Ex parte Williams

• Decision Date: 09 October 1958
• Docket Number: 7 Div. 302
• Citation: 108 So.2d 454,268 Ala. 535
• Parties: Ex parte Charles W. WILLIAMS. Charles W. WILLIAMS v. STATE of Alabama.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

Page 454

108 So.2d 454

268 Ala. 535

Ex parte Charles W. WILLIAMS Charles W. WILLIAMS v. STATE of Alabama.

7 Div. 302.

Supreme Court of Alabama.

Oct. 9, 1958.

Rehearing Denied Feb. 12, 1959.

Charles W. Williams, petitioner, pro se.

John Patterson, Atty. Gen., and Robt. Straub, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

COLEMAN, Justice.

In April, 1950, in the Circuit Court of Shelby County, the petitioner, Charles W. Williams, was convicted of murder in the first degree and sentenced to life imprisonment. After motion for new trial was denied petitioner appealed to this court and the judgment of conviction was affirmed. Williams v. State, 255 Ala. 229, 51 So.2d 250.

The instant proceeding was instituted by filing in this court a petition for leave to file in the Circuit Court of Shelby County an application for writ of error coram nobis in the above mentioned cause. The judgment of conviction having been here affirmed, the procedure is proper. Ex parte Lee, 248 Ala. 246, 27 So.2d 147; Brown v. State, 250 Ala. 444, 35 So.2d 518.

We have considered carefully and in detail all the exhibits accompanying the petition filed in this court, as well as the record of the trial filed here on appeal. Altogether the exhibits and record consist of more than 1600 typewritten pages, and include a transcript of testimony on preliminary hearing and also on a mistrial of this cause in January, 1950, a 238 page autobiography of petitioner, and his 343 page brief.

Petitioner has discussed all the testimony presented on the three trials of his case and has argued and meticulously pointed out discrepancies, inconsistencies, and contradictions which do exist in the three records. In his brief, petitioner asserts that he was denied a fair trial and was deprived of his liberty without due process of law in violation of the guaranties of the Constitution. In pertinent part the brief recites:

'* * * The verdict, 'Guilty, A life Sentence', registered the jury's choice. Petitioner admits the jury could have made no other choice under the circumstances. But the records were erroneous and incorrect in each and every damnifying entry, the seven witnesses were honestly mistaken or wilfully and purposefully wrong in each and every damnifying statement, and the one, defendant, was right.'

Petitioner's argument is that his denial of due process resulted from a conspiracy against him and that he was convicted on perjured testimony knowingly used by the State. With reference to the alleged perjuries, the brief of petitioner recites:

'Moreover, a step-by-step, and circumstance-by-circumstance, examination and analysis of the Solicitor's 'conscious guilt' trial techniques in January, of his 'big lie' techniques in April; of why he changed his technique and why he chose the technique used in April; lead to the inescapable conclusion (were there no factual evidence foreclosing the same conclusion) that the Solicitor and/or other officers of the court had knowledge of the misrepresentations, half truths, distortions, untruths and outright perjuries contained in the testimony of King, Thurmond, Allen, W. F. Robertson and Frankie Swalley; had knowledge of the invalidity and fraudulence of the damnifying portions of the State's evidence, and that they were doing violence to every concept of justice in their use of such evidence (See Transcripts of January and April);'

This court has said:

'It is well settled that a defendant who has been convicted of a criminal offense cannot obtain the nature of relief which is here sought on account of false swearing of witnesses, unless such perjured testimony was used by the State in the prosecution of the case with knowledge that it was perjured testimony. Ex parte Burns, 247 Ala. 98, 22 So.2d 517; Brown v. State, 250 Ala. 444, 35 So.2d 518; Pike v. State, 103 Fla. 594, 139 So. 196; Yon v. State, 138 Fla. 770, 190 So. 252.' Ex parte Gammon, 255 Ala. 502, 505, 52 So.2d 369, 370.

'However, if the basis of the conviction of petitioner was perjured testimony which was knowingly used by the prosecuting authorities in order to obtain that conviction, then petitioner was not accorded the due process to which he is entitled under the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. Pyle v. State of Kansas, 317 U.S. 213, 63 S.Ct. 177, 87 L.Ed. 214; Mooney v. Holohan, 294 U.S. 103, 55 S.Ct. 340, 79 L.Ed. 791, 98 A.L.R. 406. This court has recognized the common-law writ of error coram nobis as the appropriate remedy to be followed in such a situation. Johnson v. Williams, 244 Ala. 391, 13 So.2d 683. The procedure, accordingly, in the present instance is proper.' Ex parte Burns, 247 Ala. 98, 99, 22 So.2d 517, 518.

In reviewing a decision of this court on a petition for leave to apply for coram nobis, the rule to govern our consideration of such a petition has been stated by the Supreme Court of the United States as follows:

'In passing upon this request that court (We interpolate: the Supreme Court of Alabama.) was not bound to accept at face value the allegations of the petition. The issue was not submitted to it as though on a demurrer. That court was called upon to decide not only whether this new petition, if true, presented a meritorious ground for setting aside its previous judgment, but that court, in its supervisory capacity over the enforcement of the law, was called upon to determine also the reasonableness of the allegations made in the petition and the probability or improbability of their truth. * * *.

* * *

* * *

'If the new petition and its supporting affidavits stood alone or had to be accepted as true, the issue would be materially different from what it is. The Supreme Court of Alabama, however, read this petition and these affidavits, as we must read them, in close connection with the entire record already made in the case. They must be tested in that context for their reasonableness, the probability of their truth, the effectiveness of the attack they make on the original judgment and their relationship to the general enforcement of law with justice to all.' (Parenthesis supplied.) Taylor v. Alabama, 335 U.S. 252, 262, 264, 265, 68 S.Ct. 1415, 1420, 92 L.Ed. 1935.

In accordance with the foregoing principles, we have considered the petition now before us. No useful purpose would be served by here setting out in detail the numerous contentions presented by the petitioner. To do so would extend this opinion to undue length. In so far as the contradictions or inconsistencies in the testimony given at the three trials have any tendency to prove perjury on the part of any witness, the petitioner had the full benefit of those inconsistencies and contradictions at the trial which resulted in his conviction. Petitioner, on this last trial, had opportunity to confront the witnesses with inconsistent statements made on previous trials and, in fact, did so. Petitioner, in presenting his defense, and the jury in reaching a verdict, had full benefit of the instances where the testimony of a witness on the last trial was not the same as testimony previously given.

Although petitioner complains of the failure of his counsel to present certain matters to the jury, he acknowledges the competency of his attorneys in Exhibit NE-300, as follows:

'My two attorneys, whose combined talents, legal knowledge, and criminal trial...