Stidham v. Swenson

• Decision Date: 26 November 1974
• Docket Number: No. 20685,20685
• Parties: James William STIDHAM, Appellant, v. Harold R. SWENSON, Warden, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

Page 478

506 F.2d 478

James William STIDHAM, Appellant, v. Harold R. SWENSON, Warden, Appellee.

No. 20685.

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

Submitted June 13, 1973.

Decided March 28, 1974, On Rehearing En Banc Nov. 26, 1974.

Mark M. Hennelly, St. Louis, Mo., for appellant.

John C. Danforth, Atty. Gen., and David Robards, Asst. Atty. Gen., Jefferson City, Md., for appellee.

Before GIBSON, HEANEY and BRIGHT, Circuit Judges.

HEANEY, Circuit Judge.

The sole issue on this habeas corpus appeal is whether James Stidham's confession that he participated in the brutal slaying of a fellow inmate during a riot at the Missouri State Penitentiary was properly received in evidence at his state trial for murder. The state trial court held that the confession was voluntary and properly received in evidence. This ruling was affirmed by the Missouri Supreme Court. State v. Stidham, 305 S.W.2d 7 (Mo.1957), denial of motion to vacate sentence affirmed, 403 S.W.2d 616 (Mo.1966). The voluntariness of the confession was again sustained in a state post-conviction proceeding and the Missouri Supreme Court affirmed in State v. Stidham, 449 S.W.2d 634 (Mo.1970). The United States District Court, Western District of Missouri, subsequently denied Stidham's habeas corpus petition without an evidentiary hearing. It too found that Stidham's confession was voluntary. Stidham v. Swenson, 328 F.Supp. 1291 (W.D.Mo.1970). This Court reversed the District Court, holding that the state court had failed to comply with the requirements of Jackson v. Denno, 378 U.S. 368, 84 S.Ct. 1774, 12 L.Ed.2d 908 (1964), in determining the voluntariness of the confession. We remanded to the District Court. The Supreme Court of the United States reversed, holding that the post-conviction determination was procedurally adequate and substantially acceptable under the due process clause. Swenson v. Stidham, 409 U.S. 224, 93 S.Ct. 359, 34 L.Ed.2d 431 (1972), modified, 410 U.S. 904, 93 S.Ct. 955, 35 L.Ed.2d 266 (1973). The Supreme Court remanded the matter to this Court with instructions to determine whether Stidham's confession 'was involuntary and inadmissible as a matter of law.' Swenson v. Stidham, supra at 409 U.S. 231, 93 S.Ct. at 363.

In making this determination, we must consider the totality of the circumstances and cannot override the state court's determination unless it is established by '* * * convincing evidence that the state courts' determination (is) erroneous.' LaVallee v. Rose, 410 U.S. 690, 695, 93 S.Ct. 1203, 1206. 35 L.Ed.2d 637 (1973); Clewis v. Texas, 386 U.S. 707, 708, 87 S.Ct. 1338, 18 L.Ed.2d 423 (1967); Davis v. North Carolina, 384 U.S. 737, 86 S.Ct. 1761, 16 L.Ed.2d 895 (1966).

An independent examination of the record convinces us that the state erred in finding the confession to be voluntary. This record, as that in Brooks v. Florida, 389 U.S. 413, 88 S.Ct. 541, 19 L.Ed.2d 643 (1967), documents a shocking display of barbarism which should not escape remedial action.

The undisputed evidence is that James Stidham was confined to the Missouri State Penitentiary in May, 1952, pursuant to a twenty-five year sentence for robbery. In January, 1953, he was placed in solitary confinement for an attempted escape. The cell to which he was confined was five feet by seven feet. It had a wash basin, a toilet and a steel bunk with a straw tick as a mattress. It was infested with cockroaches, rodents and pigeons. It was poorly ventilated. He remained in the cell until July 12, 1954, when he was transferred to another cell where the conditions were substantially the same as those in the cell which he had just left, other than the new cell had no bunk on which to place the straw tick. Throughout the entire period, Stidham was not permitted to visit with family or friends. He left his cell on only one occasion, that for a court appearance.

At 6:30 P.M. on September 22, 1954, a riot occurred in the prison. About one hour later, Stidham was released from his cell by other rioters. At 10:00 P.M., the severely mutilated body of inmate Walter Donnell was found in a cell near the one in which Stidham had been confined. The riot was quelled in the early morning hours of September 23. On that day, several prisoners signed statements implicating Stidham as one of those participating in Donnell's murder. Stidham was returned to his cell on death row immediately after the riot was brought under control. At that time, the floor was covered with water and his straw tick was soaked. He slept in a sitting position on the commode.

On September 23, 24, 25 and 26, Stidham was questioned about twenty-five times in his cell and once in the classification room by prison guards and state patrolmen with respect to his part in the Donnell murder. He consistently denied that he was guilty. He was given little or no food or water during the four-day period. He wrote a letter to his family on one of the days asking them to get him counsel. He delivered the letter to prison authorities, but they failed to mail it.

On September 27, Stidham was taken from his cell and removed to the prison field house. He was again interrogated in a small hot room with his hands handcuffed behind his back in the presence of at least two armed highway patrolmen and four armed St. Louis police officers. ¹ The questioning was persistent, but he continued to assert his innocence for about one-half hour. He then broke down and admitted that he had participated in Donnell's murder. He followed this oral admission with a written statement of guilt.

Stidham was then returned to another cell and held there for two more days with little or no food or water and without opportunity to see anyone from outside the prison. He was arraigned two days later without the benefit of counsel even though he requested one in open court.

Stidham was at no time advised of his right to remain silent or to have the assistance of counsel. ²

The state argues on appeal that Stidham's claim for relief must be denied unless we accept his testimony that he was hung by his wrists and beaten. It cites Stidham's testimony that he confessed only after he was beaten for the proposition that no other conduct was coercive. We reject this reasoning. It is for this Court to determine whether under the totality of the circumstances the confession was an involuntary one, and we hold they were. See Brooks v. Florida, supra; Clewis v. Texas, supra; Davis v. North Carolina, supra; Townsend v. Henderson, 405 F.2d 324 (6th Cir. 1968).

If a confession * * * is the product of sustained pressure by the police it does not issue from a free choice. When a suspect speaks because he is overborne, it is immaterial whether he has been subjected to a physical or a mental ordeal. Eventual yielding to questioning under such circumstances is plainly the product of the suction process of interrogation and therefore the reverse of voluntary. * * *

Watts v. Indiana, 338 U.S. 49, 53, 69 S.Ct. 1347, 1350, 93 L.Ed. 1801 (1949).

Here, the pressure on Stidham was sustained and unyielding. It included eighteen months of solitary confinement in subhuman conditions; persistent questioning by armed guards over a four-day period; deprivation of food and water over the same period; denial of an opportunity to have contact with counsel, family or friends; failure to advise as to the right to remain silent and the right to assistance of counsel; and a final interrogation by six heavily armed law officers in a remote field house. Contrary to the statement of the Missouri Supreme Court in State v. Stidham, supra at 449 S.W.2d at 643, there is not a scintilla of evidence that state witnesses had 'categorically or implicitly refuted' Stidham's claims as outlined in this paragraph. We have scoured the record from beginning to end, as we are sure that Judge Collinson did before us, and are thoroughly satisfied that the circumstances were as stated. What we have then is not a question of credibility but a dispute over whether the actual circumstances considered in their totality were such as to render the confession an involuntary one. Judge Collinson believed they were not. We believe they were.

We recognize that Stidham had been in solitary confinement for twenty months before the riot, and that conditions in the cell were probably not much worse after the riot than before. But this neither changes the fact that these conditions were at all times subhuman nor excuses the failure of prison officials to give him adequate food and water and an opportunity to contact someone from the outside after he was put back in solitary confinement. In the light of all of the circumstances and in view of the persistent questioning in the face of his repeated denials, it must have become painfully evident to Stidham that he must either confess or continue to be treated as an animal. The state's case in no way explains why a hardened criminal such as Stidham would figuratively sign his own death warrant by confessing to a murder committed in a prison, save through the testimony of the law enforcement officers who conducted the confrontation in the prison field house and who, as we have noted, testified that they did not beat Stidham or hang him by the arms. This testimony does not refute the evidence of motive as introduced by Stidham, showing the confession as bottomed upon coercion.

The state also argues that some of the testimony relied upon by Stidham to establish the involuntariness of his confession was not alluded to at his initial trial and was brought forth as an after thought for the first time in the post-conviction proceeding. The best answer to this contention is that the state had a clear opportunity to refute any new testimony and failed to do so.

As we read the record, the testimony at the post-conviction hearing developed more thoroughly the fact that the defendant had been deprived of nourishment during the four-day period prior to his...