Loper v. Beto/Dissent Rehnquist

MR. JUSTICE REHNQUIST, with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE, MR. JUSTICE BLACKMUN, and MR. JUSTICE POWELL join, dissenting.

In reversing the judgment of the Court of Appeals, which affirmed denial of federal habeas corpus relief to petitioner, the plurality undertakes to apply the constitutional doctrine of Burgett v. Texas, 389 U.S. 109 (1967), and United States v. Tucker, 404 U.S. 443 (1972), to the case where the uncounseled conviction is used to impeach the criminal defendant when he takes the stand in his own defense at subsequent trial. In order to reach this question, of course, the plurality must conclude that the prior burglary convictions obtained many years ago in Tennessee and Mississippi were in fact uncounseled, and that the defendant had not waived the constitutional right to counsel that Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963), accords him. Petitioner so testified with respect to the Mississippi convictions at the federal habeas hearing. But the habeas judge, a veteran of more than 20 years' experience as a federal district court judge, found as follows with respect to petitioner's assertions of constitutional error: "'At the outset it might be stated that petitioner has made false statements under oath, and has testified to a set of facts so roundly and thoroughly shown to be false by unimpeachable evidence that little or no credence may be placed in his own testimony....' (App. 61.)" On the basis of other factual inconsistencies that were resolved against the petitioner, the trial judge made the following general observation concerning petitioner's credibility: "'As stated at the outset, petitioner has filed innumerable applications for relief. Pound for pound, [p498] he is probably the most prolific writer of writs to come before this Court. His applications, verified under oath, and his testimony in open court under oath, have been found repeatedly to be completely false.' (App. 65.)" It is therefore surprising, at least to first lush, to find the plurality reaching the constitutional question that it decides. I believe the procedural posture in which this case is presented calls for more attention than it receives in the plurality's opinion.

In 1947, petitioner was convicted in a Texas state court of the crime of statutory rape of his eight-year-old stepdaughter. In the course of that trial, petitioner took the stand, and, as appropriate under Texas law, was cross-examined about four prior convictions for burglary, which had been obtained against him in the States of Mississippi and Tennessee during the period from 1931 to 1940. The jury convicted petitioner of the offense, and sentenced him to serve 50 years in the penitentiary. That conviction has long since become final, and indeed petitioner is now on parole.

In the present habeas proceeding, petitioner sought to attack not only the 25-year-old Texas judgment of conviction under which he still serves, but also to challenge the constitutional validity of the Mississippi and Tennessee burglary convictions which vary in age from 30 to 40 years. He introduced certified copies of a 1940 Mississippi conviction, reciting appearances at the trial by the prosecutor and by "the defendant in his own proper person"; a certified copy of the indictment and judgment in a 1935 Tennessee burglary conviction reciting appearances by the prosecutor "and the defendant in person"; and a certified copy of an indictment, judgment, and sentence obtained in Mississippi in 1931, which were silent regarding the presence or absence of counsel. No documentary evidence whatever was introduced with [p499] respect to the 1932 Mississippi burglary conviction, which was the fourth such judgment about which he was interrogated in the course of the Texas rape trial.

In addition to such documentary evidence, petitioner in the federal habeas proceeding took the stand himself and testified explicitly that he had not been advised of his right to counsel, nor had he been furnished counsel in the 1931 and 1940 Mississippi burglary convictions. But the testimony of the petitioner in this proceeding was found by the federal habeas judge to be false. (Supra, at 498.)

In Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U.S. 458, 468-469 (1938), one of the landmark habeas corpus decisions of this Court, Mr. Justice Black said: "'It must be remembered, however, that a judgment cannot be lightly set aside by collateral attack, even on habeas corpus. When collaterally attacked, the judgment of a court carries with it a presumption of regularity. [Footnote omitted.] Where a defendant, without counsel, acquiesces in a trial resulting in his conviction and later seeks release by the extraordinary remedy of habeas corpus, the burden of proof rests upon him to establish that he did not competently and intelligently waive his constitutional right to assistance of counsel. If in a habeas corpus hearing, he does meet this burden and convinces the court by a preponderance of evidence that he neither had counsel nor properly waived his constitutional right to counsel, it is the duty of the court to grant the writ.'"

In addition to the very substantial interests in "a visible end to the litigable aspect of the criminal process...," this case presents other unique practical [p500] considerations for placing the traditional Johnson burden upon the petitioner to establish a substantial constitutional deprivation. In this case, unlike the normal habeas proceeding, not only the underlying state conviction is put into question, but also convictions of another era from other States.

It is a sufficiently difficult task for a federal district court sitting in Texas to review a Texas state criminal proceeding for constitutional error; in that case the Texas state custodian himself is a defendant in the proceeding, all counsel and the district judge are familiar with local Texas criminal procedure, and the State and petitioner both have available such witnesses as may be necessary to augment the record pertaining to the judgment under attack. Whatever evidentiary hearing is held will take place in the general locale where those witnesses who have knowledge of the earlier state proceedings are available to testify.

It is a good deal more difficult for the same Texas habeas court to make a second-level collateral review of judgments of conviction rendered in the state courts of Mississippi and Tennessee. The States that rendered the convictions are not parties to the Texas habeas proceeding, and, of course, have no interest whatever in sustaining the validity of sentences long since served. Neither the Texas District Court nor Texas counsel can be expected to have any familiarity with the vagaries of criminal procedure in Mississippi and Tennessee. If there are any surviving witnesses to the actual court proceedings, which took place from 30 to 40 years ago, they are sufficiently distance from the location of the Texas habeas court as to render their voluntary appearance unlikely, and their compulsion by process impossible.

In Carnley v. Cochran, 369 U.S. 506 (1962), a case that came here on certiorari to review a judgment of the [p501] Supreme Court of Florida, this Court held that, in the face of a record completely silent on the issue, there was a presumption against waiver of a fundamental constitutional right such as the right to counsel. One need not quarrel with this principle, applied as it was in Carnley to the review of a state supreme court refusal to vacate a recent judgment of one of its lower courts, to believe that in the circumstances presented by the instant case the burden of proof prescribed for federal habeas actions in Johnson v. Zerbst, supra, should remain on the habeas petitioner. This is consistent with the holding last Term in Kitchens v. Smith, 401 U.S. 847, 848 (1971), in which a petitioner asserted in a state habeas proceeding with his Sixth Amendment rights under Gideon v. Wainwright had been violate because the State had failed to provide him with counsel in a 1944 proceeding at which time he alleged he was indigent. In reversing the denial of habeas relief, the Court said: "Of course, to establish his right to appointed counsel in 1944, petitioner had the burden of proving his inability at that time to hire an attorney."

Under Gideon v. Wainwright, the petitioner in the case before us was entitled to the assistance of counsel in each of the Mississippi and Tennessee burglary trials in which he was a defendant. However, even under Gideon, the assignment of counsel to every criminal defendant is not mandatory; the defendant may, upon being advised of his right, determine that he does not wish to avail himself of it. Thus, the fact that the transcript of the judgment roll admitted from the Tennessee and Mississippi proceedings indicates in at least two of the four cases that petitioner did not have counsel [p502] is not conclusive on the issue of whether his rights under Gideon v. Wainwright were violated. Under Johnson v. Zerbst, the burden in federal habeas corpus is upon him to prove to the satisfaction of the federal habeas judge that he did not waive the right to counsel. Here petitioner explicitly testified in a manner that, if the trial judge had chosen to believe him, would indeed have established that he did not waive his right to counsel in the Mississippi proceedings and thus those convictions were obtained in violation of Gideon v. Wainwright. However, on the basis of his overall assessment of petitioner's credibility, the trial judge declined to believe these self-serving assertions. The uniform doctrine of the cases, both in this Court and elsewhere, is that the finder of fact is entitled to wholly disbelieve the testimony of an interested witness. NLRB v. Pittsburgh S.S. Co., 337 U.S. 656, 659 (1949). As I read the memorandum opinion of the District Judge, that is precisely what he chose to do here.

It is true that our grant of certiorari in this case was limited to the question that is decided by the plurality in today's opinion. But the limited nature of the grant is not an advance guarantee that after reading briefs and hearing oral argument, we will be satisfied that the question is properly presented to us. Our duty to avoid constitutional adjudication when narrower grounds of decision are possible is clearly established by such authority as Ashwander v. TVA, 297 U.S. 288, 345-349 (1936) (Brandeis, J., concurring), and Rescue Army v. Municipal Court of Los Angeles, 331 U.S. 549 (1947).

Concluding as I do that the necessary predicate for the plurality's constitutional decision is absent, I would dismiss the writ of certiorari as improvidently granted. Since the plurality addresses itself to the merits of the case, I do likewise. I would affirm the judgment of [p503] the Court of Appeals on the ground that petitioner has not satisfactorily met his burden of proof that the Mississippi and Tennessee convictions were obtained in violation of Gideon v. Wainwright, and therefore that court was correct in affirming the District Court's judgment denying habeas relief.