Chambers v. State
| Decision Date | 20 April 1936 |
| Citation | 167 So. 697,123 Fla. 734 |
| Parties | CHAMBERS et al. v. STATE. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
En Banc.
Error to Cirucuit Court, Broward County; George W. Tedder, Judge.
Isiah Chambers and others were convicted of first-degree murder and to review a judgment which affirmed original judgments of conviction, bring error.
Reversed and remanded.
COUNSEL S. D. McGill, of Jacksonville, for plaintiffs in error.
Cary D Landis, Atty. Gen., and Ira A. Hutchison and Roy Campbell Asst. Attys. Gen., for the State.
This is the fourth time that the fate of these four young negro men has been presented to this court for its action thereon. The first case affirmed the conviction of first-degree murder and the sentence of death imposed by the lower court. Chambers et al. v. State, 111 Fla. 707, 151 So. 499. The second case was Chambers et al. v. State, 111 Fla. 712, 113 Fla. 786, 152 So. 437, 439. In that decision the court passed upon the sufficiency of an application to this court for leave to apply to the circuit court of Broward county for a writ of error coram nobis, addressed to the judgment of conviction. The petition filed in this court set forth in considerable detail charges of the use of force and violence in obtaining the confessions upon which the petitioners had been convicted and alleged that said confessions were not freely and voluntarily given. This court held the petition sufficient and granted leave to present a petition for writ of error coram nobis to the Broward circuit court. In the opinion of Mr. Justice Buford it is stated that: 'If the allegations of the petition are not true, they may be traversed in due course in the court below, and thereupon the issues as to the truth of such allegations may be judicially determined.'
The trial judge, when the petition was filed, proceeded to take testimony, and upon the testimony so taken held that the charges made were not true and denied the petition. An appeal was taken from this judgment, and this court, by a decision rendered on December 17, 1934, held that issues should have been made up in the court below between the petitioners and the state, by the filing by the petitioners of specific assignments of error, to which the state could either demur, thereby testing the legal sufficiency of such assignments, or traverse and take issue thereon, and that upon the issues made up between the parties, the petitioners were entitled to a trial by jury. The opinion on that appeal was written by Mr. Justice Ellis. See Chambers et al. v. State, 117 Fla. 642, 158 So. 153, 156.
After the case was remanded to the court below, the procedure outlined in the last-mentioned decision was followed. The verdict of the jury was adverse to the petitioners and the court entered an order affirming the original judgments of conviction. To this judgment, the present writ of error was addressed.
The assignments of error filed by the petitioners in the court below, on the trial of the writ of error coram nobis, were two in number. Omitting the formal introduction and conclusion, these assignments read as follows:
The charge of the court to the jury raises some serious questions, which were made the basis, in large part, of the motion for new trial, which motion was denied.
In his charge, the court correctly quoted both the first and second assignments of error and correctly quoted the issues made by such assignments and the traverse plea filed by the state. But thereafter in his charge, the court several times charged the jury on the second assignment of error, and the burden of proof with reference thereto, and ignored the first assignment except when he read to the jury requested charge No. 1 requested by the petitioners. Immediately after stating the assignments of error and the traverse, the court charged the jury that the sole issues, which they were to determine, were raised by the assignments of error filed by the petitioners and the traverse filed by the state thereto, and then said: 'The allegations of the assignments of error are that the confessions' obtained from each of said petitioners and admitted in evidence on the trial of Isiah Chambers and the other defendants, and the pleas of guilty interposed by three of them (Italics supplied.)
All the way through the charge the court appears to have been of the opinion, several times reiterated, that the burden was upon the petitioners to prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, the allegations contained in their second assignment of error (that the confession and pleas were obtained by the use of force, coercion, fear of personal violence, and under duress) and practically ignored the first assignment of error, except when giving petitioners requested charge No. 1, which he informed the jury was given at the request of counsel for petitioners.
A reading of the entire charge will show that the jury may very readily have understood the court to hold that unless the petitioners proved their second assignment of error, the jury should find against them, although the jury might have believed that the confessions were not in fact freely and voluntarily made, as charged in the first assignment of error. In fact, the court in one of the closing paragraphs of the charge expressly charged the jury that:
'The court further charges you that the burden of proof rests upon each of the petitioners to establish by a preponderance of the evidence that his confession, and where a plea of guilty was entered, such plea, was obtained by force, coercion, fear of personal violence and under duress as charged in the assignments of error.'
The trial judge also took occasion in his charge to state that the proceedings in the circuit court on the trial of the petitioner Isiah Chambers and the hearing by the court to determine the degree of guilt of the three petitioners who had pleaded guilty 'was correct and orderly and such defendant, or defendants, was not deprived of any of his or their rights by the court.' And in another place the court told the jury that the judgments of the court could not be lightly set aside, that an appeal had been taken by the defendant from the judgment of the court, and such judgment had been affirmed by the Supreme Court of this state, and that the defendants were bound by such judgments and must abide thereby unless from the present trial it should be determined that said confessions and pleas were entered under such circumstances as to cause the same to be null and void and of no force and effect. Then the court added: 'In other words, the state relies to a certain extent upon the judgments of this court, and the burden of setting aside said judgments and holding the same for naught in this proceeding as to each of these petitioners is upon the said Izell Chambers, Jack Williamson, Charlie Davis, and Walter Woodward, and each of them.'
We seriously doubt the correctness or propriety of these charges. They may have caused the jury to think that the petitioners were attacking the character and prestige of the court, whereas as explained by Mr. Justice Ellis, in the last opinion rendered with reference to these petitioners, a proceeding on writ of error coram nobis is in no way a reflection upon the court which rendered the judgment attacked, but is in effect based on the proposition that if the facts set up in the petition and assignments of error had been known to the court at the time of the trial and judgment, the court would not have rendered the judgment which it did render.
It may be that the burden of proof in this case was upon the petitioners to establish to the satisfaction of the jury by a preponderance of the evidence the truth of the charges made in at least one of their assignments of error, but the court should have gone no further and should not have said anything to lead the jury to believe that a verdict in favor of the petitioners would be any reflection upon the integrity or justness of the trial court which rendered the judgments under attack.
Counsel for plaintiffs in error earnestly contend that the burden of proof did not rest upon them and that the issues should have been submitted without any reference to the burden of proof. They cite a quotation from State v. Calhoun, 50 Kan 523, 32 P. 38, 42, 18 L.R.A. 838, 34 Am.St.Rep. 141, which case was cited and quoted from by Mr. Justice Ellis when these petitioners were last before this court. We do not think that the opinion in State v. Calhoun, nor the quotation therefrom, sustains this contention. What the Kansas court had in mind was that in order to prevail, in a coram nobis proceeding, it was not necessary for the petitioners to prove their innocence; that ...
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Dawson v. State
...Appellant argues that under these facts his confession was not free and voluntary. He compares his case to the case of Chambers v. State, 1936, 123 Fla. 734, 167 So. 697, in which this Court held that the confessions there involved were not free and voluntary where they were made after repe......
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Chambers v. State
...U.S. 303, 32 S.Ct. 281, 56 L.Ed. 448; and cases on other page. See decisions of many state courts to same effect in Chambers et al. v. State, 123 Fla. 734, 167 So. 697. We reviewed the evidence carefully and find nothing that would warrant a reversal of the verdict and judgment of the trial......
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Chambers v. State of Florida
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