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Larry GRIFFIN

 
 
 
 
 

 

 

 

 
 
 
Classification: Murderer ?
Characteristics: Serious doubts about his guilt - Revenge - Drugs
Number of victims: 1
Date of murder: June 26, 1980
Date of arrest: 4 days after
Date of birth: September 23, 1954
Victim profile: Quinton Moss, 19 (drug dealer)
Method of murder: Shooting (.30 caliber semi-automatic carbine)
Location: St. Louis City, Missouri, USA
Status: Executed by lethal injection in Missouri on June 21, 1995
 
 
 
 
 
 
photo gallery
 
 
 
 
 
 

clemency petition

 
 
 
 
 
 
Archival audio from Larry Griffin's execution
 
 
NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund report on Larry Griffin
 
 
 
 
 
 

State of Missouri v. Larry Griffin

622 S.W. 2d 854 (Mo. banc 1983)

Larry Griffin was executed June 21, 1995

Case Facts: 

On June 26, 1980 at approximately 4:25 p.m. gun shots were fired from a moving car at the intersection of Sarah and Olive in the City of St. Louis, Missouri. The shots struck two men, Quinton Moss and Wallace Connors.

According to the coroner’s report, Mr. Moss died of 13 gunshot wounds in various parts of his body including his shoulders, left lung, heart and head. A witness to the shooting gave police a description of the car and also identified Larry Griffin from a group of police photos as the man in the front passenger seat who fired the shots.

Later that day, police located the car and found a .30 caliber semi-automatic carbine capable of holding a clip of 31 cartridges and a .38 Smith and Wesson revolver in the trunk along with several .30 caliber carbine shell casings.

The police officers also found some papers with the names of several individuals. Fragments of bullets found at the scene were positively identified as having been fired from the semi-automatic carbine.

The investigation revealed that the deceased victim, Quniton Moss, had been arrested on January 2, 1980 in connection with the death of Dennis Griffin, brother of Larry Griffin. Moss’ mother told police that on the afternoon of May 13, 1980 her son told her he had been shot at the corner of Sarah and Olive. Police had identified Larry Griffin near the scene of the May 13th shooting.

On June 30, 1980 police arrested and charged Larry Griffin with the murder of Quinton Moss.

 
 

Legal Chronology

1974
05/06 - Griffin was remanded to the Missouri Department of Corrections from the City of St. Louis for three years and two years on two Burglary Second Degree charges to run concurrently.

1977
05/11 - Griffin was arrested in the City of St. Louis for Stealing Under $50,000. He was granted probation for six months on the first sentence and remanded to the St. Louis Medium Security Institution for 30 days on the second charge.
06/04 - Griffin was arrested in the City of St. Louis for felony possession of a controlled substance, misdemeanor assault, and possession of marijuana. He was sentenced to three years in the Missouri Department of Corrections for the felony charge to run concurrently with the three year sentence for Stealing Over $50,000 charge of November 10, 1975 and 30 days in the St. Louis Medium Security Institution for the misdemeanor charges.

1979
04/11 - (St. Louis) Griffin was sentenced to ten years in the Missouri Department of Corrections for Robbery First Degree and Felony Possession of a Controlled Substance. He was also sentenced to five years for Burglary Second Degree and Carrying a Concealed Weapon. All sentences were concurrent.

1980
4/26 - Quintin Moss was shot to death in a drive-by- shooting in St Louis City

1981
4/04 - An indictment was filed in St. Louis City charging Larry Griffin with capital murder for the shooting death of Quintin Moss.
6/22-27- Griffin was tried in the Circuit Court of St. Louis City and was found guilty of capital murder. The jury recommended a sentence of death.
8/07 - A motion for new trial was denied, and Griffin was sentenced to death for killing Quintin Moss.
8/11- A notice of appeal was filed.

1983
12/20 - The Missouri Supreme Court affirmed Griffin’s conviction and sentence.

1984
10/01- The United States Supreme Court denied certiorari.
11/16- Griffin filed a Rule 27.26 motion for post-conviction relieft in the Circuit Court of St. Louis City.

1987
2/23- The motion for post-conviction relief was denied.

1988
2/16- The Missouri Court of Appeal, Eastern District, affirmed the denial of post-conviction relief.
6/03- Griffin filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri.

1990
7/16 - The petition for writ of habeas corpus was denied.

1991
10/11- The United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed the Districts Court’s order and denied the petition for writ of habeas corpus.

1992
7/16- Rehearing was granted by the United States court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit and the case was remanded to the District Court for further proceedings.
10/5- The United States Supreme Court denied respondent’s petition for writ of certiorari.

1993
10/6- The District Court conducted an evidentiary hearing.
10/25- The petition for writ of habeas corpus on remand is denied.

1994
2/24- The United States Court of Appeals fr the Eighth Circuit remands the case to the district court for further proceedings.
4/25- The petition for writ of habeas corpus on remand is again denied.
8/23 - The United States Court of Appeals for the Eightn Circuit affirms the District Court denial.

1995
5/15- The United States Supreme Court denied certiorari.
5/19 - The Missouri Supreme Court set June 21, 1995, as Griffin’s execution date.

 
 


 
 
Name/DOC # Larry Griffin
Address Potosi Correctional Center/deceased
Date of Birth September 23, 1954
Race Black
Date of Crime June 26, 1980
Age Time of Crime 25
Date Sentenced August 7,1981
Victim(s) Quintin Moss
Race of Victim(s) Black
Relationship to Defendant Suspected murderer of Griffin's brother, Dennis.
Facts Alleged by State Griffin shot Moss from a moving car at the intersection of Sarah and Olive in St. Louis, Missouri.
County of Trial City of St. Louis
Trial Judge Gallagher
Trial Attorney Frederick Steiger
Prosecutors Gordon Ankney
Trial By Judge and Jury
Race of Jurors  
Convicted of Capital murder
Confession None
Accomplice Testimony None
Eyewitness Testimony Unreliable photo identification by sole eyewitness

Robert Fitzgerald, who later recanted his in-court identification of Griffin.

Forensic Testimony None of Griffin's fingerprints found on car

None of Griffin's fingerprints found on murder weapons.

Jailhouse Snitch N/A (Prosecution denied there was a plea bargain in exchange for Fitzgerald's testimony but he was released from custody having had his sentence reduced to time served for credit card fraud charges on the day Griffin was convicted.)
Defendant Testimony Did not testify
Principal Exculpatory Evidence Testimony of Kerry Caldwell, an actual participant in the killing, that Griffin was not involved.

New eyewitness (Jimmy Massey) stated Griffin not involved.

Sentencing Authority  
Statutory Aggravating Factor The circumstances of the shooting created a risk of danger to other persons.
Non-Statutory Aggravating Factor N/A
Mitigating Factors Actual Innocence

Death penalty disproportionate sentence for drive-by shooting

Defendant did not receive a fair trial.

Evidence of Mental Illness Retardation and or Neurological Damage N/A
Criminal History Shoplifting and burglary - details not known
Appellate History See page 9 clemency petition
Ineffective Assistance? At trial:

Failure to present relevant evidence that Griffin was left-handed

Inadequately investigated alibi defense collapsed in court

Failure to discover and utilize information undermining Fitzgerald's credibility.

No preparation for penalty phase.

Police Misconduct? Police presented photo of Griffin to Fitzgerald and suggested he was involved before actual photo identification.
Prosecutorial Misconduct? Prosecutor referred to Griffin's failure to testify

Failed to reveal Fitzgerald's conviction

Failed to disclose that Robert Campbell was an available witness.

Fitzgerald plea bargain not disclosed

Appellate Counsel Frederick Steiger (Direct Appeal to Missouri Supreme Court)

Kent E. Gipson (Federal Habeas)

 
 
 

Larry Griffin (September 23, 1954 – June 21, 1995) was convicted of the murder of Quintin Moss and executed by lethal injection on June 21, 1995.

Quintin Moss was a drug dealer, 19 years of age when he was killed on the afternoon of June 26, 1980. The trial, however has been criticized since there was no physical evidence against Larry Griffin, except for the testimony of Robert Fitzgerald.

Fitzgerald was himself a professional criminal with a number of felony charges pending. There has been other pressing evidence that Griffin was in fact innocent. Griffin maintained his innocence right up to his execution.

After Larry Griffin's death, the case was unusually reopened by Samuel Gross, a professor at the University of Michigan Law School. The post-execution investigation was sponsored by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

As per the investigation, this case is supposed to be the strongest demonstration of an execution of an innocent man and a likely example used by capital punishment opponents.

Allegation

On June 21, 1995, the State of Missouri, with the acquiescence of the federal government, executed Larry Griffin by lethal injection. The state and federal governments failed to ensure Griffin's right to a fair and impartial trial. The unfair trial resulted in Griffin's execution.

Crime

Quintin Moss was killed in a drive-by shooting while allegedly dealing drugs on a street corner in St. Louis, Missouri on June 26, 1980. Griffin was arrested, tried, and convicted for the murder.

Salient Issues

  • Larry Griffin's lawyer was a recent law school graduate who had never tried a murder case. He failed to provide Griffin with competent legal representation. He failed to investigate adequately and thus did not find evidence of, or identify eyewitnesses who could testify to, Griffin's innocence.
     

  • Three eyewitnesses were able to substantiate Griffin's claim of innocence.
     

  • The state's primary witness later recanted his testimony and discredited his identification of Larry Griffin, claiming the identification process was highly prejudicial.
     

  • Evidence suggests that, prior to testifying, the state's primary witness was promised a reduced sentence in exchange for his testimony. The jury was not provided with this information.
     

  • Investigations conducted after the trial revealed two new eyewitnesses who provided accounts of the incident that corroborated Griffin's innocence.
     

  • One eyewitness testified under oath that Griffin was not involved in the killing.
     

  • Another eyewitness, who knew both the victim and Larry Griffin, stated in a sworn affidavit that he saw the shooting, that he knew Larry Griffin, and that Griffin did not participate in the shooting.
     

  • Forensic evidence from the car and weapons failed to link Griffin to the murder.
     

  • The prosecution suppressed information about a witness who could testify that Griffin was not involved in an earlier attempt on the victim's life.
     

  • The "actual innocence" standard imposed by the U.S. Supreme Court in reviewing state court decisions resulted in Griffin's actual innocence claims not being heard by the courts despite substantial evidence of innocence.

Trial

Larry Griffin was convicted of murdering Quintin Moss based largely on the testimony of one eyewitness, Robert Fitzgerald, who had been at the scene of the killing. Shortly after the murder, Fitzgerald made a positive photo identification of Griffin.

He then testified at trial that he saw three black males in the car from which the shots were fired and that he could identify Larry Griffin as one of them.

He testified that Griffin shot at the victim through the window of the car with his right hand. Griffin's attorney did not challenge this, even though Griffin was, in fact, left-handed.

He did present evidence that Griffin had seriously injured his left arm a few weeks earlier, but without evidence that Griffin was left-handed, the relevance of the testimony was lost to the jury. Larry Griffin's fingerprints were not found on either the car or the weapons. All other evidence against Griffin was circumstantial.

Griffin's lawyer failed to present a competent defense. In addition to missing important opportunities to challenge the state's case, he presented an alibi defense without investigation of the alibi.

The prosecution conducted its own investigation and was able to discredit the alibi, showing that the alibi witness had erred about the day he and Griffin had been together, thus making it appear that the alibi had been fabricated.

Post-trial investigations by Griffin's lawyers revealed police and prosecutorial misconduct prior to and at the trial. The prosecutor had cut a deal for one witness' testimony. The prosecution failed to reveal that there were two additional eyewitnesses who confirmed that Griffin was not involved in the murder.

The first testified that he witnessed the shooting, and he did not recognize any of the three men who killed the victim. He knew Griffin and was certain that Griffin was not in the car with the shooters.

The other witness, a 16-year-old member of a gang led by Griffin's brother at the time of the murder, also testified that Larry Griffin was not involved in the shooting and named the three men who were – all members of the gang led by Griffin's slain brother. He was able to describe the exact sequence of events leading to Moss's murder and to testify to the killers' motive. He also was able to identify correctly the place where the car and guns had been abandoned and later found by the police.

Fitzgerald, the eyewitness used by the prosecution to convict Griffin, also later provided information that helped support Griffin's claim of innocence. Fitzgerald admitted that he perjured himself at Griffin's trial when he positively identified Griffin in court. He also testified to the suggestive nature of the original police identification process.

According to Fitzgerald, one of the investigating officers showed him a photograph of Griffin and told him, "We know this man is involved." Fitzgerald was then presented with five photos from which he identified Griffin.

Appeals

Griffin's trial lawyer also served as his lawyer in the initial appeals despite his inexperience and apparent incompetence. The conviction and sentence were affirmed in state appeals courts without rehearing – decisions upheld by the U.S. District Court and, initially, by the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Due to the incompetence of the original lawyer in failing to identify and raise several constitutional claims, the Eighth Circuit vacated its earlier decision and remanded the case back to the district court for further proceedings.

The Eighth Circuit appointed a new lawyer, who amended Griffin's petitions to reflect the constitutional claims, including the claim that Griffin's first lawyer failed to provide competent counsel and thus, Griffin did not receive a fair trial.

A limited evidentiary hearing was held by the Federal District Court, at which new evidence of Griffin's innocence was produced, including testimony from the two new witnesses, and Fitzgerald's testimony that he had perjured himself in his in-court identification of Griffin.

Despite the constitutional claims and the new evidence of Griffin's innocence, the District Court again dismissed Griffin's petitions for relief. The Eighth Circuit affirmed the denial of all relief without permitting Griffin or his new lawyer to brief the court – a decision upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Conclusion

Larry Griffin was executed despite compelling evidence of his innocence and evidence that he did not receive a fair trial. Griffin's original lawyer lacked the necessary experience to undertake capital cases and failed to provide Griffin with competent counsel. He neither found nor presented evidence of his innocence or evidence challenging key prosecution witnesses.

He also made a highly prejudicial error when he failed to confirm independently the information provided by the defense's alibi witness at trial.

Although the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed that Griffin's original lawyer failed to provide competent counsel, federal courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, upheld Griffin's conviction and death sentence. In so doing, the courts relied on the new, and unreasonably high, standard of review for cases claiming innocence, which had evolved during Griffin's appeals. With issues of innocence still unresolved, Griffin was executed.

Wikipedia.org

 
 


 

Larry Griffin (Executed 6/ 21/ 95) 

Larry Griffin was sentenced to death for the June 26, 1980 drive-by shooting of Quintin Moss, a known drug dealer.  The alleged motive for the crime was revenge for Moss killing Griffin’s brother several months earlier.  The prosecution’s only direct evidence of Griffin’s guilt was presented through the eyewitness testimony of Robert Fitzgerald, a career criminal and federally-protected witness, whose car allegedly had broken down on the corner shortly before the crime occurred. 

Thirteen years later in a federal prison, Fitzgerald admitted committing perjury when he positively identified Griffin in court as the person he saw shoot Moss.  Fitzgerald also testified that the police suggested to him that he pick out Griffin’s photo before he did so.  Also in 1993 another witness came forward with testimony supporting Griffin’s innocence.   Kerry Caldwell was a hit man for a drug gang that operated in St. Louis in the 1980s.  In 1990 he also joined the federal witness protection program and became a prosecution witness in another case.  He subsequently testified before a federal judge that he was the look-out man when three men -- other than Griffin -- killed Moss.

 
 

Convicted, Executed, Not Guilty

By Bob Herbert - The New York Times

July 14, 2005

If Larry Griffin were being tried today for the murder of Quintin Moss, he would almost certainly be acquitted. The evidence is overwhelming that he did not kill Mr. Moss.

But Mr. Griffin is not being tried today. He has already been executed for the murder.

While significant, this development is not that much of a surprise to those who understand that human beings are fallible and that much of the criminal justice system in the United States is a crapshoot. Whether it is this case or some other, it is inevitable that we will learn of someone who has been executed for a crime that he or she did not commit.

Judges and juries are no less prone to mistakes than politicians, reporters, doctors, engineers or center fielders. Which is why the death penalty should be abolished.

Larry Griffin's case is probably not the best one for advancing this argument, but it's the case at hand. He was not a solid citizen. While it seems clear that he did not commit the crime for which he was executed - the killing of Mr. Moss - he did plead guilty to killing someone else.

Mr. Griffin's character, or lack of same, does not make the principle at stake any less valid. This was recognized by Jennifer Joyce, the circuit attorney in St. Louis, where Mr. Moss was murdered way back in 1980. Ms. Joyce has taken the extraordinary step of officially reopening a murder investigation after the defendant was executed.

Quintin Moss was 19 years old and a locally well-known drug dealer when he was shot 13 times in a drive-by attack on a notorious block in St. Louis known as "The Stroll." A bystander, Wallace Conners, was also shot but not seriously wounded.

Mr. Conners, who knew Larry Griffin, saw the men who drove up and opened fire. He said Mr. Griffin was not one of the men. But he was never called, either by the prosecution or the defense, to testify at Mr. Griffin's trial.

The key testimony was given by Robert Fitzgerald, a professional criminal who said he had witnessed the murder and identified Mr. Griffin as one of the shooters. Mr. Fitzgerald was in the federal witness protection program at the time. He had a number of felony charges pending and was an admitted user of heroin and speed.

A Missouri Supreme Court justice said of Mr. Fitzgerald: "The only eyewitness to the murder had a seriously flawed background, and his ability to observe and identify the gunman was also subject to question."

There was no physical evidence against Mr. Griffin, and no one else at the trial placed him at the scene of the attack. But he was convicted nevertheless, and executed by lethal injection on June 21, 1995.

Mr. Fitzgerald was formally released from custody on the day Mr. Griffin was convicted.

One of the reasons we have not had a definitive example of the execution of an innocent person is that official investigations cease once the death penalty has been carried out.

In this case, an extremely unusual private investigation was conducted after Mr. Griffin's death. It was sponsored by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and led by Samuel Gross, a professor at the University of Michigan Law School. That investigation has pretty much demolished Mr. Fitzgerald's account of what occurred and prompted Ms. Joyce to reopen the case.

Mr. Conners, the wounded bystander, says flatly that Mr. Fitzgerald, who died last year, was not at the scene when the attack took place. And a St. Louis police officer who supported Mr. Fitzgerald's account at the trial now says that Mr. Fitzgerald told him, "I didn't see nothing."

The officer says he can't explain why he supported Mr. Fitzgerald's false testimony at the trial.

Professor Gross, who has received extensive pro bono help from prominent law firms, has given prosecutors the names of three men he believes committed the murder, and the evidence that points to their guilt.

Ms. Joyce, who is reopening the case, was not in the circuit attorney's office when Mr. Griffin was prosecuted. She told me in a telephone conversation yesterday, "I just want to see the truth."

The investigation will be thorough, she said, adding, "I wanted to take an independent look at it, and if mistakes were made, do what I can to rectify them, recognizing that there may not be much I could do."

 
 

Executed Man May Be Cleared in New Inquiry

By Kate Zernike - The New York Times

July 19, 2005

ST. LOUIS, July 18 - The corner of Sarah and Olive looks almost nothing as it did 25 years ago when a 19-year-old drug dealer named Quintin Moss was gunned down from a slow-moving car. The boarded-up houses have been replaced by a new townhouse development marked by sleek stone gates; the drug dealers and prostitutes are gone.

And the man convicted of the killing, Larry Griffin, was executed 10 years ago.

Yet the city's top prosecutor has decided to re-investigate the murder as if it just happened, out of new concerns that the wrong man may have been put to death for the crime.

Prompted by questions raised in a report by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the prosecutor, Jennifer Joyce, hopes to decide once and for all whether Mr. Griffin was guilty or innocent - though she acknowledges that 25 years later it may be hard to do more than show the flaws in the earlier prosecution.

Still, should Ms. Joyce, the St. Louis circuit attorney, demonstrate Mr. Griffin was not the killer, as the report and even some members of the victim's family contend, it would be the first proven execution of an innocent person, so far as death penalty advocates or opponents can recall.

Though dozens of people have been exonerated while on death row - from 30 to 75 in the last two decades, depending on which side of the debate is talking - proving Mr. Griffin's innocence would hand death penalty opponents the example that they have lacked in arguing for the abolition of capital punishment.

Already, Ms. Joyce's decision last week to investigate has prompted newspaper editorials to suggest that the case could be cause for a moratorium on the death penalty. Even some death penalty supporters say that her willingness to officially re-open the investigation is a remarkable, and perhaps unprecedented, development in the debate.

"If they prove that he was innocent, that would be the gold standard," said Joshua Marquis, the prosecutor in Clatsop County, Ore., and a frequent speaker in support of the death penalty. "I'm not sure opponents of the death penalty would start prevailing, but they'd be able to say to people like me, 'What about Mr. Griffin?' "

Still, Mr. Marquis said, "innocence is very different than saying this guy maybe didn't do it."

And it is hard to sort out an absolute truth 25 years later.

Unlike many cases that have resulted in exonerations, this case has no DNA evidence. The man whose testimony is now being challenged died last year. Other witnesses have changed their stories; memories are hazy. And like the debate about the death penalty itself, beliefs about what really happened here that June afternoon in 1980 are colored by race.

The prosecutor has seen three exonerations since taking office in 2001.

"Every prosecutor conceptually has the notion that someone innocent can be convicted," Ms. Joyce said. "I've seen it firsthand."

Her decision to revisit the Griffin case followed the report by the NAACP group, which began investigating the case last year after people here expressed long-simmering doubts about Mr. Griffin's guilt. The report contends that three other men killed Mr. Moss. Mr. Moss's family joined the NAACP group in raising questions about Mr. Griffin's guilt.

According to the report and interviews, Mr. Moss's siblings had warned him to get out of town in the summer of 1980; people said he was a target because he was believed to have killed Dennis Griffin, a reputed drug dealer and Larry Griffin's older brother.

On June 26, Mr. Moss was at the corner of Sarah Avenue and Olive Street, a crime-infested strip known as the Stroll, when a 1968 Chevrolet Impala drove by slowly. Two black men leaned out and shot him 13 times, killing him almost instantly.

Another man, standing 75 feet away, was hit by a stray bullet but told the police he did not see the gunmen.

The car was found abandoned that night with the murder weapons, as well as a traffic ticket made out to Reggie Griffin, the 19-year-old nephew of Larry Griffin.

At Larry Griffin's trial a year later, the only eyewitness testimony came from Robert Fitzgerald, a career criminal from Boston and an admitted drug addict who was in St. Louis in the federal witness protection program. Mr. Fitzgerald said he and a friend had heard the shots from behind the hood of a car while replacing a battery.

Mr. Fitzgerald testified that he had a good view of the gunmen and memorized the license plate. He identified Larry Griffin in a lineup of photographs at the police station and later identified the abandoned car.

On June 26, 1981, exactly a year after the murder, Larry Griffin was convicted. Mr. Fitzgerald, who was then facing felony fraud charges, was cleared and released.

After losing several appeals, Mr. Griffin was executed by lethal injection at age 40 in June 1995. But some doubts about Mr. Fitzgerald's testimony were raised in the appeals process.

A judge who dissented from a decision that upheld Mr. Griffin's conviction in 1983 noted that Mr. Fitzgerald had "a seriously flawed background, and his ability to observe and identify the gunman was also subject to question."

Mr. Fitzgerald changed his account at a hearing in 1993, saying that a detective had shown him only one photograph, declaring, "We happen to know who did it."

The NAACP group hired an investigator last summer and tracked down the police officer who had testified that Mr. Fitzgerald was at the scene. The officer, Michael Ruggeri, now retired, said Mr. Fitzgerald was not there when he arrived; he would have recalled, Mr. Ruggeri said, because the Stroll was a black neighborhood, and Mr. Fitzgerald was white.

Mr. Ruggeri told investigators that if Mr. Fitzgerald had reported a license plate number, it would have been noted on the police report.

The investigators also tracked down the man shot by the stray bullet, Wallace Conners. This time, Mr. Conners said that he had seen the gunmen, that Larry Griffin was not among them and that no white man had been on the scene.

Patricia Moss Mason, the victim's sister, told the investigators that she had watched the shooting from a nearby window and had not seen any white man either.

Mr. Fitzgerald died last year before investigators could talk to him.

"Fitzgerald was the entire case and now there's very strong eyewitness evidence that Fitzgerald was not there, and what's more, Larry Griffin was not there," said Samuel Gross, a law professor at the University of Michigan who oversaw the NAACP group's investigation.

Mr. Fitzgerald, he said, had been "deeply motivated to please the police."

"It's hard to imagine why the victim's sister, a man who was shot at the same time himself, and a police officer - who live in three different states at this point and were interviewed separately - would all say, 'Actually, he wasn't there,' " Mr. Gross said.

The report suggests that three men, all now in prison without chance of parole, were the real killers: Ronnie Thomas-Bey, who owned the car and was arrested but released for lack of evidence in the case; Reggie Griffin; and Ronnie Parker, a drug dealer who ran in the same crowd.

Mr. Parker and Reggie Griffin have denied involvement. Mr. Thomas-Bey testified in another trial in 1995 that he was in the car when Mr. Moss was shot, and that Larry Griffin was not - though he said he was not sure of the last point. Mr. Thomas-Bey's uncle told investigators that his nephew had told him that the same three were in the car, and that it had been "gospel" in the neighborhood.

Mr. Moss's family, too, had long had doubts; they felt prosecutors had paid too much attention to a white witness. Walter Moss, a brother, said he called the police several times saying that his sister had seen the killing and was ignored. "It was, 'We don't need you, we know all we need to know,' " Walter Moss said.

The original prosecutor, Gordon Ankney, stands by the conviction. Mr. Conners, he said, would have been a flawed witness, even if he had not left town, as he did.

"We've got a witness who once said he didn't see a thing, and then refused to talk," Mr. Ankney said. "If I put him on the stand, even if he said it was Larry Griffin, I'd look like an idiot. Then we'd be looking like we had somebody making up a story."

Mr. Ankney noted that Larry Griffin's alibi had failed - while a family friend testified that Mr. Griffin had been helping him sell a canoe at home when the shooting occurred, records showed the canoe had sold the day before.

Mr. Ruggeri, the retired police officer, said in an interview that he was reluctant to have his recollections used to overturn a conviction. He does not recall testifying, he said. Still, he asked, "what would you trust, your memory 12 months later, or 25 years later?"

Mr. Griffin's family declined to comment; the case is complicated by the suggestion that a relative, Reggie Griffin, could have been the killer.

Mr. Conners, too, declined to speak through his lawyer, Barry Scheck, a co-founder of the Innocence Project, which says it has exonerated 159 people wrongfully convicted.

Ms. Joyce said she had begun re-reading testimony given at the trials and hearings for Larry Griffin and would re-interview any living witnesses. She hopes to finish by September, she said, and to declare him innocent or guilty.

More likely, she said, she will determine that some things about how the case was handled are troubling, but that the evidence as to Mr. Griffin's guilt or innocence is inconclusive.

Still, she said, it is important to show that prosecutors are willing to consider whether mistakes have been made.

"People say, 'Will this make citizens trust the criminal justice system less?' " she said. "I hope it makes them trust it more."

 
 

Did Missouri execute an innocent man?

New information leads prosecutors reopen 1980 murder case

Msnbc.com

July 12, 2005

ST. LOUIS - Citing grave concerns that Missouri executed an innocent man, a coalition that includes a congressman, high-profile lawyers and even the victim’s family pointed to evidence Tuesday that they said could clear Larry Griffin’s name.

Prosecutors have decided to reopen the case of Griffin, who was convicted in 1981 in the murder of Quintin Moss, a 19-year-old drug dealer who was shot to death. Griffin maintained his innocence to the end, but was put to death in 1995.

Now, many people, including some members of Moss’ family, believe him.

“What I have heard recently is very troubling and leads me to believe an innocent man was executed for this murder, while the real killers have not been brought to justice,” said Rep. William Lacy Clay, D-Mo., who spoke at a news conference Tuesday with other supporters of Griffin.

Professor sheds new light on case

The news conference followed a report compiled by a University of Michigan Law School professor who discovered new information on the case in the last year. The report suggests that:

  • The first police officer at the scene of the 1980 shooting, Michael Ruggeri, now says that the story told by the supposed eyewitness was false, even though Ruggeri’s own testimony at trial supported what the witness said.

  • A second victim of the shooting, Wallace Conners, has said he was never contacted by the defense or the prosecution. Conners, now 52, who was wounded in the attack, said the supposed eyewitness was not present at the shooting.

“I tell all you all, Larry Griffin did not commit this crime,” Conners told reporters. “Larry Griffin definitely wasn’t in the car.”

The report, by Michigan professor Sam Gross, called into question the credibility of the only person who testified at the trial that he saw the murder. Robert Fitzgerald later testified at an organized crime murder trial and in other prosecutions, and “judging from news coverage, he developed a reputation as a snitch who couldn’t produce convictions,” Gross’ report said. Fitzgerald died last year.

There was no DNA evidence in the case, prosecutor Jennifer Joyce said.

Prosecutor: ‘I believe the jury did the right thing’

But Gordon Ankney, the original prosecutor who is now in private practice, believes Griffin was the killer.

“I believe the jury did the right thing, and nothing’s happened that’s led me to believe otherwise,” Ankney said.

Ankney said the new information discounts several facts from the case. He said an off-duty officer saw Griffin get in the car used in the drive-by shooting the day of the murder. He said the murder weapon was found in the car and that Conners told police twice he wouldn’t be able to identify who shot him.

He also pointed out there was testimony that Griffin killed Moss in revenge for the slaying of one of Griffin’s brothers, Dennis. Moss had been questioned by police in that shooting, but not charged.

Moss’ older brother, Walter Moss, is among those supporting a reinvestigation of the case.

“I myself am not here to accuse, blame or show anger. It’s been 25 years since my brother was murdered and 10 years since Larry Griffin was put to death for that murder,” Walter Moss said.

John Fougere, a spokesman for the state Department of Corrections, said he was unaware of any previous situation where a Missouri case was reopened after an execution.

 
 

Larry Griffin - The Eye Witness Who Wasn't There

DemocracyinAction.org

On June 21, 1995, Larry Griffin was executed by the State of Missouri. Up to his last moments, he insisted that he was innocent. Ten years later, at a press conference called by Congressman William Lacy Clay, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund announced the findings of a year-long investigation that confirmed Griffin's innocence.

On June 26, 1980, Quintin Moss, a 19-year-old drug dealer, was killed on Olive Street near the corner of Sarah Avenue, a notorious center for prostitution and drug dealing known as "the stroll." He was shot by two men in the passenger seats of a slow moving car and hit 13 times. Moss, the shooters, and virtually everybody else in the neighborhood was African American.

Larry Griffin was a logical suspect. Six months earlier his brother, Dennis Griffin - a major drug dealer - had been murdered. It was widely believed that Quintin Moss killed Dennis Griffin. But Larry Griffin was one of a long list of plausible suspects. Quintin Moss had many enemies in the drug trade, and it was common knowledge that there was a contract out to kill him.

The star witness at Griffin's trial was a white man named Robert Fitzgerald. In June 1980, Fitzgerald, then 36, was a convicted felon living in a St. Louis motel under the federal witness protection program, waiting to testify against a former associate in crime in the murder of a Boston police officer. His record included convictions for possession of heroin, auto theft, armed robbery, and credit card fraud.

By the time of Griffin's trial, in 1981, Fitzgerald was back in jail in St. Louis, on new felony charges of credit card fraud. He was release the very day that Griffin was convicted. Fitzgerald told a peculiar story to the jury:

On June 26, 1980, he and an African American friend, "Carl" (who has never been identified or interviewed) were driving across town to take Carl's four-year-old daughter to Carl's mother's house. The battery lost all power, and the car rolled to a dead stop on "the stroll" around 12:30 p.m. Carl and an acquaintance of his removed the battery and took it to be recharged. For the next four hours Fitzgerald remained on that block with his broken down car, babysitting the four year old black girl.

Carl and his friend returned after 4 p.m., and were putting the battery back in the car when the drive-by shooting occurred. They jumped under the car and Carl yelled, "Get my baby!" Fitzgerald threw himself over the little girl and looked up at the windshield and front passenger-side window of the car moving toward him. He got a good view of a black man with a pistol leaning out the front passenger seat and firing a handgun. As the car left, he memorized its license plate. Fitzgerald then went to the dying Moss and was trying to take his pulse when the police arrived. He told the officers that he could identify the shooter and gave them the license plate number of the murderer's car. Later, at the police station and at trial, Fitzgerald identified Larry Griffin as the shooter in the front seat.

Other than Fitzgerald's testimony, no evidence at trial - no other witness and no physical evidence - placed Larry Griffin at the scene of this crime. As early as 1983, a Justice of the Missouri Supreme Court urged reversal of Griffin's convictions because "The only eyewitness to the murder had a seriously flawed background, and his ability to observe and identify the gunman was also subject to question."

Thirteen years after Moss's murder, Robert Fitzgerald admitted committing perjury when he positively identified Griffin in court as the person who shot Moss. Fitzgerald also revealed that the police suggested to him that he pick out Griffin's photo before he did so. Along with Fitzgerald's admission, the Legal Defense Fund investigators obtained new evidence from three other critical witnesses:

  • Patricia Moss Mason, Quinitin Moss's sister, was near the scene of the shooting. She saw it from a distance and could not identify the killers. But she had been back and forth to Olive Street repeatedly that afternoon, and has no doubt that there was no white man there, no broken down car, and certainly no white man tending to a young black girl.
     

  • At trial, only one police officer corroborated Fitzgerald's testimony, Patrolman Michael Ruggeri, the first police officer on the scene. But that officer, now retired, told Legal Defense Fund investigators and a reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that in fact he saw no one else with Moss when he arrived at the murder scene. It was not until several minutes later that Fitzgerald walked up. Ruggeri also says that he did not see Fitzgerald's broken down car near the corner of Olive and Sarah, nor any young black girl, and that these are not things he would have missed because the car would have been processed as evidence, and the girl would have been screaming and would have required care. As for Fitzgerald at the scene of the shooting: "He might have been around the block. He might have been across the street. He may have been, you know, I don't know where he was, but he wasn't there," Ruggeri said.
     

  • Wallace Conners was also at the corner of Olive and Sarah that afternoon. Moss was there to sell drugs, Conners was there to buy. Conners was struck by a stray bullet and taken to the hospital. When police initially interviewed him in the hospital, Conners did not identify Griffin as a shooter. Three days later Conners left St. Louis. He did not testify at Griffin's trial, and was never contacted either by the prosecution or by the defense at any time after June 1980. The Legal Defense Fund located him in Los Angeles in 2004.

Conners knew Larry Griffin, and states unequivocally that Griffin was not one of the shooters: "If it would have been somebody who I knew or something, I would have recognized them because I did get a look." Equally important, Conners - like Patricia Moss Mason - is certain that Robert Fitzgerald was not on the scene that afternoon. He would have stood out in the all black neighborhood, and if his car had been parked where he said it was -20 feet away from the shooting - Conners would have jumped behind it rather than run the other way. Also, Conners said, if Fitzgerald had been there, "he would have been shot just like everybody else."

The Legal Defense Fund investigation identified three other potential suspects as the driver of the murder car, and the two shooters. Unlike Larry Griffin, these men were deeply involved in the drug trade. St. Louis City Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce has reopened the case, assigning two top lawyers to investigate the Moss murder case as if it had happened yesterday rather more than 25 years ago.

Several members of Quintin's Moss's family support this new investigation. His sister Sherry Moss said that she has always doubted Griffin's guilt. And his oldest brother, Walter, said he will reserve judgment about whether Griffin was guilty until after the reinvestigation is complete, but he feels that the original police investigation was inadequate.

Margurette Hollinshed, Griffin's sister, welcomes the reinvestigation in hopes of absolving her brother. She admits that Larry Griffin made mistakes in his life, but notes that he always confessed when he actually committed a crime. This time, he maintained his innocence until the last moments.

 
 

946 F.2d 1356

Larry GRIFFIN, Appellant,
v.
Paul DELO, Appellee.

No. 90-2377.

United States Court of Appeals,
Eighth Circuit.

Submitted June 13, 1991.
Decided Oct. 11, 1991.

URBOM, Senior District Judge.

Larry Griffin appeals from a judgment of the district court1 denying his petition for a writ of habeas corpus filed pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254. We affirm.

Griffin was convicted of capital murder pursuant to § 565.001 R.S.Mo. (1978) and was sentenced to death. The Supreme Court of Missouri affirmed the conviction and sentence on appeal. State v. Griffin, 662 S.W.2d 854 (Mo. banc 1983), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 873, 105 S.Ct. 224, 83 L.Ed.2d 153 (1984). Griffin's motion for post-conviction relief was denied. Griffin v. State, 748 S.W.2d 756 (Mo.App.1988). His petition for federal habeas corpus relief pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254 was denied by Judge Filippine, who adopted the magistrate judge's report and recommendations.2

Arguing for reversal, Griffin states that (1) he was denied due process by the admission of testimony from the victim's mother regarding telephone threats she purportedly received, (2) he received ineffective assistance of counsel when his attorney failed to object to the threat testimony and failed to contact, interview, or call a certain witness, (3) he was denied his right to confront an adverse witness when the trial court admitted hearsay testimony, and (4) he was denied due process when the prosecutor knowingly used perjured hearsay testimony.

I. Threat Testimony

At the trial the state called the victim's mother as a witness to testify that she received anonymous threats over the telephone prior to her son's death. State v. Griffin, 662 S.W.2d 854, 859 (Mo. banc 1983). These threats were never directly or indirectly linked to the appellant.

Two independent grounds exist for affirming the district court's disposition of this claim. The procedural ground is that there was no timely objection at the trial and no request to strike the testimony, whereupon the petitioner has defaulted on this claim. Benson v. State, 611 S.W.2d 538 (Mo.App.1980). Accordingly, the petitioner cannot receive federal habeas corpus relief unless he shows both cause and actual prejudice for his procedural default. Wainwright v. Sykes, 433 U.S. 72, 97 S.Ct. 2497, 53 L.Ed.2d 594 (1977); Engle v. Isaac, 456 U.S. 107, 102 S.Ct. 1558, 71 L.Ed.2d 783 (1982). Neither cause nor actual prejudice has been shown or attempted to be shown.

The substantive ground for denying relief is that admissibility of evidence is a matter of state law and generally does not give rise to constitutional error subject to redress in a federal habeas corpus case. Harrison v. Dahm, 880 F.2d 999, 1001 (8th Cir.1990). An evidentiary question is reviewable "only when the alleged error infringes a specific constitutional right or is so grossly or conspicuously prejudicial that it fatally infected the trial and denied petitioner fundamental fairness." Ford v. Armontrout, 916 F.2d 457, 460 (8th Cir.1990), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 111 S.Ct. 1594, 113 L.Ed.2d 657 (1991). The appellant has failed to show that the admission of the victim's mother's testimony was so egregious as to have infected the entire trial fatally and thereby make it fundamentally unfair. Hamilton v. Nix, 809 F.2d 463, 470 (8th Cir.1960), cert. denied, 483 U.S. 1023, 107 S.Ct. 3270, 97 L.Ed.2d 768 (1987). This ground for relief is without merit.

II. Ineffective Assistance of Counsel

Appellant contends that he received ineffective assistance of counsel when his trial counsel failed to object to the victim's mother's testimony concerning telephone threats she received prior to her son's death. We disagree. The record discloses a proper and timely objection was not made by appellant's counsel, nor was a proper motion to strike made of the answer. Griffin, 662 S.W.2d at 859. However, on a motion for rehearing the Missouri Court of Appeals found that it need not address the claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, because the appellant failed to show how he was prejudiced. Griffin, 748 S.W.2d at 761. A claim of ineffective assistance of counsel is reviewed under the two-prong standard of Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984). First, the appellant must demonstrate that counsel's performance was deficient, and second, that such deficient performance prejudiced the appellant's defense. Id. at 687, 104 S.Ct. at 2064; Williamson v. Jones, 936 F.2d 1000, 1004 (8th Cir.1991).

As to the first prong, there must be a showing that the attorney did not render reasonably effective assistance. Strickland, 466 U.S. at 687-88, 104 S.Ct. at 2064-65. In conducting such a review we "indulge a strong presumption that counsel's conduct falls within the wide range of reasonable professional assistance." Id. at 689, 104 S.Ct. at 2065. The second prong requires appellant to demonstrate with reasonable probability that "but for counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different." Id. at 694, 104 S.Ct. at 2068.

The Missouri Court of Appeals found that appellant's trial counsel had filed a motion in limine to exclude the victim's mother's testimony regarding the threats and that the motion was denied. Griffin, 748 S.W.2d at 761.3 Moreover, no evidence was ever presented to link appellant to the threats. Id. Given those facts, even if counsel failed to object to the testimony at trial, we find that his performance amounted to reasonable trial strategy, was not deficient, and no prejudice has been shown.

The appellant further alleges ineffective assistance of counsel because his attorney failed to contact, interview, or call Robert Campbell as a witness who could allegedly refute damaging testimony of other witnesses. However, as explained below, the reasonable strategic and tactical decisions made by trial counsel cannot be the basis for finding ineffective assistance of counsel. Strickland, 466 U.S. at 690-691, 104 S.Ct. at 2065-66.

The trial strategy of the appellant's counsel was revealed at an evidentiary hearing, where he testified that the appellant's defense was one of alibi and more likely to succeed by keeping Campbell out of the courtroom with a motion in limine, but the motion was denied. Griffin, 748 S.W.2d at 759. It was counsel's opinion that Campbell's testimony could only implicate the appellant in an earlier attempt on the victim's life. Id. at 758. In that earlier incident in which Campbell was shot, he identified the vehicle from which his assailant alighted as one in which Griffin was soon thereafter apprehended. Id. Given such circumstances, trial counsel's actions in attempting to keep Campbell out of the courtroom were clearly trial strategy of a reasonable nature, and we find that counsel's assistance was not ineffective.

III. Confrontation of Witnesses

The appellant argues that the district court erred in finding that the appellant was not denied his constitutional right under the sixth amendment to the United States Constitution to confront an adverse witness whose testimony was presented through admissible hearsay. We agree with the district court that the appellant did not present that argument to the state courts for review. It is procedurally barred from review here.

The argument as raised on direct appeal to the Missouri Supreme Court was that the police officer's testimony "was irrelevant and its probative value was outweighed by its inflammatory and prejudicial nature." State v. Griffin, 662 S.W.2d at 857. His argument before this court is that his constitutional right of confrontation was denied by the receipt of that testimony. The two theories are not the same, and the substance of the appellant's federal habeas corpus claim was not previously presented to the state courts. See Buckley v. Lockhart, 892 F.2d 715, 719 (8th Cir.1989), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 110 S.Ct. 3243, 111 L.Ed.2d 753 (1990). The appellant has made no showing of any cause for the default or actual prejudice and the claim is procedurally barred. Wainwright v. Sykes, 433 U.S. 72, 97 S.Ct. 2497, 53 L.Ed.2d 594 (1977).

IV. Due Process

The last claim is that the district court erred in finding no denial of due process by the prosecutor's use of testimony allegedly known to be false. The appellant asserts that the prosecutor used hearsay statements of police officers to determine that Robert Campbell, after being shot, identified the appellant as his assailant, and purposefully did not call Campbell as a witness because the prosecutor knew his testimony would contradict the police officers' testimony. While a conviction obtained by the knowing use of perjured testimony is fundamentally unfair, United States v. Agurs, 427 U.S. 97, 103, 96 S.Ct. 2392, 2397, 49 L.Ed.2d 342 (1976), a challenge to evidence through another witness or prior inconsistent statements is insufficient to establish prosecutorial use of false testimony. United States v. White, 724 F.2d 714, 717 (8th Cir.1984), cert. denied, 489 U.S. 1029, 109 S.Ct. 1163, 103 L.Ed.2d 221 (1989) (citing with approval United States v. Sutherland, 656 F.2d 1181, 1203 (5th Cir.1981), cert. denied, 455 U.S. 949, 102 S.Ct. 1451, 71 L.Ed.2d 663 (1982)).

Griffin's allegation as to what Campbell's testimony would have been, had he testified, is wholly conjecture. The hearsay testimony in question was clearly admissible under the excited utterance exception and, therefore, bore a degree of trustworthiness. The prosecution's use of the police officers' hearsay testimony was not fundamentally unfair to the appellant. Furthermore, appellant has failed to show that the testimony was known to have been false or that the prosecutor's conduct was so egregious in the context of the entire trial that it rendered the trial fundamentally unfair. We find no denial of due process.

Having fully examined all of the appellant's allegations of error, we conclude that the decision of the district court denying habeas relief was correct.

Accordingly, we affirm the order of the district court.

*****

*

The Honorable Warren K. Urbom, United States Senior District Judge for the District of Nebraska, sitting by designation

1

The Honorable Edward L. Filippine, United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Missouri

2

The Honorable David C. Noce, United States Magistrate Judge for the Eastern District of Missouri

3

By a pro se letter dated August 5, 1991, the petitioner has said that the finding by the Missouri Supreme Court was in error, because "A search of the legal file reflects that a motion in limine was filed on June 22, 1981, this pleading did not address this issue in any form." Title 28, § 2254(d) requires that we presume the finding of the state court to be correct unless one of eight conditions obtains. None of those conditions has been shown to exist

 
 

33 F.3d 895

Larry GRIFFIN, Appellant,
v.
Paul DELO, Appellee.

No. 90-2377.

United States Court of Appeals,
Eighth Circuit.

Submitted Oct. 25, 1993.
Decided Aug. 23, 1994.
Rehearing and Suggestion for
Rehearing En Banc Denied Nov. 21, 1994.*

Before BEAM, Circuit Judge, FLOYD R. GIBSON, Senior Circuit Judge, and URBOM,** Senior District Judge.

URBOM, Senior District Judge.

Larry Griffin appeals a final order entered in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri denying his second, third, and fourth amended petitions for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2254.1 In support of reversal Griffin argues that he was denied effective assistance of counsel, is actually innocent, and that a pretrial photo identification was tainted by suggestive police misconduct, thereby depriving him of his constitutional due process rights. For the reasons discussed below, we affirm the orders of the district court denying habeas relief and dismissing with prejudice the petitioner's second, third, and fourth amended petitions.

I. PROCEDURAL HISTORY

On April 14, 1992, we remanded this federal habeas corpus action to the district court for further proceedings consistent with our opinion. We retained jurisdiction over the action and directed the district court to certify a final consideration of the matter. Upon remand, the petitioner filed a second amended petition and later filed a motion to assert a claim based on newly discovered evidence of actual innocence. In July 1993, the district court dismissed the second amended petition with prejudice and granted the petitioner leave to file a third amended petition to assert the claim of actual innocence. On September 16, 1993, the district court granted the petitioner's motion to file a fourth amended petition to assert a claim that his due process rights were violated by suggestive photo identification procedures employed by the St. Louis Police Department.

On October 6, 1993, the district court conducted an evidentiary hearing on the petitioner's third and fourth amended petitions. Later on October 25, 1993, the district court certified its final consideration of this habeas action and entered judgment dismissing Griffin's claim of actual innocence without prejudice and his due process claim with prejudice. However, the district court had dismissed the actual innocence claim without considering its merits based on factual findings from the evidentiary hearing. We, therefore, vacated the judgment of the district court entered on October 25, 1993, and directed the district court to complete factual findings on the evidence and merits of petitioner's claim of actual innocence.

On April 25, 1994, the district court certified its final consideration of this habeas action and entered judgment dismissing with prejudice the petitioner's second, third, and fourth amended petition for habeas corpus relief. We now review the merits of the appeal.

II. SECOND AMENDED PETITION

On April 14, 1992, we remanded this habeas action to the district court with directions that the petitioner be permitted to file a second amended petition. Griffin v. Delo, 961 F.2d 793, 794 (8th Cir.1992). Without reaching the merits of the claims, we found that counsel may not have recognized and presented issues of constitutional significance during the petitioner's post-conviction and habeas proceedings. Id. Considering the severity of the sentence, we believed that it was the most prudent course to allow the petitioner a reasonable opportunity to raise additional claims of constitutional error for consideration by the district court. On July 7, 1993, the district court issued its memorandum and order on the petitioner's second amended habeas petition. We now review the findings of the district court.

In his second amended petition for writ of habeas corpus, Griffin raises fourteen claims for relief. Numerous claims allege violations of his Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel. In addition to allegations of Sixth Amendment violations, Griffin asserts violations of his Fourteenth Amendment right to due process. Griffin further claims that his Eighth Amendment right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment, as well as his Fourteenth Amendment right to due process, were violated by an instruction in the penalty phase of his trial. Lastly, Griffin claims that his Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights were violated by the prosecutor's closing arguments in both the penalty and guilt phases of his trial.

A. Ineffective Assistance of Counsel

To prevail on an ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim the United States Supreme Court has ruled that a petitioner must establish that his attorney failed to exercise the skill and diligence that a reasonably competent attorney would exercise under similar circumstances and that "there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different." Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 694, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 2068, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984). The petitioner has the burden of establishing that counsel's conduct fell below an objective standard of reasonableness. Wing v. Sargent, 940 F.2d 1189, 1191 (8th Cir.1991). The petitioner must also affirmatively establish prejudice resulting from the attorney's conduct. Lawrence v. Armontrout, 961 F.2d 113, 115 (8th Cir.1992).

Trial counsel's failure to investigate the defendant's alibi defense did not cause the omission of affirmative evidence that would have exculpated Griffin. Nor is there any evidence of prejudice before the court such that the result of the trial would have been different. We agree with the district court's factual finding that the record reflects substantial evidence on which to find Griffin guilty of first-degree murder. We find no merit in the argument.

We also agree with the district court that there is no merit in the petitioner's claim that his trial attorney was ineffective in failing to discover that Robert Fitzgerald was placed in the Federal Witness Protection Program and relocated to St. Louis, Missouri, near the time Moss was murdered. The trial record clearly establishes that Griffin's counsel knew of Fitzgerald's participation in the program prior to trial. See Transcript of April 10, 1981, deposition of Robert John Fitzgerald at pp. 26-27. Therefore, trial counsel's conduct was not defective and the petitioner's due process claim under the Fourteenth Amendment is without merit.

Next, we review petitioner's claim that his trial counsel was ineffective because he did not present evidence at trial that Griffin is left-handed. The trial court found that evidence of Griffin's left-handedness would not have persuasively discredited Fitzgerald's testimony, because he admitted that he assumed that the gun was in the petitioner's right hand, but that he could not "say for certain" or "say positively." (emphasis added). Undercutting the right-handedness of the petitioner would have nominal, if any, effect of Fitzgerald's credibility. Moreover, Fitzgerald positively identified Griffin's features, clothes, and the vehicle in which he was riding. We agree with the trial court that even if trial counsel's conduct was deficient in failing to present evidence of Griffin's left-handedness, the prejudice prong of Strickland test has not been met.

The petitioner also contends that trial counsel failed to investigate and present evidence to rebut the prosecution's theory that Griffin had a motive to kill Moss. The prosecution advanced the theory that the petitioner believed that Moss had killed his older brother, Dennis Griffin, in January 1980. We support the district court's finding that the petitioner has not satisfied the second prejudice prong of the Strickland test. If the other-motive evidence had been admitted at trial, we cannot say that the outcome of the trial would have been different in light of the eyewitness testimony and other substantial incriminating evidence.

Griffin further alleges that his trial attorney was ineffective in failing to object to the testimony of police officer Thomas Murphy and for failing to call Robert Campbell as a witness. During his oral testimony officer Murphy told the court what Campbell had told him at the scene of the murder. Griffin argued that the hearsay admission violated his Sixth Amendment right to confront his witnesses. The respondent argued that Campbell's statements were offered by Murphy to explain the course of police conduct at the murder scene, not to prove that Griffin shot Campbell. The respondent also argued that Campbell was available and could have been called by Griffin as a witness. On appeal the Missouri Supreme Court ruled that Campbell's statements delivered through Murphy's testimony were admissible as spontaneous statements or excited utterances. State v. Griffin, 662 S.W.2d 854, 858 (Mo.1983), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 873, 105 S.Ct. 224, 83 L.Ed.2d 153 (1984). Unavailability of the declarant is not a prerequisite to satisfying the Confrontation Clause where the out-of-court statement was a spontaneous declaration. White v. Illinois, 502 U.S. 346, 112 S.Ct. 736, 116 L.Ed.2d 848 (1992). A spontaneous declaration is a "firmly rooted" exception to the hearsay rule and thus carries sufficient indicia of reliability to satisfy the Confrontation Clause's reliability requirement. Id. 502 U.S. at ---- n. 8, 112 S.Ct. at 742 n. 8. There was no violation of Griffin's Sixth Amendment right to confrontation.

The district court, reviewing the findings of the Missouri Court of Appeals on post-conviction, found no merit in Griffin's ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim focusing on the failure to call Campbell to testify. At an evidentiary hearing, Griffin's trial counsel testified that he did not contact Campbell or make arrangements for him to testify because Griffin was relying upon a clean and simple alibi defense which concerned itself with keeping Campbell out of the courtroom. Griffin v. State, 748 S.W.2d at 759. The record establishes that Griffin's counsel filed a pretrial motion in limine to exclude Campbell's testimony. Id. The Missouri Court of Appeals court found these actions to constitute matters of professional judgment and trial strategy, and the district court agreed.

Trial counsel has a duty to conduct a reasonable investigation or to make a reasonable determination that an investigation is unnecessary. When a claim for ineffective assistance of counsel is alleged on the basis of failing to investigate or act, the reasonableness of the nonfeasance must be assessed in light of all circumstances, and a significant degree of deference given to counsel and his or her professional judgment. Strickland, 466 U.S. at 691, 104 S.Ct. at 2066. In this case counsel's decision not to call Campbell was clearly a matter of trial strategy. Accordingly, trial counsel's conduct does not violate either the performance or prejudice standard in Strickland.

The petitioner has further argued that his trial counsel was ineffective in failing to object to the testimony of Missouria Moss, the decedent's mother, concerning alleged telephone threats she received prior to her son's death that were unrelated to Griffin. The Missouri Court of Appeals heard this post-conviction claim and ruled that it need not decide whether trial counsel's performance was deficient, because Griffin failed to establish that he was prejudiced. Griffin v. State, 748 S.W.2d 756, 761 (Mo.Ct.App.1988). The district court determined that the state court findings on the claim were entitled to a presumption of correctness. We agree that deference should be given to the state court findings. The petitioner submitted no evidence establishing prejudice as required by Strickland.

During voir dire the state prosecutor inquired of the venirepersons, whether, after hearing all the evidence in the case, they could consider all sentencing alternatives, including imposition of the death penalty. Griffin contends that his trial counsel was ineffective because he did not object to the prosecutor's death-qualification of the jury. In Witherspoon v. Illinois, 391 U.S. 510, 88 S.Ct. 1770, 20 L.Ed.2d 776 (1968), the United States Supreme Court held that "a sentence of death cannot be carried out if the jury that imposed or recommended it was chosen by excluding veniremen for cause simply because they voiced general objections to the death penalty or expressed conscientious or religious scruples against its infliction." Id. at 521-22, 88 S.Ct. at 1777. In a footnote the Court explained that:

a prospective juror cannot be expected to say in advance of trial whether he would in fact vote for the extreme penalty in the case before him. The most that can be demanded of a venireman in this regard is that he be willing to consider all of the penalties provided by state law, and that he not be irrevocably committed, before the trial has begun, to vote against the penalty of death regardless of the facts and circumstances that might emerge in the course of the proceedings.

Id. at 522 n. 21, 88 S.Ct. at 1777 n. 21 (emphasis in the original).

In light of Witherspoon, the Missouri Court of Appeals ruled that "[i]f death-qualification of a jury is constitutionally permissible, trial counsel cannot be faulted for failing to take any action to prevent such qualification." Griffin, 748 S.W.2d at 761. On habeas review the district court rightly found that the state court's findings of fact were supported by the record and were entitled to a presumption of correctness and that the prosecutor's challenged inquiry was proper under Witherspoon. Griffin has not satisfied the performance prong under Strickland.

On yet another ground, Griffin asserts that his trial counsel was ineffective in failing to investigate and present mitigating evidence during the penalty phase of his trial. Griffin argues that his trial attorney violated the reasonable performance standard under Strickland by failing to investigate and present evidence of mitigating circumstances. By not implicating the decedent in the death of Griffin's brother and by not calling immediate members of Griffin's family to plead for his life, Griffin argues that his trial attorney was deficient and he was deprived of effective assistance of counsel.

Following an evidentiary hearing, the Missouri Court of Appeals determined that Griffin had failed to overcome the presumption that his trial attorney had employed sound trial strategy by not presenting mitigating evidence. Griffin, 748 S.W.2d at 760. Griffin conceded that, before the penalty phase of his trial, counsel had shown him a list of statutory mitigating circumstances and Griffin had agreed that none of the circumstances applied to his case. Id. During the evidentiary hearing Griffin was asked what mitigating evidence he would have wanted his trial counsel to have presented to the jury, and he replied, "I don't know." Id. Griffin's trial counsel also testified at the evidentiary hearing that he thought it would have undermined Griffin's credibility to have had his family members take the stand and plead for mercy when Griffin had maintained his innocence throughout the trial. Given these facts, we find that Griffin has shown neither performance deficiency nor prejudice, and his claim must fail.

Griffin also challenges as ineffective the brief closing argument by his trial counsel during the penalty phase of the trial. The district court correctly found that the closing arguments in the trial were not evidence and that the trial court had so instructed the jury. We agree with the district court that there is no reason to conclude that a longer or more passionate closing argument would have resulted in an alternative sentence or that the brief dispassionate argument undermined the reliability of the jury's sentence of death. Because the petitioner has established neither a performance deficiency nor prejudice, we affirm the district court's denial of habeas relief on this claim.

Another claim asserts that Griffin's attorney on direct appeal failed to recognize and brief 1) a claim regarding a rebuttal witness to Griffin's alibi defenses under Wardius v. Oregon, 412 U.S. 470, 93 S.Ct. 2208, 37 L.Ed.2d 82 (1973); 2) an Eighth Amendment challenge to a mitigating-evidence instruction under Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U.S. 586, 98 S.Ct. 2954, 57 L.Ed.2d 973 (1978); and 3) a claim that in his closing arguments the prosecutor referred to Griffin's failure to testify in violation of Griffin v. California, 380 U.S. 609, 85 S.Ct. 1229, 14 L.Ed.2d 106 (1965).

When state law mandates that a defendant must make pretrial disclosure of his alibi witnesses, then the state must also make a pretrial disclosure of all rebuttal witnesses. Wardius, 412 U.S. at 475, 93 S.Ct. at 2212. During Griffin's trial the prosecutor called Elizabeth Mack as a rebuttal witness. Griffin objected that he had not received prior notification of Ms. Mack's appearance, even though he had disclosed his alibi defense in writing before trial. The prosecutor advised the court that he discovered Ms. Mack only after hearing the testimony of Griffin's last alibi witness, Mr. Greenlee. The prosecutor testified that after hearing Greenlee's testimony he went to the "Tradin' Times" advertising agency and found Ms. Mack. Mack testified the same afternoon. The evidence is undisputed that the prosecutor did not learn the contents of the "Tradin' Times" advertisement before Greenlee testified and only investigated the contents of the advertisement after hearing the alibi testimony. We are in agreement with the district court that no Wardius violation occurred in this context, because the prosecutor's undisputed statements to the trial judge clearly indicate that he learned of the rebuttal witness' identity only after Griffin had presented his alibi defense and disclosed her identity to the court shortly thereafter.

As discussed in Parts II C & D, infra, we find no Eighth Amendment violation under Lockhart arising from the appellate counsel's failure to brief allegedly erroneous instructions concerning the jury's finding of mitigating circumstances. After reviewing jury instructions numbered 21-23, we affirm the district court's finding that the challenged instructions do not require that the jury unanimously find each mitigating circumstance, as was struck down in McKoy v. North Carolina, 494 U.S. 433, 110 S.Ct. 1227, 108 L.Ed.2d 369 (1990) and Mills v. Maryland, 486 U.S. 367, 108 S.Ct. 1860, 100 L.Ed.2d 384 (1988). Because the challenged instructions do not violate McKoy or Mills, Griffin has not satisfied the Strickland standard. Nor does the record support a finding that counsel on direct appeal was deficient in failing to raise and brief the prosecutor's alleged references to Griffin's failure to testify in violation of Griffin v. California, supra. No reasonable juror would conclude that the prosecutor's closing argument made reference to the petitioner's failure to take the stand. Accordingly, we find no performance deficiency or prejudice on the part of appellate counsel in not briefing these claims.

Lastly, Griffin claims that the cumulative effect of all these errors occurring during his trial and direct appeal violate his Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel. The district court found some merit in the petitioner's argument but was properly governed by Byrd v. Armontrout, 880 F.2d 1, 11 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 494 U.S. 1019, 110 S.Ct. 1326, 108 L.Ed.2d 501 (1989), which requires that each claim for habeas relief must stand on its own merits. Accordingly, this claim must fail.

B. Due Process Claims

In addition to allegations of Sixth Amendment violations, the petitioner alleges multiple violations of his Fourteenth Amendment right to due process. The alleged violations occurred when the prosecution failed to disclose 1) its intended use of testimony to rebut the petitioner's alibi defense; 2) that Robert Fitzgerald, the only eyewitness to the murder, had been arrested for assault and impersonation of a law enforcement official a few months prior to the petitioner's trial; and 3) that Robert Fitzgerald had been placed in the Federal Witness Protection Program and relocated to St. Louis.

In his first due process claim the petitioner alleges that the state failed to disclose a rebuttal witness in violation of Wardius v. Oregon, 412 U.S. 470, 93 S.Ct. 2208, 37 L.Ed.2d 82 (1973). As discussed supra, the district court properly found that nothing in the trial record indicated that the prosecutor knew of Ms. Mack prior to the petitioner's calling Mr. Greenlee as an alibi witness. Given the uncontested nature of these facts, the district court found no due process violation. We agree.

In his second due process claim Griffin alleges that the prosecutor failed to inform him that the only eyewitness, Robert Fitzgerald, had been arrested for assault and impersonation of a law enforcement officer. Petitioner claims that failure to disclose this information was a violation under Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963). Suppression by the state of evidence favorable to an accused after a request for discovery violates due process where the evidence is material to guilt or punishment. Brady, 373 U.S. at 87, 83 S.Ct. at 1197. A successful Brady claim requires three findings: "(1) the prosecution suppressed the evidence, (2) the evidence was favorable to the accused, and (3) the evidence was material to the issue of guilt." United States v. Thomas, 940 F.2d 391, 392 (8th Cir.1991). " '[M]aterial' means that there exists a reasonable probability that had the evidence been disclosed to the defense, the result would have been different." Id.

Griffin's claim does not satisfy the third element under Brady. Following a thorough review of the record, the district court found that the information pertaining to Fitzgerald was not "material." The district court found that the information would not have changed the outcome of the trial, because the petitioner's cross-examination of Fitzgerald revealed his criminal history. Given Fitzgerald's prior criminal record and other misconduct, no reasonable probability exists that additional facts would have made a difference with the jury. Hence, the nondisclosed facts were not material. Failure to disclose the information did not entitle Griffin to federal habeas relief.

In his fourth claim Griffin contends that his due process rights were violated when the prosecutor failed to disclose that Fitzgerald was placed in the Federal Witness Protection Program and relocated to St. Louis. The trial record conclusively establishes that prior to trial the prosecutor disclosed Fitzgerald's participation in the Federal Witness Protection Program and his subsequent relocation to St. Louis. See Transcript of April 10, 1981, deposition of Robert John Fitzgerald at pages 26-27. Accordingly, we deny habeas relief on this claim.

In his fifth claim Griffin alleges that his Fourteenth Amendment rights to fair trial, due process, and equal protection were denied by the prosecutor's use of hearsay testimony from the decedent's mother, Missouria Moss, concerning phone threats she received prior to her son's death. In federal habeas corpus proceedings state evidentiary issues are reviewable only when "the asserted error infringed a specific constitutional protection or was so prejudicial as to deny due process." Wallace v. Lockhart, 701 F.2d 719, 724 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 464 U.S. 934, 104 S.Ct. 340, 78 L.Ed.2d 308 (1983). Due process is denied when the error is "gross, conspicuously prejudicial or of such import that the trial was fatally infected." Rhodes v. Foster, 682 F.2d 711, 714 (8th Cir.1982) (citing Maggitt v. Wyrick, 533 F.2d 383, 385 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 898, 97 S.Ct. 264, 50 L.Ed.2d 183 (1976)). This circuit has ruled that this due process standard mandates a greater showing of prejudice than is needed to support a finding of plain error on direct appeal. Redding v. Minnesota, 881 F.2d 575, 579 (8th Cir.1989), cert. denied, 493 U.S. 1089, 110 S.Ct. 1158, 107 L.Ed.2d 1061 (1990) (citing Daniels v. Wood, 819 F.2d 195, 197 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 484 U.S. 861, 108 S.Ct. 177, 98 L.Ed.2d 131 (1987)).

In light of these guidelines the district court found no due process violation deriving from the admission of Missouria Moss' testimony. The statements were not unduly prejudicial and in no way fatally infected the trial, because they did not connect the threats to the petitioner. We agree with the district court that the admission of her testimony relating to the telephone threats does not rise to the level of a federal constitutional violation of due process.

Next, the petitioner asserts that his due process rights were violated by the cumulative effect of all the errors committed during his trial and direct appeal. As we addressed the same claim in the context of the Sixth Amendment, each due process claim must succeed or fail on its own merits. Byrd, 880 F.2d at 11. Because we find no merit in any of the alleged due process claims, we deny habeas relief for cumulative claims.

C. Penalty Phase Instruction

Griffin next claims that his Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment rights were violated by an instruction requiring the jury to "first unanimously agree that a mitigating circumstance or circumstances existed" before weighing any mitigating evidence against the aggravating circumstance or circumstances. Griffin claims that the challenged instruction violates McKoy v. North Carolina, 494 U.S. 433, 110 S.Ct. 1227, 108 L.Ed.2d 369 (1990) and Mills v. Maryland, 486 U.S. 367, 108 S.Ct. 1860, 100 L.Ed.2d 384 (1988), by requiring the jurors to find each mitigating circumstance unanimously. The relevant part of jury instruction number twenty-two charged:

If you unanimously decide that a sufficient mitigating circumstance or circumstances exist which outweigh the aggravating circumstance or circumstances found by you to exist, then you must return a verdict fixing defendant's punishment at imprisonment for life by the Division of Corrections without eligibility for probation or parole until he has served a minimum of fifty years of his sentence.

Jury instruction number twenty-three charged:

Even if you decide that a sufficient mitigating circumstance or circumstances do not exist which outweigh the aggravating circumstance or circumstances found to exist, you are not compelled to fix death as the punishment. Whether that is to be your final decision rests with you.

In contrast, the jury instructions in McKoy2 and Mills3 mandated that jurors unanimously agree upon a mitigating circumstance or circumstances. The district court reasoned that instruction number twenty-two in Griffin did not "require the jurors to unanimously agree on any particular mitigating factor, as in Mills and McKoy, but rather, instructed the jurors that they must unanimously agree that the mitigating factors they found outweigh the aggravating factors before a life sentence is mandated." (Emphasis added.) Memorandum and Order, July 2, 1993, at p. 64-65. In considering a penalty of death there was no substantial probability that reasonable jurors thought, in the words of Mills, that "they were precluded from considering any mitigating evidence unless all 12 jurors agreed on the existence of a particular such circumstance." Id. at 384, 108 S.Ct. at 1870. We agree with the district court that the challenged jury instructions do not violate McKoy or Mills and are not unconstitutional.

D. Prosecutor's Closing Arguments

In his last claim for relief petitioner contends that the prosecutor's closing arguments contained improper remarks regarding Griffin's failure to testify and an erroneous legal definition of reasonable doubt. In addition, Griffin asserts that the prosecutor interjected his personal viewpoints as well as facts not in evidence into his closing argument. In doing so, Griffin contends that the prosecutor violated his Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights.

The district court properly found that no distinction exists between the guilt and penalty phases of a trial with respect to the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. A court must examine the context of the challenged remark to determine whether it was improper. Upon examining the context in which the prosecutor said "[w]hat was the defendant's testimony" during the guilt phase of the trial, the district court found that the inquiry was not an unconstitutional reference to Griffin's failure to testify, but was rather a poor choice of words. From the record it appears as if the prosecutor intended to say "defendant's evidence" and, in fact, later corrected himself. Upon review, we find no constitutional violation.

Griffin argues that the prosecutor's improper oratorical antics--evidentiary misstatements, inflammatory appeals, and an erroneous definition of reasonable doubt--rendered his trial fundamentally unfair. The district court thoroughly reviewed the trial record, including the jury instructions and closing arguments. The district court found that the prosecutor's erroneous definition of reasonable doubt was harmless, because the trial court had correctly defined reasonable doubt in the jury instructions. While finding that a few inflammatory remarks were made during the course of the prosecutor's long-winded closing argument, the district court found no errors rising to the level of a constitutional violation. We agree with the district court and find no merit in this claim.

III. THIRD AMENDED PETITION

A. Procedural Bar

In his third amended petition Mr. Griffin asserts a constitutional claim not raised in his earlier petitions. Griffin claims that his Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment rights were violated by his continued incarceration and impending execution based on newly discovered evidence. Unless a habeas petitioner shows cause and prejudice, see Wainwright v. Sykes, 433 U.S. 72, 97 S.Ct. 2497, 53 L.Ed.2d 594 (1977), a court may not reach the merits of a new claim, which constitute an abuse of the writ. McCleskey v. Zant, 499 U.S. 467, 111 S.Ct. 1454, 113 L.Ed.2d 517 (1991). Griffin seeks to establish his actual innocence as a means of obtaining federal review of his constitutional claims.

A claim of actual innocence requires a dual analysis. Schlup v. Delo, 11 F.3d 738, 739-40 (8th Cir.1993). First, a petitioner "may make the requisite showing by establishing that ... he has a colorable claim of factual innocence." Id. The United States Supreme Court has referred to the test as the "miscarriage of justice" or "actual innocence" exception. Sawyer v. Whitley, --- U.S. ----, ----, 112 S.Ct. 2514, 2519, 120 L.Ed.2d 269 (1992). An assertion of actual innocence is "not itself a constitutional claim, but instead a gateway through which a habeas petitioner must pass to have his otherwise barred constitutional claim considered on the merits." Herrera v. Collins, --- U.S. ----, ----, 113 S.Ct. 853, 862, 122 L.Ed.2d 203 (1993). Accordingly, we must determine whether Mr. Griffin's claim of actual innocence opens the gateway to our consideration of his constitutional claims on that basis.

Upon the order of this panel the district court conducted an evidentiary hearing on October 6, 1993. The district court heard testimony from Kerry Caldwell, one of four individuals allegedly involved in Moss' murder; Robert Fitzgerald, the only eyewitness to the murder; Terrence McDonough, a private investigator hired by the petitioner's habeas counsel; and Frederick Steiger, petitioner's trial and appellate counsel.

After considering the testimony, evidentiary submissions, and arguments, the district court found that the newly discovered evidence did not entitle Griffin to habeas relief. At no point during the evidentiary hearing did Fitzgerald recant his pretrial identification of Griffin. Fitzgerald's testimony at the state trial held in June 1981, as well as his testimony in the evidentiary hearing conducted thirteen years later, consistently maintained that the photograph he had selected matched the front-seat passenger he saw shoot Moss. Fitzgerald has consistently testified that he had a clear, unobstructed view of the gunman for a period of between thirty to forty-five seconds.

Fitzgerald's testimony at the evidentiary hearing further established that Fitzgerald had never doubted his in-court identification of Griffin prior to the time he met with McDonough. After observing and questioning Fitzgerald at the evidentiary hearing, the district court determined that his testimony was not credible to the extent it differed from his earlier testimony in state court. The district court also determined that Fitzgerald's statements contained in the McDonough affidavit were the product of bias and were offered in an attempt to provide petitioner with relief while not refuting his earlier, more credible trial testimony.

The district court further found that Kerry Caldwell's recent statements were insufficient to entitle Griffin to habeas relief. At the evidentiary hearing Caldwell testified that on the day Moss was murdered, he, Caldwell, went to a telephone, called a drug gang member named Darryl Smith, and alerted Smith that Moss was trafficking at the corner of Sarah and Olive Streets in north St. Louis. Caldwell testified that he waited on the street corner and twenty-five minutes later a Chevrolet Impala arrived at the corner. According to Caldwell, the car was owned by Ronnie Thomas-Bey and driven by Humphrey Scott. Darryl Smith was in the back seat with a 30/30 carbine rifle, and a man named Hump (also known as Parker) was in the front passenger seat with a pistol. Caldwell testified that Griffin was not a member of the drug ring, was not present on the day of the shooting, and had no involvement in the shooting death of Moss. According to Caldwell, he, Humphrey Scott, Darryl Smith, and Hump (Parker) were responsible for the Moss murder.

The record reflects that Scott was killed in 1986, Smith was killed in 1990, and Caldwell testified that he does not know whether Hump (Parker) has been granted immunity or whether he is even alive today. Caldwell also testified that he was good friends with the Griffin family from having grown up in the same neighborhood. He stated that the petitioner's brother, Brian Griffin, had given him money upon his release from prison in 1988.

In 1990, Caldwell was arrested for carrying a concealed weapon. The state charge was dismissed and Caldwell was federally charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm. Federal authorities granted Caldwell conditional immunity in exchange for his testimony regarding offenses involving Jerry Lewis-Bey. Caldwell testified that he discussed the Moss killing with federal agents, including Robert Dwyer, a former detective with the Drug Enforcement Agency who submitted an affidavit in September 1993. In his affidavit Dwyer averred that in December 1990 or January 1991 Caldwell discussed with him his knowledge and involvement in the Moss murder. Dwyer said that Caldwell confessed to him that he was involved in the Moss murder and was an eyewitness. Dwyer further averred that Caldwell definitely told him that Griffin was not present at the murder scene and had nothing to do with the murder of Moss.

Upon carefully reviewing Caldwell's testimony, this panel remanded the district court's October 1993 memorandum and order for a factual finding on the actual innocence claim. On May 6, 1994, the district court issued a well-reasoned memorandum in which it did not find Caldwell's testimony sufficiently credible to warrant habeas relief at such a late hour. In particular, the district court found numerous discrepancies between Caldwell's testimony at the 1981 trial and his testimony before the October 1993 evidentiary hearing. In addition, former DEA agent Robert Dwyer did not testify at the evidentiary hearing to substantiate Caldwell's claims, and no explanation was given for Dwyer's absence.

The district court further found that Caldwell came forward very belatedly in an attempt to save Griffin by identifying three men he asserts were involved in Moss' murder. Like the district court, this panel is cognizant of the fact that two men named by Caldwell are dead and the whereabouts of the third man are completely unknown. Given these circumstances, the petitioner has not shown by clear and convincing evidence that but for a constitutional error no reasonable jury would have found him guilty. Thus, no basis exists upon which to sustain the motion for stay or to reverse the district court.

B. Due Process

The second prong of Griffin's "actual innocence" allegation requires that we consider the claim itself as a constitutional violation. Schlup v. Delo, 11 F.3d at 743. The Supreme Court in Herrera declared "that in a capital case a truly persuasive demonstration of 'actual innocence' made after trial would render the execution of a defendant unconstitutional, and warrant federal habeas relief if there were no state avenue open to process such a claim." Herrera, --- U.S. at ----, 113 S.Ct. at 869. In a concurrence Justice O'Connor emphasized that such "federal proceedings and relief--if they are to be had at all--are reserved for 'extraordinarily high' and 'truly persuasive demonstrations of "actual innocence" ' that cannot be presented to state authorities." --- U.S. at ----, 113 S.Ct. at 874 (quoting the opinion of the Court).

The Herrera decision directs the resolution of Griffin's actual innocence claim. As explained above in part III-A, when the new evidence is analyzed, the inconsistencies and weaknesses are readily apparent, as is the eleventh-hour nature of the claim. As such, the petitioner has not met the extraordinarily high burden and no truly persuasive demonstration of actual innocence is before the panel. Cf. Schlup, 11 F.3d at 744.

IV. FOURTH AMENDED PETITION

The district court gave Griffin leave to file a fourth amended petition in which he alleged that the St. Louis police officers violated his due process rights by engaging in suggestive misconduct during a pretrial photo identification procedure in which Robert Fitzgerald positively identified the petitioner. Griffin claims that he is entitled to a new trial because a substantial likelihood exists that he was mistakenly identified by Fitzgerald. Moreover, Griffin contends that any subsequent in-court identification was irreparably tainted by improper police conduct. Because the district court found that the actual innocence exception to the procedural bar applied to this claim, the district court addressed the merits of the claim.

A conviction based on eyewitness identification will be set aside only when pre-trial identification procedures were so impermissibly suggestive that the procedures themselves give rise to a very substantial likelihood of irreparable harm. Trevino v. Dahm, 2 F.3d 829, 833 (8th Cir.1993). The analysis for challenging an improper identification mandates two separate findings. First, a court must determine whether the challenged confrontation between the witness and suspect was impermissibly suggestive. Graham v. Solem, 728 F.2d 1533, 1541 (8th Cir.1981), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 842, 105 S.Ct. 148, 83 L.Ed.2d 86 (1984). If so, then the court must decide whether, under the totality of the circumstances, the suggestive confrontation created a substantial likelihood of irreparable misidentification. Id. Second, a court must ascertain whether the identification procedure was so needlessly suggestive and conducive to mistaken identification as to be fundamentally unfair. Id. In essence the second inquiry is whether the challenged identification is reliable. The Supreme Court has declared that the factors a court is to consider in evaluating the likelihood of misidentification include:

the opportunity of the witness to view the criminal at the time of the crime, the witness' degree of attention, the accuracy of the witness' prior description of the criminal, the level of certainty demonstrated by the witness at the confrontation, and the length of time between the crime and the confrontation.

Neil v. Biggers, 409 U.S. 188, 199-200, 93 S.Ct. 375, 382, 34 L.Ed.2d 401 (1972).

When an identification procedure is challenged in a habeas corpus action under 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2254, the court must presume the state court's factual findings are correct, unless the findings lack fair support in the record. Graham, 728 F.2d at 1540 (citing Marshall v. Lonberger, 459 U.S. 422, 103 S.Ct. 843, 74 L.Ed.2d 646 (1983)); 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2254(d)(8). This court has previously ruled that the presumption applies to the evaluation of both factors relevant to the determination of reliability as well as to the credibility determinations. See Trevino, 2 F.3d at 833; Graham, 728 F.2d at 1540-41. The district court found that the record fairly supported the trial court's factual findings regarding the pretrial photograph identification and that the findings would be presumed correct. We agree.

At the October 1993 evidentiary hearing Fitzgerald testified that he had no doubt that his pretrial identification of Griffin was accurate. The district court found that at no time during the hearing did Fitzgerald recant his testimony. Cf. Lewis v. Erickson, 946 F.2d 1361, 1362 (8th Cir.1991). The district court further found that Fitzgerald questioned the accuracy of his in-court identification only after Terrence Donough, a private investigator, informed him that Griffin had been given the death penalty for the Moss murder.

The district court determined that the pretrial identification of petitioner by Fitzgerald was reliable and not tainted by improper police conduct. There is no error in that finding.

V. CONCLUSION

For all the foregoing reasons we affirm the district court's dismissal of Griffin's first4, second, third, and fourth amended habeas petitions.

*****

BEAM, concurring specially.

*

Arnold, Chief Judge, McMillian and Wollman, Circuit Judges, would grant the suggestion for rehearing en banc

**

The HONORABLE WARREN K. URBOM, United States Senior District Judge for the District of Nebraska, sitting by designation

1

On October 11, 1991, this panel addressed the merits of petitioner's claims in his first petition for writ of habeas corpus and affirmed the district court's denial of relief. Griffin v. Delo, 946 F.2d 1356 (8th Cir.1991). Later, on April 14, 1992, we vacated the opinion and remanded to the district court for further consideration of additional claims to be raised by the petitioner. Griffin v. Delo, 961 F.2d 793 (8th Cir.1992). We consider our initial opinion the final disposition of the petitioner's claims raised in the first habeas petition and do not revisit the claims here

2

During the sentencing phase in McKoy's trial, the court instructed the jury to answer four questions, both orally and in writing, in determining its sentence. The first issue asked, "Do you unanimously find from the evidence, beyond a reasonable doubt, the existence of one or more of the following aggravating circumstances?" The second issue asked, "Do you unanimously find from the evidence the existence of one or more of the following mitigating circumstances?" The third issue asked, "Do you unanimously find beyond a reasonable doubt that the mitigating circumstance or circumstances found by you is, or are, insufficient to outweigh the aggravating circumstance or circumstances found by you?" (emphasis added). The fourth issue asked, "Do you unanimously find beyond a reasonable doubt that the aggravating circumstance or circumstances found by you is, or are, sufficiently substantial to call for the imposition of the death penalty when considered with the mitigating circumstance or circumstances found by you." (emphasis added). McKoy, 494 U.S. 433, 436-37, 110 S.Ct. 1227, 1230, 108 L.Ed.2d 369 (1990)

3

The Supreme Court explained that at the time Mills was before the high court, Maryland jurors were instructed to mark "yes" or "no" to their determination of which, if any, mitigating circumstances existed. The jurors could not mark any box without unanimity, and nothing in the jury instructions or verdict forms indicated that the jurors could leave an answer blank. Mills, 486 U.S. 367, 378-79, 108 S.Ct. 1860, 1867-68, 100 L.Ed.2d 384 (1988)

4

The petitioner's first petition for writ of habeas corpus was reviewed and denied by this panel on October 11, 1991. See Griffin v. Delo, 946 F.2d 1356 (8th Cir.1991)

 

 

 
 
 
 
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