

Michael T. RINEHART, Petitioner, v. Lou V. BREWER, Warden of the Iowa State Penitentiary, Respondent.

Civ. No. 75-322-2.

United States District Court, S. D. Iowa, C. D.

October 20, 1976.

Mark E. Schantz, Iowa City, Iowa, for petitioner.

Richard C. Turner, Atty. Gen., State of Iowa, Ray W. Sullins, Asst. Atty. Gen. of Crim. Appeals Div., Des Moines, Iowa, for defendant.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

HANSON, Chief Judge.

This matter is before the Court by way of petitioner's February 12, 1976 motion for summary judgment pursuant to a petition for writ of habeas corpus filed November 24, 1975. Said petition seeks relief from an August 12, 1963 guilty plea to a charge of murder in the District Court of Iowa in and for Calhoun County, Criminal No. 1824. After hearing oral argument pertaining to the pending motion on March 16, 1976, the Court, in an effort to resolve fully and fairly this most serious matter, granted respondent's request that the State be given until April 9, 1976, to offer additional evidentiary matter. Respondent having made no further offerings, the Court deems this Rule 56 motion submitted on the pleadings and exhibits thereto, the record in the case of Rinehart v. State, 234 N.W.2d 649 (Iowa 1975), and the parties' extensive briefs.¹

The inquiry which must herein be made is whether there exists any genuine issue of material fact or questions of law as to the due process grounds upon which petitioner argues the invalidity of his second-degree murder conviction. Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c). Specifically, petitioner's motion requests such an examination into the following claims:

1. That the plea of guilty was not, when viewed in the totality of circumstances, entered voluntarily and understandingly;

2. That the assistance of counsel in the proceedings leading to conviction was ineffective; and

3. That the tribunal presiding at the arraignment was partial and the subsequent sentencing procedure improper.

Consideration of any such claims, however, is predicated upon the Court's overruling of respondent's argument that petitioner either has failed to exhaust or has deliberately bypassed available state remedies.

I.

An extensive and complex litigation history preceded the filing of this petition for habeas relief. A chronological summary of that history, which may be gleaned from the record, provides necessary background both as to the immediate question of available state remedies and to the possible ultimate consideration of the alleged due process violations.

Shortly after 9:00 p. m. on April 9, 1963, petitioner, Michael Timm Rinehart, then fifteen years old, was taken into custody and questioned about the apparent murder of one Maxine Henningsen. In the early hours of the following morning, petitioner signed a statement implicating himself in the girl's death. Counsel was then appointed, and on April 11 petitioner was bound over to the Calhoun County District Court. After the youth had undergone a period of extensive psychiatric examination, the Honorable R. K. Brannon, on August 12, 1963, approved an information charging Rinehart with the crime of murder. Arraignment occurred that same day before Judge Brannon. Petitioner's guilty plea was accepted, and the court, following a degree of guilt hearing, found him guilty of second-degree murder. Time for sentencing was immediately waived, and Judge Brannon sentenced petitioner to the life term currently being served in the Iowa State Penitentiary.

On August 16, 1963, attorneys for Rinehart filed a motion in arrest of judgment, alleging that: (1) the charge of murder had been improperly made, (2) the plea had resulted from mistake and coercion and was involuntary, and (3) the defendant had not been afforded his right of allocution. At the conclusion of the September 12, 1963 hearing on these matters, petitioner's motion was denied from the bench by Judge Brannon; the Iowa Supreme Court later affirmed this ruling in State v. Rinehart, 255 Iowa 1132, 125 N.W.2d 242 (1963).

Petitioner, after this Court on November 30, 1972, dismissed a pro se habeas petition for failure to exhaust state remedies, filed an application for post-conviction relief with the Calhoun County District Court under Chapter 663A of the Iowa Code. In that application, as filed on December 13, 1972, and subsequently amended on July 25, 1973, Rinehart claimed that his conviction was invalid because of due process violations now reasserted in this habeas action — an involuntary and unintelligent guilty plea, ineffective assistance of counsel, and judicial impropriety in the sentencing procedure.² On April 6, 1974, the Honorable James C. Smith, pursuant to the evidentiary hearing of June 28, 1973, found in favor of petitioner on all three grounds. However, while factually making the constitutional determination that petitioner's plea was involuntary and that his counsel ineffective, Judge Smith held Rinehart to have waived these infirmities as a matter of state procedural law. Under Iowa law, Horn v. Haugh, 209 N.W.2d 119 (Iowa 1973), an applicant for post-conviction relief under Chapter 663A is deemed to have waived those issues which could have been but were not raised in a prior proceeding — a proceeding like the one invoked by Rinehart's earlier arrest of judgment action. Nonetheless, Judge Smith, on the basis that the evidence needed to maintain the judicial impropriety claim had not been available in 1963, did reduce petitioner's term to one of 55 years.

On May 1, 1974, petitioner filed a notice of appeal to the Iowa Supreme Court, challenging the trial court's interpretation of "waiver" under Chapter 663A; and on May 7, 1974, respondent filed a notice of cross appeal, challenging the trial court's finding that the issue of judicial impropriety had not been waived and that such indiscretion constituted a violation of due process.

In an opinion filed October 15, 1975, the Iowa Supreme Court concurred in the trial court's interpretation of "waiver" under Chapter 663A but disagreed with the conclusion that not all of petitioner's claims had been so waived. Accepting respondent's cross-appeal argument, the Court reversed Judge Smith's finding that the judicial impropriety claim had not been readily apparent or discoverable in 1963. The Iowa Supreme Court further held the challenged sentencing procedures had not as a matter of law violated constitutional due process. Petitioner's life term was reinstated. Rinehart v. State, 234 N.W.2d 649 (Iowa 1975).

This Court concludes from the foregoing review that petitioner, prior to filing the instant habeas action, had exhausted his available state remedies as required by 28 U.S.C. § 2254. Given the Iowa Supreme Court's "waiver" ruling in Rinehart, supra, any argument by respondent that petitioner has not exhausted his procedural due process arguments at the state level is without merit. Under the habeas corpus doctrine, a petitioner, like Rinehart, need not make the idle gesture of filing for state post-conviction relief if the circumstances confronted constitute a decisive procedural obstacle to a hearing in state court. See Fay v. Noia, 372 U.S. 391, 434-35, 83 S.Ct. 822, 9 L.Ed.2d 837 (1963); Wilwording v. Swenson, 404 U.S. 249, 250, 92 S.Ct. 407, 30 L.Ed.2d 418 (1971).

Respondent, by a brief filed in opposition to the issuance of a writ, points to the state courts' waiver rulings and asserts that Rinehart had deliberately bypassed state procedures in his 1963 motion to arrest judgment and can presently raise no issue other than that pertaining to whether the guilty plea was understandingly entered. As correctly noted in petitioner's memorandum in support of the summary judgment motion, the State failed its burden of affirmatively pleading "deliberate bypass" in the return. The Court consequently need not consider the bypass issue. Wilwording v. Swenson, 502 F.2d 844, 849 (8th Cir. 1974); Homan v. Sigler, 278 F.Supp. 201, 205 (D.Neb.1967). Even had the issue been timely raised, however, an uncontradicted affidavit by petitioner's attorney in the arrest of judgment proceeding and the record below demonstrate petitioner made no "considered choice" in 1963 to waive any federal claim in state court, a choice that the United States Supreme Court views as a prerequisite to the finding of deliberate bypass. See Fay, supra, 372 U.S. at 438-39, 83 S.Ct. 822; Humphrey v. Cady, 405 U.S. 504, 516-17, 92 S.Ct. 1048, 31 L.Ed.2d 394 (1972). Also, in spite of respondent's contrary suggestion, the state waiver holdings are simply irrelevant to this Court.

Federal courts, in considering the validity of a state prisoner's procedural forfeiture in a state court, have long been required to apply federal constitutional standards to the problem of a knowing and intentional waiver. Fay v. Noia, 372 U.S. 391, 83 S.Ct. 822, 9 L.Ed.2d 837 (1963); Johnson v. Zerbst 304 U.S. 458, 58 S.Ct. 1019, 82 L.Ed. 1461 . . .. The state may still hold that it is within their procedural interests to bar a prisoner from raising constitutional issues for the first time in post-conviction proceedings. However, whenever a state does so, such a holding can only be frowned upon because . . a federal court must still inquire whether the procedural bypass was a knowing and deliberate waiver under federal standards. Losieau v. Sigler, 421 F.2d 825, 828 (8th Cir. 1970).

Therefore, while not required to consider the question of bypass, the Court has treated it with the exhaustion question for the purpose of clarifying that this case is ripe for summary judgment determination.

II.

Without the taking of further testimony in this Court, petitioner and respondent have submitted the case on the record of facts and proceedings from the state courts. This Court, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d) and Townsend v. Sain, 372 U.S. 293, 83 S.Ct. 745, 9 L.Ed.2d 770 (1963), did conduct its independent review of that record by applying a presumption of correctness and has found that...