Johnny Spain v. Ruth L. Rushen, Director, California Department of Corrections

883 F.2d 712 Johnny SPAIN, Petitioner-Appellee, v. Ruth L. RUSHEN, Director, California Department of Corrections, Respondent-Appellant. No. 86-2687. United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit. Argued and Submitted March 14, 1988. Withdrawn from Submission Nov. 18, 1988. Resubmitted Dec. 22, 1988. Decided Aug. 22, 1989. Ronald E. Niver and John H. Sugiyama, San Francisco, Cal., for respondent-appellant. Dennis Riordan, Riordan & Rosenthal, San Francisco, Cal., for petitioner-appellee. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. Before HALL, KOZINSKI and NOONAN, Circuit Judges. CYNTHIA HOLCOMB HALL, Circuit Judge: 1 Ruth Rushen, Director of the California Department of Corrections, appeals from the district court's grant of a writ of habeas corpus to Johnny Spain. Rushen contends that the district court erred in determining that the state trial court violated Spain's constitutional rights by shackling Spain during his criminal trial. We affirm. 2 * In 1971, Johnny Spain was imprisoned in San Quentin Prison and was a member of the Black Panther Party. 1 Spain was serving a life sentence for a 1967 conviction for first degree murder.…

Ruth Rushen, Director of the California Department of Corrections, appeals from the district court’s grant of a writ of habe-as corpus to Johnny Spain. Rushen contends that the district court erred in determining that the state trial court violated Spain’s constitutional rights by shackling Spain during his criminal trial. We affirm.

I

In 1971, Johnny Spain was imprisoned in San Quentin Prison and was a member of the Black Panther Party. 1 Spain was serv *714 ing a life sentence for a 1967 conviction for first degree murder. In May of 1971, Spain was transferred to the Adjustment Center at San Quentin, a three-story structure primarily used to segregate and discipline disruptive prisoners.

On August 21, 1971, there was an outburst of deadly violence at the Adjustment Center. George Jackson, also a member of the Black Panther Party, returned to the Adjustment Center after meeting with his lawyer, Stephen Bingham. When guards found a bullet clip on Jackson, Jackson removed a gun from under his wig and forced one of the guards present to open the cells of other prisoners. Many of the prisoners, including Spain, emerged from their cells. There was testimony that Spain played a role…

dissenting:

With the greatest respect I differ from my colleagues in the conclusion they have reached. The case has been a difficult one for all of us and has required extensive deliberation. The very difficulty of the case points to the conclusion that we are not in an area where the Constitution of the United States mandates a result but in an area where a federal court is wrongly substituting its discretion for the discretion conscientiously exercised by the court that tried Spain for murder and convicted him of two murders.

THE TASK OF THIS COURT

The only ground on which a federal court may invalidate a conviction in a court of one of the states is that the state in obtaining the conviction violated the Constitution of the United States. We have no jurisdiction as a federal court to substitute our discretion for that of a state trial judge. Only if some action by that judge in the exercise of his discretion is so outrageous a departure from the requirements of fair play that the defendant has been denied due process of law are we entitled to set the trial verdict aside. The question before us is not whether the trial judge has abused his discretion but whether he abused it…