United States v. Clifton, Crim. No. 76574.

• Decision Date: 12 March 1965
• Docket Number: Crim. No. 76574.
• Citation: 239 F. Supp. 49
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. Nathaniel CLIFTON, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Columbia

239 F. Supp. 49

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. Nathaniel CLIFTON, Defendant.

Crim. No. 76574.

United States District Court District of Columbia.

March 12, 1965.

Nathaniel Clifton, petitioner, pro se.

HOLTZOFF, District Judge.

The petitioner Nathaniel Clifton has presented pro se an application for a writ of error coram nobis to set aside and vacate a judgment of conviction on a charge of robbery, on which he was sentenced to imprisonment for a term of 2 years to 6 years on April 18, 1946. No appeal was taken. The sentence was served and expired many years ago.

It appears that the petitioner is now serving a sentence in a New York State penal institution imposed by a New York State court. The State sentence was based on a local statute, which prescribes severer sentences on second offenders than on first offenders. In view of his old District of Columbia conviction the petitioner was sentenced by the New York court as a second offender. He apparently seeks to set aside and vacate the prior District of Columbia sentence with a view to securing a reduction of the New York sentence on the theory that the New York court would then treat him as a first offender.

The present application is based on the ruling of the Supreme Court in Jackson v. Denno, 378 U.S. 368, 84 S.Ct. 1774, 12 L.Ed.2d 908, which regulated the procedure to be followed in determining the admissibility of confessions. It is alleged that the procedure recently prescribed by the Supreme Court was not pursued at the trial in this case.

In Jackson v. Denno, supra, the Supreme Court reviewed the different types of procedure followed in various jurisdictions for a determination of the question whether a defendant's confession was voluntary or involuntary. Under the New York practice, which was in question in that case, and which likewise prevailed in some other jurisdictions, the trial judge made a preliminary determination of the matter and excluded the confession if it could not be deemed voluntary under any circumstances. If, however, the evidence was conflicting and presented a fair question as to voluntariness, the judge admitted the confession and left to the jury the ultimate determination of its voluntary or involuntary character. The Supreme Court disapproved this practice as being violative of the due process of law guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. The majority opinion pointed out that under these circumstances if the jury rendered a general verdict of guilty, it was impossible to ascertain whether the jury gave weight to the confession or excluded it and based its conclusion on the other evidence in the case. Mr. Justice Black, Mr. Justice Clark and Mr. Justice Harlan dissented.

Under what the Court denominated as the "orthodox" rule, the judge hears all the evidence on the issue of voluntariness and then rules definitively on the admissibility of the confession. If he admits the statement, the jury may thereafter consider the question of voluntariness as affecting the weight or the credibility of the confession. Still a third rule, sometimes called the "Massachusetts" rule, is the same as the "orthodox" rule, except that even if the Court admits the confession, the jury is instructed that it must also find that the confession was voluntary before it may consider it. The second and third rules comply with the constitutional requirements as formulated by the Supreme Court in Jackson v. Denno, while the New York practice is not in accord with them.

Assuming arguendo without deciding that an application for a writ of error coram nobis lies under the circumstances of this case for the purpose for which the petitioner...