Com. ex rel. Butler v. Banmiller
| Decision Date | 15 March 1960 |
| Citation | 159 A.2d 212,398 Pa. 442 |
| Parties | COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania ex rel. Hercules BUTLER, Appellant, v. William J. BANMILLER, Warden Eastern State Penitentiary, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Appellee. |
| Court | Pennsylvania Supreme Court |
Hercules Butler, Philadelphia, in pro. per.
John E. Stively, Dist. Atty., West Chester, for appellee.
Before CHARLES ALVIN JONES, C. J., and BELL, MUSMANNO, BENJAMIN R JONES, COHEN, BOK and EAGEN, JJ.
The appellant was convicted by the verdict of a jury of murder in the first degree and the penalty was fixed at life imprisonment. He filed a petition for a Writ of Habeas Corpus in the Court of Common Pleas of Chester County, praying his discharge contending that he is illegally restrained because he was committed and is confined without due process of law. The writ was denied without hearing. A Writ of Certiorari issued.
We have studied carefully the record of the entire proceedings in the court below and each of the assignments of error submitted in regard thereto. We are of the unanimous conclusion that every contention of the defendant is completely and correctly answered in the formal opinion of the court disposing of the petition. In addition, we are satisfied that the appellant had a fair trial, and that none of his constitutional rights were violated at any stage of the proceedings.
Therefore the order of the court is affirmed on the opinion of President Judge Harvey.
After a fair and impartial trial, the jury convicted Hercules Butler of murder of the first degree and fixed the penalty by their verdict to undergo imprisonment for life. In accordance therewith sentence was imposed and he was committed to the Eastern State Penitentiary where he is presently serving that sentence.
There has been filed in the office of the Clerk of the Courts his petition in forma pauperis for a writ of habeas corpus praying his discharge on the grounds that he is illegally restrained because he has been committed and confined without due process of law. The petition will be certified to the Court of Common Pleas.
The petition was placed upon our Argument Court List and is now before us on the relator's brief forming part of that petition, the District Attorney's brief and the record.
The writ will be denied and the petition dismissed, not only because it is sought to make the writ a substitute for an appeal, but because there is no merit whatever in any of the reasons assigned in support thereof.
1. The first reason upon which relator relies is predicated upon allegations of fact set forth under the subheading 'Case History' of the petition. In substance they are that he was taken into custody on August 2, 1956, by the County Detective without warrant of arrest, and that no information was sworn or lodged against him until the date of his preliminary hearing before the Justice of the Peace on the 6th of that month, during which time he was not informed why he was being held in custody, and he was not permitted to communicate with anyone in his interest, and (quoting the allegations) 'for a period of five (5) days, he was beaten, abused, threatened and maltreated until after five (5) days of torture and when he could no longer endure the punishments bestowed upon him, he did sign a statement admitting a crime of which he is innocent.'
Relator principally contends that the admission in evidence of his written statement and 'the illegal procedures bringing it into existence is clearly a denial of Due Process and Habeas Corpus is a proper remedy.'
A sufficient answer to this proposition is that all the questions of fact and of law raised by these allegations were decided against the relator upon his trial at No. 320, September Term, 1956 Court of Oyer and Terminer of Chester County, Pennsylvania, the record of which may be relevantly considered. Commonwealth ex rel. Wagner v. Tees, 174 Pa.Super. 475, 101 A.2d 770. The official notes of testimony thereof show that the defendant testified at length and in detail to the maltreatment by the police officers alleged generally in the petition, and that, in every particular (except that he was arrested without a warrant on August 2, 1956, and held in custody until the following August 6, without a preliminary hearing) the officers charged with that maltreatment categorically and circumstantially denied that testimony; and that the issues of fact thus joined, including the question whether or not the incriminating statement or confession was voluntarily made without duress or coercion, were resolved by the jury against the defendant after adequate instruction by the charge of the trial Judge relating to the law of extra judicial confessions.
The writ of habeas corpus cannot be used to re-examine matters of fact passed on by a jury at a trial, such as whether a confession was the voluntary act of the signer. Commonwealth ex rel. Geiger v. Burke, 371 Pa. 230, 89 A.2d 495, certiorari denied 344 U.S. 859, 73 S.Ct. 98, 97 L.Ed. 666; Commonwealth ex rel. Firmstone v. Burke, 175 Pa.Super. 128, 135, 103 A.2d 476.
Neither the delay in giving the relator a preliminary hearing nor his interrogation over a period of days, were per se, a violation of his constitutional rights, Commonwealth v. Agoston, 364 Pa. 464, 72 A.2d 575. The issue of the admissibility and credibility of his confession were properly submitted by the trial Judge. Commonwealth v. Bryant, 367 Pa. 135, 79 A.2d 193.
(Incidentally the officers and others testified to a so-called reenactment of the crime by the defendant and his accomplice at the...
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