George H. Outing, Jr. v. State of North Carolina, 344 F.2d 105, 4th Cir. (1965)
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Scribd Government DocsGeorge H. Outing, Jr. v. State of North Carolina, 344 F.2d 105, 4th Cir. (1965)
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Scribd Government Docs344 F.
2d 105
George H. OUTING, Jr., Appellant,
v.
STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA, Appellee.
No. 9565.
United States Court of Appeals Fourth Circuit.
Argued March 5, 1965.
Decided April 5, 1965.
George M. Trible, III, Richmond, Va. (Court-assigned counsel), for
appellant.
Theodore C. Brown, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., of North Carolina (T. W.
Bruton, Atty. Gen. of North Carolina, on brief), for appellee.
Before HAYNSWORTH, Chief Judge, and BOREMAN and BRYAN,
Circuit Judges.
HAYNSWORTH, Chief Judge:
This North Carolina prisoner seeks a writ of habeas corpus upon the ground
that his confession was extracted by intimidation and in violation of the
principle of Escobedo.1 His version of what transpired would entitle him to
relief. North Carolina, however, advances a different version of the facts.
The District Court dismissed the petition without a hearing after reviewing the
state court proceedings, including a transcript of the original trial. The
difficulty, however, is that in all of the state court proceedings there has been
no resolution of the historic facts. There is a conclusionary finding that the
confession was voluntary, but no explicit resolution of the several underlying
factual issues.
The District Court limited itself to a finding of fairness in the state court
proceedings and has made no other findings of its own.
In Davis v. State of North Carolina, 4 Cir., 310 F.2d 904, we dealt with the
In Davis v. State of North Carolina, 4 Cir., 310 F.2d 904, we dealt with the
identical question, the acceptability in a federal habeas corpus proceeding of a
state court's conclusionary finding that a confession was voluntary. A majority
of this court, en banc, held that such a finding was not an acceptable resolution
of the historic facts and that the federal habeas corpus judge was required to
make his own independent findings of the historic facts after consideration of
the state court record and such other relevant evidence as might be offered
before him in a plenary hearing.
Later, in Townsend v. Sain, 372 U.S. 293, 83 S.Ct. 745, 9 L.Ed.2d 770, the
Supreme Court considered the same question. It came to a similar conclusion. It
held that a state court's general finding that a confession was voluntary, without
subsidiary findings of the historic facts, is unacceptable in the federal habeas
court, unless the state court record furnishes a basis for reconstruction of the
state trial court's view of the underlying facts. It was suggested that such a basis
would exist if the state trial court in its charge to the jury, or elsewhere,
sufficiently disclosed its view of the governing legal principles that it could be
said with assurance that it had not applied an erroneous constitutional standard.
On the present record, there is no such basis for reconstruction of the state trial
court's view of the underlying facts. His charge to the jury is not included in the
transcribed record. Elsewhere in the record there is no articulation of the
governing legal principles as he conceived them. Nor were the underlying
factual issues so uncomplicated as to foreclose the possibility that the legal
principles applied could not be squared with the constitutional standards. The
testimony, for instance, about one detective's discharge of his pistol in the filed
where the defendant and other detectives were searching for the murder
weapon permits a wide range of inferences as to the detective's intentions and
the effect of the firing upon the defendant.
Since this state trial court record contains no resolution of the historic facts,
either explicitly or implicitly within the teaching of Townsend v. Sain, the
conclusionary finding that the confession was voluntary is unacceptable in the
federal habeas court. By that, of course, we mean only that it is not a
permissible substitute for the habeas court's own findings. The District Court
should have explored the factual issues and determined whether the confession
was voluntary or coerced by applying settled constitutional standards to the
historic facts as it found them. The finding of fairness in the state court
proceedings, under these circumstances, was not an adequate basis for
dismissal of the petition.
Only after an authoritative determination of the historic facts can the prisoner's
legal contentions, directed to the voluntariness of his confession and to his right
to counsel, be adjudicated.
9
Reversed and remanded.
Notes:
1
Escobedo v. State of Illinois, 378 U.S. 478, 84 S.Ct. 1758, 12 L.Ed.2d 977
