Rhea v. Edwards

• Decision Date: 13 December 1955
• Docket Number: Civ. No. 1792.
• Parties: Charles RHEA, Petitioner, v. James E. EDWARDS, Warden, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Middle District of Tennessee

136 F. Supp. 671

Charles RHEA, Petitioner, v. James E. EDWARDS, Warden, Defendant.

Civ. No. 1792.

United States District Court M. D. Tennessee, Nashville Division.

December 13, 1955.

William H. Crabtree, Nashville, Tenn., for petitioner.

Nat Tipton, Asst. Atty. Gen. of Tennessee, for defendant.

DAVIES, District Judge.

This is a habeas corpus action in which petitioner, Charles Rhea, seeks his release from state custody under a sentence of life imprisonment, on the grounds that the Tennessee Habitual Criminal Act as originally enacted, Chapter 22, Public Acts of Tennessee, 1939, Williams' Tenn.Code 1934 (1949 Supp.), §§ 11863.1 to 11863.8, under which he was sentenced, is repugnant to the Constitution of the United States and is, therefore, void.

The defendant insists that petitioner has not exhausted the remedies available to him under the state laws and has not shown facts and circumstances that excuse his failure to do so; therefore, this Court cannot consider his petition for the writ of habeas corpus. This question, being jurisdictional, will be disposed of first.

The undisputed facts are set out in two stipulations filed herein, to which was exhibited certified copies of the technical record of the proceedings had in the Criminal Court for Knox County, Tennessee, and the Supreme Court of Tennessee.

Petitioner was convicted by a jury in the Criminal Court for Knox County, Tennessee, on April 20, 1950, of the offense of armed robbery and sentenced to serve five years in the penitentiary. The jury further found that "the defendant is an Habitual Criminal, and guilty, as charged, in the indictment." On May 6, 1950, motion for a new trial was overruled, and the petitioner was sentenced to imprisonment for life as an habitual criminal. An appeal was granted petitioner to the Supreme Court of Tennessee. In all of these proceedings, petitioner was represented by counsel appointed by the Court. However, this attorney, believing that he had discharged his duty to the Court and to Rhea, took no further action in the case. Thereupon, Rhea was taken into custody and transported to the Tennessee State Penitentiary at Brushy Mountain, Tennessee, to serve his sentence. Sometime thereafter, while confined in the penitentiary, Rhea wrote his attorney and requested that he go ahead with the appeal, but the attorney did nothing, because the time limit for filing a bill of exceptions had expired. The attorney remembers receiving this letter from Rhea but does not recall answering it. Since he had not participated in the appeal, the attorney was surprised to receive a letter from the Assistant Attorney-General stating that as no bill of exceptions had been filed, the State would move for a dismissal of the appeal. Pursuant thereto, on September 11, 1955, the Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the trial court.

Petition for certiorari to the Supreme Court of the United States was not filed.

In October of 1950, while confined at the Brushy Mountain penitentiary, petitioner learned from an employee that the Supreme Court of Tennessee had sustained his conviction and sentence. He was not furnished a copy of the judgment of the Supreme Court, and was still under the impression that his court-appointed attorney had taken and would continue to take all necessary steps to protect his rights.

In January, 1951, he was transferred to the Tennessee State Penitentiary at Nashville, where he later learned for the first time that he had not been represented by counsel in his appeal to the Supreme Court of Tennessee. Being without funds to employ counsel, he began to make a personal investigation and study of the remedies available to him. Thereafter, without assistance, he:

(a) Sent a motion to vacate sentence to the Judge of the Criminal Court for Knox County before whom he was tried and sentenced. This motion was not accepted by the Court.

(b) Sent a petition for a writ of habeas corpus to the Circuit Court for Davidson County, Tennessee, at Nashville. This petition was returned by the clerk.

(c) Sent a petition for a writ of habeas corpus to the Criminal Court for Davidson County, Tennessee. The Court appointed counsel to represent him, and, after a hearing, denied the petition. The court-appointed counsel thereupon withdrew from the case because he was of the opinion the petition was without merit.

(d) Attempted to appeal the action of the Criminal Court for Davidson County in dismissing his petition, but learned from the clerk that under the laws of Tennessee he could not perfect an appeal without making a cost bond. Because of his poverty, he was unable to make such a bond and, therefore, unable to perfect an appeal.

(e) Prepared and filed the petition for a writ of habeas corpus in this proceeding.

Whereupon, this Court appointed the Honorable William H. Crabtree, a member of the Nashville Bar, to represent petitioner herein.

The above proceedings were had while Rhea was serving his five-year sentence for armed robbery. Apparently, no question was raised as to the prematurity of his various petitions for habeas corpus attacking the validity of his life sentence, which he had not started serving. He has now completed service of the five-year sentence and is being detained under his sentence as an habitual criminal.

The first question for determination is whether petitioner has complied with the requirements of 28 U.S.C.A. § 2254, as interpreted by the decisions of the Supreme Court, reading as follows:

"§ 2254. State custody; remedies in State courts

"An application for a writ of habeas corpus in behalf of a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court shall not be granted unless it appears that the applicant has exhausted the remedies available in the courts of the State, or that there is either an absence of available State corrective process or the existence of circumstances rendering such process ineffective to protect the rights of the prisoner.

"An applicant shall not be deemed to have exhausted the remedies available in the courts of the State, within the meaning of this section, if he has the right under the law of the State to raise, by any available procedure, the question presented."

This Act has been construed by the Supreme Court of the United States in recent decisions, as follows:

"Ordinarily an application for habeas corpus by one detained under a state court judgment of conviction for crime will be entertained by a federal court only after all state remedies available, including all appellate remedies in the state courts and in this Court by appeal or writ of certiorari, have been exhausted." Ex parte Hawk, 321 U.S. 114, 116-117, 64 S.Ct. 448, 450, 88 L.Ed. 572; Wade v. Mayo, 334 U.S. 672, 68 S.Ct. 1270, 92 L.Ed. 1647; Darr v. Burford, 339 U.S. 200, 70 S.Ct. 587, 593, 94 L.Ed. 761.

In Darr v. Burford, supra, which seems to be the latest and leading case on the subject and clarifies prior decisions, the Supreme Court said:

"Ex parte Hawk prescribes only what should `ordinarily' be the proper procedure; all the cited cases from Ex parte Royall 117 U.S. 241, 6 S.Ct. 734, 29 L.Ed. 868 to Hawk recognize that much cannot be foreseen, and that `special circumstances' justify departure from rules designed to regulate the usual case. The exceptions are few but they exist. * * * Congress has now made statutory allowance for exceptions such as these, leaving federal courts free to grant habeas corpus when there exist `circumstances rendering such state process ineffective to protect the rights of the prisoner'."

In Wade v. Mayo, supra, Wade did not attempt to appeal from his conviction, but proceeded by habeas corpus through the state courts, without success. Thereafter, he filed his petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of Florida. The District Court sustained Wade's petition, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, 158 F.2d 614, reversed (on grounds not material herein) and the Supreme Court granted certiorari. 331 U.S. 801, 67 S.Ct. 1529, 91 L.Ed. 1825. After briefs were filed, the Court assigned the case for reargument on two points, one of which was "the propriety of the exercise of jurisdiction by the District Court in this case when it appears of record, in the state's motion for dismissal of the appeal on habeas corpus, that petitioner had not availed himself of the remedy of appeal from his conviction, apparently open after trial though now barred by limitation." 334 U.S. 672, 68 S.Ct. 1273. On this question, the Court said:

"In our view, it was proper for the District Court to entertain Wade's petition for a writ of habeas corpus and to proceed to a determination of the merits of Wade's constitutional claim. The crucial point is that Wade has exhausted one of the two alternative routes open in the Florida courts for securing an answer to his constitutional objection. * * * The fact that he might have appealed his conviction and made the same claim and received the same answer does not detract from the completeness with which Florida has disposed of his claim on habeas corpus. The exhaustion of but one of several available alternatives is all that is necessary."

It thus appears to the Court that, although counsel have concentrated their briefs and argument mainly on the effect of Rhea's failure to seek certiorari from the Supreme Court of the United States after the Supreme Court of Tennessee affirmed his conviction and sentence, the most crucial question here is whether Rhea's proceeding by petition for the writ of habeas corpus in the Criminal Court of Davidson County, Tennessee, was an available and appropriate method for having the State of Tennessee decide the issues raised herein; and if so, whether he has exhausted his remedies in that proceeding.

It is well settled in Tennessee that petition for habeas corpus is the proper remedy when the restraint, from which relief is sought, stems from a void...