Fitzgerald v. Beto
Decision Date | 11 September 1973 |
Docket Number | No. 72-2459.,72-2459. |
Citation | 479 F.2d 420 |
Parties | Otis Ray FITZGERALD, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Dr. George J. BETO, Director, Texas Department of Corrections, Respondent. Appellee. |
Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit |
John L. Jeffers, Jr., Houston, Tex., court appointed, for petitioner-appellant.
John L. Hill, Atty. Gen., W. Barton Boling, Austin, Tex., for respondent-appellee.
Before RIVES, GOLDBERG and MORGAN, Circuit Judges.
After exhausting all remedies available in the state courts, Fitzgerald, an inmate of the state prison at Huntsville, Texas, petitioned for habeas corpus in the federal district court. With interruptions by parole, Fitzgerald has served in the state prison since 1947. So far as the record reflects, he served continuously from March 22, 1954 until May 8, 1967, when he was paroled. His parole was revoked February 4, 1971, and he was returned to prison. His habeas petition concerns a life sentence, under the Texas enhancement statutes, imposed by a state court in 1954 following conviction by a jury for the offense of robbery by assault. His primary ground asserted for habeas relief is incompetency of counsel; his secondary ground is that he was denied due process when his parole was revoked without a hearing. We do not reach the secondary ground because we reverse with directions on the primary ground.
The district court denied habeas corpus on the state court record and without a further evidentiary hearing. The relevant facts and events are almost entirely undisputed.
Fitzgerald has been convicted of two separate robberies by assault, the first conviction in McLennan County, Texas, in May, 1947, and the second in Anderson County, Texas, in March, 1954. For the first offense Fitzgerald received a five-year sentence. For the second offense he was sentenced to imprisonment for life, the sentence which he is now serving. His conviction for the second offense was affirmed on June 26, 1954, by the Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas in an opinion which recited the pertinent facts as follows:
Fitzgerald v. State, 1954, 160 Tex.Cr.R. 414, 271 S.W.2d 428.1
Fitzgerald was paroled on May 8, 1967, but his parole was revoked without a hearing on February 4, 1971. Fitzgerald petitioned for habeas corpus in the Third District Court of Anderson County, Texas, on both of the asserted grounds—(a) incompetency of counsel, and (b) revocation of parole without a hearing. Following an evidentiary hearing the state judge presiding entered findings of fact and conclusions of law and denied habeas relief on both grounds. On September 23, 1971, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, without written order but simply on the trial court's findings, denied Fitzgerald's application for appeal.
On March 3, 1972, the federal district court denied Fitzgerald's habeas petition, saying in part:
2
At the evidentiary hearing in state court on Fitzgerald's petition for habeas corpus, his appointed attorney called as witnesses Fitzgerald himself and John B. McDonald, who had been the District Attorney of Anderson County, Texas, who prosecuted Fitzgerald in 1954. The State called no witnesses on its own. McDonald's testimony was consistent with Fitzgerald's and, indeed, gave detailed information on the subject at issue.
Fitzgerald testified he had no consultation with his attorneys as to conduct of the trial prior to the day of trial and had no knowledge of their making any investigation.
McDonald testified that on the morning of Fitzgerald's trial for robbery by assault, March 22, 1954, he first met Fitzgerald's two lawyers. He had not been acquainted with them previously. The facts of the robbery case which resulted in a life sentence were that Fitzgerald had escaped from the Anderson County jail by taking the sheriff's key and locking the sheriff in a cell. McDonald was concerned that the law of robbery required an intention to convert stolen property permanently and that he would be unable to demonstrate such an intention on these facts. He testified that he offered Fitzgerald's lawyers a ten-year sentence in return for a guilty plea. Defense counsel were "completely indifferent" to this proposal, even though a life sentence was at stake under the enhancement statutes, because they believed the facts would not support a robbery conviction as a matter of law. The evidence is undisputed that the district attorney's offer of a ten-year sentence in return for a guilty plea was not communicated by defense counsel to Fitzgerald.
McDonald further testified that both defense attorneys appeared in court to try the case in very "unkempt" condition and "smelled of strong drink"; and, moreover, that his subsequent investigation indicated that neither had ever received any formal legal training.
McDonald's most crucial testimony concerned his proof for purposes of enhancement of a prior conviction for robbery by assault. He testified that as of the day of trial he did not have a witness to identify the Otis Ray Fitzgerald being tried in Anderson County as the same man who had been convicted of robbery by assault in McLennan County in 1947. He said that without such testimony he would have been unable to establish the prior conviction for purposes of enhancing punishment and that, without testimony identifying Fitzgerald as the same man who had been convicted in McLennan County, he would not have introduced the prior conviction in evidence. However, Fitzgerald's attorneys obligingly solved this problem for the district attorney by agreeing in advance of trial to put their client on the witness stand for the "limited" purpose of acknowledging to the jury that he was the same man who had been previously convicted in McLennan County of robbery by assault. McDonald's exact testimony on this point bears repeating:
...
To continue reading
Request your trial-
Fitzgerald v. Estelle
...that a man he convicted twenty years ago received too harsh a sentence. While the background and details set out in the panel's opinion, 479 F.2d 420, are not recited incorrectly, the fact development fails to include several significant matters. A look at the whole picture demonstrates tha......
-
Lamberti v. Wainwright
...of this Court in West v. Louisiana, 5 Cir. 1973, 478 F.2d 1026, aff'd in part en banc, 5 Cir. 1975, 510 F.2d 363, and Fitzgerald v. Beto, 5 Cir. 1973, 479 F.2d 420, rev'd en banc sub nom. Fitzgerald v. Estelle, 5 Cir. 1974, 505 F.2d 1334, indicating that deficiencies in the representation o......
-
Alvarez v. Wainwright
...the state of Florida appeals. This takes us immediately to Fitzgerald v. Estelle, 5 Cir., 1974, 505 F.2d 1334 (en banc), Overruling, 1973, 479 F.2d 420. We Alvarez was charged and tried with co-defendants De La Cruz and Torres. Gino Negretti was retained by Alvarez and De La Cruz as their a......
-
Baxter v. Rose
...for it is clear that defendants have a remedy if they leave it to the State to compensate counsel. Id. at 616 In Fitzgerald v Beto, 479 F.2d 420 (5th Cir. 1973), the Court declared the law in this circuit to be: (T)hat the due process and equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment......