Stokley v. State of Maryland

• Decision Date: 14 July 1969
• Docket Number: Civ. No. 19356.
• Parties: Tyrone STOKLEY v. STATE OF MARYLAND.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Maryland

301 F. Supp. 653

Tyrone STOKLEY v. STATE OF MARYLAND.

Civ. No. 19356.

United States District Court D. Maryland.

July 14, 1969.

Tyrone Stokley, in pro. per.

Francis B. Burch, Atty. Gen., Maryland, and H. Edgar Lentz, Asst. Atty. Gen., Baltimore, for respondent.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

HARVEY, District Judge.

Represented by privately retained counsel, petitioner, Tyrone Stokley, was tried and convicted of first degree murder by Judges Cullen and Mundy sitting in the Criminal Court of Baltimore City without a jury. At the time of his arrest and trial, petitioner was 17 years of age and an eleventh grade high school student. Co-defendants Richard Briscoe and Edward Butler (both of whom were 15 years of age) were likewise tried and convicted at the same time. At the conclusion of the trial on March 13, 1956, all three defendants were sentenced by Judge Mundy to life imprisonment. No direct appeal was taken by petitioner from this judgment and sentence.

Some ten years later, petitioner and co-defendant Briscoe filed an application in the Criminal Court of Baltimore City seeking relief under the Maryland Post Conviction Procedure Act. An attorney was appointed to represent both petitioners, and evidentiary hearings were held on April 28, 1966 and on August 3, 1966 before Judge Joseph L. Carter. In his post-conviction petition, Stokley alleged (1) that the technique of his identification in court was unconstitutional; (2) that he was denied counsel at the time of his arrest; (3) that the police forced him to make a statement; (4) that his counsel was incompetent; (5) that he was held incommunicado unconstitutionally; and (6) that he was under age to be tried in the Criminal Court.

In a Memorandum Opinion filed December 28, 1966, Judge Carter discussed each of these contentions and denied petitioner relief. An application for leave to appeal was denied by the Court of Special Appeals of Maryland in a per curiam opinion which discussed the points that petitioner had raised below as well as some new points which he had presented for the first time at the appeal. Briscoe v. Warden, 3 Md.App. 182, 238 A.2d 304 (1968).¹

Petitioner now seeks habeas corpus relief in this Court. He claims (1) that the State introduced in evidence against him a confession which was illegally obtained; (2) that an illegal line-up was held at the time of his arrest; (3) that his counsel was incompetent; and (4) that there were defects in his state post-conviction hearing. Pursuant to a show cause order, the Attorney General of Maryland has filed an answer attaching copies of the transcript of petitioner's original trial held on March 12 and 13, 1956, of the transcripts of the post-conviction hearing before Judge Carter on April 28 and August 3, 1966, of Judge Carter's Memorandum Opinion of December 28, 1966, and of the per curiam opinion of the Court of Special Appeals of Maryland filed February 16, 1968.

From the trial transcript, it appears that 50-year old Lewis Pristoop operated with his wife a neighborhood grocery store located at 1301 North Stricker Street, Baltimore, Maryland. On Christmas Eve of 1955, at about 9:30 P.M., both husband and wife were tending the store together. Mrs. Pristoop was in the corner when she heard the door open followed by mumbling. She turned around and at the same time heard a shot and saw her husband fall. She saw several negro boys running out of the store. Mr. Pristoop later died of a gunshot wound of the head, the bullet entering above his left eyebrow and having passed from the front to the back.

Petitioner, who lived in the same block at 1123 North Stricker Street, was arrested on the morning of January 7, 1956 and taken to the Northwestern Police Station. After some four hours of interrogation, he signed a written confession at 2:30 P.M. in which he implicated both Butler and Briscoe. Butler had been arrested the day before but had declined to give a statement. However, when confronted with petitioner's statement on January 7, Butler likewise signed a written confession at 4:45 P.M. the same afternoon. Some two hours later Briscoe also gave a confession.

All three confessions which were admitted in evidence at the trial have been made a part of the record in this proceeding. Each confession told substantially the same story except that petitioner and Briscoe stated that Butler held the pistol and shot the grocer while Butler claimed that Briscoe did the actual shooting. According to the confessions, Butler mentioned to Stokley and Briscoe at different times in the early evening of December 24, 1955 that he needed some money and was going to hold up a store. Butler knew that Fred Conway had a pistol, and through an intermediary, one James Oliver, the pistol was delivered to Butler. Butler, Stokley and Briscoe thereafter went to the vicinity of the Pristoop store where they waited outside for a while, (Briscoe's version being that they were all three sitting on the steps). They then went into the store, the shooting followed, and all three fled without taking anything from the store.

All three defendants took the stand and testified at the trial. Each confirmed the facts contained in his statement.² On the stand as in the statements, petitioner and Briscoe put the blame for the actual shooting on Butler while Butler testified that Briscoe held the gun. Stokley confirmed Butler's testimony that when the two first confronted each other following Stokley's confession, the latter said in Butler's presence that Briscoe had actually done the shooting. (Tr. 233-237).³ However, Stokley further testified that the statement contained in his confession was the correct version and that his inconsistent oral statement was made because he was "kind of scared" when he was confronted with Butler. (Tr. 237).

The testimony of a number of witnesses at the trial confirmed substantial parts of the three confessions. Charlotte Thomas, a 15-year old girl who lived at 1313 North Stricker Street (about six or seven houses from the grocery store) identified the three defendants as the three boys whom she had seen sitting on the steps of Pristoop's Grocery Store between 9 o'clock and 10 o'clock that evening. She testified that she had seen the boys before on about five different occasions. She saw them sitting on the steps that evening while going to the store for a loaf of bread for her aunt who lived in an apartment above Pristoop's Grocery. The boys were there when she left her aunt's apartment and were still there when she came back with the bread. However, at about 9:45, when she was leaving her aunt's apartment to go home, the boys were gone.

Joseph Perry, a 14-year old boy who had been walking up Stricker Street between 9 o'clock and 10 o'clock on December 24, 1955, testified that he saw the three defendants running out of the grocery store at that time. He testified that he knew all three of these boys previously. He had known petitioner for three or four years because he had played basketball with him. He further testified that after he saw the three co-defendants run out of the grocery store, a lady came out of the store screaming and that a policeman then came over. Perry also testified that Butler had an object in his hand but that he was not sure what it was.

Lloyd Thomas, who lived at 1313 North Stricker Street, was called as a witness by Briscoe.⁴ He testified that on the evening in question he saw three boys go in the grocery store, and he identified the three defendants as the three boys in question. He further testified that Butler ("the tall one") went in first, that one of the three stayed out and that after he heard a shot fired all three boys ran past him.

James Oliver testified that Fred Conway gave him a pistol that evening and that he gave it to Butler at about 8:30 P.M. Conway confirmed this testimony and identified the pistol as the one in his possession that evening. He further testified that Butler returned the pistol to him about 10:30 P.M. that night and that there were two bullets missing. On cross-examination after being re-called to the stand, Butler testified that the 32 caliber pistol identified by Oliver and Conway looked like the gun that he got from Oliver and returned to Conway (Tr. 249).

Even without reference to the three confessions or the testimony of the other witnesses, the sworn testimony of the three defendants at the trial shows that under the Maryland felony-murder rule, they were all guilty as charged. However, as recently emphasized by the Supreme Court in Kaufman v. United States, 394 U.S. 217, 229, 89 S.Ct. 1068, 22 L.Ed.2d 227 (1969), this Court's inquiry does not end with a finding that petitioner was not in fact innocent of the charges against him. Rather, this Court must go on to determine if petitioner was convicted as a result of "shortcut methods in law enforcement" which violated his constitutional rights. Miller v. United States, 357 U.S. 301, 313, 78 S.Ct. 1190, 2 L.Ed.2d 1332 (1958).

With reference to petitioner's second point that he was convicted as a result of his appearance in an illegal line-up, the transcript of the trial discloses that no witness who identified him at a line-up testified at the trial. The dead grocer's wife did not identify any of the three co-defendants as the boys in the store on the Christmas Eve in question. The witness Charlotte Thomas had not been able to identify petitioner nor any of the co-defendants at a line-up, although she did identify all three at the trial. There is no indication in the record that the witness Perry had ever viewed the defendants at a line-up. Perry testified that he had known all three of the defendants for three or four years as a result of his associations with them in the neighborhood (Tr. 179, 180), and he apparently recognized them instantly when they ran out of the grocery store. Nor does it appear that Lloyd Thomas was taken to a line-up. He testified that he had seen all three defend...