Goodwin v. Swenson, 1079.
| Decision Date | 02 July 1968 |
| Docket Number | No. 1079.,1079. |
| Citation | 287 F. Supp. 166 |
| Parties | Marcus GOODWIN, Petitioner, v. Harold R. SWENSON, Warden, Respondent. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Western District of Missouri |
Granville E. Collins, Edward H. Hunvald, Jr., Columbia, Mo., for petitioner.
Norman H. Anderson, Atty. Gen., Howard L. McFadden, Asst. Atty. Gen., Jefferson City, Mo., for respondent.
This state prisoner habeas corpus case presents, among other federal questions, an alleged violation of petitioner's right to the effective assistance of counsel as guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. We find and determine that petitioner is entitled to appropriate relief.
The petitioner was convicted of first degree murder in the Circuit Court of Jackson County, Missouri. His death sentence and conviction were affirmed on direct appeal in State v. Goodwin, Mo.Sup.Ct. en banc 1962, 352 S.W.2d 614. The Supreme Court of Missouri noted that:
The trial was exceedingly brief, having begun and ended on the same day. That portion of the transcript embodying the evidence consists of about thirty-five pages, thus indicating the likelihood that not more than one hour was consumed in hearing the evidence.
Neither brief nor oral argument was presented to the Supreme Court of Missouri on petitioner's behalf in connection with his direct appeal. The questions presented to that court, under Missouri practice, were limited to the assignments made by trial counsel in petitioner's motion for new trial. Petitioner's trial counsel assigned the following as one of four assignments of error:
Shortly after the affirmance of his conviction on direct appeal, petitioner, assisted by Mortimer A. Rosecan, Esq., a member of the St. Louis Bar who had become interested in petitioner's case, filed a petition for habeas corpus in the Supreme Court of Missouri. The per curiam denial of that petition, after a hearing in that court held March 29, 1962, is reported as In re Goodwin, Mo.Sup.Ct. en banc 1962, 359 S.W. 2d 601, cert. denied 371 U.S. 915, 83 S.Ct. 262, 9 L.Ed.2d 174. The Governor of Missouri, two days before the Supreme Court of Missouri held its habeas corpus hearing, commuted petitioner's death sentence to life imprisonment.
There is still a third reported decision concerning petitioner in the Supreme Court of Missouri, Missouri v. Goodwin, Div. 2, 1965, 396 S.W.2d 548. That case affirmed the denial, without evidentiary hearing, of a postconviction motion filed by petitioner pro se in his committing court. In affirming that denial the Supreme Court of Missouri held that "it is not necessary upon this appeal to detail any of the facts, or for that matter to detail the claims here, they are all set forth in the former opinions and files of this court." Applying a rule of appellate procedure now abandoned (see White v. Swenson, (W.D.Mo. en banc 1966) 261 F.Supp. 42) the Supreme Court of Missouri simply held that "all the issues he now seeks to raise were fully considered in both the former appeal and the habeas corpus proceeding and `he is thereby precluded from litigating the questions further by means of a motion to vacate and set aside,' (State v. Thompson, Mo., 324 S.W.2d 133, 139) and, therefore, the judgment is affirmed."
In the recent case of Noble v. Swenson (W.D.Mo.1968) 285 F.Supp. 385, decided June 17, 1968, we were able to defer to findings of fact made by the Supreme Court of Missouri under the principles stated in Townsend v. Sain, 372 U.S. 293 at 318, 83 S.Ct. 745, 9 L.Ed.2d 770. We cannot do so in this case because the findings of the Supreme Court of Missouri are general rather than specific and because, in any event, the general conclusory findings of that court are not supported by any substantial evidence.
The Supreme Court of Missouri stated that "after due consideration of the evidence and the briefs, the Court finds that the Petitioner Marcus Goodwin was represented by counsel at the trial of his case in the Circuit Court of Jackson County, Missouri; that the attorney, Lee Vertis Swinton who represented Petitioner at the trial, is an able lawyer who had had previous experience in the trial of criminal cases, including the defense of persons charged with murder; and that trial counsel conducted the defense intelligently and with discrimination." 359 S.W.2d 601. A finding that petitioner was represented by counsel of apparent general competence is not a finding that, under all the particular facts and circumstances of this particular case, petitioner was in fact rendered the effective assistance required by the Constitution.
The Supreme Court of Missouri's conclusory statement that "trial counsel conducted the defense intelligently and with discrimination" was obviously intended to dispose of the case as a matter of law and is not the type of factual finding to which this Court may defer.2
Nor was it possible for this Court "to reconstruct the findings of the state trier of fact" because the Supreme Court of Missouri's view of the facts was not made plain either by its opinions or by any other indicia. Under Townsend v. Sain, 372 U.S. 293, at 314, 83 S.Ct. 745, 9 L.Ed.2d 770 (1963), we were therefore "compelled to hold a hearing," it being agreed that petitioner had exhausted all his available state court postconviction remedies.
The transcript of the trial shows that petitioner's conviction rested upon a statement taken by two detectives of the Kansas City, Missouri, Police Department on June 25, 1959, the day petitioner was released from Kansas City General Hospital in which he had been continuously confined since May 30, 1959, and upon petitioner's oral statement made to another police officer on the day petitioner was admitted to the hospital. On direct appeal, the Supreme Court of Missouri held that "defendant may not now claim error on the part of the trial court in admitting the confession for the reason that * * * when offered, defendant's counsel stated that there was no objection to its introduction." (352 S.W.2d at 620).
Petitioner's June 25, 1959 statement read in part as follows:
The hospital records (of which petitioner's trial counsel had no knowledge) show that petitioner was admitted to the hospital on May 30, 1959 suffering from (1) first and second degree burns on his face, trunk, and extremities (about 20% of petitioner's body); (2) bilateral lacerations of his wrists, with severance of tendons; and (3) mental disorder.4
Police Officer Linhart testified that the defendant orally admitted that he shot and stabbed Mazie. The evidence shows that Officer Linhart questioned petitioner in the emergency room of the hospital on May 30, 1959, the day petitioner was admitted to the hospital.
That witness testified:
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
U.S. v. Tucker
...afforded his client a legitimate justiciable defense." McQueen v. Swenson, 498 F.2d 207, 217 (8th Cir.1974), quoting Goodwin v. Swenson, 287 F.Supp. 166, 182-3 (W.D.Mo.1968). The absence of any corroboration for Tucker's testimony was repeatedly underscored and exploited by the prosecutor i......
- Advance Business Systems & Supply Co. v. SCM Corporation
-
Richardson v. Miller
...a member of the Supreme Court of Missouri in 1968 when this Court was forced to grant federal habeas corpus relief in Goodwin v. Swenson, 287 F.Supp. 166 (W.D.Mo.1968), in a case in which the state prisoner was accorded an evidentiary hearing in an original habeas corpus proceeding conducte......
-
U.S. v. Decoster
...143 (1963); McLaughlin v. Royster, 346 F.Supp. 297 (E.D.Va.1972); Kott v. Green, 303 F.Supp. 821 (N.D.Ohio 1968); Goodwin v. Swenson, 287 F.Supp. 166 (W.D.Mo.1968); Smotherman v. Beto, 276 F.Supp. 579 (N.D.Tex.1967).112 Contrary to the assertion by other members of this court that imposing ......