People v. Clayton

• Decision Date: 08 May 1967
• Parties: The PEOPLE, etc., Respondent, v. Robert CLAYTON, Appellant.
• Court: New York Supreme Court — Appellate Division

Page 605

279 N.Y.S.2d 605

28 A.D.2d 543

The PEOPLE, etc., Respondent, v. Robert CLAYTON, Appellant.

Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Second Department.

May 8, 1967.

Before CHRIST, Acting P.J., and BRENNAN, HOPKINS and BENJAMIN, JJ.

MEMORANDUM BY THE COURT.

Order of the County Court, Suffolk County, dated April 20, 1967, affirmed. Although defendant's notice of appeal (filed following the oral decision of July 19, 1965, and patently for a review of the determination of this Coram nobis proceeding) was premature, because the order was not made until after the notice of appeal was interposed, we hae entertained the appeal under the authority of section 524--c of the Code of Criminal Procedure (L.1967, ch. 360 (approved April 18, 1967)).

We are of the opinion that, under the circumstances of this case, defendant's commitment as a material witness some thirty hours after he was first detained, at a time when no criminal action was pending in this State, effectively amounted to the commencement of criminal proceedings against him (see People ex rel. Van Der Beek v. McCloskey, 18 A.D.2d 205, 238 N.Y.S.2d 676; People v. Rodriguez, 11 N.Y.2d 279, 229 N.Y.S.2d 353, 183 N.E.2d 651; Code Crim.Proc., § 618--b). It would appear, however, that retrospective effect is to be denied the holdings declaring inadmissible confessions obtained after the commencement of such proceedings (cf. People v. Howard, 12 N.Y.2d 65, 236 N.Y.S.2d 39, 187 N.E.2d 113; People v. Rivera, 16 N.Y.2d 879, 264 N.Y.S.2d 249, 211 N.E.2d 649).

BRENNAN, HOPKINS and BENJAMIN, JJ., concur.

CHRIST, Acting P.J., dissents and votes to reverse the order, to grant the application and to order a new trial, with the following memorandum:

Defendant, a 24 year-old illiterate negro employed as one of a number of farm hands on a potato farm in Suffolk County, was convicted of murder in the second degree after a jury trial upon which a written confession was admitted into evidence. The appeal is from the denial of defendant's Coram nobis application to vacate the conviction, after a hearing which investigated the voluntariness of his confession.

The crime took place at the farm on November 2, 1952. At approximately 3 P.M. on November 3, defendant and nine other workers were taken to police headquarters and put into a room in which the lights remained on all night. Defendant and the others were each taken from the room for questioning from time to time during the night into the following morning, November 4, when at 5 A.M. defendant made an apparently exculpatory statement. Later that day the police confronted him with another hand on the farm, Mickens, who stated that he had helped defendant carry the body of the deceased into the barm. At 9 o'clock that night, November 4, defendant was brought before a judge who committed him as a material witness in default of $10,000 bail. On November 5 defendant was interrogated by the police at various times, taken to the farm in the afternoon, questioned in the presence of a stenographer at about 10 P.M., brought back to the farm shortly before midnight where he made further admissions, and returned to police headquarters about 2 A.M. on November 6, where he was questioned further. About 3 A.M. the wholly incriminatory...