United States v. LaValle

• Decision Date: 02 February 1959
• Docket Number: Civ. No. 7275.
• Citation: 170 F. Supp. 582
• Parties: UNITED STATES ex rel. Samuel Tito WILLIAMS, Relator, v. J. Edwin LAVALLE, Warden of Clinton Prison, Dannemora, New York, Respondent.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of New York

170 F. Supp. 582

UNITED STATES ex rel. Samuel Tito WILLIAMS, Relator, v. J. Edwin LAVALLE, Warden of Clinton Prison, Dannemora, New York, Respondent.

Civ. No. 7275.

United States District Court N. D. New York.

February 2, 1959.

Samuel Tito Williams, petitioner, pro se.

Louis J. Lefkowitz, Atty. Gen. of New York, Edward S. Silver, Dist. Atty., Kings County, Brooklyn, N. Y., (Raymond B. Madden, Asst. Atty. Gen., William I. Siegel, Asst. Dist. Atty., Brooklyn, N. Y., of counsel), for respondent.

FOLEY, District Judge.

This petition for a writ of habeas corpus presents a challenge, which has become commonplace in this District Court, to a murder first degree judgment of conviction of the State of New York. The petitioner was found guilty of felony murder by a jury on January 22, 1948, and the said judgment of conviction and sentence was rendered against him in the County Court of Kings County on March 2, 1948. County Judge Goldstein, who presided at the trial, in a lengthy and detailed sentencing statement based upon investigative and probation department reports disclosing a criminal and sordid background, rejected the recommendation of life imprisonment made by the jury and sentenced the petitioner to death. The Court of Appeals of New York affirmed without opinion (People of State of New York v. Williams, 298 N.Y. 803, 83 N.E.2d 698), amended its remittitur (298 N.Y. 863, 84 N.E.2d 446), and denied motion for reargument (300 N.Y. 460, 88 N.E.2d 325). Different from the usual appellate pattern in these most serious of criminal cases, direct appeal was entertained by the United States Supreme Court on the constitutional challenge to the action of the County Judge basing his sentence of death upon information supplied by witnesses with whom the defendant (petitioner) had not been confronted or allowed to cross-examine and rebut. In a substantial opinion by Justice Black, the Supreme Court rejected the challenge and affirmed the Court of Appeals of New York, Justices Murphy and Rutledge dissenting. Williams v. People of State of New York, 1949, 337 U.S. 241, 69 S.Ct. 1079, 93 L.Ed. 1337, rehearing denied 337 U.S. 961, 69 S.Ct. 1529, 93 L.Ed. 1760, 338 U.S. 841, 70 S.Ct. 34, 94 L.Ed. 514. In November, 1949, Governor Thomas E. Dewey commuted the death sentence to life imprisonment. The matter remained at rest until the filing of this handwritten petition in this district court in 1958.

The grave challenge here is the same one based upon the issue of coerced and involuntary confessions with the sharp dispute of fact that was decided against New York in United States ex rel. Caminito v. Murphy, 2 Cir., 222 F.2d 698, certiorari denied 350 U.S. 896, 76 S.Ct. 155, 100 L.Ed. 788, and United States ex rel. Wade v. Jackson, 2 Cir., 256 F.2d 7, certiorari denied 357 U.S. 908, 78 S.Ct. 1152, 2 L.Ed.2d 1158. The solution of these serious problems is always difficult because in the main it assays the fact finding functions of the federal court against those of State juries and State judges. The historic sensitivity and delicacy of such review as it affects federal-state comity and relations, particularly the review by a single District Judge of a State's highest court judgments, is set forth in Darr v. Burford, 339 U.S. 200, 206-208, 217, 70 S.Ct. 587, 94 L.Ed. 761. Much contact with these situations clearly evidences to me that resentment and antipathy increase to lower court review when such review necessarily has overtones of a superior or more competent, or even infallible fact finding analysis in comparison to that of the State tribunals. See People v. Bonino, 1 N.Y.2d 752, 753, 135 N.E.2d 51, Desmond dissenting. Such fact finding superiority and wisdom would, I am sure, be accepted much more graciously if promulgated by the highest court in the land in these tense murder cases. Recent cases of the Supreme Court point up the divergent inferences and conclusions that are drawn in the highest court as to whether a confession was voluntary or involuntary from the variable and close factual situations. Thomas v. State of Arizona, 356 U.S. 390, 78 S.Ct. 885, 2 L.Ed.2d 863, rehearing denied 357 U.S. 944, 78 S.Ct. 1379, 2 L.Ed.2d 1557 (confession held voluntary 5-4); Crooker v. State of California, 357 U.S. 433, 78 S.Ct. 1287, 2 L.Ed.2d 1448 (confession held voluntary 5-4); Payne v. State of Arkansas, 356 U.S. 560, 78 S.Ct. 844, 2 L.Ed. 2d 975 (confession held void 7-2); Ashdown v. State of Utah, 357 U.S. 426, 78 S.Ct. 1354, 2 L.Ed.2d 1443 (confession held voluntary 7-2). However, as Chief Judge Clark recently stated in United States ex rel. Eckwerth v. Denno, 2 Cir., 261 F.2d 511, certiorari denied 79 S.Ct. 355, the obligation is still present in the lower federal courts despite the state jury's ultimate finding that the confessions were voluntary to make an independent examination into the constitutional question of voluntariness from the facts and circumstances revealed by the undisputed evidence.

After the petition was filed herein, as is my practice, I issued an order to show cause to the District Attorney of Kings County and the Attorney General of New York. Affidavits in opposition to the grant of the writ have been filed in behalf of both. The District Attorney also furnished to the court two bound volumes from his office containing the complete record and proceedings at the trial, the briefs filed in the Court of Appeals of New York in behalf of the petitioner including one of the American Civil Liberties Union, amicus curiae, the transcript of record filed in the United States Supreme Court on appeal and the opposing briefs filed there and the two petitions for rehearing. I have read it all.

Before going to the merits as I will, there must be discussed a substantial point raised by Assistant District Attorney William I. Siegel, a distinguished career veteran of the staff of the District Attorney of Kings County, to whom I now express my sincere appreciation because in several instances in the past and again in this one, he has made the long trips from Brooklyn to Albany to present his oral argument and furnish the necessary complete records for decision which without his cooperation are always difficult to obtain. He raises a substantial contention as to the exhaustion of state remedies pursuant to 28 U.S.C.A. § 2254.

The issue of coerced and involuntary confession was strongly pressed in detail in the briefing to the Court of Appeals by the attorneys for petitioner Williams, and the Court of Appeals by its affirmance passed upon such point. However, the appeal to the Supreme Court seems to revolve in the briefing there and in the abbreviated transcript of record solely on the constitutional question as to the manner in which the sentencing Judge rejected the recommendation of the jury and imposed the death sentence. Except for this one appeal and decision therein, my search does not indicate any separate application for certiorari to the United States Supreme Court on the issue of coerced confession. Justice Black seemingly comments on the record of a complete trial with these statements: "The narrow contention here makes it unnecessary to set out the facts at length. The record shows a carefully conducted trial lasting more than two weeks in which (Williams) was represented by three appointed lawyers who conducted his defense with fidelity and zeal. The evidence proved a wholly indefensible murder committed by a person engaged in a burglary. * * * Appellant was found guilty after a fairly conducted trial." Williams v. People of State of New York, supra, 337 U.S. at pages 243,...