United States v. LaVallee

• Decision Date: 26 December 1963
• Docket Number: Civ. No. 9576.
• Parties: UNITED STATES ex rel. William WALKER, Relator, v. Hon. J. Edwin LaVALLEE, Warden of Clinton Prison, Dannemora, New York, Respondent.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of New York

224 F. Supp. 661

UNITED STATES ex rel. William WALKER, Relator, v. Hon. J. Edwin LaVALLEE, Warden of Clinton Prison, Dannemora, New York, Respondent.

Civ. No. 9576.

United States District Court N. D. New York.

December 26, 1963.

Alfred Berman, New York City, Louis J. Lefkowitz, Atty. Gen. State of New York, Albany, N. Y., Joseph J. Rose, Asst. Atty. Gen., of counsel, for relator.

Edward S. Silver, Dist. Atty., Kings County, Brooklyn, N. Y., William I. Siegel, Asst. Dist. Atty., of counsel, for respondent.

JAMES T. FOLEY, Chief Judge.

This petition presents — after more than ten years have passed since the date of conviction and considerable appellate review been had — the serious challenge by a state prisoner that a coerced confession was used against him during his state trial held in Brooklyn, New York, in 1953. The petitioner filed a similar application for federal habeas corpus with me in 1961 which I denied without prejudice following the procedural reasoning of the Court of Appeals, Second Circuit, prevalent at that time. I did what I very much dislike to do: — put him back on the merry-go-round of exhaustion of state remedies, including the filing of a petition for certiorari in the United States Supreme Court. (United States ex rel. Walker v. LaVallee (N.D.N.Y.), 194 F.Supp. 351; see United States ex rel. Williams v. LaVallee, 2 Cir., 276 F.2d 645). In my decision at that time, supra, I expressed my feeling that the issue of coerced confession was substantial and close, and listed the great number of cases involving this same point that have passed through this two-judge District Court of Northern New York by the quirk of confinement and jurisdictional provisions. (United States ex rel. Kiernan v. LaVallee (N.D.N.Y.), 191 F.Supp. 455; 28 U.S.C.A. § 2241; Ahrens v. Clark, 335 U.S. 188, 68 S.Ct. 1443, 92 L.Ed. 1898). The list of federal intrusion and reversal of New York State criminal convictions is growing larger daily. New York should view as a matter of concern the fact, whether it disagrees with the rulings of the federal appellate courts or not, that increasing set-backs in upholding New York convictions are being met too frequently in the federal habeas corpus review. (See United States ex rel. Williams v. Fay, 2 Cir., 323 F.2d 65; United States ex rel. Martin v. Murphy, 2 Cir., 319 F.2d 897).

Fay v. Noia, 372 U.S. 391, 83 S.Ct. 822, 9 L.Ed.2d 837, another noted case that arose in New York many years ago, changes drastically the previous viewpoint concerning the exhaustion of available state remedies before federal habeas corpus may be entertained. Townsend v. Sain, 372 U.S. 293, 83 S.Ct. 745, 9 L.Ed.2d 770, another case with considerable impact and change, handed down in March 1963, mandates federal entertainment and hearing unless the state procedures reach prescribed standards for hearings with express findings of fact, or at least with some form of writing that allows reasonable reconstruction for federal review purposes. These principles are clear for all to discern, and the handwriting, in my judgment, is large and plain and to the effect that post-conviction recanvass is necessary with hearing, fact-finding and appellate writing in the State Courts on the questions of this kind. Otherwise, it seems clear the integrity of the state appellate procedures to review its own criminal matters will be subjected continuously, and in my judgment undesirably, to the admitted supremacy of federal review. My pen is about dry as to my position in these matters which have become such a heavy burden of work upon two judges that the functioning of this Court in the processing and disposition of its work for its law abiding litigants is seriously hampered. Unfortunately, a good court may be grinding to a standstill. There are more than six thousand state prisoners confined in this District. From observation, the courts of New York are in the same condition of turmoil and clogging that, as here, imperil the orderly, fair and efficient administration of criminal justice, an attainment I am sure all judges, state and federal, seek. This is all unnecessary embellishment, but at times it is good for the soul for the district judges — characterized by the Chief Justice in Townsend v. Sain as ones in the front line — to alert and inform the federal appellate command posts that in certain federal districts the judges are beleagured to a point close to dismay by reason of the onrush of federal habeas corpus petitions from state prisoners stimulated by the new concepts. Every state prisoner believes he is wrongfully imprisoned, and it is obvious now there will be very few who voluntarily decide that a federal question of merit is not present in their state conviction or convictions. (See Fay v. Noia, supra, dissent of Justice Clark, and Townsend v. Sain, supra, dissent of Justice Stewart.)

This petitioner, as I suggested in my memorandum decision, went back to Judge Leibowitz in Kings County on coram nobis application, which was denied on August 23, 1961 without a hearing. This denial was affirmed by the Appellate Division, Second Department, with a short memorandum to the effect that the identical issue of coerced confession was previously adjudicated adversely on direct appeal, and that the same issue cannot be relitigated. (16 A. D.2d 706, 227 N.Y.S.2d 749.) This ruling in itself evidences the unseemly tug-of-war now growing in intensity between the federal and state courts. The reluctance of New York trial and appellate courts to review old situations is apparently unchanged. Leave to appeal to the Court of Appeals, New York, was denied May 22, 1962. Certiorari was denied by the United States Supreme Court on October 15, 1962. 371 U.S. 869, 83 S.Ct. 133, 9 L.Ed.2d 106. It is interesting to note that the record of this state trial in New York is as complete in this instance as in every previous application I have had on the coerced confession issue and again needs nothing added to it by federal hearing. This record in October, 1962, was before the highest court of the land in the same form and content as now. It is sufficient for serious decision that will now, by my single conclusion, overrule directly the second highest appellate court of New York and indirectly the distinguished highest court of that State.

It is also noticeable to me that in many of these serious state criminal matters that I have decided and thereafter observed the steps to final conclusion there is a built-in system of delay that indicts in itself our procedures for review of state criminal convictions. Delay of ten to thirty years should demonstrate there is something wrong somewhere that should be corrected, if possible, by renewed state and federal executive, legislative and judicial study. Grave transgression of constitutional rights should always remain open for review, but the abuse of process for unmeritorious and shallow claims that destroy efficiency in the search for the worthy claim surely can be curbed by intelligent limitation. The Report of the Committee on Habeas Corpus to the Judicial Conference of the United States in September, 1963, shows an awareness that some legislative restriction in federal habeas corpus is essential to prevent the extravagant waste of judicial time and energy now involved in our endless and duplicitous review. This report refers to "Finality in Criminal Law and Federal Habeas Corpus for State Prisoners" by Professor Bator, in the Harvard Law Review, Vol. 76, No. 3 (1963). It is, in my judgment, an exposition of importance particularly pointing to the cold, hard fact of life that we must accept the truism that "human institutions are short of infallible". I agree with his suggestion that we seek in the competing and delicate balances involved in the administration of criminal justice "a general procedural system which does not cater to a perpetual and unreasoned anxiety that there is a possibility that error has been made in every criminal case in the legal system". (pg. 453). Of course, these are not problems of easy solution, but at times I think we should give heed to the cautions from the law enforcement side. For example, J. Edgar Hoover, in accepting the Brotherhood Award from the Washington Hebrew Congregation on December 4, 1963, said that "Justice is needed, stern justice. Justice is not served when the innocent victim and society suffer while the vicious criminal goes free." Mr. Hoover's counsel should be weighed in the same deliberate sense that judges consider the advice of sociologists, criminologists and psychiatrists in reaching decision because his long experience and valued contribution to law and order in this country was given tribute by our late President, John F. Kennedy, who described him in...