Clark v. United States

• Decision Date: 14 December 1951
• Docket Number: No. 13436.,13436.
• Parties: CLARK v. UNITED STATES.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

193 F.2d 294 (1951)

CLARK v. UNITED STATES.

No. 13436.

United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit.

December 14, 1951.

J. A. Walker, Jacob Walker, Jr., Opelika, Ala., for appellant.

E. Burns Parker, U. S. Atty., Ben Hardeman, Asst. U. S. Atty., Montgomery, Ala., for appellee.

Before HOLMES, STRUM and RIVES, Circuit Judges.

STRUM, Circuit Judge.

Appellant, a police officer of the City of Lafayette, Alabama, was convicted upon an indictment charging that in violation of 18 U.S.C.A. § 242, while acting under color of the laws of Alabama and ordinances of said city, he willfully subjected Willie B. Carlisle to a deprivation of civil rights and immunities secured to said Carlisle by the Fourteenth Amendment.¹ Appellant asserts, amongst other things, that portions of the trial court's charge to the jury are inharmonious with Screws v. U. S., 325 U.S. 91, 65 S.Ct. 1031, 89 L.Ed. 1495, particularly the charge as to the effect of the word "willful" as used in the statute.

Briefly, the facts are, that in response to a complaint appellant and a fellow police officer, driving a police patrol car, went to a dance hall in the colored section of said city, at night, where they ejected Carlisle and three companions from the hall because they had not paid admission. About five minutes later the police officers discovered that one of the tires on their car had been intentionally deflated. Suspecting Carlisle and his companions to be the culprits, the police officers arrested them about 11:30 p. m. on the following night and took them to the city jail, where Carlisle and one of the others were subjected to a grilling and were whipped several times with a rubber hose and walking stick. Carlisle soon became unconscious and died in a hospital several hours later.

Appellant contends that it was necessary to use force to overcome Carlisle's resistance when they attempted to place him in a cell, as a result of which he may have been injured. However, the evidence fully supports the conclusion, apparently reached by the jury, that Carlisle was beaten for the purpose of inflicting illegal summary punishment, and that he died of a brain concussion resulting from being struck on the head by a blunt instrument in the course of such assault, while appellant was acting under color of law. This prosecution followed the acquittal of appellant in an Alabama state court on a charge of murder in the first degree, based upon the same circumstances here involved.

It would be impracticable to here reproduce the trial court's charge in full. Inter alia, the jury was in substance told that the defendant below was charged with unlawfully and willfully depriving Carlisle of his federal constitutional rights; that is, that the defendant took the law into his own hands and inflicted punishment on Carlisle either to punish him for some misconduct on his part, or to extort a confession from him; that an officer can not lawfully administer punishment in such manner, even though the person assaulted is guilty of a violation of the law; that no officer is authorized to punish him because he refuses to confess; that such person has the right to be tried according to law in a court of justice; and that it is charged that the defendant, by his conduct, willfully deprived Carlisle of this right.

At the request of the defendant, the trial court further charged the jury in substance that under the charge of the indictment that the defendant "willfully" committed the acts in question, it is not sufficient to justify a conviction that the defendant acted simply by the exercise of his will, or that he had a generally bad purpose in doing them, but to convict the jury must find beyond a reasonable doubt not only that defendant committed the acts charged, but that "at the time he had the...