United States v. Ragen
Citation | 172 F. Supp. 734 |
Decision Date | 28 April 1959 |
Docket Number | No. 57C2027.,57C2027. |
Parties | UNITED STATES ex rel. Emil RECK, Relator, v. Joseph E. RAGEN, Respondent. |
Court | United 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.
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:
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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