United States ex rel. Curtis v. Warden of Green Haven Pris., 673

• Decision Date: 21 June 1972
• Docket Number: Docket 71-1768.,No. 673,673
• Citation: 463 F.2d 84
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America ex rel. Clyde CURTIS, Petitioner-Appellant, v. WARDEN OF GREEN HAVEN PRISON, Respondent-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

463 F.2d 84 (1972)

UNITED STATES of America ex rel. Clyde CURTIS, Petitioner-Appellant, v. WARDEN OF GREEN HAVEN PRISON, Respondent-Appellee.

No. 673, Docket 71-1768.

United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.

Argued April 12, 1972.

Decided June 21, 1972.

Eugene A. Wolkoff, New York City (Gary B. Wolff, New York City, of counsel), for petitioner-appellant.

Lillian Z. Cohen, Asst. Atty. Gen. (Louis J. Lefkowitz, Atty. Gen. of State of New York, Samuel A. Hirshowitz, First Asst. Atty. Gen., of counsel), for respondent-appellee.

Before FRIENDLY, Chief Judge, and SMITH and OAKES, Circuit Judges.

J. JOSEPH SMITH, Circuit Judge:

Clyde Curtis, convicted in 1969 after trial to a jury in County Court, Suffolk County, New York, of the crime of possession and sale of a dangerous drug, and presently serving an indeterminate sentence to a maximum of fifteen years at Green Haven Prison, sought his release by petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York. From the denial of his petition on July 13, 1971 by the Honorable John F. Dooling, Jr., 329 F.Supp. 333, he appeals. He contends, as he did in the state courts and in the court below, that both his fictitious name indictment and pre-trial identification by the arresting officers were constitutionally defective, and that certain prejudicial testimony by a prosecution witness deprived him of a fair trial. We find no error under the circumstances of this case and affirm the order below.

The indictment on which petitioner was tried was returned by the grand jury of Suffolk County on August 5, 1968 in two counts charging Henry "Doe" with the possession and sale of a narcotic drug, both in the second degree. Although both the detective who made the alleged drug purchase, Fricker, and another who observed the transaction, Fandrey, testified before the grand jury, the latter carrying with him a written description of Henry, no description of Henry "Doe" was given to the jury.¹ It appeared at a pre-trial identification hearing and at trial that although the two detectives knew the drug vendor only by the alias Henry, he had been under surveillance and observed, if fleetingly, by both men on several occasions prior to the sale, and was known to them as a specific identifiable person. Detective Fricker was of course afforded close observation at the time of the sale. A written description was promptly prepared of Henry which reasonably, although not precisely, fit petitioner.²

Subsequent to the issuance of the indictment and an accompanying bench warrant in the name Henry "Doe," the detectives learned that Henry's true name was Clyde Curtis. When petitioner's name was later discovered on a list of unrelated arrests, Detective Fricker proceeded to the place of detention, picked him out of a cell in which he was the only black, and executed the arrest warrant.

At petitioner's arraignment, when he was as yet unrepresented by counsel, the indictment was without objection amended pursuant to § 277 of the former New York Code of Criminal Procedure (McKinney 1958)³ to read "Henry `Doe', a/k/a Clyde Curtis." The trial judge denied after verdict a motion made at the close of all the evidence to dismiss the indictment for "legal insufficiency," reasoning that the grand jury did have someone specific in mind, and that regardless, any possible insufficiency in the indictment was cured by extrinsic evidence of identification developed at trial. Petitioner's conviction was unanimously affirmed without opinion by the Appellate Division, Second Department. People v. Doe, 33 A.D.2d 993, 309 N.Y.S.2d 115 (2d Dept. 1970). Leave to appeal to the Court of Appeals was denied on April 7, 1970.

On August 10, 1970 the Appellate Division responded to a motion by petitioner by amending its earlier decision to add the following:

Upon the appeal herein, there were presented and passed upon the following constitutional questions, namely: whether appellant\'s rights under the 4th, 5th, 6th and 14th Amendments of the United States Constitution and of Par. 6 of Art. I of the New York State Constitution were denied by his indictment as "Henry Doe" and the subsequent amendment to indicate that "Henry Doe" was also known as "Clyde Curtis"; . . . none of his constitutional rights were violated; . . .

Inasmuch as petitioner expressly raises his equal protection claim for the first time on this appeal, having cast the attack on his indictment in due process terms before the state courts and in the court below, the language of the Appellate Division's amended remittitur is critical to the resolution of the threshold question whether he has exhausted his state remedies in accordance with 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b), (c).

It is plainly true that a statement by a court that it has considered a defendant's fourteenth amendment rights does not reveal with certainty that the equal protection clause was actually weighed. Still, a possible implication of the use of such broad language is that defendant's claim was considered in the light of all relevant portions of the fourteenth amendment. Thus, petitioner would have us conclude that the Appellate Division did consider his equal protection claim, although he did not in terms present it to that court.⁴ We seriously question, though, whether this case satisfies the exhaustion requirement as interpreted in Picard v. Connor, 404 U.S. 270, 92 S.Ct. 509, 30 L.Ed.2d 438 (1971). That case held that state remedies had not been exhausted simply because all the relevant facts were before the state court and the correct legal principles could have been applied, but rather that "the substance of a federal habeas corpus claim must first be presented to the state courts," 404 U.S. at 278, 92 S.Ct. at 513. Only the Appellate Division's ambiguous amended remittitur possibly distinguishes this case from Picard in which there was no evidence in the record that the application of the relevant principle to the facts had come to the state court's attention. However, we are convinced that petitioner's equal protection claim is without merit and, the exhaustion requirement not being jurisdictional, see Darr v. Burford, 339 U.S. 200, 204-211, 70 S.Ct. 587, 94 L.Ed. 761 (1950); Frisbie v. Collins, 342 U.S. 519, 520-521, 72 S.Ct. 509, 96 L.Ed. 541 (1952), we consider it neither necessary nor appropriate to resolve the delicate question of federal-state comity in this instance but instead proceed to the merits.

It is conceded that the fourteenth amendment does not require that a state court prosecution be preceded by a grand jury indictment, Hurtado v. California, 110 U.S. 516, 4 S.Ct. 111, 28 L.Ed. 232 (1884), Kennedy v. Walker, 135 Conn. 262, 63 A.2d 589, aff'd 337 U.S. 901, 69 S.Ct. 1046, 93 L.Ed. 1715, rehearing denied, 337 U.S. 934, 69 S.Ct. 1493, 93 L.Ed. 1740 (1949), but that whenever a state has chosen to afford its citizens the protection of an indictment procedure, as New York has done,⁵ the equal protection clause must be satisfied. Coleman v. Alabama, 377 U.S. 129, 84 S.Ct. 1152, 12 L.Ed.2d 190 (1964); Hernandez v. Texas, 347 U.S. 475, 74 S.Ct. 667, 98 L.Ed. 866 (1954). We will assume, arguendo, that the grand jury procedures selected by the state must comport with due process of law. Cf. Beck v. Washington, 369 U.S. 541, 546, 82 S.Ct. 955, 8 L.Ed.2d 98 (1962); United States ex rel. Chestnut v. Criminal Court of the City of New York, 442 F.2d 611, 616 (2d Cir. 1971). Unhappily for petitioner, however, both branches of his argument are met at that point by United States ex rel. Morrison v. Foster, 175 F.2d 495 (2d Cir. 1949) in which this court upheld the indictment for robbery of Morrison under the name "John Doe 4" without further description. Three accomplices were also indicted, one under his true name, the others as "John Doe 1" and "2." Morrison had already been arrested on suspicion of having participated in the robbery, but there was no evidence to connect him with the crime until, after the indictment had been filed, he admitted his complicity to a fellow inmate. Armed with this information the district attorney obtained an amended indictment, substituting Morrison's name for that of "John Doe 4" pursuant to § 277, supra, n. 3. While the constitutionality of § 277 was apparently questioned in Morrison, 175 F.2d at 497, it is not attacked on this appeal. See People v. Bogdanoff, 254 N.Y. 16, 29-31, 171 N.E. 890 (1930).

In the light of Morrison, the contention that it violated due process merely to fail to provide the grand jury with a description of petitioner, where the jury must have realized it was indicting a specific individual, known to the testifying officers (albeit by the false name Henry) for a specific narcotics transaction, must fail. Indeed, apart from the court's reference to Morrison's failure to object at any time to the amended indictment, Morrison, supra, 175 F.2d at 497, 498, the instant case is stronger for the state: it does not appear that any description of Morrison was even available, or that the grand jury had focused on any particular individual, other than one who had been an accomplice in the commission of the stated crime. Here, to repeat, the grand jury found...