Charles S. POPE, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Carl ZENON, Superintendent, OSCI, Et Al., Respondents-Appellees

69 F.3d 1018
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
DecidedJanuary 4, 1996
Docket93-35164
StatusPublished
Cited by33 cases

This text of 69 F.3d 1018 (Charles S. POPE, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Carl ZENON, Superintendent, OSCI, Et Al., Respondents-Appellees) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Charles S. POPE, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Carl ZENON, Superintendent, OSCI, Et Al., Respondents-Appellees, 69 F.3d 1018 (9th Cir. 1996).

Opinion

TROTT, Circuit Judge:

Charles S. Pope is a convicted murderer serving a life sentence in an Oregon penitentiary. He timely appeals the district court’s denial of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus. His principle claim is that evidence obtained by homicide detectives in violation of the rules of custodial interrogation established by the Supreme Court in Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), fatally tainted his conviction. Although we agree with Mr. Pope that the detectives violated Miranda by subjecting him to custodial interrogation before advising him of his constitutional rights, and that it was error to use the traceable product of this improper interrogation against him, we are convinced that this transgression did not — under the facts and circumstances of this case — have any “substantial and injurious effect or influence in determining the jury’s verdict.” Brecht v. Abrahamson, 507 U.S. 619, -, 113 S.Ct. 1710, 1722, 123 L.Ed.2d 353 (1993). Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s denial of his petition.

I

The Interrogation

The pertinent facts inevitably provide an essential part of the means required to assess a claim such as Mr. Pope’s. As George Williams once noted, “The continued success of flying fishes ... absolutely depends upon their propensity for falling back into the water after they emerge.” 1 Thus, we begin with a review of what happened to Mr. Pope after the police arrested him for the murder in the Majestic Hotel of James Kennedy. Charles Kokes, one of Mr. Pope’s prosecutors, will outline the story for us as he did to the state trial judge in a pretrial suppression hearing.

Initially, when the detectives went in and talked to the defendant, before they advised him of his Miranda rights, they had a couple of pieces of evidence. They had his signature on a booking document from a previous booking and they had his signature on a registration card from the hotel where the homicide occurred. They confronted him with the signatures and asked him about his handwriting and whether it was the same. I believe they also confronted him with the fact that they had found a fingerprint on the registration card. So the defendant’s responses to those statements will be an issue, I suspect, as no Miranda rights were read prior to that initial confrontation with the defendant.
Then the defendants were [sic] advised of their rights per Miranda. The defendant made the initial brief admission that he knew what it was about and he had stabbed this man. That, in conjunction with his questions about his rights. So an issue will be whether that statement is a voluntary, spontaneous statement.
Then the officer’s Miranda clarification. The defendant had asked, “Do I get a lawyer now?” is the question he asked. The detectives told him when a lawyer would be appointed. And after that, the defendant made a second, more detailed *1021 admission to the detectives. So this statement occurs after the clarification, after the Miranda rights advisal.
Finally, the last statement that I can tell will be in contention is the taped admission that the Court will hear. Prior to the taped admission there was a complete re-advisal of Miranda and a complete reclari-fication of the issue of the availability of a lawyer and when he would get one. So those four statements are all in a different posture.
I would like to put on my evidence and the attempt to make sense of how they all fit together.

In that same suppression hearing, Detective McDonald then filled in the details.

Q (By the Prosecutor) Which Detective Division are you assigned to?
A (By Detective McDonald) I’m assigned to the homicide detail.
Q Were you the assigned detective to investigate a homicide, a person named James Edward Kennedy?
A Yes.
Q Pursuant to that investigation on the 22nd of July of 1986 at about 3:45 p.m., did you and detective Kent Perry interview the defendant Charles Pope at the Justice Center?
A Yes, we did.
Q Prior to advising the defendant of his rights per Miranda, did you or Detective Perry speak to the defendant?
A Yes, I did.
Q Would you describe to the Court what that conversation consisted of, including any responses that the defendant may have made.
A We escorted the defendant from a holding room to an interview room where Detective Perry joined us. I initially introduced ourselves and told him who we were, that we were detectives. I told him that we were conducting a criminal investigation and that that investigation had linked him to the crime we were investigating.
I then showed him a photocopy of a fingerprint card used by our Identification Division that showed rolled ink fingerprints of an individual on the card that said “Charles Pope.” I asked the defendant if that was his signature on the bottom of the card and he told me that it was.
I then showed him a registration card from the Majestic Hotel which also bore the signature Charles Pope, and I asked him if that was his signature on that document and he said it was. I then informed him that a latent fingerprint had been obtained from the hotel registration card and that that fingerprint had been compared with a fingerprint from the card, which I also had showed him, and as a result of that comparison the fingerprint on the registration card had been positively identified as being one of his fingerprints. I asked him if he understood that concept and he said that he did.
Q Was this information that you gave to the defendant, was that correct information? Was that true?
A Yes, it was.
Q Go ahead.
A At that point I asked Mr. Pope if he could read and write English and he said that he could. I then advised him of his constitutional rights. I did so by providing him with a copy of a Rights Advice Form.
******
Q Okay. That is a true and accurate representation of the copy that you handed to the defendant in this case?
A Yes, it is. After providing him with the original of this form, I instructed him to read the contents of the form to himself silently. I simultaneously read aloud from an identical form. I read the contents of the form verbatim. After reading the form, I asked him if he understood each of his Constitutional rights. He told me that he did.
******

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Bluebook (online)
69 F.3d 1018, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/charles-s-pope-petitioner-appellant-v-carl-zenon-superintendent-osci-ca9-1996.