Cahill

OPINION AND ORDER

Petitioner, a state prisoner, seeks a writ of habeas corpus. 28 U.S.C. § 2254 . He is confined as a result of a conviction for first degree murder and challenges that confinement alleging: (1) a confession obtained in violation of both his Sixth Amendment right to counsel and his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination was employed in securing his conviction, and (2) the prosecutor improperly argued that the jury should infer guilt from petitioner’s post-arrest silence in violation of his Fourteenth Amendment right to due process of law.

FACTS

During the early morning hours of September 15, 1971, a survey crew discovered the body of Orville Scott lying beside a picnic table in the Lakeshore West Campground near Lake Shasta, California. Two days later petitioner and Alton Whitecotton were arrested in Colfax, California and charged with murder. The officer in charge of the investigation, Captain James Carter of the Shasta County Sheriff’s Department, questioned petitioner on the day of his arrest and the following day. On both occasions petitioner was given Miranda warnings and waived his rights.

Petitioner and Whitecotton were arraigned on…