United States v. Ragen
Citation | 274 F.2d 250 |
Decision Date | 13 January 1960 |
Docket Number | No. 12687.,12687. |
Parties | UNITED STATES of America ex rel. Emil RECK, Relator-Appellant, v. Joseph E. RAGEN, Warden, Respondent-Appellee. |
Court | United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (7th Circuit) |
A. Bradley Eben, Bernard Weissbourd, Donald Page Moore, Richard A. Siegal, Chicago, Ill., for appellant.
William C. Wines, Chicago, Ill., Grenville Beardsley, Atty. Gen. of Illinois, Edward M. White, Asst. Atty. Gen., of counsel, for appellee.
Before HASTINGS, Chief Judge, and DUFFY and SCHNACKENBERG, Circuit Judges.
This is an appeal from action1 of the district court quashing a writ of habeas corpus which it had issued on the petition of Emil Reck, also referred to as "defendant", and remanding him to the custody of Joseph E. Ragen, appellee, warden of an Illinois state penitentiary.
In 1936 defendant was convicted of murder in the Criminal Court of Cook County, Illinois, and sentenced to a term of 199 years in said penitentiary, where he was accordingly imprisoned.
On the night of January 2, 1936, Dr. Silber C. Peacock, a Chicago physician, received a telephone call at his apartment. In answer to this call, he departed in his car with his instrument case. He did not return. The next evening his body was found on the floor of his parked automobile. He was dead from a bullet wound and 13 deep lacerations in his head. On Wednesday, March 25, 1936, the police arrested for bicycle theft, Reck, Durland Nash and Robert Goethe, all then 19 years of age, and Michael Livingston who was then 17 years of age. The following Saturday all four signed individual confessions of participation in the killing of Dr. Peacock. Nash and Goeth pleaded guilty and were sentenced to prison, while Reck and Livingston pleaded not guilty and were tried together, when their confessions were received in evidence over their objections. Both were sentenced to imprisonment. On writ of error, the Illinois Supreme Court, with the common law record before it, affirmed Reck's conviction, People v. Reck, 392 Ill. 311, 64 N.E.2d 526.
Proceeding under the Illinois Post-Conviction Hearing Act,2 Reck filed a petition in the Criminal Court of Cook County, which was denied, which action was affirmed by the Illinois Supreme Court on November 23, 1955, 7 Ill.2d 261, 130 N.E.2d 200. That court summarized, 7 Ill.2d at page 262, 130 N.E.2d at page 201, the substance of the confessions signed by the four defendants, as follows:
At page 264 of 7 Ill.2d, at page 202 of 130 N.E.2d, the court pointed out:
At the hearing on the writ in the district court, the complete records of proceedings in the Illinois courts were introduced. In this court Reck contends that the district court erred in its construction of the fourteenth amendment as applied to this case.
The only expert testimony dealing directly with the mental status of Reck is that of Dr. Harry R. Hoffman, director of the behavior clinic of the Criminal Court of Cook County, who was called as a witness for the defense. He reported that Reck had no nervous or mental disorder, that he was of dull normal intelligence, and was not committable as insane or feeble-minded; that he was never a juvenile delinquent.
An extensive effort has been made in the briefs in this court by Reck's counsel to establish that he was a weak character with a retarded mentality, evidently with the purpose of establishing a premise for a conclusion that his confession was extorted from him. For instance, it is argued that, as he dropped out of school at the age of 16 years, when he was in the seventh grade, and as he did not take part in athletic games, but was content to be a scorekeeper, he was a weakling. However, we note that, while he may have not been interested in books, he liked manual training. Although he did not participate in the spectacular features of athletic contests, he served an essential purpose when he kept the score.
We need not analyze in detail the further indications which counsel purport to find in the record pointing to an uninspiring mentality in Reck. Undoubtedly he was no mental genius and was more apt to be classified as "inglorious", as Gray used the word in his benign reference to the many persons who make up a substantial and wholesome part of every population.
As to the evidence leading up to Reck's written confessions, the record shows that this group of four young men was in custody from Wednesday, March 25, 1936, to the following Friday night, during which time they were being questioned exclusively about thefts of bicycles, a saxophone, and other articles, and were being viewed by numerous victims of such crimes. They were still in custody when the following events occurred:
The first reference to the Peacock murder was made to Reck on Friday at 8:45 p. m. It was then that Captain Andrew Aiken, who was assigned to investigate mysterious telephone calls made to doctors in Chicago, viewed Reck at the police station and noticed that he matched a description previously given by an elderly doctor who had been the victim of a holdup. Aiken then accused Reck of the Peacock murder and Reck became ill. A doctor who was called to look at Reck said that he had a "nerve reaction". The police then caused Reck to be sent to the county hospital for the night, where he was picked up Saturday morning, and taken to a police station for questioning about the Peacock case. About 2 p. m. he was taken before Wilbert F. Crowley, first assistant state's attorney, who testified at the trial as to what occurred on Saturday, as follows:
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