Mottram v. State
| Decision Date | 08 May 1964 |
| Parties | Robert H. MOTTRAM, Petr. for Writ of Error Coram Nobis v. STATE of Maine. |
| Court | Maine Supreme Court |
Thomas F. Monaghan, Earl J. Wahl, Portland, for plaintiff.
John W. Benoit, Asst. Atty. Gen., Augusta, for defendant.
Argued before WILLIAMSON, C. J., and WEBBER, TAPLEY, SULLIVAN, SIDDALL and MARDEN, JJ.
On December 10, A. D. 1962 Robert H Mottram filed in the Superior Court his petition for a writ of error coram nobis under the provisions of R.S. c. 126-A, additional, P.L.1961, c. 131, to vacate the judgment of conviction rendered against him at that Court in October, 1960 for the crime of larceny.
The Petitioner complains of having been denied his right to a fair trial and to equal justice a his jury trial in 1960 and alleges several particulars to instance such asserted abuses.
The State opposed Mottram's petition and moved for its dismissal. The petition and motion were heard by a Justice of the Superior Court who dismissed the petition and denied the writ of error coram nobis. Petitioner prosecutes this appeal from that decision.
Petitioner's statement of his points of appeal is restricted by him to 2 grievances:
The Petitioner has abandoned his first point of appeal by his declination to argue or support it. The contention has no merit. The Petitioner in self advocacy supplied his own petition and in writing thus advised the Court:
'That thru circumstances he now elects to act as his own Counsel in re--his Petition.'
At no time did the Petitioner profess his indigency. Nadeau v. State, 159 Me. 260, 264, 191 A.2d 261.
Several weeks prior to the hearing upon the petition the Justice presiding wrote to Mottram, as follows:
At the commencement of the hearing upon the petition for the writ of error coram nobis the following dialogue appears in the record:
The notice of appeal in this case was signed by Mottram, 'Petitioner, Pro Se.'
Petitioner's first point of appeal is devoid of merit.
The 2nd point of appeal reads as follows:
This 2nd point of appeal as phrased must be deemed inept. Since 1941 (P.L.1941, c. 203) a statutory law has afforded a specific and distinct process for the obtaining of new trials on the ground of newly discovered evidence. R.S. c. 106, § 15. R.S. c. 126-A, additional, P.L.1961, c. 131, (now repealed), the act under which Petitioner sought relief in the instant case contains this preclusion:
Sec. 1 * * * 'The remedy of coram nobis provided in this chapter is not a substitute for nor does it affect any remedies which are incident to the proceedings in the trial court, or any other review of the sentence or conviction.'
Petitioner could not have been aggrieved by a determination of the Court that petitioner's evidence was not newly discovered in the conventional significance of such a classification for had the Justice concluded to the contrary mere newly discovered evidence would not sustain the issuance and sustaining of a writ of error coram nobis. Dwyer v. State, 151 Me. 382, 395, 120 A.2d 276; Coram Nobis by Eli Frank, § 3.02(c) and authorities; R.S. c. 126-A additional, supra.
Lest it may appear, however, that this Court is extending to this Petitioner only technical and summary consideration additional comment seems appropriate.
In 1958 Petitioner had been tried and adjudged guilty of the same charge of larceny which is involved here. In 1960 after hearing upon a writ of error coram nobis such guilty judgment had been recalled by the Superior Court. Petitioner had been retried and again convicted in October, 1960. The petition in the case at bar seeks a recall of that latter judgment. Prior to the trial of 1958 Petitioner and others for the prosecuting officials had submitted themselves to interviews which were vocally recorded upon 6 double records. The Petitioner in the Court below at his hearing upon the instant petition complained that the recollective testimony given by certain of the State's witnesses at his second trial in 1960 was contrary to statements contained upon the sound recordings of the interviews participated in by the Petitioner and others in 1958. Petitioner here protests that the machine supplied for petitioner's trial counsel by the State before and during the period of the petitioner's second trial for reproducing the interviews was grossly inadequate and rendered inaudible 90% of the taped conversation. The State at such second trial did not offer the sound recordings in evidence. Petitioner sought to introduce them in toto at that trial but failed because the interviews were concededly an admixture of the admissible and inadmissible without ready and facile provision for separation. State v. Mottram, 158 Me. 325, 335, 184 A.2d 225. Petitioner now contends that by the judicious use of the tapings had they been available to him and the jury in audible rendition before and during the second trial he could have demonstrated the perjury or at least the objective untruth of critical State testimony. Suffice it to say that the decided case of State v. Mottram, 158 Me. 325, 335, 184 A.2d 225 and the transcript in the instant case reveal that the Petitioner and his trial counsel at the second trial were accorded plentiful access to the sound recordings by Court and State counsel. The reproducing device the use of which the State placed at the convenience of Petitioner and his counsel was the same which had been utilized by Justice Pomeroy when not long before petitioner's second trial that Justice had played at least one half of the recording discs at the coram nobis hearing of this Petitioner in 1960. The Petitioner conducting the coram nobis hearing of 1960 without counsel had been present in Court while Justice Pomeroy listened to the 'play-backs.' Petitioner does not represent that the discs played by Judge Pomeroy were not audible and intelligible but rather that he, the Petitioner, was sitting in the court room too far away from such reproduction of the interview to hear it all. Petitioner's counsel of the second trial acknowledges that the State had offered to him full resort to the recordings and spent some hours...
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Mottram v. Murch
... 330 F. Supp. 51 ... Robert H. MOTTRAM, Petitioner, ... Frank F. MURCH, as he is Sheriff of Piscataquis County in the State of Maine et al., Respondents ... Civ. No. 11-138 ... United States District Court, D. Maine, S. D ... August 5, 1971. 330 F. Supp. 52 COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED 330 F. Supp. 53 S. Mason Pratt, Jr., Portland, Me., for petitioner ... Garth K. Chandler, ... ...
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Yde v. State
... ... 4 Petitioner claims the conviction in Maine resulted in an enhancement of the sentence received in another state upon conviction of a crime in that state ... 5 An examination of P.L. 1961, c. 131, reveals that the statute merely codified the common law writ of error coram nobis. See Mottram ... ...
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Mottram v. Murch
... ... John W. Benoit, Jr., Deputy Atty. Gen., for appellees ... Before ALDRICH, Chief Judge, & McENTEE and COFFIN, Circuit Judges ... ALDRICH, Chief Judge ... Petitioner Mottram in 1958 was indicted in the state court on two counts: one for stealing a car in 1957, and secondly for being an habitual offender by virtue of a prior felony conviction. 15 Me.Rev.Stat. § 1742. Although in fact he had several prior convictions, the only one alleged in the indictment was a 1952 conviction for automobile theft ... ...