Habeas corpus – Voice identification

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Where a petitioner’s convictions of armed robbery and armed burglary were affirmed by the Massachusetts Appeals Court, the petitioner is not entitled to habeas corpus relief on his claims that (1) the victim’s pretrial identification of his voice on a recorded telephone call was not tainted by an improperly suggestive police procedure and (2) his statements to the police were involuntary.

A U.S. District Court judgment denying the petition is affirmed.

“… [Petitioner Anthony] Cooper asks us to use a two-tiered standard of review: deferential review of the state court ruling that the voice identification procedure was not impermissibly suggestive, but de novo review on the ultimate constitutional question of reliability. He builds his case for de novo review on what he describes as the ‘extraordinar[il]y’ and ‘astonishingly’ suggestive content of the tape. We reject this two-tiered construct, because we read the state court’s decision as having adjudicated the merits of the reliability question, and it is therefore entitled to [Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA)] deference. …

“Cooper primarily faults the state court for rejecting his position that the single-voice identification procedure was extraordinarily suggestive, given the tape’s content. Focusing on the police dialogue heard by the victim, Cooper contends that the state court ignored or dismissed important surrounding facts when discounting its import. …

“While the police dialogue undeniably communicates disbelief about the caller’s report, the record would not compel all reasonable jurists to conclude that the tape’s content renders any subsequent voice identification unreliable. …

“Ultimately, the state court’s decision that the evidence was sufficiently reliable for the jury’s consideration involves the type of constitutional calculus established by the Supreme Court that permits a fair amount of latitude in the exercise of sound decisional judgment. … Even if some might see this case as presenting a close question, such a threshold is not enough to warrant habeas relief. … In sum, Cooper has not carried his heavy burden of establishing some ‘extreme malfunction’ in the state court’s decision, to warrant section2254 relief. …

“Cooper contends that the state court’s conclusion that he voluntarily spoke to the police constitutes an unreasonable application of clearly established Supreme Court authority, particularly in light of the detective’s threat to remove his child from the mother’s custody. …

“… The court’s analysis shows that it considered the impact of the detective’s exploitation of the parent-child relationship in light of other circumstances that evinced Cooper’s clear-mindedness in his interaction with the police. …

“Simply put, we are hard-pressed to see the state court’s decision on voluntariness as engendering much fairminded disagreement at all, let alone constituting a holding that is objectively unreasonable under AEDPA. …”

Cooper v. Bergeron (Lawyers Weekly No. 01-036-15) (33 pages) (Howard, J.) (1st Circuit) Appealed from a decision by O’Toole, J., in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. Jeanne M. Kempthorne for the petitioner-appellant; Todd M. Blume, with whom Martha Coakley was on brief, for the respondent-appellee (Docket No. 13-1471) (Feb. 13, 2015).

Click here for the full-text opinion.