Sharpe v. Commonwealth of Kentucky, 9717.

• Decision Date: 24 April 1944
• Docket Number: No. 9717.,9717.
• Citation: 142 F.2d 213
• Parties: SHARPE v. COMMONWEALTH OF KENTUCKY.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

142 F.2d 213 (1944)

SHARPE v. COMMONWEALTH OF KENTUCKY.

No. 9717.

Circuit Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

April 24, 1944.

Robert M. Sharpe, of Lexington, Ky., for appellant.

No counsel appearing for appellee.

Before SIMONS, MARTIN, and McALLISTER, Circuit Judges.

McALLISTER, Circuit Judge.

This case has been before the state and federal courts on several occasions. Ex parte Sharpe, D.C., 36 F.Supp. 386; Sharpe v. Buchanan, 6 Cir., 121 F.2d 448; Sharpe v. Buchanan, 317 U.S. 238, 63 S.Ct. 245, 87 L.Ed. 238; Sharpe v. Commonwealth, 6 Cir., 135 F.2d 974; Sharpe v. Commonwealth, 284 Ky. 88, 143 S.W.2d 857; Sharpe v. Commonwealth, 292 Ky. 86, 165 S.W.2d 993.

Appellant now appeals from an order of the district court, denying his petition for a writ of habeas corpus. He was convicted of the crime of murder, by a jury in the Fayette Circuit Court, of Kentucky, on April 21, 1938, and was sentenced to life imprisonment. No appeal was taken and appellant has been confined to the state penitentiary since that time. He claims that the verdict and judgment were the result of perjured testimony; that an involuntary confession was secured from him by threats, mistreatment, and promises; and that one Patrick Stevens, had subsequently confessed to the murder, but has since repudiated such confession because of threats and intimidation.

Richard Mutran, the murdered man, was found in his oil station, in Lexington, Kentucky, on the night of December 12, 1937, his head having been battered in by blows from a heavy hammer. Appellant was an intimate friend of the murdered man, and admitted having been with him at his place of business on the night of the murder, shortly before it occurred. The police found that the last sales slip on Mutran's sales book was made out to appellant. They questioned him and, on several occasions, he stated that when he left the oil station, a Negro man and woman had just driven up in a car. He later admitted this was false and stated that no one was at the oil station when he left. Appellant informed the police that he had not known of Mutran's death until late on the night of the murder, when a friend called upon him and told him about it. The police were unable to secure any clues to the slayer. They do not appear to have thought that appellant committed the crime, but there seems to have been a lightly held suspicion that he might have known something about it and might be shielding the guilty person. However, this came to nothing, until more than two months after the murder, when, on February 16, 1938, appellant appeared at the police station in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and reported to the officers that he had been kidnapped by two men and had been driven all night from Lexington; and that the kidnappers had then let him out, told him to report the theft of his automobile to the police, and continued on with his car, which was found, shortly thereafter, on the outskirts of Chattanooga.

Appellant, some time after his report of the kidnapping, enlarged his story and told police that he had seen the two kidnappers at Mutran's place of business, on the night of the murder; that they had been with Mutran when appellant had left; and that about ten minutes after appellant drove away from the oil station, they drove up to his home, called him out, told him that Mutran had been killed, and warned him to say nothing to the police about having seen them at the oil station, under threat of being murdered, together with his family. Although he had never seen the men before the night of the murder, he had no explanation as to how they knew where he lived. He explained his delay in informing the police about the men for more than two months, because of his fear that he would be killed. He said that he had told his former story about the Negroes' being at the oil station when he left there, on the night of the murder, in order to shield the two actual murderers and, in turn, to protect himself from their vengeance. With regard to these murderers, he subsequently told the police that he had heard Mutran call one of these men Johnson, and that he had subsequently seen him and talked with him on several occasions — one of these times being at another oil station. The proprietor of the latter place, Tomlinson, remembered that appellant had talked with a man, Ed Johnson, whom he knew, and he advised the police where this man lived in Detroit.

Appellant accompanied the police to...