Chapman v. Scott
| Decision Date | 14 December 1925 |
| Docket Number | No. 2997.,2997. |
| Citation | 10 F.2d 156 |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Connecticut |
| Parties | CHAPMAN v. SCOTT, Warden. |
Frederick J. Groehl, of New York City, Joseph M. Freedman, of Hartford, Conn., Ray M. Wiley, of Springfield, Mass., and Charles W. Murphy, of Danbury, Conn., for relator.
Hugh M. Alcorn, State's Atty., and Reinhart L. Gideon, Asst. State's Atty., both of Hartford, Conn., for respondent.
George H. Cohen, Asst. U. S. Atty., of Hartford, Conn., for the United States as amicus curiæ.
On April 4, 1925, the relator was convicted of the crime of murder in the first degree by a jury in the superior court for Hartford county, in the state of Connecticut, and now seeks, by this writ of habeas corpus, to avoid the sentence of death which was imposed by that court in conformity with the local law. The record upon which his prayer for relief is predicated discloses the following pertinent facts:
In August, 1922, Gerald Chapman was convicted of the crime of robbery of mail matter, and of having placed the life of a mail carrier in jeopardy, and on August 23, 1922, was sentenced by the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York to serve a term of 25 years in the federal penitentiary in Atlanta. He was then conveyed to Atlanta and began to serve his sentence on August 25, 1922. He escaped from that penitentiary on March 27, 1923, and was captured the next day. Following his capture he was confined in a hospital in Athens, Ga., from which institution he also escaped on April 4, 1923, and was at large for a period of about a year and nine months. On January 18, 1925, he was recaptured at Muncie, Ind., from which place he was returned to the Atlanta penitentiary, on January 22, 1925. It was while he was at large after his second escape that he committed the crime for which his life became forfeited to the people of the state of Connecticut.
On January 24, 1925, two days after his return to Atlanta, the Attorney General of the United States ordered his transfer from that institution to the Connecticut state prison at Wethersfield, which appears in the following letter.
The transfer having been effected, a writ of habeas corpus was issued on February 13, 1925, by the superior court for Hartford county, upon the application of Hugh M. Alcorn, state's attorney for Hartford county, to the issuance of which the United States district attorney for the district of Connecticut consented in open court, by which writ the warden of the Connecticut state prison was required to produce Chapman before said court to answer to the indictment which had been found against him by the grand jury on January 20, 1925, which indictment charged that on October 12, 1924, Chapman did feloniously, willfully, deliberately, and premeditatedly kill and murder James Skelley, a police officer of the city of New Britain. Such consent by the United States district attorney had been authorized by the Attorney General of the United States, who is vested with power and discretion in such matters. The following communication shows the authority for the action of the United States district attorney:
While the record shows that, when the relator was transferred from the federal penitentiary in Atlanta to the Connecticut state prison in Wethersfield, he was not informed of the purpose of the transfer, it nowhere appears that any objection was made by the petitioner or by his counsel to the issuance of the writ of habeas corpus in the state court or to the production of Chapman in said superior court to answer to the indictment charging murder in the first degree, nor was any objection or protest entered or filed to the jurisdiction of the state court over and of the body and person of the relator, or to the jurisdiction of the state court to hear and determine the issues raised by the indictment and the plea of not guilty which was entered on February 13, 1925.
The relator was tried upon the issues raised by the indictment and his plea of not guilty, and on April 4, 1925, the jury rendered a verdict of guilty of murder in the first degree, following which the court rendered judgment accordingly and sentenced the relator to be hanged on June 25, 1925. Thereupon Chapman appealed to the Supreme Court of Errors of the state of Connecticut, and the conviction and sentence were there affirmed, in an able and exhaustive opinion written by the learned Chief Justice, in which opinion all of the justices concurred. In this opinion (103 Conn. 453, 130 A. 899), which was filed on November 5, 1925, it is interesting to note that Chief Justice Wheeler observed that "seldom is a charge of this character so completely and conclusively proven." By successive reprieves by the Governor of the state of Connecticut, the date of execution has now been deferred to March 3, 1926.
On November 23, 1925, the President of the United States executed and issued the following document:
The executive order above recited was offered to the relator in his cell in the Connecticut state prison by the warden, but the relator absolutely refused to accept the document or the commutation of his federal sentence.
The outline of facts above set forth comprehends all of the relevant and material facts. I now come to a consideration of the legal propositions sought to be educed therefrom. These propositions do not appear in any sequential order, nor are they all expressed with definitive adequacy. Nevertheless an attempt will be made to arrange them in some logical order.
To begin with, the jurisdiction of the state court to try the relator is now and for the first time challenged. It is contended that Chapman was not properly before the superior court of Connecticut, that he was a federal prisoner, and that his removal from Atlanta to the jurisdiction of Connecticut was without warrant in law. To these contentions several answers suggest themselves. There was no plea to the jurisdiction of the state court filed at any time, and while the competency of any court to adjudicate the subject-matter may always be questioned, jurisdiction of the person, if not challenged upon appearance, is equivalent to consent. But, even if this were not so, I am unable to find any basis for the contention that, because Chapman did not consent to his removal from Atlanta, he therefore was in a position to contest the jurisdiction of the state of Connecticut, once he was physically present within the boundaries of the state. Courts of criminal jurisdiction need not inquire how the prisoner at the bar came within the reach of their mandates; for jurisdictional purposes it is...
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State v. Reed
...There is no error. In this opinion the other judges concurred. 1 Repealed October 1, 1971.2 To the same effect is Chapman v. Scott, 10 F.2d 156 (D.Conn.), affirmed 10 F.2d 690 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 270 U.S. 657, 46 S.Ct. 354, 70 L.Ed. 784, a case in which the facts reveal that Gerald Cha......
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Schick v. Reed 8212 5677
...of the conviction. See, e.g., United States ex rel. Brazier v. Commissioner of Immigration, 5 F.2d 162 (CA2 1924); Chapman v. Scott, 10 F.2d 156, 159 (Conn.1925), aff'd, 10 F.2d 690 (CA2), cert. denied, 270 U.S. 657, 46 S.Ct. 354, 70 L.Ed. 784 (1926); Note, Executive Clemency in Capital Cas......
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