Hill v. United States

• Decision Date: 30 November 1964
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 4315.
• Citation: 236 F. Supp. 155
• Parties: James Francis HILL v. UNITED STATES of America.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Tennessee

236 F. Supp. 155

James Francis HILL v. UNITED STATES of America.

Civ. A. No. 4315.

United States District Court E. D. Tennessee, S. D.

November 30, 1964.

Marvin Berke, Chattanooga, Tenn., for petitioner.

J. H. Reddy, U. S. Atty., Chattanooga, Tenn., for respondent.

FRANK W. WILSON, District Judge.

This cause is before the Court upon a petition filed upon May 11, 1964, pursuant to the provisions of Section 2255, Title 28, of the United States Code. This is the sixth such petition filed in which the petitioner seeks to have the judgments and sentences of this Court vacated and set aside in the cases of United States of America v. James Francis Hill, being Criminal Numbers 10,113 and 10,114. The record reflects that upon June 4, 1954, following a trial by jury, the petitioner, James Francis Hill, was convicted under separate indictments of having transported in interstate commerce a stolen motor vehicle, and having transported across state lines a person who had theretofore been kidnapped and held for ransom. A sentence of twenty years was adjudged upon the kidnapping charge and three years upon the Dyer Act charge with the sentences to run consecutively. A motion for new trial was filed upon June 9, 1954, by his appointed counsel and after a hearing before Honorable Leslie R. Darr, the Trial Judge, was denied on June 15, 1954. An appeal was not taken from the judgment of conviction.

The original petition alleges that (1) the petitioner was denied a fair trial through the use of an "illegal, coerced confession by the Government"; (2) the petitioner was denied the right to make a statement in his own behalf and to present any information in mitigation of punishment upon sentencing by the Trial Judge; (3) the petitioner was denied his constitutional right to appeal his conviction by the Trial Judge's failure to advise the petitioner of his right to appeal when the petitioner was not represented by counsel during the ten-day period; (4) the petitioner was denied due process of law by the Trial Judge's refusal to appoint counsel to carry out petitioner's appeal; and (5) the petitioner was denied due process of law by refusal of his two Court appointed attorneys to subpoena witnesses, hospital records and to file a motion to suppress evidence. An amendment to the original petition was filed upon June 10, 1964, containing a repetition of allegations number three and four of the original petition.

The Government responded to the original and amended petitions upon June 19, 1964. The petitioner filed a "traverse" to the Government's response upon June 25, 1964.

By letter dated June 4, 1964, and filed in the record in this case upon June 26, 1964, the petitioner requested that Judge Robert L. Taylor recuse himself from deciding the instant petition. In addition, by letter of June 21, 1964, filed in the record of this cause upon June 24, 1964, the petitioner requested that the Court appoint counsel to represent him in this matter.

Judge Taylor recused himself and this Court entered an order upon July 6, 1964, appointing Attorney Marvin Berke to represent the petitioner and allowing the petitioner thirty days within which to file any additional grounds in support of his petition to vacate and set aside the criminal judgments of this Court. In so ordering it was the purpose of the Court to require that the petitioner present all contentions which he may conceivably have under Section 2255 in this petition to the end that the repeated filing of new petitions after adjudication of former petitions might end and the rights of the petitioner might be properly and finally adjudicated. In no other field of civil or criminal litigation is a party permitted to file repeated petitions or assert new legal theories or new factual allegations without limitation as to time upon a cause of action that has been previously adjudicated. If it were so, litigation would never end, Courts would rapidly become engulfed in such repeated litigation of a single cause of action and the administration of justice would become a farce.

Upon July 15, 1964, the petitioner, James Francis Hill, filed an extensive amended petition. This amended petition contained the following allegations in support of the petitioner's position to have the aforesaid criminal judgments and sentences set aside: (1) the Trial Court failed and refused to follow the expert opinions of psychiatrists that the petitioner was mentally incompetent to stand trial and the Trial Court accepted lay testimony over and above that of the experts; (2) the attorneys appointed by the Trial Court failed to properly defend the petitioner in certain specified manners; (3) the allowance by the Trial Court of the use of perjured testimony by the prosecution; (4) the allowance by the Trial Court of the perusal by the jury of inflammatory and prejudicial newspaper and magazine articles relative to the petitioner's past; (5) the denial of a fair and impartial trial to the petitioner; (6) the withholding from the petitioner by the prosecution of pictures and statements which were inconsistent with the testimony of witnesses given upon the witness stand; (7) the failure of the Trial Court to properly instruct the jury upon insanity; (8) a denial of counsel during a four-day period when the petitioner was held by Florida police in collaboration with the F.B.I., during which period a confession was extracted from the petitioner by two F.B.I. agents; (9) the statement by the prosecuting attorney before the jury that the petitioner had been convicted of armed robbery in Florida; (10) the failure of the Trial Court to instruct the jury not to read newspaper accounts of the trial or not to discuss the trial with others when the jury was recessed overnight; (11) the prejudicial and inflammatory newspaper articles printed so that the petitioner would not receive a fair trial; (12) the prejudicial statements by the Trial Court at the time of the trial and before the jury regarding prior convictions in Florida; (13) the insanity of the petitioner at the time of committing the offense, at the time of the trial and at the time of the sentencing; (14) the admission by the Trial Court and the prosecuting attorney that they had read True Detective magazine stories regarding the petitioner's past; (15) the Trial Court's placing the burden of proof upon the petitioner in his defense of insanity; (16) the denial by the Trial Court of a trial transcript; and (17) all the other grounds theretofore set forth by the petitioner.

Upon July 18, 1964, the Government responded to the July 15, 1964, amendment filed by the petitioner. To the response the petitioner filed a "traverse" upon July 25, 1964.

The petitioner filed a further amendment to his petition upon August 1, 1964, restating allegations relating to the use of petitioner's confession and the use of perjured testimony by the Government. The Government responded to this latter amendment upon August 4, 1964, with a motion to strike or, in the alternative, for an order of the Court requiring the petitioner to set forth in detail any factual matter which the petitioner contended supported the allegations of the August 1st amendment. Without any order of the Court, the petitioner filed an "answer" to the alternative motion of the Government upon August 13, 1964, setting forth the factual matters alleged to support the August 1st allegations.

The Court will consider all the grounds set forth in the original petition and all amendments thereto as properly filed and properly before the Court.

From the record in this cause it is apparent, however, that procedural rules have been little observed. Not only have repeated letters been filed and amendments made, but following the appointment of very able legal counsel for the petitioner by the Court, as requested by the petitioner, the petitioner continues to file correspondence directly with the Court, apparently without any pretense of even advising, much less proceeding through, his legal counsel. Trial by correspondence, with the judges more and more being required to overlook all procedural deficiencies and to this extent at least become legal counsel for the petitioner, appears to be the vogue in post-conviction procedures these days. There remains little public awareness of the unusual developments in the field of post-conviction procedures and remedies in recent years nor of the enormous increase in this type of litigation. That a trial upon the merits and conviction by jury with subsequent exhaustion of appellate procedures is rapidly becoming only the beginning of litigation in the field of criminal law is a matter the awareness of which is largely confined to the inmates of penal institutions.

It appears that this is the sixth petition filed by the petitioner, James Francis Hill, pursuant to the provisions of 28 U.S.C. § 2255.

The initial petition, filed upon October 18, 1954, was dismissed by the District Judge and this action affirmed by the Court of Appeals, 6 Cir., 223 F.2d 699, cert. den. 350 U.S. 867, 76 S.Ct. 113, 100 L.Ed. 768.

A second petition was filed upon March 15, 1956, and this likewise was denied by the District Court and the judgment affirmed upon appeal. 6 Cir., 238 F.2d 84, cert. den. 352 U.S. 1007, 77 S.Ct. 569, 1 L.Ed.2d 551.

A third petition was filed upon December 19, 1957, and again denied by the District Court, but upon appeal was remanded for a hearing upon factual issues. 6 Cir., 256 F.2d 957. A hearing was thereupon held and the petition was again dismissed as being without merit. The action of the District Court was again affirmed with the statement, "A review of the evidence convinces us that not only is the finding not clearly erroneous, but is also supported by the great weight of the evidence." 6 Cir., 268 F.2d 203, cert. den. 361 U.S. 834, 80 S.Ct. 110, 4 L.Ed.2d 93.

A fourth petition was filed upon October 21, 1959, and dismissed as without merit by the...