Alcorta v. State of Texas
Citation | 2 L.Ed.2d 9,355 U.S. 28,78 S.Ct. 103 |
Decision Date | 12 November 1957 |
Docket Number | No. 139,139 |
Parties | alvaro ALCORTA, Petitioner, v. The STATE OF TEXAS |
Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Messrs. Fred A. Semaan and Raul Villarreal, San Antonio, Tex., for petitioner.
Messrs. Roy R. Barrera and Hubert W. Green, Jr., San Antonio, Tex., for respondent.
Petitioner, Alvaro Alcorta, was indicted for murder in a Texas state court for stabbing his wife to death. Vernon's Tex.Pen.Code, 1948, Art. 1256. He admitted the killing but claimed it occurred in a fit of passion when he discovered his wife, whom he had already suspected of marital infidelity, kissing one Castilleja late at night in a parked car. Petitioner relied on Texas statutes which treat killing under the influence of a 'sudden passion arising from an adequate cause * * * as would commonly produce a degree of anger, rage, resentment, or terror in a person of ordinary temper sufficient to render the mind incapable of cool reflection' as murder without malice punishable by a maximum sentence of five years' imprisonment. Vernon's Tex.Pen.Code, 1948, Arts. 1257a, 1257b, 1257c. The jury, however, found him guilty of murder with malice and, acting under broad statutory authority to determine the extent of punishment, sentenced him to death. The judgment and sentence were affirmed by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. 165 Tex.Cr.R. —-, 294 S.W.2d 112.
Castilleja, the only eye witness to the killing, testified for the State at petitioner's trial. In response to inquiries by the prosecutor about his relationship with the petitioner's wife, Castilleja said that he had simply driven her home from work a couple of times, and in substance testified that his relationship with her had been nothing more than a casual friendship. He stated that he had given her a ride on the night she was killed and was parked in front of her home with his car lights out at two o'clock in the morning because of engine trouble. The prosecutor then asked what had transpired between Castilleja and petitioner's wife in the parked car:
At the conclusion of Castilleja's testimony the following colloquy took place between him and the prosecutor:
'
'
All this testimony was quite plainly inconsistent with petitioner's claim that he had come upon his wife kissing Castilleja in the parked car.
Some time after petitioner's conviction had been affirmed Castilleja issued a sworn statement in which he declared that he had given false testimony at the trial. Relying on this statement petitioner asked the trial court to issue a writ of habeas corpus. He contended that he had been denied a fair trial in violation of State and Federal Constitutions because Castilleja had testified falsely, with the knowledge of the prosecutor, that his relationship with petitioner's wife had been only 'that of a friend and neighbor, and that he had had no 'dates,' nor other relations with her, when in truth and in fact the witness had been her lover and paramour, and had had sexual intercourse with her on many occasions * * *.' Petitioner further alleged that he had no knowledge of this illicit intercourse at the time of his trial.
A hearing was held on the petition for habeas corpus. Castilleja was called as a witness. He confessed having sexual intercourse with petitioner's wife on five or six occasions within a relatively brief period before her...
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