Fontaine v. United States

• Decision Date: 08 December 1975
• Docket Number: No. 74-1378.,74-1378.
• Citation: 526 F.2d 514
• Parties: David X. FONTAINE, Petitioner-Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Respondent-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

526 F.2d 514

David X. FONTAINE, Petitioner-Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Respondent-Appellee.

No. 74-1378.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Argued October 9, 1975.

Decided December 8, 1975.

Certiorari Denied March 22, 1976.

Martin A. Tyckoski, Flint, Mich. (Court-appointed), David X. Fontaine, pro se, for petitioner-appellant.

Ralph B. Guy, Jr., U.S. Atty., Michael Gladstone, Detroit, Mich., for respondent-appellee.

Before PHILLIPS, Chief Judge, and CELEBREZZE and PECK, Circuit Judges.

PHILLIPS, Chief Judge.

In Fontaine v. United States, 411 U.S. 213, 93 S.Ct. 1461, 36 L.Ed.2d 169 (1973), the Supreme Court vacated the judgment of this court and remanded to the end that David X. Fontaine be afforded an evidentiary hearing on his petition to vacate sentence pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2255.

Chief District Judge Frederick W. Kaess, who imposed the sentence after Fontaine entered a plea of guilty, had denied the motion to vacate. This court had affirmed. Thereafter, in obedience to the mandate of the Supreme Court, this court on May 10, 1973, entered an order vacating the judgment of the District Court and remanding the case to the end that Fontaine be afforded a hearing on his petition.

The hearing on remand was conducted before District Judge Damon J. Keith, who appointed new counsel for Fontaine and conducted a thorough evidentiary hearing.

Fontaine was arrested on October 21, 1969, by Detroit Police officers acting upon information that he had participated in the commission of a bank robbery. Detroit Police advised Fontaine of his constitutional rights and interrogated him for approximately one hour at police headquarters on the night of October 21, 1969. No confession resulted from this interrogation. Fontaine then was taken to a hospital. On October 24 a Detroit police sergeant and two FBI agents visited him in the hospital. He was informed of his constitutional rights and refused to sign a waiver form. One of the FBI agents then produced evidence linking Fontaine to a number of recent bank robberies. Fontaine pointed himself out in several photographs of bank robbers taken by bank cameras. He was told that his fingerprints were found on two of the demand notes. He thereupon confessed to bank robbery.

On November 13, 1969, Fontaine was arraigned before Chief Judge Kaess and entered a plea of guilty. After questioning Fontaine in accordance with Fed.R.Crim.P. 11, the court accepted the plea and imposed a sentence of twenty years.

In his original motion to vacate, Fontaine contended that his guilty plea was induced by a combination of fear, police tactics and illness, including mental illness. At the evidentiary hearing, Judge Keith permitted him to present additional grounds in support of his motion.

In a comprehensive opinion rendered December 28, 1973, Judge Keith denied the motion to vacate sentence, holding that: (1) Fontaine's plea of guilty was made voluntarily and intelligently; (2) that Fontaine's waiver of counsel was valid; and (3) that since his guilty plea was voluntarily and knowingly given, Fontaine was without standing to attack his guilty plea on the ground that his arrest was illegal.

I.

Judge Keith made a finding of fact that the overwhelming evidence against Fontaine prompted his confession and that coercion by police officers was not a factor.

As to the voluntariness of the plea of guilty, Judge Keith made the following findings:

Two days after being released from the hospital in good condition, petitioner was arraigned on state charges. From this time until February 1970, petitioner was very cooperative with the police and FBI. He freely discussed the robberies committed by him and others in his gang. Detroit police were able to close forty files as a result of this cooperation. Sergeant Cowie apparently established a close relationship with petitioner during this time, helping petitioner out of jail once to talk to his family, and bringing toys to his children at Christmas time. Thus, it was, that petitioner was arraigned on federal bank robbery charges on November 13, 1969. Agent Goeddel testified that there was never any question but that petitioner would plead guilty, waiving counsel and indictment. It was simply expected that this was in the natural course of petitioner's cooperative attitude. On the day of the plea, Goeddel could see no visible physical or emotional problems in petitioner. He was coherent and capable of understanding what he was doing. He was not coached by anyone as to what to say to the trial judge. This amicable relationship continued throughout a subsequent stay in the hospital, during which time he was treated primarily for pain from the gunshot wound and for convulsive disorders which stemmed from a gunshot wound to the head which he had received when attempting to flee the police in 1962. After his discharge from the hospital on January 6, 1970, having made a smooth recovery, he testified voluntarily before the grand jury concerning the activities of his fellow robbers. Petitioner has claimed that he went before the grand jury because he was told that if he did not, he would receive a stiffer than deserved sentence. This claim is not borne out by the testimony.

Sometime in February, petitioner ceased cooperating with the government. It has been suggested that this abrupt change stems from the fact that Florida authorities informed petitioner that they had placed a detainer on him for a parole violation. Another factor which may have affected petitioner's attitude is the fact that he was sentenced on February 13 to a twenty-year term.

Several things should be apparent from this brief description of the facts

...