Edgerton v. State of North Carolina, Misc. No. 23.

• Decision Date: 02 February 1965
• Docket Number: Misc. No. 23.
• Citation: 239 F. Supp. 663
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of North Carolina
• Parties: Chester L. EDGERTON, Petitioner, v. STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA, Respondent.

239 F. Supp. 663

Chester L. EDGERTON, Petitioner, v. STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA, Respondent.

Misc. No. 23.

United States District Court E. D. North Carolina.^*

February 2, 1965.

HAYNSWORTH, Chief Circuit Judge.

Chester L. Edgerton, a North Carolina prisoner under a life sentence imposed in 1958 for first degree burglary, has submitted to a Judge of this Court a petition for a writ of habeas corpus.

In Edgerton v. State of North Carolina, 4 Cir., 315 F.2d 676, this Court remanded an earlier petition by the same prisoner to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina for a plenary hearing. Judge Butler, after conducting a full hearing, denied the petition on May 25, 1964. No notice of appeal was filed, and the time therefor has expired. For that reason, I treat the handwritten application as an original petition for habeas corpus.

In 1958, Edgerton was indicted for rape and first degree burglary in Vance County, North Carolina. He entered a plea of guilty to the burglary charge, resulting in a mandatory life sentence¹, and the prosecutor agreed to an order of nolle prosequi on the rape charge.

After accepting the guilty plea, the sentencing court heard the following state's evidence: Luvinia Jordan testified that about midnight on the night in question she heard a knock at her door, asked who was there, and heard "Chester" in reply; she refused to let him in and later heard the screen being "prized" off the window. She shot through the glass window with a sawed-off .22 rifle, and Edgerton burst through the door, breaking the thumb-bolt latch. He was cut around the eyes, apparently from splintered window glass. While he was examining his injuries, she fled with a neighbor to the police station, leaving her six children within the house.

Rosa Mae Cute, the 7-year-old daughter of Luvinia Jordan, testified that Edgerton took her from her upstairs bedroom to that of her mother, removed her clothes and smelled them, laid her on the bed, and "put his self in her self."

The examining physician, Dr. R. G. Currin, Jr., testified that his examination of Rosa Mae Cute's sexual organ indicated that there had been "some penetration by something," but that entry of an adult male phallus was a physical impossibility. He testified that the girl was incapable of sexual intercourse with a grown man.²

Judge Butler concluded that the evidence presented to the sentencing court established a prima facie case of first degree burglary and rape. The question of sufficiency of evidence is collaterally raised by the present petition, since Edgerton's main contention is that he was denied effective representation by counsel, his three court-appointed lawyers having recommended that he tender a guilty plea to the burglary charge, receive a mandatory life sentence and thus escape the gas chamber. Clearly if such advice was reasonable under the circumstances, Edgerton cannot complain. Judge Butler found that it was, and I agree. The advice was the product of careful investigation, and not an attempt by lawyers to escape the burdens of court-appointed criminal defense.

Upon adequate evidentiary basis, Judge Butler found that Edgerton's counsel interviewed the three law enforcement officers involved, questioned the physician who examined the infant prosecutrix, and heard the prosecutor question the little girl and her mother at a pre-trial interview, arranged at the request of counsel for the defense. At no time did Edgerton furnish counsel the names of any witnesses or offer "any plausible defense," and in addition, was "uncooperative and evasive." After hearing the evidence that the state planned to put on at the trial, the three lawyers were convinced that there was sufficient evidence to support a verdict of guilty on both the rape and burglary charges. As both were capital offenses, counsel arranged for the state to nolle prosequi the rape charge in exchange for a guilty plea to the first degree burglary charge, the state refusing to accept a plea to any lesser included offense. The District Judge found that the entire circumstances were explained to Edgerton, who thereafter entered voluntarily, though reluctantly, his plea of guilty to the burglary charge.

In his "Brief for Petitioner," counsel for Edgerton in the District Court stated that Edgerton's "present dilemma" is not the result of "lack of interest or ability" on the part of his trial counsel, but rather the unfortunate result of a "lack of communication" between counsel and Edgerton. Since he was "uncooperative and evasive," it appears that the lack of communication was the result of Edgerton's own attitude. The Constitution does not require that court-appointed counsel work miracles. Clearly, Edgerton was not denied the effective assistance of counsel in any legal sense.³

Edgerton's second contention is that immediately after counsel had been appointed, they approached Edgerton with a previously prepared guilty plea and urged him to sign it. The District Court found, however, and the record shows, that counsel were appointed on January 13, 1958, and that on January 15, after Edgerton made the decision to plead guilty, the plea was typed by the court stenographer and submitted to Edgerton for his signature. A continuance had been granted counsel, and the signing was not psychologically coerced by lack of time to prepare an adequate defense.

Judge Butler found the above facts concerning the first two contentions after a full and fair evidentiary hearing. The treatment of Edgerton's untimely appeal as an original application presenting the same contentions does not, in these circumstances, require a...