Stone v. Powell

Stone v. Powell, 428 U.S. 465 (1976), was a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States that limited which claims of Fourth Amendment violations could be made by state prisoners in _habeas corpus _ petitions in federal courts. Specifically, a claim that the exclusionary rule had been broken would be barred if state courts had already given it a full and fair hearing. The decision combined two cases that were argued before the Supreme Court on the same day with similar issues, one filed by Lloyd Powell (convicted of murder in California) and the other, titled Wolff v. Rice, filed by David Rice (convicted of murder in Nebraska).

Contents

• 1 Procedural history of Stone v. Powell

  • 1.1 Background

  • 1.2 Trial, appeal, and habeas corpus petition

• 2 Procedural history of Wolff v. Rice

  • 2.1 Background

  • 2.2 Trial, appeal, and habeas corpus petition

• 3 Decision of the Supreme Court

  • 3.1 Majority opinion

  • 3.2 Burger's concurrence

  • 3.3 Brennan's dissent

  • 3.4 White' dissent

• 4 References

Procedural history of Stone v. Powell

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Background

(https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Stone_v._Powell&action=edit&section=2 "Edit section: Background")

On the night of February 16, 1968, Lloyd Powell and three friends were at a liquor store in San Bernardino , California, when the store manager spotted Powell stealing a bottle of wine, and a gunfight broke out. During the fight, Powell shot and killed the manager's wife (Mary Parsons). Around 10 AM the following morning, Powell was arrested in Henderson , Nevada for violating the local vagrancy ordinance. The arresting officer found a revolver in his jacket that turned out to be the murder weapon, and he was extradited back to California.

Trial, appeal, and habeas corpus petition

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Powell was tried for second-degree murder. He tried to prevent the revolver from being used as evidence, on the grounds that the vagrancy ordinance was unconstitutionally vague, and therefore his arrest and the officer's search were also unconstitutional, but the trial court found no problem with the ordinance. Evidence against Powell also included testimony from his friends and the store manager, and Powell was convicted.

He appealed to the California Court of Appeal over the use of the revolver as evidence, but his conviction was affirmed. The Court of Appeal did not make a ruling on the constitutionality of the vagrancy ordinance; instead, it held that, even if it were an error for the trial court to allow the revolver as evidence, the strength of the other evidence made it a "harmless error " under the standards of _Chapman v. California _. Powell then filed a habeas corpus petition with the California Supreme Court , which was denied.

Next, Powell filed a habeas corpus petition in the federal Northern District of California , raising the same issue, but the district court agreed with the California Court of Appeal. On appeal in 1974, however, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed, ruling that the error was not harmless, and that the vagrancy ordinance was unconstitutionally vague, like the one invalidated in the 1972 Supreme Court case _Papachristou v. City of Jacksonville _. The prison warden, W.T. Stone, appealed to the Supreme Court on behalf of the state of California, and certiorari was granted.

Procedural history of Wolff v. Rice

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Main article: Rice–Poindexter case

Background

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In the early hours of August 17, 1970, police in Omaha , Nebraska received a report of a woman screaming for help. A suitcase was seen lying in the doorway at the reported location, and when an officer (Larry Minard, Sr.) approached, it exploded, killing him instantly and injuring other offices nearby. The following investigation centered on Duane Peak, a 15-year-old member of the National Committee to Combat Fascism (NCCF). 27-year-old David Rice was one of the known members of NCCF that police investigated as part of their search for Peak. The police went to Rice's home the night of August 22 to look for Peak. When no one answered the door, some officers stayed to watch the premises, while other obtained a search warrant. Once they had the warrant, the police entered and found a variety of explosive equipment. Peak and Rice would be arrested within the following few days. Peak admitted being the one to plant the bomb, and would testify that the masterminds had been Rice and another NCCF member, Edward Poindexter.

Trial, appeal, and habeas corpus petition

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Rice and Poindexter were jointly tried for first-degree murder in the Douglas County district court. Among its evidence, the prosecution introduced evidence of the explosives it had found at Rice's house, as well as chemical traces of explosives found on the clothing Rice was wearing when he was arrested. Rice tried to exclude this evidence, arguing the warrant had been invalid, but the judge disagreed. Rice and Poindexter were convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Rice and Poindexter appealed to the Nebraska Supreme Court , arguing that the trial court had made a variety of errors, including its decision not to exclude evidence from the search of Rice's house. The Court rejected all of their arguments. In particular, the Court found that the search warrant had been based on an adequate affidavit. It noted that "[t]he confused and confusing state of the law of search and seizure is widely recognized", and that officers had been working 18-hour days following the bombing, and ultimately judged that the hearsay evidence used (e.g. that Rice was known to be a NCCF member, that he was known to have explosives in his house) was enough support to satisfy the Fourth Amendment.

Rice then filed a habeas corpus petition in the federal District Court of Nebraska , focusing on the argument that the search warrant for his house had been invalid, and evidence stemming from it should have been excluded by the trial court. The judge (Warren Urbom ) disagreed with the Nebraska Supreme Court's ruling on the warrant, observing that "[i]n part the Supreme Court of Nebra

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