Stonebreaker v. Smyth

• Decision Date: 20 August 1947
• Docket Number: No. 5604.,5604.
• Citation: 163 F.2d 498
• Parties: STONEBREAKER v. SMYTH, Superintendent of Virginia State Penitentiary.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

163 F.2d 498 (1947)

STONEBREAKER v. SMYTH, Superintendent of Virginia State Penitentiary.

No. 5604.

Circuit Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

August 20, 1947.

W. A. Hall, Jr., of Richmond, Va., for appellant.

M. Ray Doubles, Asst. Atty. Gen. of Virginia (Abram P. Staples, Atty. Gen. of Virginia, on the brief), for appellee.

Before PARKER, SOPER, and DOBIE, Circuit Judges.

PARKER, Circuit Judge.

This is an appeal from an order discharging a writ of habeas corpus and dismissing the petition for the writ. Petitioner is incarcerated in the Virginia State Penitentiary under three sentences of the Corporation Court of the City of Newport News, Virginia, imposed in the year 1931 upon pleas of guilty by petitioner to three indictments charging armed robbery.

In 1943 petitioner by petition for writ of habeas corpus in the courts of Virginia attacked the judgment and sentences under which he was imprisoned, on the ground that he had been denied the due process of law guaranteed by the 14th Amendment of the Federal Constitution in the proceedings in which they were entered. He alleged, as the basis of this contention, that at the time he was sentenced he was a minor twenty years of age, ignorant and uninformed as to his right to counsel, and incapable of representing himself, and that he had pleaded guilty because of a confession which had been unfairly obtained from him. The petition was heard upon its merits by the Corporation Court of the City of Newport News, evidence was taken and the facts upon which petitioner relied were fully developed. The Corporation Court of Newport News, after full hearing and consideration, discharged the writ and dismissed the petition, whereupon petitioner applied to the Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia for a writ of error, which was denied by that court. Thereupon, petitioner applied to the United States Supreme Court for writ of certiorari; and this was denied on October 16, 1944. Stonebreaker v. Smyth, 323 U.S. 754, 65 S.Ct. 81, 89 L.Ed. 603.

After a delay of over two years, during which the Supreme Court had decided a number of cases on right to counsel and the effect of pleas of guilty by prisoners without counsel, petitioner, on January 13, 1947, filed the petition in the court below relying upon the identical grounds urged in the state court under the 14th Amendment and attaching to his petition a transcript of the proceedings in that 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, basing his decision on White v. Ragen 324 U.S. 760, 65 S.Ct. 978, 89 L.Ed. 1348. The petitioner has appealed, his principal contention on appeal being, that because of recent Supreme Court decisions, which he thinks support his position on the merits, his is not such a case as the courts "will not usually re-examine," but that it should be re-examined and relief granted.

We are confronted at the outset with the fact that the case presented by petitioner is precisely the same as that in which relief was denied by the Virginia courts and in which certiorari was denied by the Supreme Court of the United States. The rights of petitioner were fully presented in that case and the Virginia courts had full power to grant the relief asked, had they thought petitioner entitled to it. The facts were fully before the Supreme Court of the United States on certiorari; and proper respect for that court compels the conclusion that if it had thought that the record showed a denial of petitioner's constitutional rights, certiorari would have been granted and petitioner would have been afforded relief. While action of the Virginia courts and the denial of certiorari by the Supreme Court were not binding on the principle of res judicata, they were matters entitled to respectful consideration by the court below; and in the absence of some most unusual situation, they were sufficient reason for that court to deny a further writ of habeas corpus. It would be intolerable that a federal district court should release a prisoner on habeas corpus after the state courts have refused him relief in precisely the same case on a similar writ and the United States Supreme Court has refused to review their action on certiorari. This would be, in effect, to permit a federal district court to review the Supreme Court of the United States as well as the highest court of the state. The rule in such cases was stated in the case of White v. Ragen 324 U.S. 760, 764, 765, 65 S.Ct. 978, 981, 89 L.Ed. 1348, relied on by the court below, as follows:

"If this Court denies certiorari after a state court decision on the merits, or if it reviews the case on the merits, a federal District Court will not usually re-examine on habeas corpus the questions thus adjudicated. Ex parte Hawk, supra, 321 U.S. at page 118, 64 S.Ct. 448, 88 L.Ed. 572."

The citation of Ex parte Hawk shows what the court had in mind in the use of the words "will not usually re-examine" in the statement just quoted; for the court had pointed out in that case the sort of cases in which the district court would be justified in granting habeas corpus notwithstanding the denial of certiorari in cases where the state court had refused to grant relief. These were cases where resort to state court remedies had failed to afford a full and fair adjudication of the federal contentions raised either because the state afforded no remedy or because the remedy afforded proved in practice unavailable or seriously inadequate. The court said in that case, Ex parte Hawk, 321 U.S. 114, 118, 64 S.Ct. 448, 450, 88 L.Ed. 572:

"Where the state courts have considered and adjudicated the merits of his contentions, and this Court has either reviewed or declined to review the state court's decision, a federal court will not ordinarily reexamine upon writ of habeas corpus the questions thus adjudicated. Salinger v. Loisel 265 U.S. 224, 230, 232, 44 S.Ct. 519, 521-522, 68 L.Ed. 989. But where resort to state court remedies has failed to afford a full and fair adjudication of the federal contentions raised, either because the state affords no remedy, see Mooney v. Holohan, supra, 294 U.S. 103, at page 115, 55 S.Ct. 340, 343, 79 L.Ed. 791, 98 A.L.R. 406, or because in the particular case the remedy afforded by state law proves in practice unavailable or seriously inadequate, cf. Moore v. Dempsey, 261 U.S. 86, 43 S.Ct. 265, 67 L.Ed. 543; Ex parte Davis, 318 U.S. 412, 63 S.Ct. 679, 87 L.Ed. 868, a federal court should entertain his petition for habeas corpus, else he would be remediless. In such a case he should proceed in the federal district court before resorting to this Court by petition for habeas corpus."

In House v. Mayo 324 U.S. 42, 65 S.Ct. 517, 520, 89 L.Ed. 739, where the petition in the district court alleged adequate grounds for relief and that court refused to entertain the petition because the Supreme Court had denied certiorari to review a state court decision denying relief on habeas corpus, the Supreme Court in reversing this action was at pains to point out that the usual rule was not applicable because the exceptional situation pointed out in Ex parte Hawk was present in that the basis of the state court's decision was that the remedy sought in the state court was not permitted by state law. What the Supreme Court said in this connection is illuminating here, as it is clearly implied that the usual rule would have been applicable but for the fact that under state law relief was not obtainable in the habeas corpus proceedings instituted in the state court, which clearly distinguishes the case from the one at bar. The court reconciles the apparent discrepancy between the rule that denial of certiorari imports no expression of opinion upon the merits with the rule that a district court should give that fact consideration in habeas corpus cases, by pointing out that it is in cases where the lower court has no power under state law to afford relief that the latter rule is inapplicable. The court said:

"The district court was of the opinion that `petitioner has had a full, complete, and competent consideration and decision in the Supreme Court of Florida of all the various matters here sought again to be presented.' The district court had reference to the decisions of the Florida Supreme Court referred to by petitioner in his papers filed with the district court. They were: House v. State 127 Fla. 145, 172 So. 734, a writ of error from petitioner's conviction; House v. State, 130 Fla. 400, 177 So. 705, an application for leave to file a coram nobis proceeding; and the denial by the Florida Supreme Court without opinion of three petitions for habeas corpus filed by petitioner. By each form of proceeding petitioner attempted to raise the questions he now raises in the present petition; but in each instance, so far as appears, the Florida Supreme Court, without considering the merits of petitioner's contentions and without affording a hearing on the merits, denied relief to petitioner, on the ground that the particular remedy sought was not the appropriate one under Florida law to raise those contentions. See House v. State 127 Fla. 145, 148, 172 So. 734; House v. State 130 Fla. 400, 406, 177 So. 705; cf. Skipper v. Schumacher 124 Fla. 384, 401-404, 169 So. 58.

"The district court also referred to a denial by this Court of a petition for certiorari, filed here after the denial by the Florida Supreme Court of one of the applications for habeas corpus. See House v. Mayo, 322 U.S. 710, 64 S.Ct. 1058, 88 L.Ed. 1553. The district court thought that this was an expression `of the opinion that no meritorious question is presented by the matters of which petitioner here complains.' But as we have often said, a denial of certiorari by this court imports no expression of opinion upon the merits of a case. * * * It is true that where...