Virginia Lawyers Weekly

The 4th Circuit denies habeas relief for a North Carolina death-row defendant convicted of two counts each of murder, rape, kidnapping and robbery, and rejects defendant’s claims that the state court violated his Fifth Amendment rights in refusing to suppress incriminating statements he made without a lawyer, his Sixth Amendment rights by denying his request to discharge his court-appointed lawyers after trial began, and his 14th Amendment due process rights by failing to instruct the jury on a lesser-included offense of second-degree murder.

With regard to defendant’s claim that he requested counsel, we must defer to the state court finding that law enforcement officers did not hear defendant request counsel while at his father’s house. Given this finding, the state court did not err in holding that defendant did not then invoke his right to counsel. Further, the state court holding – that defendant’s statement at the sheriff’s office that his “daddy wanted him to call a lawyer” – sufficed to invoke his right to counsel. Federal law requires a suspect to make an unequivocal request for counsel. The state court holding that defendant’s statement at the sheriff’s office did not unequivocally express a desire for an attorney, does not constitute an unreasonable application of federal law.

Finally, the state court found that law enforcement officers had no constitutional obligation to inform defendant of the presence of a lawyer, contacted by defendant’s brother, at the sheriff’s office. Defendant can present no authority to demonstrate that the officer’s conduct here met the “egregious” standard for deceptive conduct in Moran v. Burbine, 475 U.S. 412 (1986), under any clearly established Supreme Court precedent.

In sum, defendant provides no basis for us to disturb the state court’s holding that defendant waived his right to counsel during a custodial interrogation in full awareness of both the nature of the right being abandoned and the consequences of the decision to abandon it.

We have no basis to disturb the state court finding that defendant’s motion to substitute counsel contained an “implicit” motion to continue the trial. Because the state court reasonably believed that granting defendant’s motion would necessitate delay, the court acted within its discretion in rejecting the request. That decision was neither contrary to nor an unreasonable application of clearly established Supreme Court precedent.

District court judgment denying habeas relief affirmed.

Hyatt v. Branker (Motz, J.) No. 08-15, June 23, 2009; USDC at Asheville, N.C. (Thornburg) Milton G. Widenhouse Jr. for appellant; Valerie B. Spalding, NCDOJ, for appellee. VLW 009-2-113, 21 pp.

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