United States v. Ragen

• Decision Date: 03 July 1957
• Docket Number: No. 11793.,11793.
• Citation: 246 F.2d 264
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, ex rel. William A. SPROCH, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Joseph RAGEN, Warden, Illinois State Penitentiary, Respondent-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

246 F.2d 264 (1957)

UNITED STATES of America, ex rel. William A. SPROCH, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Joseph RAGEN, Warden, Illinois State Penitentiary, Respondent-Appellee.

No. 11793.

United States Court of Appeals Seventh Circuit.

July 3, 1957.

Roy B. Schneider, Jr., Chicago, Ill., for appellant.

Latham Castle, Atty. Gen., Theodore G. Maheras, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee, William C. Wines, Raymond S. Sarnow, A. Zola Groves, Asst. Attys. Gen., of counsel.

Before LINDLEY and SCHNACKENBERG, Circuit Judges, and BRIGGLE, District Judge.

LINDLEY, Circuit Judge.

The relator, prisoner of the State of Illinois, appeals from a judgment of the district court dismissing, without hearing, his application for a writ of habeas corpus, a voluminous and repetitious petition. In view of the fact that he was then acting pro se, we do not hold him to the usual standards of pleading, or to the niceties of a correct legal presentation of his claim. Consequently, we treat his petition with indulgence.

We keep in mind certain accepted rules. Thus, averments of a petition for a writ of habeas corpus well pleaded, if sufficient to constitute a valid complaint of violation of federal constitutional rights, and if state remedies have been exhausted, necessitate a hearing. Williams v. Kaiser, 323 U.S. 471, 65 S.Ct. 363, 89 L.Ed. 398; Jennings v. Illinois, 342 U.S. 104, 72 S.Ct. 123, 96 L.Ed. 119. On the other hand, an application for habeas corpus may not be successfully employed in lieu of appeal or appropriate review by writ of error. Bowman v. Alvis, 6 Cir., 224 F.2d 275. And, obviously, a state prisoner cannot properly invoke the writ unless it appears that he is in custody in violation of the Constitution of the United States. Brown v. Allen, 344 U. S. 443, 73 S.Ct. 397, 97 L.Ed. 469; Thomas v. Eyman, 9 Cir., 235 F.2d 775, at page 777.

Relator's first contention, stated as tersely as possible under his repetitious averments, is that he was falsely arrested by state authorities, subjected to an illegal search and seizure, falsely imprisoned prior to trial, subjected to third degree interrogation, and held in a state of incommunicado. Obviously all of these matters preceded his trial and had nothing to do with the question of which we have jurisdiction, that is, the fairness of the hearing. Thus we held, in United States ex rel. Langer v. Ragen, 7 Cir., 237 F.2d 827, that we would not inquire into the facts preceding the trial, but that the only pertinent question was whether the prisoner received a fair trial. There the applicant had complained of illegal arrest and removal from one state to another. We quoted from the Supreme Court decision in Frisbie v. Collins, 342 U.S. 519, at page 522, 72 S.Ct. 509, at page 511, 96 L.Ed. 541. After commenting that it had never departed from the rule announced in Ker v. Illinois, 119 U.S. 436, 444, 7 S.Ct. 225, 30 L.Ed. 421, that the power of a court to try a person for crime is not impaired by the fact that he has been brought within the court's jurisdiction by reason of a "forcible abduction," the Court proceeded, 342 U.S. at page 522, 72 S.Ct. at page 511: "No persuasive reasons are now presented to justify overruling this line of cases. They rest on the sound basis that due process of law is satisfied when one present in court is convicted of crime after having been fairly apprized of the charges against him and after a fair trial in accordance with constitutional procedural safeguards. There is nothing in the Constitution that requires a court to permit a guilty person rightfully convicted to escape justice because he was brought to trial against his will." It follows that petitioner's averments as to unlawful arrest and removal and physical mistreatment, all of which occurred prior to the trial, are wholly beside the point. Only if some of these acts are shown to have resulted in action in the trial court which violated the federal Constitution, can the district court or this court take cognizance of them.

The relator further averred that he was denied due process of law at the trial in that the state knowingly "used" perjured testimony; that he was forced to make a confession; and that court-appointed counsel failed to represent him adequately.

The essential facts are that petitioner was indicted in the Criminal Court of Cook County, Illinois, for the crime of rape, tried by the court without a jury found guilty and sentenced to imprisonment. See People v. Sproch, 409 Ill. 55, 97 N.E.2d 833. After having been sentenced, he employed counsel of his own choice, who obtained writ of error from the Supreme Court of Illinois, resulting in affirmance of his conviction. Thereafter he filed a petition for relief under the Post-Conviction Law of Illinois, S.H.A.Ill., ch. 38, § 826 et seq., which was denied. Upon writ of error, the Supreme Court of Illinois affirmed the dismissal. The Supreme Court of the United States denied certiorari. He then filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the Circuit Court of Will County, Illinois. That, too, was denied. Though that judgment was not appealable, he makes no showing that he attempted to have it reviewed by the Supreme Court on certiorari.

Upon the question of exhaustion of state remedies, as we have observed, there has been no application for writ of certiorari to review the decision of the Circuit Court of Will County denying the prisoner's application for writ of habeas corpus. That fact, of itself, destroys the verity of his averment that he has exhausted state remedies. Irrespective of whether the order mentioned was appealable to the Supreme Court of Illinois, he had, by repeated decisions, the right to ask for certiorari in the Supreme Court of the United States, if a federal question was involved in his State application.

However, there is another potent reason why we are unable to say that he has exhausted his state remedies. We are not informed as to whether the same complaints as to violation of federal constitutional rights were included in the petition for relief under the Illinois Post-Conviction Law. The present application does not advise us as to what points were there presented. We have held that exhaustion of state remedies does not occur unless the points urged in the Federal District Court have been presented to the state court. Thus, we said, in United States ex rel. Lilyroth v. Ragen, 7 Cir., 222 F.2d 654, at page 656: "To present one case to the state courts without success, followed by the presentation of another case to the federal courts, does not meet the requirement that he exhaust his remedies in the state courts before seeking release by habeas corpus in the federal district court." The burden of proof being upon petitioner to show that he had exhausted his state remedies, it follows that it was necessary to show also that he raised in the post-conviction proceedings the issues which he raised in his application for habeas corpus in the district court, insofar as he alleged violation of federal rights. His petition is sorely lacking in that respect. We cannot assume that the ...