In re Taylor

• Decision Date: 16 June 1949
• Docket Number: 291
• Citation: 53 S.E.2d 857,230 N.C. 566
• Parties: In re TAYLOR.
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court

53 S.E.2d 857

230 N.C. 566

In re TAYLOR.

No. 291

Supreme Court of North Carolina

June 16, 1949

Original application by Laurie D. Taylor, Jr., for leave to apply to the Superior Court of Pitt County for relief from judgments alleged to have been induced by factual and constitutional defects at the January Term, 1947.

Following the disposition of application for writ of certiorari to review judgment on habeas corpus at the Fall Term, 1948, reported in 229 N.C. 297, 49 S.E.2d 749, the petitioner of his own volition and inops consilii, applied to the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of North Carolina for writ of habeas corpus to test the legality of his imprisonment. The Federal Court dismissed his petition on the ground that the petitioner had not exhausted his State remedies. Again of his own volition and inops consilii, he filed application here for leave to apply to the Superior Court of Pitt County for writs of error coram nobis to determine the lawfulness of his present incarceration. The court referred his unverified application to J. C. B. Ehringhaus, Jr., Esquire, of the Raleigh Bar, and requested that he again counsel with the petitioner and advise him of his rights. As a result, the applicant has verified his petition and insists upon its being granted. This is the course which he elected not to pursue at the last Term as will appear from the reported case. He had now changed his mind in respect of the matter or perhaps time and what he regards as a more propitious circumstance have changed it for him.

The substance of the petition is that at the January Term, 1947 Pitt Superior Court, the petitioner, then a minor, eighteen years of age, without legal knowledge or training and inexperienced in court procedure, was required to plead to three indictments charging him with burglary in the first degree and four indictments charging him with housebreaking and larceny; that before entering pleas to the indictments the petitioner informed the trial court that he was unable to employ counsel and requested the court to appoint counsel to advise with him and to protect his rights, but no counsel was appointed to represent him at the time; that the petitioner being apprehensive of the consequences that might result to him from a public hearing of the offenses which were alleged to have occurred only a few weeks prior thereto, entered pleas of guilty to the indictments for housebreaking and larceny, and tendered pleas of guilty of burglary in the second degree on the capital charges which were accepted by the solicitor; that the petitioner was thereupon sentenced to life imprisonment on each of the burglary indictments and to ten years in prison on each of the housebreaking and larceny charges, the sentences in all of the cases to run concurrently, and that the petitioner is now serving his sentences in the Central Prison at Raleigh.

It is further submitted that the disposition of the charges against the petitioner, especially the capital ones, without affording him the advice and assistance of counsel, was in violation of his constitutional and statutory rights.

Answering the allegations of the petition, the Director of Prisons of the North Carolina Highway and Public Works Commission concedes that the petitioner is being held in the Central Prison at Raleigh on seven commitments, three for life and four for ten years each, all running concurrently. He further alleges that while the petitioner may have been a minor at the time of his hearing in Pitt Superior Court, he looks and acts the part of an adult; that he is at least twenty years of age, or thereabout, self-willed, familiar with the courts and no stranger to the ways of crime, especially those of burglary, housebreaking and larceny; that respondent is informed, and the records in subsequent proceedings indicate, the petitioner was fully acquainted with the charges against him, and his pleas were tendered and accepted only after careful consideration and counseling on the part of the trial court.

The respondent further points out that at least in the four non-capital indictments, the appointment of counsel for the accused was a matter resting in the sound discretion of the trial court. Wherefore, he suggests the propriety of dismissing the petition, certainly in respect of these indictments.

J. C. B. Ehringhaus, Jr., Raleigh, by Court appointment, for petitioner.

Attorney-General Harry M. McMullan and Assistant Attorney-General Ralph M. Moody, for the State.

R. Brookes Peters, Raleigh, for State Highway and Public Works Commission.

STACY Chief Justice.

The question posed is the sufficiency of the application and showing for permission to apply for writs of error coram nobis. The record suggests a limited allowance.

The writ of error coram nobis is an established common-law writ. 24 C.J.S., Criminal Law, s 1606, page 143 et seq. It is therefore available under our procedure in a case like the present. G.S. s 4-1; In re Taylor, 229 N.C. 297, 49 S.E.2d 749; Roughton v. Brown, 53 N.C. 393; Williams v. Edwards, 34 N.C. 118; Lassiter v Harper, 32 N.C. 392; Tyler v. Morris, 20 N.C. 625, 34 Am.Dec. 395. See Massie v. Hainey, 165 N.C. 174, 81 S.E. 135; Roberts v. Pratt, 152 N.C. 731, 68 S.E. 240; 27 N.C.L. 254; also Young v. Ragen, 1949, 69 S.Ct. 1073. The instant application for permission to apply to the trial court for relief is addressed to the supervisory authority of this Court over 'proceedings of the inferior courts' of the State. Const.Art. IV, Sec. 8; State v. Lawrence, 81 N.C. 522; State v. Green, 85 N.C. 600. See, also, note to Holford v. Alexander, 12 Ala....