Auger v. Swenson

302 F. Supp. 1131, 1969 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9914
CourtDistrict Court, W.D. Missouri
DecidedAugust 11, 1969
DocketNo. 1409
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 302 F. Supp. 1131 (Auger v. Swenson) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, W.D. Missouri primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Auger v. Swenson, 302 F. Supp. 1131, 1969 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9914 (W.D. Mo. 1969).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER DENYING HABEAS CORPUS

JOHN W. OLIVER, District Judge.

This State prisoner habeas corpus proceeding was filed immediately after the Supreme Court of Missouri affirmed petitioner’s second degree burglary and stealing conviction on direct appeal in State v. Auger, Sup.Ct. of Mo.Div. 2, 1968, 434 S.W.2d 1. The parties stipulated that petitioner had exhausted his available state court remedies in regard to federal claims ruled on the merits by the Supreme Court of Missouri on its direct appeal. We deny habeas corpus for reasons we shall state.

I.

Disposition of this case requires that we discuss principles enunciated in both Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966) and in Jackson v. Denno, 378 U.S. 368, 84 S.Ct. 1774, 12 L.Ed.2d 908 (1964). It is important to keep in mind, however, that petitioner appropriately exhausted his available state court remedy on direct appeal only in regard to the Miranda question presented to this Court.

This is not to say that petitioner’s failure appropriately to exhaust his available state court remedies in regard to the Jackson v. Denno question that obviously lurked in this case from the outset would foreclose petitioner from later presenting that question to the state courts and, still later, to this Court in a second federal habeas corpus proceeding. It is to say, however, that the only federal question to which this Court may, under familiar exhaustion principles (see White v. Swenson, (W.D.Mo. en bane 1966) 261 F.Supp. 42), properly determine is the very narrow Miranda question which petitioner presented to the state trial court and which the Supreme Court of Missouri decided on the merits.

II.

Petitioner alleged the following grounds in support of his petition for federal habeas corpus:

(a) The trial court permitted the use of statements obtained from the defendant that were illegally and unconstitutionally obtained by the police officers at time of arrest, and in disregard of the defendant’s desire to remain silent before such statements were taken; such statements consisting of oral admissions of guilt to the accusations charged.
(b) The trial court committed plain error and denied due process of law in instructing the jury that it could only either find the defendant not guilty or guilty of both burglary and stealing and in failing to instruct the jury that it could find the defendant guilty of stealing and not guilty of burglary.
(c) The petitioner was denied and deprived due process of the law because the trial court failed to make proper findings on the voluntariness of the confessions, contrary to the rule in Jackson v. Denno, 378 U.S. 368, 84 S.Ct. 1774, 12 L.Ed.2d 908, 1 A.L.R. 3rd 1205, and because the Missouri Supreme Court “ORDERED” the trial court to return the petitioner back for a hearing on the voluntariness of the confessions used at his trial, months after the trial was over and the appeal had been taken, but before the Supreme Court reviewed the case on the pending appeal. All of which amounted to an illegal procedure on the part of the Missouri Supreme Court, denying the petitioner of the right to a new trial, where his conviction was unconstitutionally obtained.

[1134]*1134The ground alleged in paragraph (b) in regard to the State trial court's instructions does not present a federal question. See Poulson v. Turner, (10th Cir. 1966) 359 F.2d 588 at 591, cert. denied 385 U.S. 905, 87 S.Ct. 219, 17 L.Ed.2d 136. It therefore will not be further noted. We turn to petitioner’s Miranda claim.

III.

Petitioner’s Miranda claim was presented to the Supreme Court of Missouri as Point I in petitioner’s Appellant’s Brief. It stated:

The Court erred in denying appellant’s pretrial motion, motion to strike and objections to the admission in evidence of the oral extrajudicial statements made by appellant to police officers which were unconstitutionally obtained from appellant after he had indicated that he did not desire to waive his right to remain silent and his right to have an attorney present during the interrogation through his refusal to sign a written waiver. [Emphasis ours].

Petitioner’s argument in the Supreme Court of Missouri made clear that he was contending, solely as a matter of law, that the principles enunciated in Miranda required the police officers to cease all interrogation “upon the defendant’s refusal to sign the waiver” (page 11 of petitioner’s Appellant’s Brief).

The Supreme Court of Missouri reliably found that “at the beginning of the trial defendant’s counsel requested and were granted a hearing outside the presence of the jury on their motion seeking the exclusion from evidence of defendant’s oral admissions.” That court fairly summarized the testimony given at that hearing as follows:

The officers were questioned in great detail; defendant did not testify. * * * The full Miranda warnings were, according to the undisputed testimony, read to defendant at the very inception of the first confrontation; at that time defendant denied all knowledge of the burglary. When he was moved to North Kansas City, the same warnings were again read to him in full, and he said that he understood them. When a waiver was presented, he declined to sign it, simply saying that his attorney had always told him not to sign anything. However, the record indicates that he followed this almost immediately with the statement that “he didn’t mind talking about it,” and that thereupon he proceeded to discuss all the details freely. The record is wholly barren of any evidence of coercion or duress. [434 S.W.2d 6].

Having carefully studied the trial transcript we find and determine that the facts stated were reliably found by the Supreme Court of Missouri (see pages 7, 8, 11, 15, 17, 20-22, 25, 58-60, 63, 65, 69, 71, 76-77, 91, 102 and 106 of trial transcript). In accordance with the discretion granted by Townsend v. Sain, 372 U.S. 293 at 318, 83 S.Ct. 745, 9 L.Ed. 2d 770 (1963), we defer to and accept those findings.

The Supreme Court of Missouri appropriately recognized that the principles stated in both Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), and Escobedo v. Illinois, 378 U.S. 478, 84 S.Ct. 1758, 12 L.Ed.2d 977 (1964), were applicable to this case.

The sole question presented for this Court’s determination is whether those recognized federal standards were properly applied to the established factual situation. The Supreme Court of Missouri stated that “[t]he last point to be considered is that defendant’s oral statements in the nature of a confession should have been excluded solely because of his refusal to sign a written waiver.” [Emphasis the court’s].

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
302 F. Supp. 1131, 1969 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9914, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/auger-v-swenson-mowd-1969.