State v. Bey, A--154
| Decision Date | 02 February 1954 |
| Docket Number | No. A--154,A--154 |
| Citation | 29 N.J.Super. 331,102 A.2d 684 |
| Parties | STATE v. BEY. . Appellate Division |
| Court | New Jersey Superior Court — Appellate Division |
Irving Morris Bey, appellant, pro se.
Frederick T. Law, County Prosecutor, Kearny, for respondent (Frank J. V. Gimino, Asst. Prosecutor, Jersey City).
Before Judges EASTWOOD, JAYNE, and FRANCIS.
The opinion of the court was delivered
We recognize that every prisoner confined in this State, notwithstanding the recorded succession of his convictions of crime, has a right to have his Bona fide petition for a review of the validity of his present imprisonment judicially considered and determined, but experience has disclosed that it is time to deplore the conspicuous abuse of the liberality with which whimsical and spurious appeals from such decisions are transmitted In forma pauperis to this Division.
The responsibility for this generous and burdensome practice has been ours. In our desire to aid any indigent prisoner in our penal institutions whose incarceration might be discovered to be unlawful, our courts have in recent years encouraged a current flow of petitions for writs of Habeas corpus which are sham and baseless and in which the fictitious factual allegations are falsely verified. Prisoners have become a distinctive class of litigants to whom special and exceptional privileges are accorded. The payment of filing fees is excused. The court rules are uniformly relaxed in such cases. Counsel is sometimes appointed to represent a prisoner without compensation. Experience has now revealed that the benevolent opportunities so afforded most of these prisoners with the best of intentions are being notoriously abused by too many who are manifestly unworthy of such leniencies.
Many of the briefs submitted Pro se by the appellants contain scandalous aspersions impugning the motives and integrity of the trial judge and prosecuting officials. Those excerpts from the briefs illuminate the vicious mind of the prisoner, and they probably should be transmitted to the Parole Board. Defamation is not argumentation.
We pause to state that the brief of the present appellant does not possess all of those attributes. We have spoken of the petitions and briefs of prisoners collectively. We endeavor to be alert in all meritorious appeals to nullify or reverse any judicial ruling or decision which denies a prisoner his liberation from an illegitimate imprisonment. It should, however, be foreseen that utterly baseless appeals are fruitless. Our knowledge of the occurrences tempts us to make the foregoing comments.
This appellant has acknowledged that he was convicted of grand larceny in New York in 1936, of forgery in Raleigh, North Carolina in 1938, of grand larceny again in New York in 1941, of forgery again in New York in 1943, again of forgery in New Jersey in 1947. Mention is made of those experiences of the defendant to indicate the extent of his education in the proceedings of courts of criminal jurisdiction. He is now confined in the New Jersey State Prison in consequence of his pleas of guilty entered in the Hudson County Court on December 2, 1949 to five indictments charing him with passing worthless checks. His application for a writ of Habeas corpus was granted in 1953, an attorney appointed to represent him, and a hearing conducted before the judge of the Superior Court on September 18,...
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Worbetz v. Goodman
...to achieve finality in this type of litigation, although similar abuses of the writ have become apparent (State v. Bey, 29 N.J.Super. 331, 102 A.2d 684 (App.Div.1954)), our courts have not hesitated to 'ascribe influential, but not necessarily controlling, weight to the findings in the prio......
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