Eugene Fields v. State of Alaska and William Huston, Superintendent of the Juneau Correctional Institution

524 F.2d 259, 1975 U.S. App. LEXIS 12391

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
• Decided: October 14, 1975
• Docket: 74-1679
• Status: Published

Opinions

OPINION

Before DUNIWAY, TRASK and SNEED, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:

This is an appeal from the denial by the district court of a writ of habeas corpus.¹

On December 11, 1967, two masked men committed an armed robbery in a tavern in Anchorage, Alaska. They herded the owner and three customers into a rest room and barricaded them inside. After the robbers left, the four men broke out to discover the cash register rifled and $2,200 missing. Later the police discovered that an additional $40 was taken from a drawer located behind the bar across from one of the cash registers. The drawer also contained a small file box which held customers’ IOU’s. The file box had been ransacked. Several fingerprints were lifted from index separator cards used in the file box. The file box was kept at locations so that only bar employees had access to it. Petitioner was arrested as a result of fingerprint evidence.

At trial in the Alaska State Court a fingerprint expert testified that a print lifted from the index separator cards was petitioner’s. The owner of the bar testified that Fields could have been the robber because of his height and build. He stated that he had seen Fields at the bar on an occasion prior to the robbery. One. of the customers positively identified Fields based on height, build, and voice. Fields v. State, 465 P.2d 527 (Alaska 1970). The jury found petitioner guilty of robbery and larceny in violation of AS 11.15.240, 11.20.140. He was sentenced to a total of 20 years imprisonment.

On appeal the Alaska Supreme Court found that the evidence was sufficient to convict and rejected Fields’ contention that he could not be convicted of both robbery and larceny for the same occurrence. Fields v. State, 465 P.2d 527 (Alaska 1970).

Fields filed this petition for habeas corpus in the District Court for the District of Alaska. He contended that the witnesses’ identifications were insufficiently positive to support conviction, that the fingerprint evidence was not admissible, and that his due process rights were violated because the state did not disclose the results of fingerprint analysis of a number of other prints lifted from the index box separator cards and that other persons of similar height, build, and voice to the robber might have been identified, thus exculpating petitioner.

The district court found that a review of the briefs before the Alaska Supreme Court and its opinion revealed that Fields had not raised his claim there that due process rights were violated because the state did not disclose the results of the analysis of other fingerprints. The court concluded, however, that Fields had exhausted his state remedies because, “No further state remedies are presently available to petitioner,” and assumed for this motion that petitioner had not deliberately by-passed the nondisclosure issue.

The court further held that petitioner had failed to demonstrate insufficiency of the evidence. It also found no denial of due process rights since the presence of other fingerprints on the index separator cards was not exculpatory. Petitioner had no legitimate access to those cards and thus his fingerprint on one of them severely incriminated him. On appeal petitioner has pressed only his due process claim.

In Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 87, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 1197, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963), the Court discussed the due process violation inherent in the suppression of evidence favorable to the accused, and stated that:

“We now hold that the suppression by the prosecution of evidence favorable to an accused upon request violates due process where the evidence is material either to guilt or to punishment, irrespective of the good faith or bad faith of the prosecution.”

Again in Moore v. Illinois, 408 U.S. 786, 794-95, 92 S.Ct. 2562, 2568, 33 L.Ed.2d 706 (1972), the Court referred to the “heart of the holding” as including a request by the accused.

“The heart of the holding in Brady is the prosecution’s suppression of evidence, in the face of a defense production request, where the evidence is favorable to the accused and is material either to guilt or to punishment. Important, then are (a) suppression by the prosecution after a request by the defense, (b) the evidence’s favorable character for the defense, and (c) the materiality of the evidence. These are the standards by which the prosecution’s conduct in Moore’s case is to be measured.”

This court has also considered the question in United States v. Hibler, 463 F.2d 455, 460 (9th Cir. 1972). There in an “extremely close” case on the issue of guilt or innocence the government did not disclose evidence of a police detective which would have bolstered the defendant’s credibility. The defense counsel did not specifically request the information and government counsel did not proffer it, thinking it was not material. In our opinion by a divided court we held that non-disclosure even without request may result in a violation of the due process rights of the accused.

“Thus Hibler is entitled to reversal if the government failed to disclose evidence which, in the context of this particular case, might have led the jury to entertain a reasonable doubt about his guilt. While in many eases it might be true that evidence of the type involved would not be crucial on the issue of a defendant’s guilt or innocence, we have here a case, as we have shown, in which the evidence was extremely close.”

Here there was a positive identification of the petitioner by an eyewitness albeit based upon height, build, and voice because the robbers wore masks. The exculpatory character of the evidence undisclosed is weak. Petitioner had no legitimate business behind the bar going through the IOU slips or their index cards. There was no showing that he had ever signed an IOU and thus was trying to remove it. There was no identification made of the identities of the other persons whose fingerprints were found. Other employees as well as the owner had access to the IOU file and their fingerprints might well have been among them. Such evidence would not have been exculpatory of the petitioner. The loss of the money was clearly attributable to the two who perpetrated the robbery and rifled the cash register and the IOU drawer. The fingerprints which were lifted and examined were taken immediately after this occasion. It was the identification of the fingerprints of either of those two upon the cards which was incriminatory.

Even the identification of the fingerprints of others in and around the bar, the cash register and the IOU drawer would not have been incriminatory to them when they had legitimate reasons to be there. The materiality of those prints would be questionable and there is little likelihood that they would have affected the judgment of the jury. Giglio v. United States, 405 U.S. 150, 92 S.Ct. 763, 31 L.Ed.2d 104 (1972); United States v. Durgin, 444 F.2d 308 (9th Cir. 1971). We find no denial of due process in non-disclosure as asserted here, nor any error in the judgment of the district court.

Judgment affirmed.

1 . The court could have declined to accept jurisdiction upon the ground that the petition must allege “the name of the person” who has custody over the petitioner. 28 U.S.C. § 2242. Olson v. California Adult Authority, 423 F.2d 1326 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 398 U.S. 914, 90 S.Ct. 1717, 26 L.Ed.2d 78 (1970); Ashley v. State of Washington, 394 F.2d 125 (9th Cir. 1968); Morehead v. State of California, 339 F.2d 170 (9th Cir. 1964); Developments in the Law — Federal Habeas Corpus, 83 Harv.L.Rev. 1038, 1166 (1970). Here the petition as filed named only the State of Alaska. In dicta we have indicated that this defect might be cured by amendment. See Ashley v. State of Washington, supra. It has been corrected here and by motion which we have granted and we consider the merits.