Arthur v. Sheriff, County of Los Angeles, Civ. No. 70-1923-AAH.

• Citation: 325 F. Supp. 1320
• Decision Date: 16 April 1971
• Docket Number: Civ. No. 70-1923-AAH.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Central District of California
• Parties: Bradford ARTHUR, Petitioner, v. SHERIFF, COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES, R. K. Procunier, Director of Corrections, Respondents.

325 F. Supp. 1320

Bradford ARTHUR, Petitioner, v. SHERIFF, COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES, R. K. Procunier, Director of Corrections, Respondents.

Civ. No. 70-1923-AAH.

United States District Court, C. D. California.

April 16, 1971.

Bradford Arthur, in pro. per.

Thomas C. Lynch, Atty. Gen., William E. James, Asst. Atty. Gen., Jack K. Weber, Deputy Atty. Gen., for respondents.

ORDER DENYING PETITION FOR WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS

HAUK, District Judge.

Petitioner is a California State prisoner, presently incarcerated in the California Correctional Institution, Tehachapi, California, after having been convicted and sentenced upon his pleas of guilty to four counts of first degree armed robbery, five years to life, and two counts of felony grand theft, one to ten years, concurrently. He now seeks a Federal Writ of Habeas Corpus to annul the State judgment and its supporting guilty pleas along with his release unless the State grants him a new trial; or in the alternative, to grant him a Federal evidentiary hearing.

Petitioner's three main contentions, around which revolve numerous satellite issues not necessary to be resolved for our decision here, are: 1) that, at the time of his guilty pleas facts existed which would have raised a "substantial doubt" as to his sanity had they been before the State court and which would have entitled him, as a constitutional right, to a hearing on the sanity issue under California Penal Code § 1368¹; 2) that neither he nor his counsel could waive the right to such a sanity hearing since a knowing and intelligent waiver is necessarily predicated upon one's competency at the time of waiver; and 3) that his counsel, Sam Houston Allen was incompetent in that he failed to bring the contents of a psychiatric report to the attention of the State arraignment and plea Judge or to Petitioner's attention; and in that, as the attorney, he should have been but was not aware of the applicability of the defense of diminished capacity to his client's case.

Petitioner was, until these convictions from which he now seeks relief, a practicing attorney. He took undergraduate work at Princeton, after which he joined the Marines and attained the rank of first lieutenant. In 1957, he graduated from USC Law School and went to work in Los Angeles with the Attorney General's Office but quit after one year to enter private practice, specializing in criminal law. In 1965, he broke a leg which he says forced him to close his office. About this time he started consuming large amounts of amphetamines and barbiturates, smoking marijuana, taking opiates and drinking excessively. The Internal Revenue Service began to press him for unpaid tax obligations, seizing and selling his cars and house for partial payment, but leaving an unpaid balance due of more than Fifty Thousand Dollars. This series of events climaxed tragically in April 1968 when Petitioner robbed at gunpoint four different people in three separate locations, was arrested and made a judicial confession at his preliminary hearing on April 24, 1968. At Petitioner's request, he was permitted a psychiatric examination on May 25, 1968, but no psychiatric report was ordered. On June 11, 1968, Petitioner pled guilty to four counts of first degree robbery and two counts of felony grand theft and was finally sentenced on August 1, 1969, after a long series of sanity and narcotic addiction hearings in Department 95 of the State Superior Court and intermittant referrals to the California Rehabilitation Center, the "regular" facilities of the Department of Corrections and Camarillo State Hospital.

After his final commitment for service of the sentences, Petitioner began a lengthy series of post-conviction attempts to upset the judgment and sentences which were consistently defeated in the State courts. He brought seriatim and unsuccessful Petitions for Habeas Corpus which were summarily denied in the Court of Appeal, Second Appellate District (No. 16973, August 28, 1969), and in the California Supreme Court (No. 14352, February 28, 1970). Overlapping somewhat he had sought a Writ of Error Coram Nobis in the Superior Court, where it was denied after a lengthy hearing (No. A225800, December 8, 1969). This denial was affirmed in the Court of Appeal, Second Appellate District (2 Cr. No. 17709, June 25, 1970) in a twenty-three page unpublished opinion by Justice Clark Stephens, concurred in by Presiding Justice Otto Kaus and Justice John S. Aiso. Petition for hearing was summarily denied by the California Supreme Court (August 19, 1970). In each of these post-conviction attempts to upset the conviction Petitioner referred to and relied heavily upon a psychiatric report written by one Dr. A. R. Tweed pursuant to the examination of Petitioner permitted by the arraignment and plea Judge (Hon. Maurice T. Leader) on May 25, 1968. And, here, each of Petitioner's three main contentions is based upon the allegations that this report though not ordered by the Judge was actually written, and that it contained certain matters relating to Petitioner's mental health which were never brought to the Judge's attention at the time of the arraignment and plea.

The facts as they appear in the transcript of the Coram Nobis hearing are that while Judge Leader permitted Petitioner to be examined by a psychiatrist chosen by Petitioner (Dr. A. R. Tweed), the Judge never ordered a report from Dr. Tweed. Nevertheless Dr. Tweed did in fact write up and send Judge Leader a copy of his report which the Judge never read because although he had permitted Petitioner's psychiatric examination, he felt it would be improper to consider a report which he had not ordered. Dr. Tweed also sent a copy of his report to Petitioner's counsel, Sam Houston Allen. But Petitioner claims Allen failed to inform him of its existence or of its contents which he claims to have been unaware of until December 24, 1968, when he was referred to Department 95 by the sentencing Judge (Hon. Rafael H. Galceran, Jr.) upon the matters contained therein. However, all the evidence in the record gives the lie to Petitioner's story that he was unaware of Dr. Tweed's psychiatric report until six months after his arraignment and plea. Petitioner's counsel, Mr. Allen, testified at the Coram Nobis hearing that Petitioner was primarily interested in being referred to the California Rehabilitation Center (CRC) for narcotic addiction treatment and was fully alert and cognizant that if he pled guilty by reason of insanity, or if the issue of insanity was brought up in any way, the case would have to be transferred out of Judge Leader's arraignment and plea Court to the Psychiatric Court, Department 95 of the Los Angeles Superior Court system. This the Petitioner did not want. He wanted to stay in Judge Leader's Court and try by every effort and subterfuge to obtain judicial referral to the CRC for narcotic treatment and rehabilitation. The weight of the evidence in the record overwhelmingly proves that Petitioner, with obvious method in his asserted madness, actually agreed to and did suppress and keep from Judge Leader the psychiatric report with his attorney's approval in his determined and effective efforts to be referred to CRC.

After reviewing the Petition, the Response, the Traverse, the numerous points and authorities presented by both parties, the Clerk's transcript, the Reporter's Coram Nobis transcript on appeal, the probation reports, the psychiatric reports and the unpublished Coram Nobis opinion of the California Court of Appeal, this Court is fully advised in the premises and orders that the Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus be denied for the following reasons.

In his Coram Nobis appeal to the California Court of Appeal, Petitioner presented the same facts and submitted the identical allegations here reiterated. After a full and fair hearing by the Court and in an exhaustive unpublished opinion, Petitioner's contentions were determined to be without merit.

From this Court's independent examination of the relevant facts and proceedings appearing in the record, including the Clerk's and Reporter's Transcripts on Appeal, it now appears that Petitioner's contentions were adequately litigated and that the State process gave fair consideration to the issues and to the evidence. This Court determines that the State courts have made determinations which are supported by substantial and convincing evidence and finds that Petitioner has not overcome the presumption that the conclusions expressed in the State Court of Appeal's written opinion are correct, pursuant to 28 U.S. C. § 2254(d) (Supp.1967), which provides:

"(d) In any proceeding instituted in a Federal court by an application for a writ of habeas corpus by a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court, a determination after a hearing on the merits of a factual issue, made by a State court of competent jurisdiction * * * evidenced by a * * * written opinion, or other reliable and adequate written indicia, shall be presumed to be correct * * *."

This Court now addresses itself, however, to the main issue in this case for the purpose of clarifying, albeit perhaps unnecessarily enlarging upon, the opinion of the California Court of Appeal. The main issue in this case is "whether enough doubt of Petitioner's incompetency existed at the time of Petitioner's pleas of guilty to require a hearing on that question." (Petitioner's Traverse p. 2). The proposition controlling...