Young v. State of Maryland

• Decision Date: 07 February 1972
• Docket Number: No. 71-1523.,71-1523.
• Parties: George Terry YOUNG, Appellee, v. STATE OF MARYLAND, Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

455 F.2d 679 (1972)

George Terry YOUNG, Appellee, v. STATE OF MARYLAND, Appellant.

No. 71-1523.

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

Argued August 25, 1971.

Decided February 7, 1972.

Robert A. DiCicco, Asst. Atty. Gen. of Maryland (Francis B. Burch, Atty. Gen. of Maryland, Alfred J. O'Ferrall, III, Asst. Atty. Gen. of Maryland on brief), for appellant.

Alan J. Bloom, Baltimore, Md., for appellee.

Before HAYNSWORTH, Chief Judge, SOBELOFF, Senior Circuit Judge, and RUSSELL, Circuit Judge.

RUSSELL, Circuit Judge:

At a trial without a jury, the appellee was convicted of rape and burglary in 1960 before the Criminal Court of Baltimore, Maryland, and received a death sentence for rape and ten years' imprisonment for burglary. On appeal, his conviction was affirmed. His death sentence, however, was commuted by executive action to confinement for life. He thereafter filed for post-conviction relief in the State Court, and, upon the exhaustion of State remedies without success, he applied to the District Court for habeas relief. The District Court granted such relief and the State appeals. We reverse.

The District Court based its conclusion in favor of habeas relief on the allegedly improper admission in evidence of a trenchcoat, taken after appellee's arrest from a room in his father's home where he slept, on which there were spermatozoa stains. It found the search, as a result of which the trenchcoat was secured, violative of the appellee's Fourth Amendment rights and held that for such reason it was inadmissible. We find it unnecessary to determine the validity of the search, though it may not be inappropriate to add that there appears to be support for a finding of validity. The admission of the trenchcoat was harmless error beyond a reasonable doubt and it was accordingly immaterial whether the trenchcoat had been illegally seized. United States v. Simuel (4th Cir. 1971) 439 F.2d 687, 689; United States ex rel. Di Rienzo v. Yeager (3d Cir. 1971) 443 F.2d 228, 231; Serrano v. Hocker (9th Cir. 1971) 444 F.2d 1093; United States v. Manning (5th Cir. 1971) 440 F.2d 1105, 1111; United States v. Rodriguez (9th Cir. 1971) 438 F.2d 1164, 1167.

The appellee admitted the act of intercourse. He, also, testified that during the act he wore his trenchcoat. If he had denied wearing the trenchcoat during the alleged illegal act, it might be argued that the admission may have involved some prejudice, since it would have indicated haste and would have supported an inference of force. But, as has been observed, he did not deny wearing the trenchcoat. Nor was he prejudiced by the fact that there were spermatozoa stains on the coat. Again, the presence of such spermatozoa stains could only have prejudiced appellee's case if he had denied the intercourse. But he admitted the act of intercourse. The point in the case was whether the intercourse was by consent or by force.

The appellee testified that he and two companions broke the lock on the apartment of the prosecutrix and thereby gained entrance into her apartment for the purpose of burglarizing it, and that, while they were so engaged, the prosecutrix, seemingly indifferent to the burglary of her apartment going on before her eyes, besought the favor of the appellee, who, without removing his trenchcoat, left the act of burglary to his companions, and indulged her. The prosecutrix's testimony, on the contrary, supported the prosecution's theory of forcible rape. The credibility of the parties and the believability of their conflicting stories were thus the only issues in the cause. The admission of the trenchcoat added nothing to the credibility of the prosecution's version of the event and similarly created not a tittle of prejudice to the appellee's claim in defense.

It is suggested that, though no apparent prejudice to the appellee can be immediately conceived in the admission of the trenchcoat, we should assume that, unless it were prejudicial to appellee's defense, the State would not have offered it in evidence. Under such an argument, the admission of any improper evidence by the State, however, immaterial and harmless it might appear, would be regarded as prejudicial and could never be held to be harmless. The authorities, however, are abundant, wherein the admission of evidence, even though found to be improper, has been declared harmless error under the rule enunciated in Chapman and Harrington.¹ See, for instance, Chambers v. Maroney (1970) 399 U.S. 42, 52, 90 S.Ct. 1975, 26 L.Ed.2d 419, reh. den. 400 U.S. 856, 91 S.Ct. 23, 27 L.Ed.2d 94; United States v. Simuel, supra; United States ex rel. Rosenberg v. Mancusi (2d Cir. 1971) 445 F.2d 613, 619; United States v. Mendoza (9th Cir. 1971) 441 F.2d 1107, 1108; Monteiro v. Picard (1st Cir. 1971) 443 F.2d 311, 313; United States v. Ferrone (3d Cir. 1971) 438 F.2d 381, 386, cert. den. 402 U.S. 1008, 91 S.Ct. 2188, 29 L.Ed.2d 430. Indeed, any other conclusion would make the harmless error rule meaningless.

During argument in this Court, the possibility that the trenchcoat may have been improperly used by the police to induce the appellee's confession was suggested. Until that time, there had not been even a remote contention either in the State Court or in the District Court that appellee's confession had been induced by the seizure of the trenchcoat. Not only had no such contention been raised in the State Court (Cf., Picard v. Connor, 404 U.S. 270, 92 S.Ct. 509, 30 L.Ed.2d 438, decided December 20, 1971) but there is no evidence in the record to support such contention. The appellee has never testified he was coerced in giving his confession nor proffered any other evidence of such coercion. This Court, on a record barren of any evidence that the confession was coerced, may not assume its involuntariness. Such a finding would have to be supported by some evidence in the record. If there is any basis in fact for such a claim, the appellee must present it initially to the State Court where the facts can be properly ascertained and a record had on which a proper finding of coercion vel non may be made; the issue may not be considered at the appellate stage in this proceeding in the absence of both a presentation of the claim to the State Court and a factual basis in the record for the claim.

The judgment of the District Court is accordingly reversed, with direction to dismiss the petition for a writ of habeas corpus herein.

Reversed.

SOBELOFF, Senior Circuit Judge (dissenting):

The State of Maryland prosecutes this appeal from an order of the District Court (Thomsen, J.) granting habeas corpus relief to George Terry Young, Jr., who was convicted in a State court of raping a woman with whom he had formerly cohabited. The trial court imposed a death sentence, but this was later commuted by the governor to life imprisonment.

I respectfully but earnestly dissent from the majority decision reversing the District Court. In my view, not only was the search and seizure here involved forbidden by the Fourth Amendment, but petitioner was so prejudiced thereby that the conviction should not stand. By forcing this case under the rubric of "harmless error" the majority skirts the issue and opens the door to a substantial erosion of the Fourth Amendment's protections.

The District Court agreed with Young's contention that his conviction was fatally infected by the illegal seizure of his trenchcoat stained with spermatozoa from the alleged rape. My brethren, without citation of authority, declare that "there appears to be support for a finding of validity of the search." In this situation they embrace the theory that the introduction of the coat into evidence did not work to petitioner's detriment at his trial; they therefore find it "immaterial whether the trenchcoat had been illegally seized." I differ with my colleagues both as to the validity of the search and their application of the harmless error doctrine. First in order is a scrutiny of the search.

I. The Constitutional Violation

The search and seizure upon which Young bases his petition for habeas corpus occurred while he was in police custody. The record discloses that the police went to the home of George Terry Young, Sr., petitioner's father, without a search warrant. Mr. Young testified that the police told him they "wanted some things for George, Jr. to wear." This was not only uncandid but actually deceptive. There is reason to believe that, if the police had not misled the father as to the purpose of the search, he would not have permitted it to be made.¹ Upon the false representation that the police had come on behalf of the son, to get some things for him to wear, the father was induced to admit them to a furnished basement room, petitioner's regular sleeping quarters, in which he kept all of his personal belongings. The trenchcoat was found in that room and removed by the police.

The State's sole attempt to sustain the legality of this warrantless search is an assertion that Young's father consented to it. I would reject this contention, for even if he had given an informed consent, the father lacked the necessary legal authority. The District Court found as a fact that, although the house in which the search occurred was owned by Young, Sr., the room in which the coat was found was "set aside for Young Jr.'s use." There is no justification for disturbing this finding, amply supported as it is by the uncontroverted testimony of both the petitioner and his father. This being so, under the principles enunciated by this court in Reeves v. Warden, 346 F.2d 915, 924-925 (4 Cir. 1965), Young's father had no right to consent to the warrantless search of a room or area exclusively occupied by his son. See Stoner v. California, 376 U.S. 483, 84 S.Ct. 889, 11 L.Ed.2d 856 (1964); Shorey v. Warden, 401 F.2d 474, 479 (4 Cir.), cert. denied, 393 U.S. 915, 89 S.Ct. 241, 21 L.Ed.2d 201 (1968).

The suggestion has been advanced that the father, as the...