## Facts

- John Wesley Clutchette, a California state prisoner, was convicted of first-degree murder for the killing of Bob Bowles.
- Police found Bowles’s body in Sacramento the day after the killing; an eyewitness reported that Clutchette shot Bowles in a car and then shot him again after removing him from the vehicle.
- The initial prosecution was dismissed for lack of evidence, but the case was revived after new evidence emerged.
- Clutchette’s wife, hired as an investigator by his defense attorney, contacted police and voluntarily provided receipts she had been sent to retrieve in connection with the defense.
- The receipts led police to an auto upholstery shop and to removed car seat covers; testing indicated small bloodstains consistent with the victim’s blood type.
- At Clutchette’s trial, the court excluded testimony about communications concerning the receipts under the attorney-client privilege but admitted the receipts and related physical evidence.
- After exhausting state remedies, Clutchette sought federal habeas relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, arguing a constitutionally improper interference with the defense relationship and error in allowing the state additional time to respond; the district court denied relief.

## Issues

1. Whether the use of receipts and derivative physical evidence provided by the defendant’s wife, acting as a defense investigator, amounted to a Sixth Amendment violation or otherwise rendered counsel constitutionally ineffective where the state did not instigate the disclosure.
2. Whether the attorney-client privilege required exclusion of physical items (receipts and seat covers) rather than only exclusion of privileged communications about them.
3. Whether the district court erred by extending the state’s time to answer the habeas petition beyond the period specified in Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 81(a)(2), given Rule 4 of the Rules Governing § 2254 Cases.

## Decision

- The Ninth Circuit affirmed the denial of habeas relief.
- The court held there was no unconstitutional intrusion into the attorney-client relationship because the government did not direct, solicit, or orchestrate the wife’s disclosure; she acted voluntarily.
- The court held the attorney-client privilege did not bar admission of the receipts or other physical evidence; the privilege applied to confidential communications, which the trial court properly excluded.
- The court held the district court did not abuse its discretion in granting the state additional time to respond because Rule 4 of the § 2254 Rules authorizes the court to set response deadlines.

## Legal Principles

- The Sixth Amendment is implicated by purposeful government intrusion into the defense camp; voluntary disclosures by private actors, without government instigation, generally do not establish a constitutional violation.
- Attorney-client privilege protects confidential communications made for legal advice; it does not immunize independent physical evidence from admission at trial.
- In § 2254 proceedings, Rule 4 of the Rules Governing § 2254 Cases permits the district court to set and extend the time for an answer, notwithstanding more general civil-rule time limits where directly inconsistent.

## Conclusion

The Ninth Circuit rejected the habeas challenge because the state did not engineer the disclosure by the defense investigator-wife, the attorney-client privilege properly excluded only communications and not the physical receipts and derivative evidence, and the district court had discretion under the § 2254 rules to extend the state’s response deadline.


Clutchette v. Rushen, 770 F.2d 1469 (9th Cir. 1985)