Mastrian v. Hedman
| Citation | 326 F.2d 708 |
| Decision Date | 30 March 1964 |
| Docket Number | No. 232.,232. |
| Parties | Norman J. MASTRIAN, Petitioner, v. Kermit HEDMAN, Ramsey County Sheriff, and the State of Minnesota, Respondents. |
| Court | United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (8th Circuit) |
Douglas W. Thomson and John A. Cochrane, of Cochrane, Thomson & Bresnahan, St. Paul, Minn., filed application papers on behalf of petitioner, without oral argument to the Court in his behalf.
No papers were filed by counsel for respondent, or appearance entered in his behalf.
Before JOHNSEN, Chief Judge, and MATTHES, Circuit Judge.
Certiorari Denied March 30, 1964. See 84 S.Ct. 1128.
Petitioner is under indictment by the State of Minnesota for murder in the first degree. Bail was fixed in the sum of $100,000. A motion for reduction was denied by the trial court after a hearing. The Minnesota Supreme Court affirmed, State v. Mastrian, 266 Minn. 58, 122 N. W.2d 621, and the United States Supreme Court denied certiorari, Mastrian v. Minnesota, 84 S.Ct. 349.
An application for a writ of habeas corpus was then made to the United States District Court, on the ground that $100,000 was such excessive bail as to amount to an arbitrary and discriminatory denial of petitioner's general right to liberty pending trial, and hence to constitute a violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments.
The matter was submitted to the District Court on the application for a writ, the exhibit attached thereto (copy of the petition for certiorari in the United States Supreme Court, the affidavits in the trial court, the memorandum of the trial court and the per curiam of the Minnesota Supreme Court), a supplemental affidavit by petitioner as to his financial situation, the response made by the State of Minnesota to the application, and oral arguments by counsel.
The District Court denied the application for a writ and refused to issue a certificate of probable cause under 28 U.S.C.A. § 2253 to enable petitioner to take an appeal. The matter is before us on challenge to the Court's denial of a certificate of probable cause and application to have such a certificate issued by a judge of this Court.
The memorandum of the state trial court and the per curiam of the Minnesota Supreme Court show that petitioner's claim of constitutional violation received deliberative consideration from each of those courts. The trial court found, on the basis of what was presented to it, that bail in the amount of $20,000.00, which petitioner indicated was all that he would be able to furnish, was not sufficient to secure the presence of petitioner at the trial.
The Minnesota Supreme Court recognized the obligation of a court to permit an accused generally to secure his release from custody, "if appearance at trial can otherwise be guaranteed"; enumerated the factors on which the trial court was entitled to appraise and assure this certainty; emphasized that the matter was primarily a responsibility of the trial court and that its judgment would be accepted, "unless defendant shows that the discretion exercised was abused so as to deprive him of his constitutional rights"; and held that petitioner had not established that the amount of the bail and the trial court's refusal to reduce it were in the situation arbitrary, so as to represent an unconstitutional deprivation of petitioner's liberty — it not being sufficient to show abstractly "that in other cases involving murder in the first degree bail has been and is generally fixed at a substantially lower amount, and that defendant is wholly unable to produce a bail of $100,000". The Court did not simply brush off petitioner's effort to be released but took occasion to add for his benefit that "our decision is without prejudice to the right of defendant to make further application with such additional evidence as this opinion may suggest".
The application for a writ in the United States District Court was, as the Court said in its memorandum, "not accompanied by significant evidence beyond that which was before the State Courts". The Court recognized its responsibility to make an independent appraisal of whether a federal constitutional violation existed from unwarranted deprivation of liberty by arbitrary and unreasonable fixing of bail but concluded that it could not say in legal judgment, on the elements which were before it, that petitioner had demonstrated...
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...there are offenses of a nature as to which a state properly may refuse to make provision for a right to bail. Mastrian v. Hedman, 326 F.2d 708, 710 (8th Cir. 1964), cert. denied, 376 U.S. 965, 84 S.Ct. 1128, 11 L.Ed. 982. Certainly first-degree murder, with which petitioner was charged, is ......
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Hunt v. Roth
...not arbitrarily or unreasonably deny bail.Id. at 206 (emphasis added).21 The state also urges that this court's opinion in Mastrian v. Hedman, 326 F.2d 708 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 376 U.S. 965, 84 S.Ct. 1128, 11 L.Ed.2d 982 (1964), which was also cited extensively by the Nebraska Supreme ......
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Koen v. Long
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