Stonebreaker v. Smyth

• Decision Date: 01 March 1948
• Parties: STONEBREAKER . v. SMYTH.
• Court: Virginia Supreme Court

46 S.E.2d 406

187 Va. 250

STONEBREAKER .

v.SMYTH.

Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia.

March 1, 1948

Habeas Corpus proceeding by Ralph Stonebreaker against W. Frank Smyth, Jr., Superintendent of the Virginia State Penitentiary, to secure the petitioner's release from custody of respondent under three sentences imposed by corporation court and one sentence imposed by circuit court.

Sentences imposed by corporation court held void, but petitioner held not entitled to release until corporation court disposed of indictments against him.

Before HUDGINS, C. J., and GREGORY, EGGLESTON, SPRATLEY, BUCHANAN and MILLER, JJ.

W. A. Hall, Jr., of Richmond, for petitioner.

Harvey B. Apperson, Atty. Gen., and Ballard Baker, both of Richmond, for respondent.

HUDGINS, Chief Justice.

Petitioner as held in custody of respondent under three sentences imposed by the Corporation Court of the city of Newport News on November 17, 1931, and one sentence imposed by the Circuit Court of Warwick county ^* on November 16, 1931. Each sentence was made on a plea of guilty to four separate indictments charging armed robbery of four different persons at different times. The aggregate period of confinement of the four sentences is 58 years.

In 1943 petitioner, on a writ of habeas corpus, attacked the legality of his detention on the ground that when he entered his pleas of guilty to the four indictments he was twenty years of age, ignorant, and unfamiliar with court procedure, uninformed as to his right to counsel, and incapable of representing himself; and further, that he was coerced to make the pleas by threats made by the officer who arrested him. Testimony was introduced and, after a full hearing in the Corporation Court of the city of Newport News, the petition was dismissed. His application to this Court for a writ of error was denied. Afterwards he applied to the Supreme Court of the United States for a writ of certiorari to review the judgment of this Court and the certiorari was denied on October 16, 1944. Stonebreaker v. Smyth, 323 U.S. 754, 65 S.Ct. 81, 89 L.Ed. 603.

On January 13, 1947, after a delay of more than two years, petitioner filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, relying on the identical grounds for relief urged in his original petition filed in the State court. The district judge dismissed the petition on the ground that the matter had been fully heard on habeas corpus in the State courts and that the Supreme Court of the United States had denied certiorari.

On appeal to the United States Circuit Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit, the action of the district judge was affirmed because the petitioner had not exhausted his remedies in the State courts (163 F.2d 498), and because a judgment on a writ of habeas corpus, refusing to release a prisoner, is not a bar to the issuance of another writ upon the same facts. Waley v. Johnston 316 U.S. 101, 62 S.Ct. 964, 86 L.Ed. 1302; House v. Mayo, 324 U.S. 42, 65 S.Ct. 517, 89 L.Ed. 739; 25 Am.J. 250, 251.

Thereafter, petitioner filed the petition now under consideration in this Court. The writ was issued, respondent filed his answer, and the parties agreed that the evidence and exhibits taken and filed in the Corporation Court of the city of Newport News in 1943 should be made a part of the record now under consideration. The identical issues, heretofore determined, are thus raised for the second time. They are: (1) Whether the four convictions of armed robbery were based upon coerced confessions; and (2) Whether the failure of the trial court to explain to petitioner the effect of his pleas, or to appoint an attorney to aid him in his defense, is a violation of the "due process" clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution.

Only two witnesses testified in the habeas corpus proceeding. One was petitioner, and the other James M. Peach, now chief of police of Newport News. Petitioner's testimony was as follows: That on October 3, 1931, he was twenty years of age, had served two years and nine months in the Coast Artillery of the U. S. Army, and was then stationed at Fortress Monroe. While he and one Charlie Panella, another soldier, were returning to Fortress Monroe from Richmond, Panella's car was suddenly stopped by police officers. The occupants were taken out of the car, handcuffed, and jailed in Newport News. Charlie Panella was taken into one room and petitioner into another. Petitioner first told the officers that he was not guilty and did not know anything about the robberies, but while they were discussing the matter Panella was brought in and said that he had confessed to the robberies, after which petitioner signed a confession stating that he had participated in three robberies in Newport News and one in Warwick county. He said that he made the confessions because the officer told him if he didn't he might get the electric chair; that he was reared in Cumberland, Maryland; that he was ignorant of legal procedure; that he was not guilty of the robberies, had never committed a crime, and had never been in jail or in a court house before. On the next day he and Panella were taken before a police justice in Newport News, pleaded guilty, and were remanded to jail. He had no friends and no money. His father was dead. His mother and twelve brothers and sisters lived in Maryland. On November 10, 1931, he was taken into the Corporation Court of the city of Newport News. The indictments were not read to him, but the judge of the court asked him if he was guilty and he now claims that, "I didn't open my mouth." Neither the policeman nor the trial judge mentioned counsel to him. He did not understand the nature of the crimes charged or the effect of his pleas.

Quite another story is presented by J. M. Peach, the one witness available to the Commonwealth. He said that on the night of October 5, 1931, he received a telephone communication from police officers in Richmond to the effect that two gasoline stations there had been held up and robbed; that two men in a brown or tan car with the top back, who had perpetrated the robberies, had left Richmond going in the direction of Newport News. On receipt of this information he and M. J. Yoder, superintendent of police of Warwick county, and two other officers drove out Route 60, west of Newport News, about a mile beyond Lee Hall, and watched passing trafficfor the car which the robbers were said to be using in their flight from Richmond. The officer said that soon after reaching this point a car answering the description given him passed and turned off the main highway toward Yorktown; that he and the three officers stopped the car, and on finding money, money bags, and receipts obtained from the robberies in Richmond, they arrested petitioner and Charlie Panella. A gun was found in the back of the car.

The prisoners were carried in separate cars to Newport News, placed in separate rooms. Petitioner had very little to say before reaching the court house, but after they were placed in separate rooms the officer warned petitioner that anything he said would be used against him. The officer denied that he or any one made any threats to induce Stonebreaker to confess. The electric chair was not mentioned. He further said, "I advised him whatever he told us would be told in court at his trial." He was asked the following question and gave the following answer:

"Q. Now, isn't it correct that when the the officers first talked to Stonebreaker at the headquarters that he denied it? A. Yes, he denied it until Panella come in and stated that he had told them all about it, and when he did he proceeded to--the two of them sat down there together and went right over it, how the hold-ups happened, how they punched one of the men around with a gun up there, and the man was so scared he couldn't get the safe open. They made no denial of it at all, and nobody threatened either one of these men."

When Peach was asked if he advised petitioner of his right to have counsel present, he said, "I advised him whatever he told us would be told in court at his trial, any questions he didn't want to answer he didn't have to.

* * *. * * *

"Q. You realized that these boys couldn't have been convicted, didn't you, unless they confessed; isn't that right? A. No, we had them identified."

Captain Peach further testified that he notified the Army officers at Fortress Monroe that he held two soldiers stationed there under arrest. On the back of the in dictment returned by the grand jury in Warwick county it appears that "Cpl. Staves, Battery B. 51, Fort Monroe" was a witness in the proceedings.

Petitioner's testimony is further contradicted by the record which he invokes to sustain his allegations. He said that he did not plead to the indictments and that he was in the Corporation Court of the city of Newport News only once. The record shows that on November 10, 1931, he was led to the bar in the custody of an officer and on his arraignments he pleaded guilty. On these pleas he was convicted and the terms of confinement stated, but sentences were not actually pronounced until November 17, 1931, on which day each of three orders shows that " * * * the prisoners were again led to the bar in the custody of the jailor of this Court, and it being demanded of the prisoners if anything for themselves they had or knew to say why this Court should not now proceed to pronounce judgment against them according to law, and nothing being offered or alleged in delay thereof, * * *, " sentences were then pronounced.

On this record we find that the confessions of petitioner were not obtained by threats or coercion.

This brings us to the question of whether or not failure to appoint counsel under the circumstances violates any law of Virginia or the "due process" clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States.

There is no express mandate either in the Constitution or ...