Pullen v. United States

• Decision Date: 15 December 1947
• Docket Number: No. 11837.,11837.
• Citation: 164 F.2d 756
• Parties: PULLEN et al. v. UNITED STATES.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

164 F.2d 756 (1947)

PULLEN et al. v. UNITED STATES.

No. 11837.

Circuit Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

December 15, 1947.

James H. Martin and John A. Erhard, both of Dallas, Tex., and W. H. Barnes, of Terrell, Tex., for appellants.

Leo Meltzer, Atty. Dept. of Justice, of Washington, D. C., and Clyde G. Hood, Asst. U.S. Atty., and William Cantrell, Jr., Sp. Asst. to the U.S. Atty., both of Dallas, Tex., for appellee.

Before SIBLEY, HUTCHESON, HOLMES, McCORD, WALLER, and LEE, Circuit Judges.

En Banc.

WALLER, Circuit Judge.

Appellants, W. J. Price, Luther Hunter, and Jack Pullen, were convicted under the third count of an indictment¹ charging that the three defendants, together with two other defendants who were acquitted, while acting under color of law, subjected one R. D. Andrew, an inhabitant and citizen of the State of Texas and of the United States, to the deprivation of certain rights, privileges, and immunities secured and protected to him by the Constitution and laws of the United States.

The statute, Sec. 20 of the Criminal Code, Sec. 52, Title 18, U.S.C.A. under which the third count was purportedly drawn is as follows: "Whoever, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, willfully subjects, or causes to be subjected, any inhabitant of any State, Territory, or District to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution and laws of the United States, or to different punishments, pains, or penalties, on account of such inhabitant being an alien, or by reason of his color, or race, than are prescribed for the punishment of citizens, shall be fined not more than $1,000, or imprisoned not more than one year, or both."

The defendants seasonably moved to dismiss Count 3 of the indictment on the ground, among others, that it charged no offense under the laws of the United States, and, specifically, that it failed to charge an offense under Sec. 52, Title 18 U.S.C.A. The real point of attack was that the indictment failed to allege that the defendants "willfully" subjected, or caused to be subjected, their prisoner to a deprivation of any rights or privileges secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States.

The motion was denied, as was also a motion for a judgment of acquittal made at the conclusion of the Government's case. In denying the latter motion the Court made the following comment to counsel for defendants: "However, the Court will give you the benefit of a full and complete charge on the count 3, which deals with the law of depriving a man of his civil rights, and we will follow the reasoning of the Court in the Screws case, infra in submitting that law, that charge." This the Court undertook to do, but whether it succeeded or not will later develop.

We deem it necessary to discuss only that specification of error wherein appellants assert that the indictment was totally defective because of its failure to charge that the alleged deprivation of constitutional rights, as prescribed by Sec. 52, was done willfully. The Government, conceding that it would have been better to have alleged that the offense was committed willfully, contends, nevertheless, that the omission was not a matter of substance but only a matter of form, and that under Sec. 556 of Title 18 U.S.C.A.,² and Sec. 391 of Title 28 U.S.C. A.,³ the errors were harmless and without prejudice. In support of this position it asserts in its brief: "That there was ample evidence of the unlawful intent with which the appellants acted and that the District Judge in his most adequate charge instructed the jury that the statute which proscribed the alleged offense, by reason of the use of the word `willfully' made intent a material element of the offense and that the jury must find such intent (R. 578) is clear beyond doubt."

The only parts of the Judge's charge that dealt with this phase of the case were:

"In Count Three, set forth in the indictment, if you believe that the defendants, William Frazier, Luther Hunter, W. J. Price, acting as officers of the law, and that they, together with said Jack Pullen, did, under color of the law subject and cause R. D. Andrew to be deprived of his rights and privileges under the law as charged in said indictment, then you may find the defendants guilty in Count Three.

* * * * * *

"Next, the Court calls to your attention the fact that the Statute says `whoever, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation or custom, wilfully subjects or causes to be subjected any individual to the deprivation of any rights, privileges or immunities secured or protected to him by the Constitution and laws of the United States shall be guilty, etc.' Now, the word `wilfully' must be carefully considered by you. The Statutes provides that the thing done must be done wilfully. In law the use of the words `Willful' and `wilfully' implies a conscious purpose to do wrong. Doing a thing knowingly and wilfully implies not only a knowledge of the thing done, but determination to do it with bad intent or with an evil purpose or motive.

"The use of the word `wilfully' in the Statute makes intent a material element of the offense charged in this count."

It will be noted that in the first paragraph of the quoted charge there was no reference to the necessity of finding that the defendants acted willfully in the deprivation of constitutional rights and privileges, nor does any other part of the charge correct the omission or make clear that the willfulness must be in the deprivation of constitutional guaranties.

So we are forced to the conclusion by the opinion in the case of Screws v. United States, 325 U.S. 91, 65 S.Ct. 1031, 89 L.Ed. 1495, 162 A.L.R. 1330, that the charge of the District Judge was not a "most adequate charge" in this case. True it is that he told the jury that they must carefully consider the word "wilfully" and that the statute provides that the "thing done must be done wilfully", and that in law the word "willful" implies a conscious purpose to do wrong and a knowledge of the thing done as well as a determination to do it with evil purpose or with bad intent. But when he speaks of "the thing done", he does not say to the jury that by the use of the term "the thing done" he had reference to the deprivation of constitutional rights, or that he had reference to the wrongful beatings, or the wrongful inflictions of physical abuse. The opinion in the Screws case made it quite clear that the word "willful" implies not merely "a conscious purpose to do wrong" on the part of an officer in beating and otherwise mistreating an inhabitant while acting under color of law, but that there must be a specific intent to deprive him of a federal right, for it said in that case:

"We repeat that the presence of a bad purpose or evil intent alone may not be sufficient. We do say that a requirement of a specific intent to deprive a person of a federal right made definite by decision or other rule of law saves the Act from any charge of unconstitutionality on the grounds of vagueness.

* * * * * *

"For the specific intent required by the Act is an intent to deprive a person of a right * * *.

* * * * * *

"When they act willfully in the sense in which we use the word, they act in open defiance or in reckless disregard of a constitutional requirement which has been made specific and definite.

* * * * * *

"But in view of our construction of the word `wilfully' the jury should have been further instructed that it was not sufficient that petitioners had a generally bad purpose. To convict it was necessary for them to find that petitioners had the purpose to deprive the prisoner of a constitutional right, e. g. the right to be tried by a court rather than by ordeal. And in determining whether that requisite bad purpose was present the jury would be entitled to consider all the attendant circumstances — the malice of petitioners, the weapons used in the assault, its character and duration, the provocation, if any, and the like." 325 U.S. at pages 103, 104, 105, 107, 65 S.Ct. at page 1036, 89 L.Ed. 1495, 162 A.L.R. 1330. (Emphasis added.)

The implication seems to be evident in the Screws case that the statute did not intend to make one a criminal if "his purpose was unrelated to the disregard of any constitutional guarantee."

But the charge in the present case did not advise the jury that the Court was speaking of the willfulness with which the defendants must be found to have acted in reference to the deprivation of constitutional rights as distinguished from the intent with which they acted in arresting, jailing, beating, and otherwise maltreating their prisoner. It must be kept in mind that every beating by a state officer, no matter how willfully administered, is not a deprivation of a federal right as condemned by Sec. 52. The beating must be administered under color of law and with "the purpose to deprive" the prisoner of a "constitutional right", e. g., the substitution of trial by ordeal for a trial by law.

"The fact that a prisoner is assaulted, injured, or even murdered by state officials does not necessarily mean that he is deprived of any right protected or secured by the Constitution or laws of the United States." Screws v. United States, supra, 325 U.S. at page 108, 65 S.Ct. at page 1039, 89 L.Ed. 1495, 162 A.L.R. 1330.

Cf. Crews v. United States, 5 Cir., 160 F.2d 746, 749.⁴

Assuming, but not deciding, that a good charge might rescue a defective indictment in certain situations, we, nevertheless, hold that a charge which is defective in the same particular in which the indictment is defective can perform no such function. In this case the indictment was defective in failing to allege that the deprivation was "willful" and the charge to the jury was defective in the same particular in that it failed to charge that defendants must be found to have the purpose to deprive the prisoner of a...