Price v. Johnston

• Citation: 92 L.Ed. 1356,334 U.S. 266,68 S.Ct. 1049
• Decision Date: 24 May 1948
• Docket Number: No. 111,111
• Parties: PRICE v. JOHNSTON
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

334 U.S. 266

68 S.Ct. 1049

92 L.Ed. 1356

PRICE

v JOHNSTON.

No. 111.

Argued Dec. 11, 1947.

Decided May 24, 1948.

[Syllabus from pages 266-268 intentionally omitted] Mr. Joseph L. Rauh, Jr., of Washington, D.C., for petitioner.

Mr. Frederick Bernays Wiener, of Washington, D.C., for respondent.

Mr. Justice MURPHY delivered the opinion of the Court.

The writ of habeas corpus has played a great role in the history of human freedom. It has been the judicial method of lifting undue restraints upon personal liberty. But in recent years the increased use of this writ, especially in federal courts, has created many procedural problems which are not easy of solution. This case involves some of those problems. Because of the importance of the writ and the necessity that it not lose its effectiveness in a procedural morass, we have deemed it wise to deal with this case at length and to set forth fully and explicitly the answers to the matters at issue.

In 1938, petitioner was convicted in a federal district court in Michigan under a four-count indictment charging violations of the federal bank robbery statute.¹ He was sentenced to imprisonment for 65 years and was com- mitted to the United States Penitentiary at Alcatraz, California. His efforts to prosecute an appeal from his conviction proved futile.²

Since his confinement at Alcatraz, petitioner has made four separate applications for writs of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. The instant proceeding involves the fourth of these applications. Inasmuch as the problems in this case can best be understood in light of the issues raised in the earlier proceedings, it becomes necessary to examine the various applications in some detail.

1. The first application was prepared and filed in 1940 by petitioner, who is not a lawyer. He sought release mainly on the grounds that certain evidence used against him at the trial had been obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment and that the trial judge had improperly refused to disqualify himself upon the filing of an affidavit of prejudice. It is important to note that this application did not allege that the conviction resulted from the prosecution's knowing use of false testimony. The District Court issued an order to show cause, a return was made, and the petitioner then filed a traverse in the form of a 'Motion to overrule Respondent's return and issue writ.' This motion likewise failed to aver the knowing use of false testimony. But it did call the court's attention to 'two different statements' made at the trial by the prosecution's chief witness, Fred T. Donner, and to the 'methods * * * used to obtain' this change in testimony.³ There was no indication given as to what those 'methods' were. Donner's testimony at the trial was attached as an exhibit, testimony which revealed that Donner had gone to the office of the District Attorney and talked to him and his assistant during the interval between the allegedly conflicting statements.⁴

The District Court then appointed counsel for petitioner at his request. Several months later, when the matter came on for determination, the court entered an order denying the application for a writ of habeas corpus and dismissing the petition. No hearing was held, the order being entered solely on the basis of the pleadings. And no findings of fact or conclusions of law were made. Nor was an opinion written. Petitioner thereafter proceeded pro se. Among his various legal maneuvers, he moved for a rehearing. He stated, as grounds for the motion, that the court erred in refusing to allow him to appear and testify personally before entering the order and that the court-appointed attorney 'blocked your petitioner from filing an amended petition to include additional points so that they could be reviewed on appeal.' This motion was denied.

Petitioner prepared his own appeal to the Circuit Court of Appeals. Among the points upon which he stated he intended to rely was the claim that he had been denied 'a fair and impartial trial' by Donner's change in testimony after talking with the District Attorney. But the Circuit Court of Appeals, in affirming the District Court's disposition of the habeas corpus petition, made no reference to this point; its opinion was devoted exclusively to the matters raised in the original petition. Price v. Johnston, 9 Cir., 125 F.2d 806.

Included in the numerous claims in his attempt to secure a writ of certiorari in this Court was the reiteration that Donner's change in testimony deprived him of a fair and impartial trial. According to his written argument, 'if this was not perjured it was base contradictory evidence for after this witness had completed all his evidence he was then taken into the private chambers of the United States Attorney * * * and there was instructed as to what to say, for he came from said office and was recalled to the stand at this second setting he rebutted all his prior testimony. This must be either classed as a conspiracy forcing a witness to change his testimony either of which surely would not be giving the appellant the fair and impartial trial to which he is entitled.' The Government's memorandum in opposition dealt with this contention in a footnote. It was there said that petitioner's claim 'is refuted by the excerpt from the transcript of the proceedings at the trial introduced as part of petitioner's pleadings * * * The witness did not rebut his prior testimony but merely supplemented it with a few more details and he affirmatively stated that his discussion with the prosecutor did not assist him in his subsequent testimony.' This Court denied the petition for a writ of certiorari. Price v. Johnston, 316 U.S. 677, 62 S.Ct. 1106, 86 L.Ed. 1750, rehearing denied 316 U.S. 712, 62 S.Ct. 1289, 86 L.Ed. 1777.

2. In 1942, several months after the foregoing action by this Court, petitioner prepared and filed in the District Court a second petition for a writ of habeas corpus. In this petition he sought release on the same grounds set forth in his first petition as well as on two principal additional grounds. The two new claims were that petitioner's counsel had been absent from the courtroom during an important part of the trial and that petitioner had not had counsel at the preliminary hearing before the United States Commissioner. The petition, as amended, contained no allegation that false testimony had been knowingly used at the trial; nor did it refer in any way to Donner's allegedly inconsistent testimony. Moreover, no mention of such matters was made by petitioner in his testimony at the hearing on the writ of habeas corpus.⁵

The District Court, at the close of the hearing, discharged the writ. Its findings of fact and conclusions of law were subsequently entered and were silent as to any question relating to the knowing use of false testimony. The District Court's action was affirmed on appeal, the opinion of the Circuit Court of Appeals being devoted to the matters decided by the District Court. Price v. Johnston, 9 Cir., 144 F.2d 260. This Court then denied a petition for certiorari, a petition which presented no issues differing from those raised in the lower courts. Price v. Johnston, 323 U.S. 789, 65 S.Ct. 312, 89 L.Ed. 629, rehearing denied 323 U.S. 819, 65 S.Ct. 558, 89 L.Ed. 650.

3. Petitioner's third petition for a writ of habeas corpus was denied by the District Court on August 22, 1945. This denial was based on the ground that the issues raised were known to petitioner when he filed the earlier petitions, making the third petition an abusive use of the writ of habeas corpus. Price v. Johnston, D.C., 61 F.Supp. 995, 996.⁶ Leave to appeal was denied. It is not evident, however, what the issues were that petitioner did raise in this proceeding.

4. On January 2, 1946, petitioner filed his fourth application for a writ of habeas corpus. He alleged that he had been denied a fair and impartial trial in that, on the trial for bank robbery, the jury was confused by the presentation of evidence to show perjury before a notary public, that the court was not justified in imposing a general sentence on the four counts of the indictment, and that the fourth count did not allege an offense. After an order to show cause was issued, petitioner amended his petition to allege 'That the government knowingly employed false testimony on the trial, to obtain the conviction.'

The respondent warden, through the United States Attorney, thereupon filed his return to the order to show cause. This return did not deny the allegation that the Government knowingly employed false testimony at the trial. Nor did it question the sufficiency of the allegation or the absence of supporting facts. It simply incorporated by reference the entire record in the three prior habeas corpus proceedings and asked that the fourth petition be denied on the basis of the District Court's opinion denying the third application.⁷ Petitioner's trav- erse stated that the earlier petitions did not contain some of the points presented in the fourth petition. It repeated the allegations in the original petition, though it merely incorporated by reference the allegation of the amended petition that the prosecutor knowingly used false testimony.

The District Court denied the fourth petition without a hearing and without opinion. It is difficult to discover from such action the precise basis of the District Court's dismissal of the allegation in question. But because of the nature of the warden's return, we suspect that the court thought that the matter was known to petitioner at the time of filing the first petition and should have been urged at that time. There is nothing whatever to indicate that the dismissal stemmed from the court's belief that the allegation was insufficient on its face or that it was obviously without merit.

On appeal, a panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ordered up the...