Riser v. Teets
| Decision Date | 22 April 1958 |
| Docket Number | No. 15639.,15639. |
| Citation | 253 F.2d 844 |
| Parties | Richard G. RISER, Appellant, v. Harley O. TEETS, Warden of the California State Prison at San Quentin, Appellee. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit |
George T. Davis, San Francisco, Cal., Carl B. Shapiro, Fairfax, Cal., for appellant.
Edmund G. Brown, Atty. Gen., Clarence A. Linn, Asst. Atty. Gen., Arlo E. Smith, Deputy Atty. Gen., State of California, for appellee.
Before HEALY, ORR and POPE, Circuit Judges
Appellant was tried and convicted in a California court of the murder of two people — a man and his wife — and was sentenced to death. His defense was an alibi. Pursuant to a state statute, Pen. Code, § 1239(b) he was accorded an automatic appeal to the California Supreme Court, which tribunal affirmed the conviction. People v. Riser, 47 Cal.2d 566, 305 P.2d 1, 15. Certiorari was denied, 353 U.S. 930, 77 S.Ct. 721, 1 L.Ed.2d 724. Thereafter appellant petitioned the court below for the writ of habeas corpus, asserting that he had been denied due process of law and the equal protection of the laws. The district court (Judge Murphy sitting) issued an order staying appellant's execution until final disposition could be made of the petition; and after a hearing the application for the writ was denied. The matter is now before this court on appeal.
The evidence in the case is set out in exhaustive detail in the California court's opinion on the automatic appeal, and no more of it will be touched upon here than is essential to an understanding of the points raised.
Prior to the trial counsel for appellant had asked that there be turned over to them by the authorities, for impeachment purposes, copies of statements allegedly made by the two eyewitnesses to the killing, describing the murderer. These requests were denied by the trial judge. Other demands for the production of evidence along the same line were made during the course of the trial and were denied. The State Supreme Court held that the rulings constituted error. However, it decided that the error was not prejudicial in that there was no reasonable probability that the jury would have reached a different verdict had the defendant been allowed to obtain and introduce the statements in evidence.
The basis of this holding lay in the fact that fingerprints of appellant were found on a bottle and on a glass at the bar where the murders were committed. Also, the finding of a certain type of handcast bullets in the bodies of the victims was held to point strongly to appellant as the slayer. "Fingerprint evidence," said the court, "is the strongest evidence of identity, and is ordinarily sufficient alone to identify the defendant." The court added that in this case there was the further evidence afforded by the presence of the hand-cast bullets.
Article 6, § 4½, of the Constitution of the State of California reads in material part:
"No judgment shall be set aside, or no new trial granted, in any case * * * for any error as to any matter of procedure, unless, after an examination of the entire cause, including the evidence, the court shall be of the opinion that the error complained of has resulted in a miscarriage of justice."
This provision applies in both civil and criminal cases.
Appellant relies heavily on Jencks v. United States, 353 U.S. 657, 77 S.Ct. 1007, 1 L.Ed.2d 1103. The opinion in that case contains no intimation that the procedural requirement laid down in it is to be taken as one of due process under the Constitution of the United States. The Court went no further than to say (353 U.S. at page 668, 77 S.Ct. at page 1013) that the standard announced is one for the administration of criminal justice in the federal courts.
The decision of the court below is affirmed.
As appears from the decision of the California court, the determination of appellant's guilt or innocence turned upon the question whether he was properly identified as the man who did the shooting. This was the principal question for determination by the jury. The California decision also shows that the witnesses who identified appellant as the man who did the killing made statements in writing immediately after the homicides. That these statements were in existence, and in the possession of the prosecution or the police, and that they were inconsistent with the witnesses' testimony was never denied.1 Had these inconsistent statements been made available to the defendants they would have been important evidence in the case. As stated in respect to similar evidence in Gordon v. United States, 344 U.S. 414, 421, 73 S.Ct. 369, 374, 97 L.Ed. 447: "The alleged contradictions to this witness' testimony relate not to collateral matters but to the very incrimination of petitioners." Although the California court expressed the view that it was error to deny this defendant those statements,2 yet it held the error was not prejudicial because of the other evidence tending to connect defendant with the crime since it was in the view of the court "not reasonably probable" that the jury would have reached any other conclusion than its verdict of guilty even if the statements had been produced.
As stated by Mr. Justice Frankfurter in Malinski v. People of State of New York, 324 U.S. 401, 412, 65 S.Ct. 781, 787, 89 L.Ed. 1029, "The Constitution left the domain of criminal justice to the States." Generally speaking the California court was free to decide its own case in its own way.3 But when it appears that a person tried in a state court has been denied a right which he has under the federal Constitution, then the effect of that denial, that is to say whether the denial voids his conviction, is a federal question upon which there is no uncertainty under the controlling decisions. I proceed to inquire whether there was here a denial of such a federal right.
The requirements of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment have not always been held to be coterminous with those of the Sixth Amendment. Betts v. Brady, 316 U.S. 455, 461, 62 S.Ct. 1252, 86 L.Ed. 1595. On the other hand, many of the rights and privileges listed in the first eight Amendments, are, because the Fourteenth Amendment expresses a demand for those civilized standards of judicial procedure which are within our concept of ordered liberty, deemed to be essential to the due process required of the States by that Amendment. Thus in a capital case, an accused in a state court is entitled to the assistance of counsel, not because of the provision of the Sixth Amendment to that effect but because "there are certain immutable principles of justice which inhere in the very idea of free government which no member of the union may disregard." Powell v. State of Alabama, 287 U.S. 45, 71, 53 S.Ct. 55, 65, 77 L.Ed. 158. Another concept of the Sixth Amendment which has been held to be a requirement of due process under the Fourteenth Amendment is the right of an accused to a public trial. In re Oliver, 333 U.S. 257, 266-273, 68 S.Ct. 499, 92 L.Ed. 682. The several opinions in that case and in State of Louisiana ex rel. Francis v. Resweber, 329 U.S. 459, 67 S.Ct. 374, 91 L.Ed. 422, discuss at length the relation of some of the fundamental concepts of the Bill of Rights to the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
This brings me to my point: that a right of an accused to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor is also a right implicit in the concept of ordered liberty which is imposed upon the states by the Fourteenth Amendment. And this requirement, like that of the Sixth Amendment that "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right * * * to have compulsory process for obtaining Witnesses in his favor * * *." extends to documentary as well as oral evidence. United States v. Schneiderman, D.C., 106 F.Supp. 731, 735; Wilson v. United States, 221 U.S. 361, 372, 31 S.Ct. 538, 55 L.Ed. 771. In my view, the vacating of the subpoena for the production of the statements of these witnesses was a plain denial of this due process.
The net result here was that the case went to the jury on some, but not all of the evidence that should have been available. Suppose the state limited a defendant to compulsory process for the production of but two witnesses. He seeks to subpoena a third, but this is not allowed. It is...
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Henderson v. Bannan
...is irrelevant. He has not been tried by civilized standards, and cannot be punished until he has been." Riser v. Teets, 9 Cir., 1958, 253 F.2d 844, at 847 (dissenting opinion). The point has also been made throughout the post conviction proceedings, state and federal, that Henderson was no ......
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Hill v. Crouse, 8629.
...258 F.2d 338; United States v. De Lucia, 7th Cir., 262 F.2d 610, cert. denied, 359 U.S. 1000, 79 S.Ct. 1136, 3 L.Ed.2d 1029; Riser v. Teets, 9th Cir., 253 F.2d 844. ...