United States v. Pate, 15830.

• Citation: 375 F.2d 289
• Decision Date: 30 March 1967
• Docket Number: No. 15830.,15830.
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America ex rel. Robert HARTGRAVES, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Frank J. PATE, Warden, Illinois State Penitentiary, Respondent-Appellee.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (7th Circuit)

375 F.2d 289 (1967)

UNITED STATES of America ex rel. Robert HARTGRAVES, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Frank J. PATE, Warden, Illinois State Penitentiary, Respondent-Appellee.

No. 15830.

United States Court of Appeals Seventh Circuit.

March 30, 1967.

Julius Lucius Echeles, Howard W. Minn, Warren Wolfson, Chicago, Ill., for appellant.

William G. Clark, Atty. Gen. of Illinois, Phillip Rock, Asst. Atty. Gen., Chicago, Ill., Richard A. Michael, Asst. Atty. Gen., of counsel, for appellee.

Before HASTINGS, Chief Judge, and KILEY and CUMMINGS, Circuit Judges.

HASTINGS, Chief Judge.

Robert Hartgraves has appealed from the federal district court's denial, without an evidentiary hearing, of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus.

In 1963, Hartgraves was convicted and sentenced to a term of four to eight years imprisonment by the Criminal Court of Cook County, Illinois for the crime of arson. He is presently confined as a prisoner of Illinois.

Prior to his trial, the trial court held a lengthy hearing upon and denied Hartgraves' motion to suppress a confession he had made after having been confronted with accusatory statements of two other persons involved in the alleged crime. This denial was reviewed by the Illinois Supreme Court on a writ of error, and Hartgraves' contention that the confession was obtained under constitutionally impermissible conditions was rejected. People of State of Illinois v. Hartgraves, 31 Ill.2d 375, 202 N.E.2d 33 (1964), cert. den. 380 U.S. 961, 85 S.Ct. 1104, 14 L.Ed.2d 152 (1965).

Hartgraves' instant petition alleged that his confession "was extorted from him * * * when he had a shoulder that was wired together because of a previous accident, which shoulder was bleeding during his interrogation, the wires having parted." It is alleged that the police bargained for the confession by promising leniency; that they failed to advise Hartgraves of his right against self-incrimination and of his right to counsel; and that they threatened him, mistreated him and denied him access to a telephone. A final allegation, evidently based upon the other allegations, was that the Illinois Supreme Court had failed to abide by the decision of the United States Supreme Court in Escobedo v. State of Illinois, 378 U.S. 478, 84 S.Ct. 1758, 12 L.Ed.2d 977 (1964). These contentions, which the district court rejected, are renewed on appeal.

The interrogation standards articulated in Escobedo, supra, and in the later Miranda v. State of Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), have been held applicable only to cases decided subsequent to those decisions. Johnson v. State of New Jersey, 384 U.S. 719, 86 S.Ct. 1772, 16 L.Ed.2d 882 (1966). There is thus no question that the failure of the Chicago police to advise Hartgraves of his rights did not make his confession inadmissible unless that failure, together with other circumstances, forces the conclusion that the confession was in fact involuntary. Haynes v. State of Washington, 373 U.S. 503, 83 S.Ct. 1336, 10 L.Ed.2d 513 (1963).

The facts relating to the voluntariness of the confession were developed in the state trial court on the motion to suppress. There are no allegations and there has been no showing that the state hearing was incomplete, unfair or inadequate. Since the state court reliably and fairly found the relevant facts after a full hearing, a federal evidentiary hearing was not required in the district court. Townsend v. Sain, 372 U.S. 293, 83 S.Ct. 745, 9 L.Ed.2d 770 (1963). Our duty here is to review the state court record in light of the contentions made in order to determine whether the facts disclose that Hartgraves' confession was not voluntarily given.

There was conflict in the testimony in the hearing on the motion to suppress, but the testimony, as the Illinois Supreme Court found and as the federal district court seconded, overwhelmingly refuted Hartgraves' contentions. We agree. Many witnesses denied, and only Hartgraves testified to the contrary, that Hartgraves expressed pain or that his shoulder hurt him; that...