United States v. Ragen

Citation172 F. Supp. 734
Decision Date28 April 1959
Docket NumberNo. 57C2027.,57C2027.
PartiesUNITED STATES ex rel. Emil RECK, Relator, v. Joseph E. RAGEN, Respondent.
CourtUnited States District Courts. 7th Circuit. United States District Court (Northern District of Illinois)

Latham Castle, Atty. Gen., State of Illinois, for respondent.

A. Bradley Eben, Chicago, Ill., for relator.

CAMPBELL, Chief Judge.

The Relator, Emil Reck, was convicted of murder in the Criminal Court of Cook County, Illinois, after trial by jury in 1936, and sentenced to the Illinois State Penitentiary for a term of 199 years. At his trial, two confessions to the crime by Reck were received in evidence. At a preliminary hearing by the Court the confessions were found to be voluntary and admissible. On the trial they were again specially found to be voluntary by the jury. After conviction a Writ of Error was taken by Relator to the Illinois Supreme Court and the conviction affirmed. The Writ, however, did not raise the question of the admissibility of the confession, and thus this issue was not presented for review in that case. People v. Reck, 392 Ill. 311, 64 N.E.2d 526. Some considerable time thereafter, Relator filed a petition under the Illinois Post Conviction Hearing Act, S.H.A. ch. 38, § 826 et seq. A hearing was had by the Criminal Court of Cook County, Illinois, and relief denied. Subsequently, upon appeal, the Supreme Court of Illinois affirmed the Criminal Court's finding that no constitutional rights of the petitioner had been violated at his trial. Reck v. People, 7 Ill.2d 261, 130 N.E.2d 200. The United States Supreme Court denied Certiorari without prejudice to an application for a Writ of Habeas Corpus in an appropriate United States District Court. Reck v. People of State of Illinois, 351 U.S. 942, 76 S.Ct. 838, 100 L.Ed. 1469.

Relator then filed his petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus in this Court, the same issued, and was duly answered. At the hearing on the Writ and Answer records of all proceedings in the Courts of the State of Illinois involving Relator were received into evidence on the stipulation of the parties in open Court that said records were complete and authentic, and both sides rested. The cause is now before me for disposition on such record and on the written briefs and arguments of the parties hereto.

A summary of the facts of Relator's crime by the Supreme Court of Illinois is found on pages 262 and 263 of 7 Ill.2d, at page 201 of 130 N.E.2d, as follows:

"Dr. Peacock, a prominent Chicago pediatrician residing in an Edgewater Beach apartment, on the night of January 2, 1936, responded to a telephone call at his home to administer medical aid to a child living at 6438 North Whipple Avenue. He left his apartment but did not return. The following afternoon his lifeless body was found, drenched in blood, slumped on the rear floor of his car, parked at 6326 North Francisco Avenue, Chicago. There were thirteen deep lacerations on his head and a bullet hole passing through his brain. There were no fingerprints. There were no clues. The doctor had no enemies. The Chicago Medical Society offered a substantial reward. Every conceivable effort was made to find a solution to this mysterious brutal homicide. Daily newspaper notoriety attended the search for the guilty. Almost three months elapsed before a solution appeared in the confession obtained from four teenage boys.
"On Wednesday, March 25, 1936, petitioner, age 19, Durland Nash and Robert Goeth also 19 and Michael Livingston, age 17, were arrested on suspicion of stealing bicycles.
Livingston was released to his mother on Thursday and later rearrested. These boys were questioned about many robberies and burglaries and were shifted from one police station to another, being on parade at many `show ups.' By accident these boys were questioned about the Peacock murder, and then, only after having been detained 72 hours, Durland Nash was the first to confess, implicating Goeth, Reck and Livingston. On the following Sunday, the four boys were taken to the private office of the first assistant State's Attorney Crowley to make a joint confession in the presence of a court reporter. Their statement of what transpired on the night of January 2, 1936, runs as follows:
"In the early evening of January 2, 1936, the four boys met and were riding in a Ford automobile driven by Jimmy Nash. They stopped at a Walgreen drug store somewhere on North Western Avenue. Robert Goeth and Nash got out of the car, went into the drug store, called Dr. Peacock and requested that he make a professional call on a sick child at 6438 North Whipple Avenue. The boys, while planning the robbery, had previously explored this neighborhood and found it to be dark and unfrequented. The two boys came back to the car and reported that their victim would be at the above address shortly, whereupon they drove there and parked their car nearby. Dr. Peacock arrived, parked his car in front of 6438, alighted from the car with his medicine case, and was approached by Robert Goeth who put a gun in his back and ordered him to re-enter his car, which he did. Livingston remained in the Ford and followed the doctor's car which was driven by Nash with Goeth sitting on his right and the petitioner with the doctor in the rear seat. After they drove some distance they ordered the doctor out of his car and demanded his money. He said he didn't have any money and started fighting with Goeth. When Goeth got loose he fired the shots at the doctor, and while the doctor was lying on the ground breathing heavily, Reck, finished killing him with a wooden club about one foot in length that he carried as a weapon. The boys searched the doctor's pockets and found $20, divided it equally, and left him lying on the floor of the rear seat of his car. Goeth also struck him several times with the butt of his gun while he was lying on the ground. After driving away, the four separated and went their respective ways."

The record, which I have considered in the light most favorable to Relator, discloses that Emil Reck, was at the time of this horrible crime but nineteen years old. Throughout his life he had been repeatedly classified as mentally retarded and deficient by psychologists and psychiatrists of the Institute for Juvenile Research in Chicago. At one time he had been committed to an institution for the feebleminded, where he had spent a year. He dropped out of school at the age of 16, never having completed the 7th grade, and was found to have the intelligence of a child between 10 and 11 years of age at the time of his trial. Aside from his retardation, he was never a behavior problem and bore no criminal record.

Reck was arrested in Chicago without a warrant at 11:00 a. m. Wednesday, March 25, 1936, on suspicion of stealing bicycles. He was then shuttled between the North Avenue Police Station and the Shakespeare Avenue Police Station until 1:15 p. m., at which time he was returned to the North Avenue Police Station and there interrogated mainly about bicycle thefts until 6:30 or 7:00 p. m. He was then taken to the Warren Avenue Police Station where he spent the night. During this time he was fed a ham sandwich and coffee at the North Avenue Station and a bologna sausage sandwich at the North Avenue Station and a bologna sausage sandwich at the Warren Avenue Station.

On Thursday, at 10:00 a. m., Reck was brought back to the North Avenue Station where he was interrogated some six or seven hours about various crimes in the District. Afterwards, he was sent to the Shakespeare Station and later that evening he was taken downtown to the Detective Bureau where he was exhibited at a so-called "show-up." The record does not indicate where Reck spent the night. The record shows that Reck was fed an egg sandwich and a glass of milk on Thursday but apparently nothing else.

The record is silent as to where Reck spent Friday morning but it is clear that interrogation was resumed sometime in the early afternoon. Friday evening over one hundred people congregated in the North Avenue Police Station where Reck was exhibited on the second floor. Shortly after 7:00 p. m. Reck fainted and was brought to the Cook County Hospital where he was examined by an intern who found no marks or bruises upon his body and rejected him for treatment. Reck was then taken directly back to the North Avenue Station where he was immediately again placed on exhibition. He again became sick and was taken to an unfurnished handball room, where a Sergeant Aitken, assigned to the Peacock murder investigation, questioned him about the Peacock murder for a short period of time. Reck again became sick and a Dr. Abraham was called who later testified that Reck was extremely nervous, that he was exposed and that his shirt was unbuttoned and hanging outside of his pants. He was rubbing his abdomen and complaining of pain in that region. After an examination of 60 to 90 seconds, Dr. Abraham left and Reck was questioned intermittently and exhibited to civilians until approximately 9:30 p. m. when he became ill and vomited a considerable amount of blood on the floor.

Reck was again brought to the Cook County Hospital at 10:15 p. m. on Friday where he was placed in a ward and given injections of morphine, atropine, and ipecac twice during the evening. At about 2:00 a. m. two physicians, Doctor Scatliff and Doctor Day, who were members of a Chicago Medical Society which had been assisting the police in the Peacock murder came at the request of Prosecutor Kearney to see if there were any marks of brutality on Reck. They found the door to Reck's room barred by a police officer. After securing permission from one, Police Captain O'Connell, they went in and found Reck asleep and therefore made only a cursory examination in the dark which revealed nothing conclusive. At 9:00 a. m. on Saturday, Reck told Dr. Zachary Felsher of the Cook County Hospital that the police had been beating him in the stomach. He also told Dr. Weissman of the same hospital that he had been...

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6 cases
  • Reck v. Pate
    • United States
    • U.S. Supreme Court
    • June 12, 1961
    ... ... 'without prejudice to an application for a writ of habeas corpus in an appropriate United States District Court.' Reck v. People of State of Illinois, 351 U.S. 942, 76 S.Ct. 838, 100 L.Ed ... ...
  • Mackey v. United States
    • United States
    • U.S. Supreme Court
    • April 5, 1971
    ...clearly held that the admissibility of his confession was to be judged by standards prevailing in 1936. United States ex rel. Reck v. Ragen, 172 F.Supp. 734, 745—746 (ND Ill.1959). However, this choice of law problem was not expressly adverted to and the case arose before this Court produce......
  • United States v. Fay
    • United States
    • U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit
    • June 11, 1964
    ...other cases, the confession would have to be excluded, but declined to apply those cases retroactively. See United States ex rel. Reck v. Ragen, 172 F.Supp. 734, 747 (N.D.Ill.1959). The Supreme Court's opinion did not even allude to the problem of The confession cases are a particularly per......
  • People of State of California v. Hurst
    • United States
    • U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit
    • January 27, 1964
    ...of his confessions. Today, the Due Process Clause is violated under subsequently announced criteria." United States ex rel. Reck v. Ragen, 172 F.Supp. 734, 745 (N.D.Ill. 1959). The district court refused to apply retroactively the new standards for much the same reasons advanced in oppositi......
  • Request a trial to view additional results
1 books & journal articles
  • 'n' guilty men.
    • United States
    • University of Pennsylvania Law Review Vol. 146 No. 1, November 1997
    • November 1, 1997
    ...district court rulings that deal with n. A district court in Illinois denied the maxim entirely in United States ex rel. Reck v. Ragen, 172 F. Supp. 734, 745 (N.D. Ill. 1959), rev'd on other grounds, 367 U.S. 433 (1961), stating: "This `maxim' . . . is fallacious, since it places the price ......

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