Chambers v. Johnson ( 2000 )

REVISED, JULY 12, 2000
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT
No. 99-40896
TONY NEYSHEA CHAMBERS,
Petitioner-Appellant,
v.
GARY L. JOHNSON, DIRECTOR,
TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE,
INSTITUTIONAL DIVISION,
Respondent-Appellee.
Appeal From the United States District Court
For the Eastern District of Texas
June 20, 2000
Before HIGGINBOTHAM, DAVIS and BENAVIDES, Circuit Judges.
DAVIS, Circuit Judge:
Tony Neyshea Chambers (“Chambers”) was convicted of capital
murder and sentenced to death by the State of Texas. In 1995,
Chambers filed an application for a federal writ of habeas corpus,
but it was dismissed without prejudice for him to exhaust available
state remedies. After his state habeas petition was denied in
1998, Chambers again filed a petition for federal habeas relief.
1
In accordance with a magistrate judge’s recommendation, the
district court denied Chambers’s petition. Thereafter, the
district court also denied Chambers’s application for a Certificate
of Appealability (“COA”) to authorize an appeal, and Chambers is
now seeking a COA from this Court. For the reasons stated below,
we deny this request.
I
In 1990, Chambers attended a middle school basketball game,
and several witnesses saw him leave with an eleven year old girl,
Carenthia Bailey (“Bailey”). When Bailey did not return home that
evening, two of these witnesses reported last seeing her with
Chambers. Later that evening, these witnesses saw Chambers and
inquired about Bailey. Chambers responded that he had “got the
little bitch” and then ran away. The witnesses attempted to catch
him, but he was able to elude capture. Chambers called the police
and told them that unknown persons were trying to harm him. When
the police arrived, Chambers denied even knowing Bailey.
After learning that he was wanted for questioning in Bailey’s
disappearance, Chambers left a telephone message with an officer at
the police station, stating that he “did not want to get in trouble
if this girl came up hurt.” He later told the officer heading the
investigation that he had only briefly spoken with Bailey on his
way out of the basketball game. Chambers repeated this story in a
later telephone conversation and in an informal meeting with the
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officer at a restaurant. Shortly after this meeting, Chambers
admitted leaving the area of the gym in the same direction as
Bailey, but claimed that their paths diverged soon after leaving
the game.
The following day, Bailey’s body was discovered in a wooded
area near the middle school gym. The crime scene showed evidence
of a sexual assault, and an autopsy uncovered abdominal wounds and
evidence of sexual assault prior to death. The police discovered
Bailey’s body while Chambers was being voluntarily questioned at
the local police station. When confronted with news of the body’s
discovery, Chambers became emotional and stated his remorse for
killing Bailey. Chambers gave an extensive videotaped confession
after the police advised him of his Miranda rights. He also signed
a written statement acknowledging that he had been given his
Miranda warnings and admitting to leaving the basketball game with
Bailey, having sex with her in the woods near the gym, and choking
her for about three minutes. He claimed, however, that he left her
alive. Later that night, Chambers gave a more complete statement
after again acknowledging he had received and understood his
Miranda warnings. In this statement, Chambers admitted to choking
Bailey during intercourse, tying her to a tree with her shoe laces,
choking her while tied, untying her, and puncturing her stomach
with a scalpel and protractor. This confession contained details,
such as the cut design left on Bailey’s abdomen, that were not
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publicly known. Thereafter, Chambers told detectives where he had
disposed of the scalpel and protractor, and the detectives, with
Chambers’s help, were able to recover both items. Possibly due to
a recent rain, the police found no fingerprints or blood on these
weapons.
Chambers soon partially recanted his confession, and stated
that it was made while he was frightened and nervous. Chambers
asserted that he did not believe he had killed Bailey and claimed
for the first time that an acquaintance known as “Duck,” later
identified as Bryan Brooks (“Brooks”), had been watching Chambers
and Bailey have sex. According to Chambers, Brooks later passed a
scalpel to Chambers through an intermediary, William Pannell
(“Pannell”), for Chambers to throw away. Chambers then stated that
he had choked Bailey, but left her alive in the woods and theorized
that Brooks had actually killed her. Following this statement,
Brooks was interviewed and gave a written statement claiming that
he was not around the middle school on the day of the murder. Soon
thereafter, a jailor overheard Chambers tell another inmate that
“you know that little girl that was killed; that was me.”
At his 1991 trial, Chambers’s numerous statements were
presented to the jury. In addition, the State’s medical examiner
and numerous other witnesses gave testimony supporting Chambers’s
original murder confessions. Moreover, Chambers’s friend, Brooks,
testified consistent with his statement to the police--that he had
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been elsewhere during the crime. This testimony was corroborated
by other witnesses.
II
This Court may issue a COA only if Chambers has made a
substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right. See
28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(2) (2000). Such a showing requires the
petitioner to demonstrate that the issues are debatable among
jurists of reason, that a court could resolve the issues in a
different manner, or that the questions are adequate to deserve
encouragement to proceed further. See Barefoot v. Estelle, 463
U.S. 880, 893, 103 S. Ct. 3383, 3394 (1983); Tucker v. Johnson, 115
F.3d 276 (5th Cir. 1997), as corrected on reh'g, (July 2, 1997).
The applicable standard for reviewing the merits of Chambers’s
§ 2254 claims is set forth in the 1996 Antiterrorism and Effective
Death Penalty Act (“AEDPA”)1. Chambers argues that because he
filed a habeas petition in 1995, which was later dismissed for
failure to exhaust state court remedies, we should follow the law
as it existed in 1995. We disagree. Chambers’s petition is
1
The revised section 2254(d) states that writs of habeas corpus
should not be granted in these cases unless the adjudication of the
claim “(1) resulted in a decision that was contrary to, or involved
an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law, as
determined by the Supreme Court of the United States; or (2)
resulted in a decision that 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) (2000).
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considered under the law that was in effect at the time of his 1998
filing. We do not consider an action that has been dismissed
without prejudice as a pending case. See Graham v. Johnson, 168
F.3d 762, 776-780 (5th Cir. 1999).
Chambers’s appeal challenges the district court’s denial of a
single claim that the State of Texas (“State”) knowingly used his
materially false or involuntary confessions to obtain a conviction
in violation of his due process rights under the Fifth and
Fourteenth Amendments. According to the statutory standard,
Chambers must make a substantial showing that the state court’s
decision to admit his confessions was an “unreasonable application
of clearly established federal law, as determined by the Supreme
Court of the United States.” 28 U.S.C.§ 2254(d)(1). The Supreme
Court has recently stated that a decision is contrary to clearly
established federal law "if the state court arrives at a conclusion
opposite to that reached by [the Supreme Court] on a question of
law or if the state court decides a case differently than [the]
Court has on a set of materially indistinguishable facts.”
Williams v. Taylor, --- U.S. ---, 120 S. Ct. 1495, 2000 WL 385369,
at *28 (2000). The Court stated that § 2254(d)(1)'s unreasonable
application standard, allows a writ to issue "if the state court
identifies the correct governing legal principle from [the] Court's
decisions but unreasonably applies that principle to the facts of
the prisoner's case.” Williams, 120 S. Ct at ---, 2000 WL 385369,
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at *28. Moreover, factual findings are presumed to be correct, see
28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(1), and we will give deference to the state
court's findings unless they were “based on an unreasonable
determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in
the state court proceeding.” Id. § 2254(d)(2); see also, Hill v.
Johnson, --- F.3d ---, 2000 WL 426219, *2 (5th Cir. Apr. 20, 2000).
Because Chambers’s claims fail to meet either of these standards,
we agree with the district court that Chambers has failed to make
a substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right, and,
accordingly, we deny issuance of a COA.
III
Chambers argues that the district court erred in rejecting his
claim that the state knowingly introduced false testimony. More
particularly, he contends the prosecution should have known his
confessions were involuntary and false because they were obtained
through the use of coercive tactics. He contends further that the
prosecution’s knowledge of the falsity of his confession was made
even more apparent by the inconsistency between the confession and
the physical evidence.
The trial court’s review of the record led it to conclude that
Chambers had not introduced sufficient evidence to support his
claim that the prosecution knowingly introduced false testimony.
The district court held that the state trial court’s findings were
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not unreasonable and were fully supported by the record.
A.
To obtain relief on his claim that the state knowingly
introduced false testimony, Chambers bears the burden of
establishing that the evidence was false, that the false testimony
was material, and that the prosecution offered the testimony
knowing it to be false. Giglio v. United States, 405 U.S. 150,
153-154 (1963); Schlang v. Heard, 691 F.2d 796, 799 (5th Cir.
1982).
Chambers challenged the voluntariness and truthfulness of his
confessions in state court at a lengthy pretrial suppression
hearing, on direct appeal, and in an application for state habeas
relief. After the suppression hearing, the trial court entered
findings of fact and conclusions of law that Chambers’s confessions
were knowingly and voluntarily made. On direct appeal, the Texas
Court of Criminal Appeals gave a detailed explanation of the
circumstances of Chambers’s confession and its basis for rejecting
Chambers’s arguments that his confessions were involuntary and
false. Furthermore, the state habeas trial court entered detailed
findings rejecting these same arguments.2 In support of his state
2
The state habeas trial court entered the following findings
of fact and conclusions of law relevant to these allegations:
FINDINGS OF FACT:
3. [Chambers] was not under arrest when he gave
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habeas petition, Chambers proffered the affidavits of two forensic
pathologists critical of Dr. Gonzalez, the State’s medical expert
his first statement to police.
4. [Chambers’s] confessions given after his
arrest were freely, intelligently, knowingly,
and voluntarily given.
5. [Chambers’s] confessions after he was given
his Miranda and statutory warning were (sic)
not tainted by any prior statement and were
freely, intelligently, knowingly, and
voluntarily given.
7. There is no credible evidence that the legally
obtained confessions were obtained by a police
“penchant” for illegal confessions.
8. There is no credible evidence that the police
interrogation induced a false confession.
9. The confessions[’] admissibility was
considered and found to be voluntarily given
on direct appeal.
CONCLUSIONS OF LAW:
2. The police interrogation techniques did not
render [Chambers’s] voluntary statement
involuntary.
5. [Chambers]’s confessions were freely,
intelligently, knowingly, and voluntarily made
by [Chambers’s] after a knowing, intelligent,
and voluntary waiver of his rights.
6. [Chambers]’s confessions were legally obtained
after a free, knowing, intelligent, and
voluntary waiver of [Chambers]’s rights.
7. The police activity in prior cases was not a
cause-in-fact of any of [Chambers]’s
confessions.
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who examined Bailey’s body and testified at trial. While these
affidavits may generally support a conclusion that Gonzalez did not
utilize the most advanced techniques for retrieving, documenting,
or preserving forensic evidence, the state habeas court was
entitled to find that they were insufficient to cast enough doubt
on Chambers’s confessions to show they were materially untrue. The
federal district court correctly held that the state courts’
rejections of Chambers’s claims that his confessions were
materially false did not involve an unreasonable application of
clearly established federal law or an unreasonable determination of
the facts in light of the evidence, 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d).
B.
Even if Chambers had shown that his confessions were
materially false, he must also prove that Texas prosecutors knew or
should have known of their falsity in order to obtain habeas relief
from this Court. See Blackmon v. Scott, 22 F.3d 560, 565 (5th Cir.
1994). The facts surrounding Bailey’s disappearance — which are
largely undisputed — belie this claim: (1) Chambers had last been
seen with Bailey before her disappearance; (2) Chambers contacted
police and stated that if Bailey “came up hurt,” he was not
involved; (3) when a police investigator informed him that Bailey
had been found dead, he blurted out that he did not mean to hurt
her; (4) after Chambers gave the second written statement, he took
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the police officers to the location where he disposed of the
scalpel; (5) until that time, the police knew neither what
instrument was used in the murder nor where it was located; (6)
Chambers never denied going into the woods where Bailey’s body was
found and having intercourse with her; (7) after Chambers had given
at least two statements in which he did not mention that anyone
else was in the woods with him and Bailey, he came up with a
different version; and (8) this version was contrary to witness
accounts concerning the whereabouts of Brooks, Chambers’s friend
who he attempted to implicate in the crime. Because the
prosecutors were aware of these facts, Chambers’s claim that they
knew or should have known that his confessions were untrue is very
dubious.
In support of this claim, Chambers argues that investigators
purposefully used an interrogator, Officer Alexander, and
interrogation tactics that had recently been shown to elicit a
false confession from another suspect. In addition, he argues that
another false confession Officer Alexander obtained several years
before he questioned Chambers should have put the officers on
heightened notice that Chambers’s confessions were materially
untrue. However, as previously noted, the Texas Court of Criminal
Appeals found that Officer Alexander had minimal involvement in
questioning Chambers. Moreover, as stated above, the state courts
have found that the officers used no coercive tactics in
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questioning Chambers. See generally Pemberton v. Collins, 991 F.2d
1218, 1225 (5th Cir.1993). These state court rulings are not
unreasonable in light of the evidence.
IV
For the above reasons, we conclude that Chambers has failed to
make a substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right.
We therefore deny Chambers’s motion for a Certificate of
Appealability.
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