Arthur Lee Terrell, Petitioner-appellee, v. Ross Maggio, Jr., Warden, Louisiana State Penitentiary,respondent-appellant, 693 F.2d 591 (5th Cir. 1981)

The State of Louisiana appeals from a district court order granting habeas corpus relief to Arthur Terrell. Despite a contrary state court finding, the district court adopted the magistrate's conclusion that Terrell was not informed of the elements of armed robbery before pleading guilty. Because neither the district court nor the magistrate considered the applicability of the "presumption of correctness" accorded a state court's factual determinations under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d), we must vacate the judgment and remand the case for that consideration.

On October 9, 1970, Terrell pleaded guilty to three counts of armed robbery and was sentenced to twenty-five years. The court accepted the plea after determining that Terrell voluntarily had signed a form stating, among other things, that "the acts constituting the offense to which I am pleading guilty have been explained to me...." Terrell subsequently sought habeas relief in state court, alleging that his guilty plea was involuntary because he did not have "full knowledge of the nature of the charge [or] the consequences of his act." On August 12, 1971, Judge Oser, who had taken Terrell's plea, denied habeas relief without an evidentiary hearing. He reviewed the record, the guilty plea forms, and a transcript of the proceedings and concluded that Terrell's allegations were untrue. The Louisiana Supreme Court in turn affirmed the denial of relief. Nine years later, Terrell again was unsuccessful in obtaining state habeas relief based on the same allegations.

Terrell filed his first federal habeas petition on February 4, 1981, alleging that he "was not advised of his rights to compulsory self-incrimination or the right to face his accusers, nor did he waive same." The district court referred the case to a magistrate "for the purpose of holding an evidentiary hearing to determine whether the petitioner herein knowledgeably and voluntarily relinquished those Constitutional rights to which he was otherwise entitled at the time of his guilty plea." The court also directed the magistrate to consider the implications of Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U.S. 238, 89 S. Ct. 1709, 23 L. Ed. 2d 274 (1969), Dulin v. Henderson, 448 F.2d 1238 (5th Cir. 1971), and French v. Henderson, 317 F. Supp. 25 (W.D. La. 1970).

After holding a hearing in which only Terrell testified, the magistrate concluded that "the bare minimum requirement of Boykin v. Alabama ... has been satisfied." He stated further, however, that the state's failure to inform Terrell of the elements of armed robbery violated Burden v. State of Alabama, 584 F.2d 100 (5th Cir. 1978) and required habeas corpus relief to be granted. The district court adopted this conclusion and ordered the state either to retry Terrell within sixty days or to release him from custody. The state now appeals from this order.

The state first contends that the district court erred in adopting the magistrate's findings and recommendations because the magistrate exceeded the scope of his order of referral by finding that Terrell had not been informed of the elements of armed robbery. This argument is without merit because the state had sufficient notice that this issue would be considered at the hearing. First, Terrell filed a supplementary brief in support of his habeas petition contending that "the trial court failed to ascertain [his] knowledge and awareness of the essential elements of the criminal conduct charged." Moreover, Terrell's counsel testified at the hearing that she had informed the district attorney about the possibility that all facts relating to the voluntariness of the plea would be presented. According to Burden v. State of Alabama, 584 F.2d at 102, a necessary requirement of voluntariness is that the defendant be informed of the elements of the crime with which he is charged. Although the Boykin decision concentrated specifically on waivers of the privilege against self-incrimination, the right to a jury trial, and the right of confrontation, its overall focus was on the voluntariness of guilty pleas. Thus, the magistrate did not exceed the order of referral by considering whether Terrell had been informed of the elements of armed robbery.

Although the magistrate complied with the district court's order of referral, we nonetheless must vacate the judgment and remand the case for reconsideration in light of 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d).¹  In finding that Terrell was unaware of the elements of the offense, the district court reached a factual conclusion contrary to that of the state habeas court. Section 2254(d) provides that a state court's factual determinations entered after "a hearing on the merits [and] evidenced by a written finding ..." are entitled to a presumption of correctness, unless any of seven enumerated factors are present, or unless the state finding is not fairly supported by the record."²  Because the state habeas court conducted a "hearing," see Camarillo v. Estelle, 670 F.2d 473, 475 (5th Cir. 1981), and made a "written finding," the magistrate should have considered the applicability of the Sec. 2254(d) exceptions before reaching a contrary finding of fact.

Resisting the inertial force to resolve the Sec. 2254(d) issue now, we remand. That resistance is required by the Supreme Court's recent decision in Sumner v. Mata, 449 U.S. 539, 101 S. Ct. 764, 66 L. Ed. 2d 722 (1981). The Court there vacated the Ninth Circuit's grant of habeas relief and remanded the case, holding that the court should not have contradicted the state court's factual findings without including in its opinion "at lease some reasoned references to Sec. 2254(d)...." Id. at 551, 101 S. Ct. at 771. Noting that " [f]ederal habeas has been a source of friction between state and federal courts," the Court characterized Sec. 2254(d) as a congressional effort "to alleviate some of that friction." Id. at 550, 101 S. Ct. at 770. To ensure enforcement of this congressional mandate, the Court required any "habeas court [to] include in its opinion granting the writ the reasoning which led it to conclude that any of the first seven factors were present or the reasoning which led it to conclude that the state finding 'was not fairly supported by the record.' " Id. at 551, 101 S. Ct. at 771. Because the Court's command was directed to the habeas court that first contradicts a state finding, we remand this case to the district court rather than resolve the Sec. 2254(d) issue ourselves. Requiring the first federal habeas court to explain why it reached a result contrary to a state court is no empty ritual. That discipline is calculated to vindicate important values of comity. If a single federal judge is to stand an entire state at bay, he ought to say why.

In remanding this case, we express no opinion on the merits of Terrell's claim or any opinion as to the applicability of any of the exceptions to the Sec. 2254(d) presumption. We seek only to effectuate the congressional intent behind Sec. 2254(d) by requiring a federal habeas court to explain, within that statutory framework, its rejection of a state court's factual findings. Because the magistrate's findings adopted by the district court contradicted the state's findings without explanation, we VACATE the judgment and REMAND for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.³