Kevin Rice v. Terry McCann Warden, Centralia Correctional Center

339 F.3d 546

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
• Decided: September 30, 2003
• Docket: 01-3500
• Status: Published

Opinions

FLAUM, Chief Judge.

In 1992 Kevin Rice was convicted in the Circuit Court of Cook County of possession of heroin with intent to deliver and sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment. His state court remedies exhausted, Rice petitioned the federal district court for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. He now appeals the court’s denial of, his habeas petition, arguing that he is entitled to post-conviction relief based on the Illinois Supreme Court’s unreasonable application of Chambers v. Mississippi, 410 U.S. 284, 93 S.Ct. 1038, 35 L.Ed.2d 297 (1973), to his case. We affirm.

I. BACKGROUND

In 1989 two Chicago police officers, Robert Drozd and Michael Cronin, observed a car with tinted windows drive by their unmarked police car traveling 40 miles-per-hour in a 30 miles-per-hour speed zone. The officers pulled the speeding car over, and Drozd approached the vehicle on the driver’s side. Through the car’s open window, Officer Drozd saw the driver, petitioner Rice, hand a brown paper bag to the passenger, Raymond Pugh; Drozd then watched Pugh stuff the bag down the front of his pants. Believing the bag to contain a weapon, Drozd ordered Pugh out of the car and conducted a pat-down search. Drozd recovered the bag and found what appeared to be an illegal substance inside (lab tests later showed that'the bag contained 103 grams of heroin). Drozd placed Pugh under arrest and told Officer Cronin about the transfer of the bag; Cronin then arrested Rice.

Before Rice and Pugh were tried, Pugh moved to quash his arrest and suppress evidence obtained from Drozd’s search. At the suppression hearing, Pugh testified that he had placed the paper bag containing the heroin down his pants two hours before he and Rice were stopped by Officers Drozd and Cronin. Pugh also stated that he had kept the bag in his pants at all times until Drozd discovered it during the pat-down search. At Rice and Pugh’s trial, Officer Drozd testified that as he approached the stopped car he saw Rice hand Pugh the paper bag and watched Pugh put the bag down his pants. Rice denied handling the bag or the heroin and called Pugh to testify that he put the bag down his pants two hours earlier. When Pugh asserted his fifth amendment privilege, Rice moved to admit Pugh’s statements from the suppression hearing. The trial judge denied the motion, ruling that Pugh’s paper bag testimony was inadmissible hearsay because the issues presented at the suppression hearing were not similar enough to the ones at trial to ensure that the State had a meaningful opportunity to cross-examine Pugh.

The jury ultimately convicted Rice of possession with intent to deliver heroin, and the court sentenced him to a 20-year prison term. Rice appealed his conviction, arguing that the court committed prejudicial error by refusing to admit Pugh’s suppression hearing testimony at trial. Rice won an initial victory in the Illinois appellate court, People v. Rice, 247 Ill.App.3d 415, 187 Ill.Dec. 152, 617 N.E.2d 360, 363-64 (1993), but a divided Illinois Supreme Court reinstated his conviction, People v. Rice, 166 Ill.2d 35, 209 Ill.Dec. 635, 651 N.E.2d 1083, 1088 (1995).

The Illinois appellate court held that Pugh’s statements at the suppression hearing were statements against his penal interest and should have been admitted as an exception to hearsay. Rice, 187 Ill.Dec. 152, 617 N.E.2d at 362. The appellate court examined Pugh’s prior statements for indicia of reliability using the framework set forth in Chambers v. Mississippi, 410 U.S. 284, 302, 93 S.Ct. 1038, 35 L.Ed.2d 297 (1973), and decided that Pugh’s testimony satisfied three of the four requirements for admission. Rice, 187 Ill.Dec. 152, 617 N.E.2d at 363 (finding that Pugh’s former testimony was (1) corroborated by other evidence, (2) against his penal interests, and (3) subject to cross-examination, but was not (4) made to a close acquaintance shortly after the crime).

The Illinois high court disagreed, holding that the trial court’s exclusion of Pugh’s former testimony was proper under the state’s evidentiary rules and did not deny Rice a fair trial under the rule announced in Chambers. Rice, 209 Ill.Dec. 635, 651 N.E.2d at 1087-88. A majority of the Supreme Court of Illinois found that Pugh’s statements may have been against his penal interests, but were not made spontaneously to an acquaintance, were not corroborated by any other evidence, and were not subject to adequate cross-examination because the issues at stake in the suppression hearing were limited and the State was not permitted “to fully test the testimony’s reliability.” Rice, 209 Ill. Dec. 635, 651 N.E.2d at 1087.

Rice timely filed his application for a writ of habeas corpus in federal district court pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254, tendering six separate grounds for relief. See Rice v. Bowen, No. 00 C 3997, 2001 WL 1035262 (N.D.Ill.2001). The district court rejected all of his reasons and denied his habeas petition. On appeal Rice makes only one argument: that the Illinois Supreme Court unreasonably applied Chambers, and violated his constitutional right to due process, in deciding that the trial court had properly excluded Pugh’s suppression hearing testimony at Rice’s trial.

II. Discussion

Under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (“AEDPA”), a habeas petitioner like Rice whose claim was adjudicated on the merits in state court is not entitled to relief unless he can demonstrate that the state court’s decision “was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States; or ... was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d); Price v. Vincent, — U.S. ——, -, 123 S.Ct. 1848, 1852, 155 L.Ed.2d 877 (2003). The Supreme Court also warns that under AEDPA we are not at liberty to issue a writ of habeas corpus based on our “independent judgment that the relevant state court decision applied clearly established federal law erroneously or incorrectly. Rather, that application must also be unreasonable.” Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 411, 120 S.Ct. 1495, 146 L.Ed.2d 389 (2000); Morgan v. Krenke, 232 F.3d 562, 565-66 (7th Cir.2000). For our purposes here, that means we must uphold the Illinois Supreme Court’s application of Chambers (for there is no dispute that this is the correct governing legal principle) to Rice’s case unless it was objectively unreasonable. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1); Edmunds v. Deppisch, 313 F.3d 997, 999 (7th Cir.2002); Williams, 529 U.S. at 404-05, 120 S.Ct. 1495. We have said in other habeas proceedings that a state court’s application of federal law is reasonable where it is “at least minimally consistent with the facts and circumstances of the case.” Sanchez v. Gilmore, 189 F.3d 619, 623 (7th Cir.1999). Cf. Williams, 529 U.S. at 410, 120 S.Ct. 1495 (acknowledging that “unreasonable” is difficult to define, but noting that “it is a common term in the legal world and, accordingly, federal judges are familiar with its meaning”).

Before we decide the reasonableness of the Illinois Supreme Court’s decision in this case, we note that we will not decide whether Pugh’s suppression hearing testimony was in fact reliable enough to be admitted into evidence at Rice’s trial. Our doing so would usurp the role of the state courts in determining the admissibility of evidence at trial under state law, which we are not permitted to do under AEDPA. See Krenke, 232 F.3d at 567. Instead, we may only consider whether it was unreasonable of the Illinois Supreme Court to hold, in fight of Chambers, that the exclusion of Pugh’s suppression hearing testimony did not violate Rice’s due process right to present a defense and receive a fair trial. Krenke, 232 F.3d at 567.

Chambers informs us that “where constitutional rights directly affecting the ascertainment of guilt are implicated, the hearsay rule may not be applied mechanistically to defeat the ends of justice.” Id., 410 U.S. at 302, 93 S.Ct. 1038. The Chambers Court provided four factors to consider in determining whether sufficient indicia of reliability exist to admit exculpatory hearsay into evidence: (1) whether the statement was made shortly after the crime to a close acquaintance, (2) whether other evidence or circumstances corroborate the statement, (3) whether the statement was self-incriminatory and against the declarant’s penal interests, and (4) whether the declarant was subject to adequate cross-examination. Id., at 300-01, 93 S.Ct. 1038. Rice contends that the Illinois Supreme Court unreasonably applied Chambers because Pugh’s suppression hearing testimony “bore persuasive assurances of trustworthiness and thus was well within the rationale of the exception for declarations against interest.” Chambers, 410 U.S. at 302, 93 S.Ct. 1038. See also People v. Rice, 247 Ill.App.3d 415, 187 Ill.Dec. 152, 617 N.E.2d 360, 363 (1993) (finding Pugh’s prior statement trustworthy as it satisfies three of four Chambers factors). The State maintains there was nothing unreasonable about the Illinois Supreme Court’s decision: the court identified Chambers as the correct governing principle of law, considered Pugh’s prior statements in fight of the reliability factors identified in Chambers, and logically concluded that Pugh’s suppression hearing testimony was properly excluded at trial because it was untrustworthy and did not qualify under any hearsay exception. The federal district court considered these conflicting interpretations in reviewing Rice’s habeas petition and decided the Illinois Supreme Court’s application of Chambers was consistent with the facts and circumstances of Rice’s case and was therefore not unreasonable. Rice, 2001 WL 1035262, at *3.

Our review of the record in this case leads us to conclude that the disagreement among the Illinois state courts concerning the reliability of Pugh’s statement, and the necessity for its admission at Rice’s trial pursuant to Chambers, was reasonable. There is no doubt that Pugh’s testimony at the suppression hearing — that he alone had possession of the heroin — is the kind of exculpatory (to Rice) hearsay that Chambers held could not be automatically excluded by operation of the rules of evidence. The Illinois courts agreed on two of the four Chambers reliability indicators: (1) that Pugh’s testimony was not made shortly after the crime to a close acquaintance, and (2) that the testimony was a statement made against Pugh’s penal interests. But the courts disagreed on the remaining two factors: (3) whether corroborating evidence existed to support Pugh’s version of events; and (4) whether the state had adequate opportunity to cross-examine Pugh at the suppression hearing. In particular, the Illinois appellate court decided that several facts and circumstances, including Pugh’s close relationship with Rice, the voluntariness of his testimony, the lack of inconsistencies in his story compared with other versions of the stop and search, the lack of evidence that Pugh wanted to curry favor with the prosecution, and the fact that Pugh’s statements were made under oath and could be used to impeach him at trial, all suggest that Pugh had no motive to fabricate his testimony. But the Illinois Supreme Court looked at the circumstances differently, stating without reference to the appellate court’s analysis that there was no evidence corroborating Pugh’s statements, and also finding that the prosecution did not have an adequate opportunity to cross-examine Pugh. The high court reasoned that because Pugh’s suppression hearing focused on different issues than Rice’s trial, the State could not have fully tested Pugh’s reliability. Though we may disagree, knowing of no Illinois rule of evidence that restricts exploration of a witness’s veracity or motive on cross-examination regardless of the substantive scope of the direct examination, our resolution of this point is neither called for nor permitted on habeas review.

The Illinois courts’ dispute over the Chambers’ factors reveals that reasonable minds can differ as to the proper application of the law to the facts of Rice’s case. Ultimately, this is all that we need to recognize and defer to in deciding whether to grant Rice’s request for habeas relief. For even if the Illinois Supreme Court’s application of Chambers was not unassailable, as shown by the contrary inferences drawn by the Illinois appellate court using the same law and the same facts, by the same logic it also was not unreasonable. Chambers instructs courts to avoid mechanically applying evidentiary rules where such application would result in the exclusion of critical evidence and the violation of a criminal defendant’s due process rights. We cannot conclude that the Illinois Supreme Court unreasonably applied this principle of law to its analysis of Pugh’s excluded hearsay testimony and the impact of the excluded testimony on Rice’s constitutional right to a fair trial.

III. Conclusion

The Illinois Supreme Court’s decision upholding the trial court’s exclusion of certain hearsay testimony from Rice’s trial did not involve an unreasonable application of Chambers v. Mississippi and therefore does not justify habeas relief in federal court. The district court’s denial of Rice’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus is AFFIRMED.