Ruimveld v. Birkett

Decision Date21 April 2005
Docket NumberNo. 04-1826.,04-1826.
Citation404 F.3d 1006
PartiesChad RUIMVELD, Petitioner-Appellee, v. Thomas BIRKETT, Warden, Respondent-Appellant.
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

ARGUED: Janet A. Van Cleve, Office of the Attorney General, Lansing, Michigan, for Appellant. J. Philip Calabrese, Squire, Sanders & Dempsey, Cleveland, Ohio, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Janet A. Van Cleve, Office of the Attorney General, Lansing, Michigan, for Appellant. J. Philip Calabrese, Squire, Sanders & Dempsey, Cleveland, Ohio, for Appellee.

Before: SILER, COLE, and CLAY, Circuit Judges.

COLE, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which CLAY, J., joined. SILER, J. (pp. 1018-19), delivered a separate dissenting opinion.

OPINION

COLE, Circuit Judge.

Petitioner-Appellee Chad Ruimveld was charged with poisoning a prison guard while he was an inmate at a Michigan prison. During his trial, which took place at a special courtroom inside the prison, Ruimveld was shackled in view of the jury, despite the fact that he did not pose any special risk of flight or violence. In affirming Ruimveld's conviction, the Michigan state courts found that this shackling was improper, but that it was harmless error. Ruimveld then filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in federal district court. The district court granted his petition, on the ground that the shackling was highly prejudicial to his trial. The State now appeals the grant of the writ. Because the presumption of innocence is a central tenet of the American justice system, because Supreme Court precedent clearly holds that shackling a defendant in view of the jury causes significant harm to this presumption, and because the Michigan courts unreasonably concluded that this harm did not substantially influence the jury's decision in Ruimveld's case, we hereby AFFIRM the district court's decision to grant a writ of habeas corpus.

I.

On December 23, 1998, Deanne Snyder, a corrections officer at the Baraga Maximum Security Prison, drank from a cup of coffee and immediately became ill. She had poured the cup approximately five minutes earlier, but then had left it sitting unattended in a staff break room at the prison while shuttling some prisoners to the showers. Upon later forensic investigation, it was found that a cleaning agent used in the prison had been added to Snyder's coffee.

At the time of Snyder's poisoning, two inmates were out of their cells performing cleaning duties with the cleaning agent at issue: Billy Sirrene and Petitioner-Appellee Chad Ruimveld. After another guard noted that Ruimveld had been given permission to enter the break room to get some gloves for use while cleaning, Ruimveld was charged with poisoning, under Mich. Comp. Laws § 750.436(1).

Ruimveld's trial was held in a special courtroom inside the prison that was regularly used to avoid transporting prisoners to an outside court. The evidence against Ruimveld was entirely circumstantial; no one actually saw him (or anyone else) pour the cleaning agent into the coffee. Two corrections officers testified that they saw Ruimveld enter the break room, but neither could be certain as to whether this was before or after Snyder poured her coffee. Further, neither officer could say with any certainty that Sirrene had not entered the break room. Sirrene testified that he had not placed the cleaning agent in Snyder's cup. Two other inmates, called as witnesses by Ruimveld, testified to Sirrene's reputation for lying. Ruimveld also testified, denying having placed the cleaning agent in the coffee. Ruimveld also testified that he had never interacted with Snyder nor had he entered the break room near the time at issue.

For the entirety of the trial, Ruimveld was brought into the courtroom in leg shackles, belly chains, and handcuffs. Prior to trial, Ruimveld's counsel moved to remove the shackles,1 but the judge denied both this motion and a subsequent motion to cover the shackles so that they could not be seen by the jury. As a result, not only was Ruimveld shackled as he entered the courtroom, but was shackled at all times in front of the jury, even while testifying. See J.A. at 310 ("Sir, to the extent you can, would you raise your right hand for me?" (emphasis added)). Jury deliberations took more than three hours, and included a requested instruction from the judge regarding the "presumption of innocence, [the] burden of proof, and reasonable doubt." The jury returned a verdict of guilty.

Ruimveld subsequently moved for a new trial on the basis of newly discovered evidence, because another inmate later swore that he had seen Sirrene enter the break room with a bottle of the cleaning agent immediately after Snyder had left the break room to escort other prisoners to the shower. Ruimveld's motion was denied.

Ruimveld then appealed on various grounds. The Michigan Court of Appeals agreed unanimously that the use of the shackles was improper, and that "the trial court abused its discretion in ordering defendant to remain shackled during trial." People v. Ruimveld, No. 227793, 2001 WL 793872, at *3 (Mich.Ct.App. July 13, 2001). However, two of the three judges agreed that this error was harmless. The state appellate court thus affirmed his conviction and sentence. Id.But see id., at *4-7 (Whitbeck, J., dissenting, on the grounds that this error was not harmless). The Michigan Supreme Court summarily declined to review the case. People v. Ruimveld, 465 Mich. 955, 639 N.W.2d 812 (Mich.2002).

Ruimveld then filed a pro se petition for a writ of habeas corpus in federal district court, alleging that the shackling violated his constitutional right to a fair trial. Ruimveld also alleged that his counsel was ineffective, that the evidence against him was insufficient, and that the trial's venue inside the prison was improper. The district court granted the writ, solely on the grounds that, because of his shackling, Ruimveld "did not receive a fair trial in which his constitutional right to the presumption of innocence was upheld." The State, on behalf of Respondent-Appellant Warden Thomas Birkett, timely appealed the district court's grant of the writ.

II.
A. Standard of Review

Because Ruimveld's petition was filed under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, both we and the district court are bound by the standard of review set forth in the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 ("AEDPA"), Pub.L. No. 104-132, § 104(d), 110 Stat. 1214, 1219 (codified at 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)). This section limits grants of writs of habeas corpus for prisoners tried in state court to the case in which the state adjudication procedures "resulted in a decision that was contrary to, or an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States...." Id. In making a determination as to what constitutes "clearly established Federal law," lower courts are restricted to reviewing the law as established by the Supreme Court. See, e.g., Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 412, 120 S.Ct. 1495, 146 L.Ed.2d 389 (2000). Importantly, such law can only be determined through an examination of the holdings of the Court, as opposed to its dicta. Id.; see also Yarborough v. Alvarado, 541 U.S. 652, 124 S.Ct. 2140, 2147, 158 L.Ed.2d 938 (2004) (noting that the "holdings" of the Supreme Court that must be considered are the "governing legal principle or principles set forth by the Supreme Court as of the time of the relevant state-court decision" (citation and quotation omitted)). However, "the lack of an explicit statement" of a particular rule by the Supreme Court "is not determinative" of clearly established law, since "[t]he Court has made clear that its relevant precedents include not only bright-line rules but also the legal principles and standards flowing from precedent." Taylor v. Withrow, 288 F.3d 846, 852 (6th Cir.2002).

A state court decision is "contrary to" clearly established Federal law "if the state court arrives at a conclusion opposite to that reached by [the Supreme Court] on a question of law," or "if the state court confronts facts that are materially indistinguishable from a relevant Supreme Court precedent" and arrives at a different result. Williams, 529 U.S. at 405, 120 S.Ct. 1495. A state court decision is an "unreasonable application of" clearly established Federal law "if the state court correctly identifies the correct governing legal rule from [the Supreme Court's] cases but unreasonably applies it to the facts of the particular state prisoner's case." Id. at 407, 120 S.Ct. 1495. An "unreasonable application" can also occur where "the state court either unreasonably extends a legal principle from [the Supreme Court's] precedent to a new context where it should not apply or unreasonably refuses to extend that principle to a new context where it should apply." Id. It should also be noted that the "unreasonable" requirement is a high bar; "a federal habeas court may not issue a writ under the unreasonable application clause simply because that court concludes in its independent judgment that the relevant state-court decision applied clearly established Federal law erroneously or incorrectly." Bell v. Cone, 535 U.S. 685, 694, 122 S.Ct. 1843, 152 L.Ed.2d 914 (2002) (citation and quotation marks omitted).

Finally, we review the decision of a district court to grant or deny a writ of habeas corpus de novo, but review factual findings by that court for clear error, except where the district court has made factual determinations based on its review of trial transcripts and other court records; in such cases we review such findings de novo. See, e.g., Wolfe v. Brigano, 232 F.3d 499, 501 (6th Cir.2000).

B. Ruimveld's Shackles
1. Review of Supreme Court Law

Warden Birkett first argues that the district court's decision to grant the writ of habeas corpus was improper because "[a]lthough the [Supreme] Court...

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