Johnson v. United States
| Decision Date | 20 February 1963 |
| Docket Number | No. 17274.,17274. |
| Citation | 313 F.2d 953 |
| Parties | Ray Lee JOHNSON, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Appellee. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit |
Ray Lee Johnson, appellant, in pro. per.
F. Russell Millin, U. S. Atty., Kansas City, Mo., for appellee.
Before JOHNSEN, Chief Judge, and MATTHES, Circuit Judge.
Appellant is under conviction and sentence for escape in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 751. The escape was made from the Honor Farm of the United States Penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas, located in Platte County, Missouri. Appellant was at the time under commitment on a sentence for narcotic violation imposed by the District Court for the Eastern District of Illinois. He remained a fugitive for almost three years before he was apprehended. He was thereafter convicted and sentenced in the District Court for the Western District of Missouri for the escape. He now seeks to appeal in forma pauperis from that judgment.
The court had appointed counsel to represent appellant on the escape charge, but, after going over the matter with appellant, counsel was of the judgment that appellant had no possible defense and ought, therefore, to plead guilty. He so advised appellant, but appellant refused to listen to this and requested the court to appoint other counsel for him. The court refused in the circumstances to do so, and appellant then sought to obtain counsel of his own choosing.
He asserts that he was unable to get the attorney selected by him to agree to try the case on the basis of his promise to pay a fee after he was released from the penitentiary. From the trial court's memorandum, however, it appears, as having been brought out in a part of the proceedings before the court, that this attorney, like appellant's appointed counsel, had told him that he had no defense to the charge, and that the attorney would not at all represent him except upon the condition that he would plead guilty and the attorney should then attempt to get the court to minimize the penalty.
Appellant continued to insist to the court that he wanted a jury trial, and in the situation thus confronting him, he undertook to represent himself. He asserted as defenses before the jury (a) that the sentence under which he was placed on the Honor Farm was illegal because it had been imposed upon him by taking him against his will from the Missouri State Penitentiary to the Eastern District of Illinois for that purpose and then returning him to the Missouri State Penitentiary; (b) that, additionally, the placing of him on the Honor Farm after he had completed his Missouri state sentence and had been taken to Leavenworth on the federal sentence, was against his will, and he therefore had a right to leave; and (c) that, in any event, from the nature and purpose of the Honor Farm, any leaving of it without permission could at most constitute merely a breach of trust and not an offense of escape.
All of these defenses were, of course, legally frivolous, but, because appellant was representing himself, the court did not undertake to halt him in asserting them or arguing them to the jury. In its instructions, however, the court, with judicial responsibility, told the jury that none of the grounds thus urged by appellant constituted in law a justification for his leaving the Honor Farm. It added, as to his contention that the sentence which he was being made to serve at the time was illegal that the sentence was not invalid because he had been transported against his will from the Missouri State Penitentiary to the Eastern District of Illinois for the purpose of enabling it to be imposed.
The conviction of appellant on the narcotic charge in the Eastern District of Illinois had previously occurred. He was out on bail awaiting sentence on the conviction, when he went into Missouri and engaged in armed robbery. The State of Missouri seized, tried, and convicted him for that offense and sent him to the ...
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United States v. Person
...refuse to apply the statute to the defendant. Therefore, I turn to the cases which have applied 18 U.S.C. § 751. In Johnson v. United States, 313 F.2d 953 (8th Cir. 1963) a prisoner was on the Honor Farm of the United States Penitentiary at Leavenworth and escaped from it. He claimed that b......
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Johnson v. United States, 17274.
...to this court for leave to appeal in forma pauperis notwithstanding the trial court's certificate, we filed an opinion in Johnson v. United States, 8 Cir., 313 F.2d 953, permitting the prosecution of the appeal in forma pauperis upon the following 1. Violation of defendant's constitutional ......
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U.S. v. Spletzer, 75-3616
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U.S. v. Caldwell, 77-1721
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