Reeves v. Warden, Maryland Penitentiary, Civ. No. 13418.

• Decision Date: 05 March 1964
• Docket Number: Civ. No. 13418.
• Citation: 226 F. Supp. 953
• Parties: Charles James REEVES v. WARDEN, MARYLAND PENITENTIARY.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Maryland

226 F. Supp. 953

Charles James REEVES v. WARDEN, MARYLAND PENITENTIARY.

Civ. No. 13418.

United States District Court D. Maryland.

March 5, 1964.

Morton P. Fisher, Jr., Baltimore, Md., court-appointed attorney, for petitioner.

Franklin Goldstein, Asst. Atty. Gen. (Thomas B. Finan, Atty. Gen., Baltimore, Md., on the brief), for respondent.

THOMSEN, Chief Judge.

This is a petition for a writ of habeas corpus filed by a State prisoner who is serving a life sentence after having been convicted of rape by Judge Byrnes sitting without a jury in the Criminal Court of Baltimore City.

Statement of Facts

This brief statement of facts will be supplemented by separate statements dealing with each of the important points considered. The facts have been found from evidence presented at the hearing in this Court, which included the entire transcript of the trial in the Criminal Court.

On July 23, 1959, about 11:30 p. m., Nancy Austin, then 19 years of age, was raped in her fifth floor apartment at 829 N. Charles Street, Baltimore, Maryland. Her attacker held a broken half-pint vodka bottle to her throat and raped her three times. After about 45 minutes, she escaped from the apartment, and as she ran downstairs her assailant threw the bottle at her, it was further broken into a number of smaller pieces. The police were notified promptly and an examination by a police doctor confirmed the intercourse. Miss Austin described her assailant to the officers, and Sergeant Ford recognized the similarity between the man she described and petitioner, who had previously been convicted of burglary in the same neighborhood. Petitioner's photograph was shown to Miss Austin, along with the photographs of several other men who fitted generally the description she had given. She identified the photograph of petitioner as that of her assailant, and he was arrested the following night. Miss Austin identified petitioner in a line-up and confirmed her identification when she examined him more closely for evidence of a rash on his face. At the trial in the Criminal Court Miss Austin identified petitioner positively; the alibi witnesses presented by the defense were not believed by the trial judge, who dictated an oral opinion stating his reasons for finding petitioner guilty.

Petitioner was represented at his trial by two lawyers, one selected by him or by his family, and the other an attorney with wide experience in criminal cases selected by the family lawyer.

Proceedings after the Trial

A motion for a new trial was prepared, filed and argued before the Supreme Bench of Baltimore City by another experienced criminal lawyer who was appointed by the Court for that purpose, and who was assisted by the family lawyer. They stressed the absence of circumstantial evidence to support the identification of petitioner. The motion was denied by the Supreme Bench on April 2, 1960. An appeal was taken from the conviction by still another lawyer, who pressed three points,¹ all of which were discussed briefly in the opinion of the Court of Appeals. The judgment was affirmed on March 13, 1961. Reeves v. State, 224 Md. 436, 168 A.2d 353. A writ of certiorari was denied by the Supreme Court on October 9, 1961. Reeves v. Maryland, 368 U.S. 865, 82 S.Ct. 113, 7 L.Ed.2d 62.

Petitioner then sought a writ of habeas corpus in this Court, which was denied by Judge Chesnut because petitioner had not exhausted his State remedies. Thereupon petitioner filed an application under the Post Conviction Procedure Act, Md. Code, Art. 27, sec. 645A et seq., alleging four grounds for relief: (1) illegal search and seizure; (2) that he was framed; (3) that the State suppressed material evidence; and (4) that he was convicted on perjured testimony resulting from inducement by the police or collusion between the police and the State's Attorney. A judge in the Criminal Court denied the application for relief under the PCPA without a hearing. An application for leave to appeal was denied by the Court of Appeals of Maryland, Reeves v. Warden, 231 Md. 613, 188 A.2d 698, because (1) the general allegation of illegal search and seizure without sufficient facts to justify the claim was not a ground for relief under the PCPA; because (2) petitioner's claim that he was framed, without any specification of facts, was too vague and general; and because contentions (3) and (4), having been adjudicated on the original appeal, could not be raised again even though in slightly different phraseology he based his fourth contention on a denial of due process rather than on an abuse of discretion.

The Present Petition and Hearing

The present petition for a writ of habeas corpus raises the following points: (1) illegal arrest; (2) illegal search and seizure; (3) suppression of evidence; (4) failure of the State to produce certain witnesses known to be helpful to the defense; (5) illegal detention without advice of counsel; (6) inadequate defense; (7) insufficient evidence; (8) petitioner was framed and falsely accused; (9) the State's witnesses gave false and perjured testimony; (10) lack of a fair trial; and (11) the State's Attorney made false and perjured statements in the course of the trial.

Because the hearing in the PCPA proceeding did not meet the requirements set out in Townsend v. Sain, 372 U.S. 293, 313, 83 S.Ct. 745, 9 L.Ed.2d 770, this Court appointed an attorney for petitioner, who made a careful study of the entire record, interviewed petitioner on a number of occasions, prepared the case for hearing, and filed a brief in which he stated that he would press the following points: (A) that petitioner is held in violation of his constitutional rights by reason of the fact that his arrest was illegal; (B) that petitioner was convicted on the basis of illegally seized evidence; (C) that the State suppressed evidence essential to petitioner's defense and thereby denied petitioner a fair trial; (D) that petitioner's representation by counsel was so inadequate as to amount to a denial of due process of law; (E) that the testimony of the State's witnesses was so false and misleading as to amount to a denial of a fair trial; and (F) that petitioner was convicted upon evidence so insufficient as to deny petitioner due process of law. The brief also noted that petitioner wished to preserve and press the points raised by his petition which his counsel did not press.

A hearing was held, at which petitioner was present and testimony was taken for two days. Petitioner was given an opportunity to present any evidence which he wished to offer on all the points raised by his petition and on any other point he desired to raise. Several days later oral argument was heard, and petitioner was given an opportunity to argue any points he wished to argue.

A. The Arrest

The rape occurred on the night of July 23, 1959, in the victim's apartment at 829 N. Charles Street, and was promptly reported to the police. During the course of the investigation, Sergeant Ford remembered that petitioner had been convicted of burglary a year before in a case which occurred in the same neighborhood and had many similar features, although the victim in the earlier case had not charged rape. Petitioner's photograph was shown to Miss Austin along with the photographs of several other men who fitted generally the description she had given. Miss Austin identified the photograph of petitioner as that of her assailant, and arrangements were made by the police to arrest petitioner the following night. Such arrests are generally made during the night, to minimize the chance of warning and escape. No warrant for the arrest was obtained or sought.

Petitioner was living in a house, 2527 W. Fairmount Avenue, which his older sister was buying and which was also occupied by his mother and niece. The police were admitted to the house at 5:45 a. m. by the sister, who was returning home. They arrested petitioner in his room, to which they had been directed by the sister, and drove him to the station for questioning. Petitioner was not handcuffed. The police seized some of petitioner's clothing which had been lying on a chair in his room, but no evidence based on such clothing was offered at the trial and it has not been shown that the clothing led the State to any evidence that was offered. One officer testified, however, that on the way to the station petitioner said, "If I had known you were out there I would have went over the roof, you wouldn't have got me." The trial judge stated in his oral opinion: "That is a strong indication of a guilty conscience." No other statement by petitioner was offered in evidence, and there is no evidence that he made any admission.

Counsel for petitioner argues that the arrest without a warrant violated petitioner's constitutional rights, and that the offering in evidence of the statement made in the automobile while petitioner was under arrest was a denial of due process. He objects because the arrest was made at night, without a warrant, although there had been time to obtain a warrant after the victim had identified petitioner's photograph as that of her assailant.

The legality of the arrest must be determined by state law, unless there has been a violation of petitioner's rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. Ker v. California, 374 U.S. 23, 83 S.Ct. 1623, 10 L.Ed.2d 726 and cases cited therein. Under Maryland law a peace officer may arrest without a warrant, provided there were reasonable grounds to believe at the time of the arrest that a felony had been committed and that the person arrested had committed the offense. Mulcahy v. State, 221 Md. 413, 421, 158 A.2d 80. Federal law is in accord. Brinegar v. United States, 338 U.S. 160, 175, 69 S.Ct. 1302, 93 L.Ed. 1879, cited in Ker v. California, supra. The police had reasonable grounds for such belief in this case. It was not necessary that the officers obtain a warrant merely because they had time to do so. United States v....