Mancusi v. United States ex rel. Clayton, No. 218

• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (2nd Circuit)
• Writing for the Court: ZAMPANO
• Citation: 454 F.2d 454
• Parties: Hon. Vincent A. MANCUSI, Warden, Attica State Prison, Respondent-Appellant, v. UNITED STATES ex rel. Robert CLAYTON, Petitioner-Appellee.
• Decision Date: 17 January 1972
• Docket Number: Docket 71-1696.,No. 218

454 F.2d 454 (1972)

Hon. Vincent A. MANCUSI, Warden, Attica State Prison, Respondent-Appellant,
v.
UNITED STATES ex rel. Robert CLAYTON, Petitioner-Appellee.

No. 218, Docket 71-1696.

United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.

Argued October 8, 1971.

Decided January 17, 1972.

Samuel A. Hirshowitz, First Asst. Atty. Gen. (Louis J. Lefkowitz, Atty. Gen. of State of New York, Amy Juviler, Asst. Atty. Gen., of counsel), for respondent-appellant.

Frederic Block, Centereach, N. Y., for petitioner-appellee.

454 F.2d 455

Before WATERMAN and SMITH, Circuit Judges, and ZAMPANO,^* District Judge.

ZAMPANO, District Judge:

This is an appeal from an order of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, John R. Bartels, J., granting petitioner's writ of habeas corpus and directing his release unless he is retried by the state.

Petitioner, Robert Clayton, was convicted of second degree murder on February 25, 1953, after a trial in which his confession was introduced as evidence. He did not appeal his conviction, but in 1965 sought relief in a coram nobis hearing in the County Court, Suffolk County, asserting that his confession was involuntary. That court denied relief on the ground that the confession was a voluntary one. The Appellate Division, Second Department, 28 A.D.2d 543, 279 N.Y.S.2d 605, and the Court of Appeals affirmed, 22 N.Y.2d 841, 293 N.Y.S.2d 104, 39 N.E.2d 734, whereupon petitioner unsuccessfully sought certiorari in the United States Supreme Court, 394 U.S. 909, 89 S.Ct. 1018, 22 L.Ed.2d 219. Petitioner then commenced this action for a writ of habeas corpus in the District Court which held an extensive hearing and granted the writ based upon its finding that the confession was involuntary.

The facts surrounding the making of the confession are set forth in Judge Bartels' comprehensive opinion below, 326 F.Supp. 1366 (E.D.N.Y. 1971); therefore only a brief summary is necessary. Petitioner, a semiliterate itinerant farm worker, was taken into custody along with 11 others at about three o'clock in the afternoon of November 3, 1952, as part of an investigation into a homicide which had occurred the previous day on the farm where he was working. Except for repeated periods of questioning in another room by the police, he was confined in a small and practically bare room with the others throughout the night and the next day. On November 4th a co-worker implicated petitioner in the murder after first having given a false confession himself and that evening petitioner was "arraigned" as a "material witness." At no time was petitioner informed of his rights. Thereafter he was isolated from the others who were taken into custody with him, and he alternated between interrogation sessions with the police and confinement in a small cell with only a flat board for sleeping. The record is not clear as to whether, and how adequately, petitioner slept and ate. He finally confessed to the murder late in the evening of November 5th, approximately 55 hours after having been taken into custody. The interrogation was finally concluded at approximately three o'clock in the morning of the next day, November 6th, and later that day he was arraigned as a defendant.

The District Court relied on six factors to support its conclusion that the confession, under all the circumstances, was involuntarily made: (1) the failure to advise petitioner, an indigent and uneducated suspect, of his rights to counsel and to remain silent; (2) the "sham" arraignment...