Sanders v. United States, 14373.
| Decision Date | 18 June 1953 |
| Docket Number | No. 14373.,14373. |
| Citation | 205 F.2d 399 |
| Parties | SANDERS v. UNITED STATES. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit |
Edwin Kennedy Sanders, pro se.
Floyd M. Buford, Asst. U. S. Atty., Jack J. Gautier, U. S. Atty., Macon, Ga., for appellee.
Before HUTCHESON, Chief Judge, and BORAH and RUSSELL, Circuit Judges.
The appellant, Edwin Kennedy Sanders, appeals from an order made under Section 2255, Title 28 U.S.C. which denied him relief under the following circumstances.
On February 6, 1951, Sanders was charged by an indictment containing three counts for violations of 18 U.S.C. Section 2312. On March 5, 1951, he was arraigned and pleaded guilty to each count and was sentenced to imprisonment for a period of six years.
On June 9, 1952, Sanders moved under Section 2255, supra, to set aside the plea and sentence on the grounds: (1) that he had been adjudged insane by a psychiatrist and a jury at Houston, Texas in April of 1948 and had been committed by a court of competent jurisdiction to the Austin State Hospital, Austin, Texas, from which institution he escaped in June of 1948; (2) that he was legally and mentally insane on March 5, 1951, and was not defended by counsel, and even though the federal probation office at Macon, Georgia, was aware of his mental status he was nevertheless convicted and sentenced to the federal penitentiary without having been given a sanity hearing; (3) that the sentence orally imposed by the court was inconsistent with the written judgment.
The District Judge, without granting a hearing, entered an order, which is here set out in the marginal note,1 denying the motion. No appeal was taken from this order. On September 12, Sanders filed another motion under Section 2255 to vacate the sentence on the grounds: (1) that petitioner had been subjected by the sentencing court to four different versions of the sentence that was imposed on March 8, 1951; (2) that on March 8, 1951, at the time he entered his plea of guilty petitioner was legally insane because at that time he had not been released but had escaped from the Austin State Hospital, Austin, Texas, where he had been committed as mentally and legally insane by the County Court of Houston, Texas; that being legally insane he could not competently and intelligently waive the assistance of court appointed counsel or enter a plea and that any confessions and statements obtained from petitioner after his escape from the state hospital are null and void. The District Judge, without granting a hearing summarily entered an order on September 19, 1952, reading as follows:
"The motion submitted in the above and foregoing styled cause, to set aside and vacate the sentence, having been fully considered, and it appearing to the court from his opportunity to see and observe the prisoner prior to his arraignment, to observe his reaction to the questions propounded to him prior to his arraignment, and it further appearing to the Court from the motion and the files and the record in said case conclusively that the prisoner is not entitled to have the sentence heretofore imposed set aside and vacated, the motion for that purpose is, therefore, hereby overruled and denied."
It was from that order that the appeal was taken; we find it necessary to consider only point two.
Section 2255 does not enlarge the class of attacks which may be made upon a judgment of conviction but is limited to matters that may be raised by a collateral attack. "It is only where the judgment was rendered without jurisdiction, the sentence imposed was not authorized by law, or there was such a denial or infringement of the constitutional rights of the prisoner as to render the judgment vulnerable to collateral attack, that a motion to vacate will lie under this section." Hahn v. United States, 10 Cir., 178 F.2d 11, 12; Hurst v. United States, 10 Cir., 177 F.2d 894. Here, the petitioner contends that he could not enter a plea of guilty and could not intelligently waive his constitutional right to be represented by counsel for the reason that he had been adjudicated an insane person by the County Court of Houston, Texas, and had been committed to a hospital for the insane in Texas; that he had not been released from the institution, but had escaped therefrom and it was after his escape that he committed the crimes for which he was indicted. In Von Moltke v. Gillies, 332 U.S. 708, 722-723, 68 S.Ct. 316, 322, 92 L.Ed. 309, the court said:
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