Tony Cordera v. Secretary, Florida Department of Corrections

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[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
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No. 15-10963
Non-Argument Calendar
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D.C. Docket No. 6:13-cv-00788-ACC-DAB
TONY CORDERA,
Petitioner-Appellant,
versus
SECRETARY, FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS,
ATTORNEY GENERAL, STATE OF FLORIDA,
Respondents-Appellees.
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Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of Florida
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(January 28, 2016)
Before ED CARNES, Chief Judge, HULL and MARCUS, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
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Tony Cordera, a Florida prisoner serving a life sentence, appeals the district
court’s denial of his habeas corpus petition. We granted a certificate of
appealability on the following issue: whether the state court erred in denying
Cordera’s motion to suppress un-Mirandized statements made to the police while
he was hospitalized.
Cordera was taken to the hospital after the police found him in his bedroom
lying next to a dead woman. He was holding a knife, his body was bloody, and he
was not moving. An officer rode with him in the ambulance to the hospital, where
an emergency room doctor treated him for extensive self-inflicted lacerations on
both wrists. Cordera was responding to commands and did not appear to be in
shock. Tests were negative for ingestion of alcohol or medication. The only
medication he received was a tetanus shot (which would not have affected his
mental abilities).
Two detectives interviewed Cordera in the emergency room that day.
Although he appeared to be unconscious before the interview, he became alert
when a nurse placed smelling salts under his nose. He was not given Miranda 1
warnings. One of the detectives told Cordera that he was a homicide detective and
that they were trying to figure out what happened to his wrists (they also told him
that they had a search warrant for his home). They began asking him about his
1
Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 444–45, 86 S. Ct. 1602, 1612 (1966).
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relationship with the victim and what had happened at his home that morning.
Cordera was alert and able to answer their questions, but repeatedly maintained
that he could not remember anything that happened after the victim arrived at his
home that morning. He was never handcuffed or placed under arrest during the
interview, which was recorded and lasted about 41 minutes.
Cordera was arrested several hours after the interview. He was indicted for
first degree murder with a weapon, in violation of Fla. Stat. §§ 782.04(1) and
775.087(1). He moved to suppress the statements he made at the hospital,
contending that he was entitled to Miranda warnings because he was in custody
and that his statements were involuntary. The state circuit court denied his motion.
A jury found Cordera guilty and he was sentenced to life in prison without
the possibility of parole. He appealed his conviction and the Florida Fifth District
Court of Appeal affirmed without opinion (and denied his motion for rehearing and
a written opinion). He then filed a petition for habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C.
§ 2254 in federal district court, contending that the state court erred in denying his
motion to suppress. The district court denied his petition.
We review de novo a district court’s denial of a habeas petition, and its
factual findings for clear error. Ward v. Hall, 592 F.3d 1144, 1155 (11th Cir.
2010). 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d) prohibits federal courts from granting habeas relief on
claims previously adjudicated on the merits in state court, unless the state court
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decision: (1) “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) was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the
evidence presented in the State court proceeding.”
“Clearly established federal law” refers “to the holdings . . . of the Supreme
Court’s decisions as of the time of the relevant state-court decision.” Ward, 592
F.3d at 1155 (alteration in original) (quotation marks omitted). For a state court
decision to be contrary to clearly established federal law, it “must either (1) apply a
rule that contradicts the governing law set forth by Supreme Court case law, or (2)
reach a different result from the Supreme Court when faced with materially
indistinguishable facts.” Id. (quotation marks omitted). A state court decision is
an “unreasonable application” of clearly established federal law where the court
“unreasonably extends or fails to extend a clearly established legal principle to a
new context.” Id. (quotation marks omitted). A state court makes an unreasonable
determination of the facts only where the petitioner rebuts “the presumption of
correctness of a state court’s factual findings by clear and convincing evidence.”
Id. (quoting 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(1)).
Cordera first contends that the state court’s determination that he was not
under the influence of alcohol or medication was unreasonable. That contention is
meritless. Although he claims that he had taken medication earlier that day,
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hospital tests were negative for alcohol or drugs. Because Cordera has not
provided “clear and convincing evidence” to rebut the “presumption of
correctness” of the state court’s factfinding, he cannot show that it was
unreasonable. See id. at 1155–56.
Cordera’s second contention is that his statements should have been
suppressed because he was “in custody” when the detectives interviewed him and
he therefore should have received Miranda warnings. “Miranda warnings are
required only where there has been such a restriction on a person's freedom as to
render him ‘in custody.’” Oregon v. Mathiason, 429 U.S. 492, 495, 97 S. Ct. 711,
714 (1977). To determine whether someone is “in custody,” we first look at the
“circumstances surrounding the interrogation.” Thompson v. Keohane, 516 U.S.
99, 112, 116 S. Ct. 457, 465 (1995). “Given those circumstances,” we then
consider whether a “reasonable person [would] have felt he or she was not at
liberty to terminate the interrogation and leave.” Id. The “ultimate inquiry is
simply whether there is a formal arrest or restraint on freedom of movement of the
degree associated with a formal arrest.” California v. Beheler, 463 U.S. 1121,
1125, 103 S. Ct. 3517, 3520 (1983) (quotation marks omitted).
Some facts do suggest that Cordera was in custody. For example, the
detectives never told him that he was free to leave and he was brought to the
hospital by an ambulance (instead of arriving on his own). See Yarborough v.
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Alvarado, 541 U.S. 652, 665, 124 S. Ct. 2140, 2150 (2004) (noting that those or
similar facts “weigh in favor of the view” that a suspect is in custody). But other
facts “weigh against a finding that [Cordera] was in custody.” See id. at 664, 124
S. Ct. at 2149. The police did not take him to the hospital (although an officer
accompanied him in the ambulance), the detectives who interviewed him did not
place him under arrest or threaten to do so, the interview lasted only 41 minutes,
and he was not arrested until several hours after the interview. See id. at 664–65,
124 S. Ct. at 2149–50; see also Mathiason, 429 U.S. at 495, 97 S. Ct. at 714
(noting the fact that an interview lasted only 30 minutes in deciding that a suspect
was not in custody).
Because there are enough facts going either way on the issue, “fairminded
jurists could disagree over whether [Cordera] was in custody.” Yarborough, 541
U.S. at 664, 124 S. Ct. at 2149. The state court’s decision was not contrary to, nor
an unreasonable application of, clearly established federal law. See id. at 665, 124
S. Ct. at 2150 (“We cannot grant relief [under § 2254(d)(1)]. . . by conducting our
own independent inquiry into whether the state court was correct as a de novo
matter.”).
Cordera’s final contention is that his statements were involuntary. For a
statement to be involuntary there must be “coercive police activity.” Colorado v.
Connelly, 479 U.S. 157, 167, 107 S. Ct. 515, 522 (1986). We gauge voluntariness
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“in light of the totality of the circumstances” to determine whether the statements
were “the product of an essentially free and unconstrained choice.” Hubbard v.
Haley, 317 F.3d 1245, 1252–53 (11th Cir. 2003) (quotation marks omitted).
Cordera relies on the Supreme Court’s decisions in Beecher v. Alabama, 389
U.S. 35, 88 S. Ct. 189 (1967), and Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U.S. 385, 98 S. Ct.
2408 (1978), to argue that his statements were involuntary. In the Beecher case,
the police obtained a confession from the defendant only after he was shot in the
leg, two officers each pointed loaded guns toward his head, one of the officers
threatened to kill him, and the other officer fired his rifle next to his ear. Beecher,
389 U.S. at 36–37, 88 S. Ct. at 190. The defendant reaffirmed his confession in the
prison hospital while in intense pain and heavily sedated from frequent morphine
injections. Id. The police obtained a confession from the defendant in the Mincey
case while he was in the hospital with a gunshot wound, hooked up to various
tubes to help him breath, receiving intravenous drugs, and unable to talk because of
the tubes (he wrote down his responses). Mincey, 437 U.S. at 396, 398–401, 98 S.
Ct. at 2415–18. The defendant confessed only after the officer had interviewed
him for four hours, even though he repeatedly asked the officer to stop the
interrogation until he could get a lawyer. Id.
The facts surrounding Cordera’s interview differ significantly from the facts
of those cases. The detectives’ conduct does not even begin to approach that of the
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officers in the Beecher case. The Mincey case is also not on point. Cordera was
alert and able to speak, he never asked for the interview to stop, and he never asked
for a lawyer. The fact that he was depressed at the time of the interview is not
enough, without more, to render his statements involuntary. See Connelly, 479
U.S. at 162–67, 107 S. Ct. at 519–22. Because the facts do not indicate that his
statements were the product of “coercive police activity,” id. at 167, 107 S. Ct. at
522, the state court’s decision that his statements were voluntary was neither
contrary to, nor an unreasonable application of, clearly established federal law.
AFFIRMED.
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