Woods v. Armontrout

• Decision Date: 27 May 1986
• Docket Number: No. 84-2103,84-2103
• Citation: Woods v. Armontrout, 787 F.2d 310 (8th Cir. 1986)
• Parties: Burton Donald WOODS, III, Appellant, v. Bill ARMONTROUT, Acting Warden, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

Page 310

787 F.2d 310

Burton Donald WOODS, III, Appellant, v. Bill ARMONTROUT, Acting Warden, Appellee.

No. 84-2103.

United States Court of Appeals Eighth Circuit.

Submitted June 13, 1985.

Decided March 20, 1986.

Rehearing and Rehearing En Banc Denied May 27, 1986.

Liane S. Binowitz, St. Louis, Mo., for appellant.

George Cox, Asst. Atty. Gen., Jefferson City, Mo., for appellee.

Before HEANEY and BOWMAN, Circuit Judges, FLOYD R. GIBSON, Senior Circuit Judge.

BOWMAN, Circuit Judge.

This case arises from a habeas corpus petition challenging appellant Burton D. Woods, III's state court conviction for capital murder, for which he is now serving a sentence of life imprisonment without possibility of probation or parole for fifty years. Woods appealed his conviction to the Missouri Supreme Court, which transferred the appeal to the Missouri Court of Appeals. The court of appeals affirmed the conviction. State v. Woods, 662 S.W.2d 527 (Mo.App.1983). Woods then filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the District Court ¹ pursuant to 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2254(d). The District Court referred the petition to a magistrate who, after reviewing the record of the state court proceedings, recommended denying Woods's petition. The District Court, after reviewing the record, adopted the magistrate's recommendation and denied the petition without conducting an evidentiary hearing.

Woods challenges the denial of the writ on several grounds. First, he asserts that the pretrial hearing on the voluntariness of his confession failed to meet the requirements of Jackson v. Denno, 378 U.S. 368, 84 S.Ct. 1774, 12 L.Ed.2d 908 (1964), in violation of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. Second, Woods contends that the District Court erred in finding that the confession was voluntary. Woods argues that the confession was involuntary because induced by promises of leniency. Finally, Woods claims that he was entitled to an evidentiary hearing in the District Court. ² We affirm the District Court's decision that the state court proceeding met the Jackson requirements, and that Woods's confession was voluntary. We also reject Woods's claim that the District Court was required to hold an evidentiary hearing on these issues.

I.

On August 10, 1979, responding to a 3:00 a.m. prowler call from Kasandra Gaines, a police officer found Woods outside Gaines's apartment. Upon discovering that the "prowler" was Woods, a co-worker whom she recognized, Gaines admitted Woods to her apartment and the officer departed. Later that morning Gaines's mother found her dead, with eight stab wounds.

That afternoon the investigating officer, Detective Holt, talked with Woods, who agreed to accompany him to the police station for further questioning. ³ Holt interrogated Woods for approximately three hours, during which Woods denied killing Gaines. Woods then agreed to submit to a polygraph test. The examining officer, Sergeant Bright, spent ten minutes alone with Woods but did not administer the test. Woods claims that Bright implied that if he confessed Bright would be willing to get Woods help because Bright believed there was something mentally wrong with a person who stabbed someone repeatedly. The "help," according to Woods, was to consist of hospital care, and a charge less than capital murder. In addition, Woods contends that Bright said that Holt would agree to get Woods help. Bright then summoned Holt, stating that Woods wanted to speak with him. Woods immediately confessed to killing Gaines.

In a pretrial hearing on a motion to suppress Woods's confession, both Holt and Woods testified about their conversations. Woods asserted that the officers had promised him leniency if he confessed. While Holt denied promising leniency, he did say that he spoke with Woods about the possibility of medical treatment. Holt believes that this conversation occurred after Woods confessed. Moreover, Holt asserts that he never promised Woods that the charge would be less than capital murder. The record shows that Woods twice said that no coercion had been used or any promises made to him in exchange for his confession: once the day after the confession and again at his arraignment on charges of capital murder. Woods, 662 S.W.2d at 535. Moreover, neither the state nor Woods called Bright to testify about what he said to Woods. At the end of the hearing, the trial court found that Woods had received the proper warnings and had voluntarily and intelligently waived his rights. Although the trial court did not enter a specific finding as to whether the officers had promised leniency, it denied the motion to suppress and permitted the prosecution to introduce the confession at trial.

II.

Woods's assertion that his confession was involuntary raises a constitutional claim under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. See, e.g., Brady v. United States, 397 U.S. 742, 750, 755, 90 S.Ct. 1463, 1470, 1472, 25 L.Ed.2d 747 (1970); Jackson v. Denno, 378 U.S. 368, 385-86, 84 S.Ct. 1774, 1785-86, 12 L.Ed.2d 908 (1964). In addressing such claims, a district court must hold a hearing on a habeas corpus petition when relevant facts are either in dispute or insufficiently developed, and the state court did not hold a fair evidentiary hearing. Townsend v. Sain, 372 U.S. 293, 312-13, 83 S.Ct. 745, 756-57, 9 L.Ed.2d 770 (1963). Accord Beavers v. Lockhart, 755 F.2d 657, 661 (8th Cir.1985); Riley v. Lockhart, 726 F.2d 421, 423 (8th Cir.1984); Wallace v. Lockhart, 701 F.2d 719, 729-30 (8th Cir.1983); Lindner v. Wyrick, 644 F.2d 724, 729 (8th Cir.1981). Clearly, we are confronted here with a factual dispute--Woods claims the officers promised leniency while the state denies that the officers made such promises. Thus, we must decide whether the state court granted a fair evidentiary hearing. If the hearing was procedurally fair, then we must accord substantial deference to the state court's determination of the facts surrounding the voluntariness of Woods's confession. See Marshall v. Lonberger, 459 U.S. 422, 432, 103 S.Ct. 843, 849-50, 74 L.Ed.2d 646 (1983). As the Supreme Court recently held, although "the ultimate issue of 'voluntariness' is a legal question requiring independent federal determination," subsidiary factual questions are entitled to the 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2254(d) presumption of correctness. Miller v. Fenton, --- U.S. ----, 106 S.Ct. 445, 450, 88 L.Ed.2d 405 (1985).

The Supreme Court's description of the difficult task facing a trial court clearly shows why great deference is due the trial court's findings concerning the facts surrounding a confession:

[F]acts are frequently disputed, questions of credibility are often crucial, and inferences to be drawn from established facts are often determinative. The overall determination of the voluntariness of a confession has thus become an exceedingly sensitive task, one that requires facing the issue squarely, in illuminating isolation and unbeclouded by other issues and the effect of extraneous but prejudicial evidence.

Jackson v. Denno, 378 U.S. at 390, 84 S.Ct. at 1788. A federal court must more than simply disagree with a state court before rejecting its factual determination. Rather, a federal court must conclude that a state court's findings lack "even 'fair support' in the record." Id.; Powell v. Wyrick, 744 F.2d 632, 635 (8th Cir.1984). Particularly important here, the federal statute governing habeas corpus actions by state prisoners directs federal courts to presume that state court determinations are correct unless one of eight exceptions applies. 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2254(d).

Woods asserts that the state court hearing failed to develop adequately the facts concerning the voluntariness of his confession. According to Woods, the omission of Bright's testimony about the ten minutes they were alone together left a gap in the evidentiary record. Woods claims that this omission falls within the third exception in 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2254(d), "that the material facts were not adequately developed at the state court hearing...." Woods thus argues that the District Court should have conducted an evidentiary hearing to determine whether Bright promised leniency. We disagree.

In Jackson v. Denno, the Supreme Court set the standard for determining whether a state court hearing was fair. A defendant moving to suppress a confession is entitled to a fair hearing on the underlying factual issues and the voluntariness of the confession. 378 U.S. at 380, 84 S.Ct. at 1782. The trial court's procedures must "be fully adequate to insure a reliable and clear-cut determination of the voluntariness of the confession, including the resolution of disputed facts upon which the voluntariness issue may depend." Id. at 391, 84 S.Ct. at 1788 (footnote omitted).

Before Woods's trial, the court conducted a hearing on the voluntariness of Woods's confession. The state had the burden of showing that Woods's confession was voluntary, Miranda, 384 U.S. at 475, 86 S.Ct. at 1628, by a preponderance of the evidence. Lego v. Twomey, 404 U.S. 477, 484, 92 S.Ct. 619, 624, 30 L.Ed.2d 618 (1972); State v. Hughes, 596 S.W.2d 723, 726 (Mo.1980). The court gave both the state and Woods the opportunity to present evidence and to cross-examine the other party's witnesses. Holt testified that he made no promises of leniency to Woods, though he did discuss medical treatment with Woods. ⁴ Bright did not testify for either party though both had the opportunity to call him. Woods testified that Bright promised medical care and a charge less than capital murder. After hearing all the evidence, the trial court denied the motion to suppress the confession, concluding that Woods voluntarily and intelligently waived his rights.

On direct appeal, the Missouri Court of Appeals reviewed the trial court's decision under the standard of " 'whether the evidence was sufficient to sustain the trial court's finding that the statement was voluntarily given.' "...