Larson v. United States

• Decision Date: 29 February 1960
• Docket Number: No. 17942.,17942.
• Citation: 275 F.2d 673
• Parties: Lewis Woodard LARSON, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

275 F.2d 673 (1960)

Lewis Woodard LARSON, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Appellee.

No. 17942.

United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit.

February 29, 1960.

Lewis W. Larson, in pro. per.

E. Ralph Ivey, Asst. U. S. Atty., Charles D. Read, Jr., U. S. Atty., Atlanta, Ga., for appellee.

Before TUTTLE, CAMERON and WISDOM, Circuit Judges.

WISDOM, Circuit Judge.

The question for decision is whether, in the circumstances of this case, a collateral attack on an unappealed judgment of conviction may be made under Section 2255, Title 28. The prisoner gives no reason for failing to appeal and it appears that his failure to appeal, his decision not to move for a change of venue, and his withdrawal of a motion for a new trial were all part of considered strategy not to jeopardize his life by running the risk of a new trial. We hold that the prisoner may not now substitute a proceeding under Section 2255 for the orderly appellate process he deliberately declined to use six years ago when the errors, if they were errors were as obvious as they are today.

On August 25, 1953, Lewis Woodard Larson, appellant, and Herbert Eugene Juelich were indicted for the murder of a Deputy United States Marshal.¹ There was considerable prejudicial publicity before and during the trial.² Juelich moved for a change of venue; Larson did not. The motion was denied. The case was called for trial on November 24, 1953, and from November 24, 1953 to December 2, 1953, the court heard motions and each juror on the panel was questioned at length on voir dire. The record of the trial, as this Court observed in Juelich v. United States, 5 Cir., 1954, 214 F.2d 950, shows that each member of the trial jury empanelled expressed the opinion that Larson or Juelich, or both, were guilty. Each member of the jury stated also that he would base his verdict on the testimony, regardless of his opinion. The jury returned a verdict of guilty against Larson, with recommendations against capital punishment. The verdict against Juelich was guilty, with no recommendation against capital punishment; he was the one who pulled the trigger. Juelich was sentenced to death. He appealed. Larson received a life sentence. He did not appeal.

This Court reversed the conviction of Juelich. We held: "We are of the opinion that on the clear showing here made the trial court should either have sustained defendant's motion to change the venue of the case, or should have granted a continuance for such period of time as might be necessary to insure that a fair and impartial jury could be obtained. We are further of the opinion that the trial court committed reversible error in forcing defendant to trial before a jury, every man thereon having entered the jury box with the opinion that the defendant was guilty." Juelich v. United States, 5 Cir., 1954, 214 F.2d 950, 956.

The trial judge, in his opinion on Larson's motion under Section 2255, observed that Larson was represented at his original trial by two "able and outstanding attorneys, who, together with movant, appeared entirely satisfied with the verdict of guilty with recommendations of mercy". One of the attorneys, James Maddox, well-known at the Georgia bar, was a former Judge of the Superior Court of the Rome, Georgia, Judicial Circuit. These attorneys filed a motion for severance and a motion to dismiss. The district court denied both motions. November 30, 1953, Larson's counsel moved for a continuance. After selection of the jury, December 2, 1953 this motion was renewed. The motion was denied. The same day Larson's counsel moved that all jurors be disqualified. This motion too was denied. December 8, 1953, Larson moved that the verdict be set aside and that he be granted a judgment of acquittal and, in the alternative, that he be granted a new trial. The only ground alleged for a new trial was that there was no evidence submitted to justify the jury's verdict of guilty of the offense of murder in the first degree. The motion for judgment of acquittal was denied. Then, December 11, 1953, Larson withdrew his motion for a new trial.

Juelich was later retried, convicted, and sentenced to a life sentence. The risk of a death sentence therefore, to which Larson would have been exposed if he had appealed with Juelich in 1953 and had been retried, has been reduced almost to zero. Now, Larson brings this action under Section 2255 and appeals from the order of the district court denying his motion.

In a carefully considered opinion, the trial judge stated: "It is significant that at the time of his trial movant and his counsel did not pursue, or file, various motions which were filed in behalf of Juelich. The strategy pursued was this, to allow Juelich if possible, to obtain a change of venue, which would have given to Larson a severance, so that he would be tried alone in the Rome Division of the United States District Court, either before or after Juelich was tried in another jurisdiction. A careful study of the various complaints made by movant will show that no opportunity was given to the trial judge to rule upon the questions now raised when the case was tried, for the reason that movant did not then ask for the same. He could not have been given a change of venue without his own motion, nor could the court have tried his case without a jury unless movant waived a jury, which he did not do. * * * Failure of able counsel for movant to make the above motions (now made under § 2255)³ at the time of trial was not through inadvertence, nor to oversight or neglect. Neither was there failure to file an appeal due to oversight or neglect. It was done with the full consciousness of the facts in the record. * * * Movant and his able counsel all felt that his conviction should not be appealed, and that he should not again be put in jeopardy, even in another jurisdiction. The facts in the record would seem to justify the decision by movant and his counsel to accept the life sentence and not stand trial again."

A motion under Section 2255⁴ is a post-conviction proceeding to enable a federal prisoner to attack the validity of a sentence, if the sentence is "in violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States". But the constitutional ground must be "such a denial or infringement of the constitutional rights of the prisoner as to render the judgment vulnerable to collateral attack." A collateral attack may be sustained only upon grounds which would warrant granting a writ of habeas corpus.⁵

The Great Writ is still the greatest writ. Nevertheless, even the Great Writ may not be used as a substitute for appeal or writ of error to reverse a judgment. Thus, in Howell v. United States, 4 Cir., 1949, 172 F.2d 213, 215, Judge Parker⁶ held:

"It is elementary that neither habeas corpus nor motion in the nature of application for writ of error coram nobis can be availed of in lieu of writ of error or appeal, to correct errors committed in the course of a trial, even though such errors relate to constitutional rights. It is only when there has been the denial of the substance of a fair trial that the validity of the proceedings may be thus collaterally attacked or questioned by motion in the nature of petition for writ of error coram nobis or under 28 U.S.C.A. 2255."

In Sunal v. Large, 1947, 332 U.S. 174, 181, 67 S.Ct. 1588, 1592, 91 L.Ed. 1982, the Supreme Court held:

"Congress, moreover, has provided a regular, orderly method for correction of all such errors by granting an appeal to the Circuit Court of Appeals and by vesting us with certiorari jurisdiction. It is not uncommon after a trial is ended and the time for appeal has passed to discover that a shift in the law or the impact of a new decision has given increased relevance to a point made at the trial but not pursued on appeal. Cf. Warring v. Colpoys, supra 74 App.D.C. 303, 122 F.2d 642, 136 A.L.R. 1025. If in such circumstances, habeas corpus could be used to correct the error, the writ would become a delayed motion for a new trial, renewed from time to time as the legal climate changed. Error which was not deemed sufficiently adequate to warrant an appeal would acquire new implication. Every error is potentially reversible error; and many rulings of the trial court spell the difference between conviction and acquittal. If defendants who accept the judgment of conviction and do not appeal can later renew their attack on the judgment by habeas corpus, litigation in these criminal cases will be interminable."

In Sunal v. Large, the Supreme Court pointed out that the error did "not trench on any constitutional rights of defendants nor involve the jurisdiction of the trial court". In Bowen v. United States, 5 Cir., 1951, 192 F.2d 515, certiorari denied 343 U.S. 943, 72 S.Ct. 1036, 96 L.Ed. 1348, however, this Court applied the principle to a collateral attack based on lack of due process: "After all, while it is of the essence of the constitutional principles which mark and distinguish our system: that trials be conducted according to law; that in short, the government be obliged to control itself; and that when one has been convicted in violation of those principles he should be accorded relief; it is also of the essence: that the government be enabled to control the governed and to that end that judgments have finality; and that trials, conducted in accordance with law and ending in conviction, some day be at an end. Especially is it of the essence of orderly trials that the right to counsel accorded to defendants by the constitution be not regarded, as the argument here would seem to regard it, as a mere one way street such that, if the strategy and tactics of his trial counsel, in determining not to raise constitutional questions, prove unsuccessful, defendant, without appealing from the judgment, may many years later set it aside in order that, on another trial with another counsel, another course raising these questions may be taken, and so on ad infinitum."...