People v. Codarre

• Citation: 206 Misc. 950
• Parties: The People of the State of New York, Plaintiff,<BR>v.<BR>Edwin Codarre, Defendant.
• Decision Date: 07 December 1954
• Court: New York District Court

206 Misc. 950

The People of the State of New York, Plaintiff,

v.Edwin Codarre, Defendant.

December 7, 1954.

Allen Ducker for defendant.

Raymond C. Baratta, District Attorney, for plaintiff.

GRADY, Acting County Judge.

The defendant moves in a coram nobis proceeding, for a hearing to have the petitioner produced, and to vacate and set aside the judgment of conviction of murder, second degree, hereinbefore entered in this court, on the 23d day of November, 1943.

The incumbent Dutchess County Judge JOHN R. SCHWARTZ has disqualified himself by reason of the fact that he was District Attorney of Dutchess County during the prosecution of defendant and has certified this matter to the Surrogate of Dutchess County, as Acting Dutchess County Judge, pursuant to the provisions of section 44 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

In support of his application, the defendant, who is presently confined in Great Meadow Prison, at Comstock, New York, under said judgment of this court, urges three grounds as a basis for the relief sought,

(1) that he was legally insane at the time of his plea of guilty and at the time of sentence

(2) that he was not adequately represented by counsel before and when entering the plea of guilty, and

(3) that by virtue of his illness and because of his extreme youth, defendant did not have the mentality to interpose a plea of guilty.

The defendant, a thirteen-year-old boy, was indicted on August 26, 1943, charged with the crime of murder in the first degree. Thereafter he pleaded not guilty and was assigned two defense counsel by the court. He proceeded to trial on November 15, 1943; and on November 23, 1943, after seven days of trial, he withdrew his plea of not guilty and entered a plea of guilty to murder in the second degree. On December 6, 1943, he was sentenced to State Prison by Hon. J. GORDON FLANNERY, then a Judge of this court, for an indeterminate term of from thirty years to life.

The People, by Hon. Raymond C. Baratta, District Attorney of Dutchess County, oppose this application and refer to the case record to disprove the contentions of the defendant.

A perusal of the record in the Codarre case shows: (1) that defendant's mental condition was fully disclosed to the then presiding Dutchess County Judge J. GORDON FLANNERY, at a conference in chambers on November 22, 1943, prior to his acceptance of a plea. The minutes of that conference show that four psychiatrists, two retained for the defendant and two retained by the People, after having examined defendant, discussed his mental condition with the court in the presence of defense counsel. Three agreed that Edwin Codarre was legally sane and one that he was not. The dissenting opinion was voiced by one of the two psychiatrists retained for defendant who stated that he thought defendant was suffering a form of epilepsy.

Although no formal adjudication was had under section 658 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, it appears from this record that the court had full knowledge of the mental condition of the defendant, and having that knowledge based on the opinion of three reputable psychiatrists that defendant was legally sane, it was his judgment to accept the plea. In People ex rel. Harrison v. Jackson (298 N.Y. 219, 228), Judge FULD in his concurring opinion stated, "No exhaustive discussion is necessary to establish the propriety of coram nobis, at least in certain instances, to vacate a judgment convicting a juvenile offender of a felony. From time immemorial that remedy was employed to call up facts unknown to the court at the time of judgment — facts which affected the validity and regularity of the judgment itself, facts which, if known, would have precluded the judgment rendered." (Italics added.) Following this line of reasoning the writ of error coram nobis is not the proper remedy to question the reasonableness of the judgment of the court having full knowledge of the facts.

(2) The record shows that Alexander C. Dow, Esq., and Joseph H. Gellert, Esq., both of Poughkeepsie, N. Y., were assigned by the court as counsel to represent Edwin Codarre. Both were and are active trial attorneys in Dutchess County. Mr. Dow, previous to the Codarre case, had been defense counsel in many other homicides going back a number of years. Both counsel were men whose standing at the Bar and character had been certified by the trial judge by the very fact of their appointment by him in a capital case. The court therefore takes judicial notice of the integrity and experience of both assigned attorneys. The defendant does not claim that his assigned counsel were incompetent, but rather that they inadequately represented him. The murder-first-degree-trial lasted seven days prior to the plea to murder in the second degree. No minutes of the trial are available for the court to review but the trial court during those seven days and at the time of plea, had ample opportunity to observe the adequacy of the defense. But his acceptance of the plea of defendant to a lesser charge indicated his approval of the action of defense counsel. Nothing has been submitted by defendant to substantiate his claim of inadequacy of representation except facts shown to be within the...