Malcolm Joe Davis, Cross-Appellant v. Steve W. Puckett, Superintendent of the Mississippi State Penitentiary, Cross-Appellees

GEE, Circuit Judge:

On April 13, 1980, a jury in Pearl River County, Mississippi, convicted Malcolm Joe Davis of rape and sentenced him to thirty years imprisonment. After appealing his conviction unsuccessfully in state court, Davis filed a petition in federal district court for habeas corpus relief, asserting that his conviction contravened the constitution in various respects. Davis raised three major claims: First, that the trial court erroneously admitted his confession into evidence and thus violated his due process rights under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, the confession being…