Com. v. Baity

• Decision Date: 09 January 1968
• Citation: Com. v. Baity, 237 A.2d 172, 428 Pa. 306 (Pa. 1968)
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania v. William E. BAITY, Appellant.
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

Page 172

237 A.2d 172

428 Pa. 306

COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania v. William E. BAITY, Appellant.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

Jan. 9, 1968.

Defender Assn. of Philadelphia, Herman I. Pollock, Defender, Melvin Dildine, Chief, Appeals Division, Philadelphia, for appellant.

Arlen Specter, Dist. Atty., Alan J. Davis, Asst. Dist. Atty., Philadelphia, for appellee.

Before BELL, C.J., and MUSMANNO, JONES, EAGEN, O'BRIEN and ROBERTS, JJ.

OPINION OF THE COURT

ROBERTS, Justice.

In Commonwealth v. Garrett, 425 Pa. 594, 597--598, 229 A.2d 922, 925 (1967) we announced the rule that a defendant who had pled guilty at trial could nevertheless challenge an allegedly coerced confession collaterally, provided he could prove that the plea was primarily motivated by the confession. ¹ We are today faced with the task of settling some of the unresolved problems presented by this rule.

In 1949 appellant, William E. Baity, pled guilty to murder generally in connection with the robbery-murder of a Philadelphia bicycle shop owner. He was found guilty of murder in the first degree and sentenced to life imprisonment. No appeal was taken. Altogether, four young men were convicted of this crime and given life sentences, three having pled guilty, the fourth having been found guilty by a jury. In 1966 Baity commenced this action under the Post Conviction Hearing Act; it was his first attempt at collateral relief. Counsel was appointed, and on June 16, 1967 an evidentiary hearing was held in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court before Judge spaeth.

Appellant made but a single argument at the hearing. He testified that his confession was coerced from him by force, that his trial counsel made no attempt to inform him that such a confession was inadmissible, and that his subsequent guilty plea was therefore the produce Solely of this tainted evidence. The only other witness at the post conviction hearing was the surviving member of Baity's two lawyer team appointed to defend him in 1949. He testified, in relevant part, that he had spoken to Baity several times before the plea was entered, and that Baity had admitted that the confession was obtained without the use of any force or threats. According to Baity's trial counsel, appellant had informed him that the confession was given after one of the interrogating officers told Baity that Harry Cohen, a co-defendant, had 'fingered Baity' as the 'trigger man', whereupon appellant claimed that he was only the lookout. Based on this information, counsel advised Baity that his confession was voluntary under the law, that a trial could well result in the death penalty, and that he had an informal understanding with the district attorney to recommend life sentences for those who pled guilty. According to trial counsel Baity's plea was voluntarily entered and came as the direct result of the discussions had between counsel and appellant.

At the conclusion of this hearing Judge Spaeth announced from the bench that he did not believe Baity's version of the 1949 interrogation, a version replete with physical beatings, threats, black jacks, etc. As a result, Baity's petition was denied. Realizing that the court's factual findings would not likely be overturned on appeal, appellant now maintains that the confession was involuntary solely because it had been obtained by 'trick', i.e., the story related to Baity that he had been named as the 'trigger' man.

Recognizing, as we did in Garrett, the numerous aspects of an impending trial that may influence a defendant to waive the entire ordeal by pleading guilty, we are nevertheless unable to find, in the present case, any factor other than the confession which in Baity's mind motivated the plea. In fact, Baity's trial counsel testified of record at the post conviction proceeding that it was the confession which prompted appellant to enter the plea of guilty. The following dialogue appears between post conviction counsel and Mr. Scaricamazza, appellant's original trial counsel:

'Q. (By Mr. Johnson) Then did you discuss with him (Baity) the possibility of a guilty plea in this case?

A. (Mr. Scaricamazza) Yes.

Q. And could you detail the circumstances of that discussion?

A. How he came to plead guilty?

Q. Yes.

A. He had already confessed to a crime. There was no doubt about it of his participation in the crime. He admitted he was the lookout.' (Record at 9--10.)

Mr. Scaricamazza's entire testimony contains no mention of any other piece of evidence, tainted or not, the knowledge of which might have prompted Baity to enter his plea. ² If Baity's attorney had knowledge of any other facts supporting the wisdom of a guilty plea, it is clear that these were never made known to appellant. ³ Furthermore, for purposes of the Garrett test, speaking as it does in terms of what Motivated appellant to plead guilty, we must not examine the mind of anyone save Baity himself.

Once satisfied that the allegedly bad confession Was the primary motivation for appellant's plea, we must now decide whether, in fact, the confession was constitutionally infirm. To make this decision, however, we must resolve one of the unsettled questions implicitly raised by the Garrett test: are we to be governed by 1949 law or 1967 law in passing upon the voluntariness of Baity's confession? We start, of course, with the proposition, now firmly established both by this Court, and the Supreme Court of the United States, that an Involuntary confession, unlike a confession procured in the absence of Miranda or Escobedo warnings, could have such an impact on the reliability of the fact finding process, due to the substantial possibility that it represents an untruth, that we give retroactive application to all the current United States Supreme Court cases dealing with involuntary confessions. See, e.g., Davis v. State of North Carolina, 384 U.S. 737, 86 S.Ct. 1761, 16 L.Ed.2d 895 (1966); cf. Commonwealth v. Padgett, Pa., 237 A.2d 209 (1967). See also, Mishkin, 'Forward: The High Court, The great Writ, and the Due Process of Time and Law', 79 Harv.L.Rev. 56, 79--86 (1965). Thus, were we faced with an involuntariness claim stemming from a 1949 jury trial in which the confession were used as evidence, there would be no doubt that 1967 law would dictate the parameters within which the confession must now be tested. So then, the question becomes simply: ought there be a difference between a confession used to convict at trial, and one used to motivate the entry of a guilty plea, i.e., a difference sufficient to alter the test of voluntariness used in a collateral proceeding such as this. We think not.

Assuming that Baity's guilty plea was entered because he felt that the confession would be used at trial, it seems clear that this plea would be no more reliable than a jury verdict based on the same allegedly coerced confession. Moreover, the reason stated by Professor Mishkin for the retroactive application of involuntary confession cases is equally applicable to both guilty pleas And jury trials.

'Valuing the liberty of the innocent as highly as we do, earlier proceedings whose reliability does not measure up to current constitutional standards for determining guilt may well be considered inadequate justification for continued detention. For to continue to imprison a person without having first established to the presently required degree of confidence that he is not in fact innocent is indeed to hold him, in the words of the habeas corpus statute, 'in custody in violation of the Constitution.' On this basis, habeas corpus would assess the validity of a conviction, no matter how long past, by any current constitutional standards which have an intended effect of enhancing the reliability of the guilt-determining process.' 79 Harv.L.Rev. at 81--82. ⁴

We therefore hold that Baity's confession must be tested by the most recent cases. ⁵

On the basis of Mr. Scaricamazza's testimony below--testimony accepted as true by the hearing judge--it appears that Baity was arrested on the evening of March 21, 1949. He was then taken to a police station and jailed overnight. By Baity's own admission, no interrogation took place until the following morning. At nine a.m., March 22nd, the interrogation commenced. There is no indication that this interrogation was accompanied by any physical force or threats, nor does it appear that rest periods or food were denied appellant. The confession was given, reduced to writing, and signed by 5:15 p.m. that same day. Mr. Scaricamazza did testify to the following stratagem used by one of the detectives, a device which apparently prompted Baity's first admission of guilt. Baity was told that Harry Cohen, a co-defendant, had named appellant as the 'triggerman'. Baity immediately denied this, claiming that he had been merely the lookout. ⁶ Finally, it is conceded that appellant was never warned of his right to counsel or of his right to remain silent.

We believe that the facts recited above cannot support a claim of involuntariness, even tested by the most recent Supreme Court decisions, and on this ground alone relief could be properly denied. In Culombe v. Connecticut, 367 U.S. 568, 81 S.Ct. 1860, 6 L.Ed.2d 1037 (1961), the Supreme Court of the United States set out a test for determining the voluntariness of a confession which remains controlling today. Mr. Justice Frankfurter, writing for the Court, explained the test as follows:

'Is the confession the product of an essentially free and unconstrained choice by its maker? If it is, if he has willed to confess, it may be used against him. If it is not, if his will has been overborne and his capacity for self-determination critically impaired, the use of his confession offends due process.' 367 U.S. at 602, 81 S.Ct. at 1879.

Although the Supreme Court of the United States has said that each involuntary confession case must be treated on its own facts, nevertheless a comparison between the facts in the present case, and...