Wilson v. Lane

• Decision Date: 19 April 1988
• Docket Number: No. 88-3180.,88-3180.
• Citation: 697 F. Supp. 1489
• Parties: Miriam WILSON, Nadine Schnurstein, Ronald Barrow, Gloria Abbey-Lyles and Patricia Vader, individually and as next friends acting on behalf of Charles Walker, Petitioners, v. Michael LANE, Director of the Illinois Department of Corrections, Respondent.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of Illinois

697 F. Supp. 1489

Miriam WILSON, Nadine Schnurstein, Ronald Barrow, Gloria Abbey-Lyles and Patricia Vader, individually and as next friends acting on behalf of Charles Walker, Petitioners, v. Michael LANE, Director of the Illinois Department of Corrections, Respondent.

No. 88-3180.

United States District Court, S.D. Illinois.

April 19, 1988.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Jon K. Stromsta & Kurt H. Feuer, Ross & Hardies, Monica Rimai, Sidley & Austin, Chicago, Ill., for petitioners.

Kenneth A. Fedinets, & Terence Madsen, Asst. Attys. Gen., Chicago, Ill., for respondent.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

STIEHL, District Judge:

INTRODUCTION

This case is before the Court on a petition for a writ of habeas corpus. Petitioners, Miriam Wilson, Nadine Schnurstein, Ronald Barrow, Gloria Abbey-Lyles and Patricia Vader, bring this action individually, and as next-friends acting on behalf of Charles Walker, an Illinois death row inmate who is scheduled for execution by lethal injection on May 10, 1988.

This Court issued an Order requiring the petitioners to supplement their pleadings as to the issues of jurisdiction, standing and Walker's competency. The Court heard oral argument on those issues and took the matter under advisement to determine whether the petitioners have standing to bring this action. Walker has not joined in the petition, and in a letter to the Court has stated that he does not wish to have anyone acting on his behalf.¹

Charles Walker pleaded guilty to two counts of murder and one count of armed robbery in the Circuit Court for St. Clair County, Illinois. He requested that a jury be impaneled to determine whether he should receive the death penalty. After hearing evidence, the jury recommended the death penalty be imposed. People v. Walker, 109 Ill.2d 484, 94 Ill.Dec. 530, 532-35, 488 N.E.2d 529, 531-34 (1985). Walker received a sentence of death on each of the murder counts and thirty years on the armed robbery count. The Illinois Supreme Court confirmed the conviction and the death sentence on December 20, 1985.

On December 27, 1985, Walker made a motion to terminate further proceedings. On February 6, 1986, the Illinois Supreme Court denied Walker's motion to terminate further proceedings, and denied Walker's appointed counsel's petition for rehearing.

Walker's counsel subsequently filed a petition for writ of certiorari in the United States Supreme Court. Walker continued to oppose the action and refused to sign an affidavit in support of the motion to proceed in forma pauperis in his petition for writ of certiorari. Certiorari was denied by the Supreme Court on December 1, 1986. Walker v. Illinois, 479 U.S. 995, 107 S.Ct. 598, 93 L.Ed.2d 598 (1986), reh'g denied, 479 U.S. 1047, 107 S.Ct. 913, 93 L.Ed.2d 862 (1987).

On February 19, 1987, the Illinois Supreme Court, in response to a request, remanded the case to the Circuit Court of St. Clair County for a hearing to "determine whether Charles Walker (1) is mentally competent to waive further legal actions on his behalf; (2) has made a knowing and intelligent waiver of any such further legal actions; and (3) is fit to be executed." Counsel was appointed to represent Walker, and a hearing was held on June 24, 1987.

On September 28, 1987, the Illinois Supreme Court, having found the June 24 hearing to be inadequate, issued an order requiring a rehearing in the Circuit Court of St. Clair County. The court instructed:

The rehearing shall be in accordance with Rees v. Peyton (1966), 384 U.S. 312, 86 S.Ct. 1505, 16 L.Ed.2d 583, and Gilmore v. Utah (1976), 429 U.S. 1012 97 S.Ct. 436, 50 L.Ed.2d 632. ... The circuit court is further directed to consider all available evidence relevant to the court's findings of fact concerning the three questions raised for consideration.

The hearing was held in compliance with the Illinois Supreme Court's Order on November 20, 1987, and the St. Clair County Circuit Court made the following findings:

1. Defendant is aware of the legal recourse available to him in attacking his conviction and death sentence, including state post-conviction relief Ill.Rev.Stat., 1985, ch. 38, sec. 122-1 et seq., federal habeas corpus relief (28 U.S.C. 2254 et seq. and executive clemency;

2. Defendant is mentally competent to seek legal relief on his own behalf from the judgment imposed against him;

3. Defendant has mental capacity to make a rational choice concerning the continuation or abandonment of further litigation attacking his conviction and sentence Rees v. Payton, 384 U.S. 312, 314, 86 S.Ct. 1505, 1506, 16 L.Ed.2d 583 (1966);

4. Defendant does not suffer from any physical condition which impairs his mental capacity to waive further proceedings;

5. Defendant does not suffer from terminal lung disease;

6. Defendant does not choose to be executed because he fears other inmates;

7. Defendant has made a knowing and intelligent waiver of further legal action on his behalf Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U.S. 458, 467-468, 58 S.Ct. 1019, 1024-1025, 82 L.Ed. 1461 (1938);

8. Defendant has made a knowing and intelligent waiver of counsel for the purpose of further proceedings challenging the judgment against him Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U.S. 458, 467-468, 58 S.Ct. 1019, 1024-1025, 82 L.Ed. 1461 (1938);

9. Defendant understands the nature and purpose of the death sentence to be imposed against him Ford v. Wainwright, 477 U.S. 399, 106 S.Ct. 2595, 2603, 91 L.Ed.2d 335 (1986); Ill.Rev. Stat., 1985, ch. 38, sec. 1005-2-3;

10. Defendant understands that the State intends to execute him by lethal injection as punishment for the crime of murder Ill.Rev.Stat. 1985, ch. 38, sec. 119-5;

11. Defendant is fit to be executed.

(Hudlin, J. Order of Nov. 20, 1987, as cited in Respondent's Reply Brief at pp. 8-9.)

On January 19, 1988, the Illinois Supreme Court, upon review of the record, found "that Charles Walker is mentally competent to waive further legal actions on his behalf; has made a knowing and intelligent waiver of any such further legal actions; and is fit to be executed." The court ordered that the death sentence be implemented on May 10, 1988.

JURISDICTION AND VENUE

Petitioners allege jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 1343(c) and 2241. They describe the petition as consisting of two claims. In one claim, petitioners sue individually. In the other, they sue on behalf of Charles Walker as his next-friend, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2242. (Application for writ of habeas corpus shall be in writing signed and verified by the person for whose relief it is intended or by someone acting in his behalf." Id. (emphasis added)).

This Court's habeas corpus jurisdiction extends only to actions brought by or on behalf of a person in custody; the next-friend claim may therefore come within such jurisdiction. In a next-friend action, the next-friend sues on behalf of the person in custody, who remains the real party in interest. Fed.R.Civ.P. 17. Venue over the next-friend claim properly lies in this Court because Walker was convicted in this judicial district and presently is incarcerated within the district. 28 U.S.C. § 2241(d).

Petitioners also sue in their individual capacities, thereby asserting their own interests rather than Walker's. Presumably, they intend for Walker to benefit from this assertion of their own interests. This Court's habeas corpus jurisdiction does not extend to such individual claims. A federal court has jurisdiction to hear a habeas corpus action only if it is brought by or on behalf of a person in custody to attack the legality of his confinement. 28 U.S.C. §§ 2241, 2242; the individual claims here are brought neither by Walker nor on his behalf. Petitioners also invoke this Court's jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1343(a)(3), which would extend to petitioners' individual claims, but only to the extent that petitioners have standing to raise the claims in a civil rights action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, for which § 1343(a)(3) is the jurisdictional counterpart. Petitioners' individual claims, therefore, must be pursued under the Civil Rights Act of 1871, 42 U.S.C. § 1983, if at all. Venue over such civil rights claims is properly in this Court, because the claims arose in this district. 28 U.S.C. § 1391(b).

EXHAUSTION OF STATE JUDICIAL REMEDIES

A federal court will not entertain a petition for a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a state court unless all effective available state judicial remedies have been exhausted. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b), (c). Remedies must be exhausted as to every claim raised, Rose v. Lundy, 455 U.S. 509, 102 S.Ct. 1198, 71 L.Ed.2d 379 (1982), and the substance of each federal claim must be "fairly presented" as a federal claim in state court. Anderson v. Harless, 459 U.S. 4, 6, 103 S.Ct. 276, 277, 74 L.Ed.2d 3 (1982). The United States Supreme Court held in Brown v. Allen, 344 U.S. 443, 73 S.Ct. 397, 97 L.Ed. 469 (1953), that repetitious applications to state courts are not necessary, and that remedies are properly exhausted by raising all claims on direct review to the highest state court. Id. at 447, 449 n. 3, 73 S.Ct. at 402, 403 n. 3. The Court has reviewed the published opinion and unpublished orders of the Illinois Supreme Court in this case, and concludes that all of the claims in this habeas action were presented to that court, and accordingly, the exhaustion requirements of 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b), (c) have been met.

STANDING

This action is concerned with Charles Walker's capital sentence for murder, i.e. whether it was imposed, and may be executed, constitutionally. At oral argument, petitioners made clear that they do not seek to attack the Illinois death penalty on any grounds independent of its imposition on Walker, although several petitioners may be affected by the law in other ways.

This Court is initially faced with the question of whether petitioners have standing, i.e., whether they are "entitled to have the court decide the merits of the dispute or...