United States ex rel. Leguillou v. Davis

• Decision Date: 16 October 1953
• Docket Number: Civ. No. 58
• Citation: 2 V.I. 298
• Parties: UNITED STATES ex rel. LEGUILLOU v. MORRELL DAVIS
• Court: U.S. District Court — Virgin Islands

2 V.I. 298

UNITED STATES ex rel. LEGUILLOU v. MORRELL DAVIS

Civ. No. 58

District Court of the Virgin Islands Div. of St. Croix at Christiansted

October 16, 1953

See, also, 115 F. Supp. 392

Same case on appeal, see 3 V.I.

Application for writ of habeas corpus to obtain release of relator, Tomas Leguillou, a prisoner confined in penitentiary under a sen-tence imposed upon his conviction of murder in the second degree. The respondent, Morrell Davis, moved to dismiss the application. The District Court, Maris, Circuit Judge, held that relator was denied equal protection of the laws with respect to selection of the jury which tried him and was denied due process of law where the jury was required to give their attention to case without recesses, other than for meals, continuously for a full day and night.

Respondent's motion to dismiss application for writ of habeas corpus was denied and order entered directing that relator be released from confinement under sentence but that he be held in custody to answer charge of murder as contained in information filed against him on April 1, 1949.

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WARREN H. YOUNG, Christiansted, Virgin Islands, for relator

CYRIL MICHAEL, Dist. Atty., and CROXTON WILLIAMS, Asst. Dist. Atty., CHARLOTTE AMALIE, Virgin Islands, for respondent

MARIS, Circuit Judge

An application for a writ of habeas corpus has been made to me as a circuit judge of the Third Circuit by the relator, Tomas Leguillou, a prisoner confined in the Richmond Penitentiary in St. Croix, Virgin Islands, under a sentence of 14 years at hard labor imposed by the DistrictCourt of the Virgin Islands upon his conviction by that court of murder in the second degree. The relator, who is a native of Puerto Rico, asserts that his conviction was invalid because he was deprived thereby of his liberty without due process of law and was denied the equal protection of the laws in violation of the Constitution of the United States and the Organic Act of the Virgin Islands. He seeks to have his conviction declared void and to be discharged from custody thereunder. Upon consideration of the application I entered an order directing the respondent, Morrell Davis, Director of the Police and Prison Department of the Municipality of St. Croix, in whose custody the relator is, to show cause why the writ should not be granted. The respondent filed a return, the relator filed a traverse, a hearing was held by me in Christiansted, briefs have now been filed by both parties and the application is before me for final determination.

Section 2241 of Title 28, United States Code, confers upon me as a circuit judge for the Third Circuit the power to grant a writ of habeas corpus within the Third Circuit upon the application of a prisoner who is in custody in violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States. The Virgin Islands are within the Third Circuit¹ and the relator asserts that he is in custody in violation of the Constitution and the Organic Act (1936) of the Virgin Islands, a law of the United States.² I accordingly have jurisdiction of the application unless I am deprived of it by section 2254 or section 2255 of Title 28, United States Code. The respondent asserts that these sections do deprive me of jurisdiction and he moved at the hearing to dismiss the application for this reason. I, therefore, must at the outset consider the effect of these sections.

[1-8] Section 2254 embodies the rule that ordinarily an applicant who is in custody pursuant to the judgment of a state court must show that he has exhausted his available state remedies before a federal court may grant a writ of habeas corpus. It is perfectly clear that this section can have no application here. For the reference in section 2254 is to the states of the union which have sovereignty independent of the federal government, the purpose of the section being to protect the administration by those sovereign states of their criminal law through their own courts from undue interference by the federal courts.³ The Virgin Islands, however, are not a state in the sense of having sovereignty or a system of law and courts which are independent of the federal government. On the contrary they are an unincorporated territory of the United States not destined for statehood.⁴ The local law of the Virgin Islands derives its authority solely from an Act of Congress, sections 18 and 19 of the Organic Act (act June 22, 1936, ch. 699, §§ 18, 19, 49 Stat. 1811; prec. 1 V.I.C.)⁵ and the District Court of the Virgin Islands, the court in which is vested the judicial power of the territory as well as the federal jurisdiction there, was created by the same Act of Congress (act June 22, 1936, ch. 699, § 25, 49 Stat. 1813; prec. 1 V.I.C.)⁶. The district court is empowered to issue writs of habeas corpus both under the local⁷ and the federal law⁸ and a circuit judge when granting the writ in the Virgin Islands does so in the district court.⁹ All ap-peals from that court go to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, its jurisdiction to consider them having been conferred by Congress under the territorial power.¹⁰ It will thus be seen that the territorial judiciary in the Virgin Islands is wholly federal in its origin and in the source of its powers. The distinction between territorial and federal remedies in the Virgin Islands so far as the writ of habeas corpus is concerned is, therefore, of no practical significance since the same courts and judges administer both.¹¹

Section 2255 of Title 28 provides that a prisoner confined under sentence of a court created by Act of Congress who claims the right to be released upon the ground, inter alia, that the sentence was imposed in violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States may move the court which imposed the sentence to vacate it or set it aside. The section further provides that if he fails to do so an application on his behalf for a writ of habeas corpus may not be entertained "unless it also appears that the remedy by motion is inadequate or ineffective to test the legality of his detention." The District Court of the Virgin Islands is, as we have seen, a court created by Act of Congress. Section 2255, therefore, applies to it. The relator has made no motion in that court under section 2255. Nonetheless I am satisfied that the section, properly construed and applied, does not deprive me of power to entertain his present application for habeas corpus.

[9] In the first place the purpose of enacting section 2255 was to provide that the right of a prisoner convicted in a court created by Act of Congress to attack his conviction on constitutional grounds should be asserted before the court which sentenced him and not before some othercourt. The basic idea, as pointed out by Chief Judge Parker, the chairman of the committee which drafted the language embodied in the section, was to require "that the attack upon the judgment of imprisonment be made in the court where it was rendered, where the facts with regard to the procedure followed are known to the court officials, and where the United States Attorney who prosecuted the case will be at hand to see that these facts are fairly presented."¹² In considering the present application I do so for all practical purposes as a judge of the District Court of the Virgin Islands. For my proceedings and order are required by law to be entered in the records of that court.¹³ I heard the application in the Virgin Islands, and from the order which I will enter in the district court an appeal may be taken to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in the same manner as if the order had been entered by the regularly appointed judge of the district court.¹⁴ The application before me is, therefore, for all practical purposes an application by the relator to the sentencing court as section 2255 requires. The fact that the application is for a writ of habeas corpus rather than for an order vacating or setting aside the sentence is a procedural distinction which is without significance in these circumstances since any relief to which the relator is entitled may be accorded him in either form.

Moreover I think that the remedy by motion to the district court would probably be ineffective to test the legality of the realtor's detention. For the district court has only one regularly appointed judge to whom the motion could be made. And while Judge Moore would not be disqualified to pass upon the relator's contentions with respect to thetrial over which he presided he might well regard himself as disqualified to pass upon the contentions with respect to the selection of the jury panel prior to the trial in which he was required to take a leading administrative role. For this very reason it is appropriate for me to entertain the application rather than to transfer it to the judge of the district court, as section 2241(b) of Title 28 would permit me to do in my discretion.

[10-12] I pass then to the merits of the relator's application. Since habeas corpus may not be used as a substitute for an appeal¹⁵ I need consider only those of his contentions which allege errors so basic as to amount to a denial of constitutional rights.¹⁶ While the Virgin Islands are not an incorporated territory of the United States the fundamental guarantee of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States (prec. 1 V.I.C.) that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law nonetheless applies in full force in the islands.¹⁷ And at least as applied to a territory the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment implies equal protection of the laws. ¹⁸ Moreover the Fifth Amendment has been supplemented in the Virgin Islands by section 34 of the Organic Act (Act June 22, 1936, ch. 699 § 34, 49 Stat. 1815; prec. 1 V.I.C.) which provides a bill of rights including full guarantees of due...