United States v. Ragsdale

• Decision Date: 01 April 1971
• Docket Number: No. 30056 Summary Calendar.,30056 Summary Calendar.
• Citation: 438 F.2d 21
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. William Paul RAGSDALE, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

438 F.2d 21 (1971)

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. William Paul RAGSDALE, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 30056 Summary Calendar.^*

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

January 29, 1971.

Rehearing Denied and Rehearing Denied April 1, 1971.

James M. Fullan, Jr., Beddow, Embry & Beddow, Birmingham, Ala., for defendant-appellant.

Ira deMont, U. S. Atty., D. Broward Segrest, Asst. U. S. Atty., Montgomery, Ala., for plaintiff-appellee.

Before THORNBERRY, MORGAN and CLARK, Circuit Judges.

Rehearing Denied and Rehearing En Banc Denied April 1, 1971.

CLARK, Circuit Judge:

William Paul Ragsdale, Sheriff of Lee County, Alabama, was prosecuted in the court below under a five-count indictment charging separate substantive violations of 18 U.S.C.A. § 242 (1969). The first three counts alleged brutality toward male inmates. The fourth and fifth counts charged sexual misconduct with a female inmate. A trial by jury resulted in a verdict of guilty as to Count 1 and not guilty as to Counts 2 through 5, inclusive.

The uncontradicted evidence relative to Count 1, including the testimony of the defendant himself, disclosed the following facts. Lawrence Williams was an inmate of the Lee County jail under the custody of defendant Ragsdale. For some time Williams had been accorded a "trusty" status which entailed both extra duties and extra privileges not allowed to other inmates. On several occasions Williams unlawfully left the jail. The government refers to these instances as escapes. The defendant sheriff classifies them as occasions on which Williams had "run off". Following each of the first few of these departures, Williams received lectures upon his return to the jail; on later recaptures Sheriff Ragsdale withheld certain of Williams' "trusty" privileges. On two such occasions Sheriff Ragsdale disciplined Williams by striking him with a restraining belt. On the particular reapprehension which gave rise to the conviction now on appeal, Sheriff Ragsdale confronted Williams with a choice of procedures: Ragsdale told Williams he would either swear out a warrant against Williams for the offense of escape from custody or would administer summary punishment in the form of six strokes of the restraining belt. Williams agreed to accept the six blows, which Sheriff Ragsdale administered.

This appeal asserts two broad bases for reversal: first, that the trial court's instructions invaded the province of the jury by directing a verdict of guilt; second, that the prosecutor's misconduct, coupled with erroneous rulings on matters of evidence, constituted an accumulation of prejudicial occurrences requiring reversal. Finding neither basis valid, we affirm.

I. THE INSTRUCTIONS

The core of the Sheriff's complaint is that the court's instructions deprived the jury of their proper function of determining whether Sheriff Ragsdale's acts embodied the statutorily required wilfulness and intent to deprive his prisoner of a right, privilege or immunity secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States. In essence he asserts that the jury could have found the choice he left to Williams involved no more than a proper concern for prison discipline among "trustys" and that such a finding would have required the jury to acquit him on Count 1, as it did on the remaining counts.

First, we should take note of the statute involved, Section 242, which provides:

Whoever, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, willfully subjects any inhabitant of any State, Territory, or District to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or to different punishments, pains, or penalties, on account of such inhabitant being an alien, or by reason of his color, or race, than are prescribed for the punishment of citizens, shall be fined not more than $1,000 or imprisoned not more than one year, or both; and if death results shall be subject to imprisonment for any term of years or for life.¹

Next, we must examine those parts of the court's charge which form the gravamen of the complaint. But before we deal with specifics, we would observe that the sheriff acknowledges that portions of the original charge dealing with wilfulness and intent were given in the precise language he requested. He contends error occurred because assertedly inconsistent language was used by the court, particularly when the jury returned after deliberating a little over an hour and a half and requested additional instructions on the element of intent as it applied to Count 1.² In pertinent part, this was the court's full response to the jury's request:

THE COURT:

Gentlemen * * *

First, a defendant comes into court under a presumption of innocence * * *

Next, the Government has the burden of proof of convincing you beyond a reasonable doubt of all the material elements of the thing he is charged with.

Then I further told you that the evidence was uncontradicted that some time during that period of time, at least one offense occurred as alleged.

I told you that the evidence was uncontradicted that it occurred where it is alleged to have occurred and that it occurred by the defendant.

I told you that the evidence is uncontradicted that he was the duly elected Sheriff of Lee County, Alabama. The evidence was uncontradicted that he was acting under the color of law of the State of Alabama when he did what the evidence is uncontradicted that he did do.

* * * I told you that the evidence is uncontradicted that the defendant * * * gave the named person Lawrence Williams, also known as "Lum" Williams, a choice, to swear out a warrant or either administer six licks with this leather strap — that is in evidence.

I told you that the evidence is uncontradicted that (this) constituted summary punishment, he had no right to give him a choice. A man has a right to due process of law, to be charged and have a trial. He had no right to give him the alternative and had no right to inflict by his own testimony the six licks.

* * * An act done willfully is one which is done voluntarily and intentionally and with the specific intent to do something that the law forbids. That is to say with bad purpose to either disobey or disregard the law.

* * * * * *

As a general rule it is reasonable to infer that a person ordinarily intends all of the natural and probable consequences of his acts knowingly done or knowingly omitted.

Now that does not mean he had to know in a legal way he was depriving a man of his Constitutional rights. It means that he knew what he was doing and he intended to do what he was doing. And if that did constitute a deprivation of his Constitutional rights, and if you are convinced beyond a reasonable doubt, he would be guilty of the offense charged in Court 1.

Really, about all I left for your judgment, ladies and gentlemen, in Count 1, is whether you were convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the evidence as presented to you is what happened. And if you are convinced beyond a reasonable doubt, under the uncontradicted evidence he would be guilty under Count 1.

Any other question that you want to ask me?

THE FOREMAN:

That is all, your Honor. Thank you.

The Sheriff duly excepted to this supplemental charge only on the grounds that it pretermitted the question of intent. No exception was taken as to the overall fairness of the supplemental charge.

Although appellant's thorough brief cites a number of authorities, the thrust of his argument urges us to find the trial court's instructions violate Screws v. United States, 325 U.S. 91, 65 S.Ct. 1031, 89 L.Ed. 1495 (1945), which reversed the conviction of a sheriff and two other law enforcement officials who beat a handcuffed prisoner to death, and Morissette v. United States, 342 U.S. 246, 72 S.Ct. 240, 96 L.Ed. 288 (1952), which reversed the conviction of a deer hunter, who had been found guilty of converting government property for picking up 84 dollars worth of empty, rusting bomb casings from a remote area which the government used as a bombing practice range.

It is urged that Screws mandated the court to give an instruction that the jury had to find more in the defendant's actions than merely a generally bad purpose. The contention is made that the judge should have instructed the jury that a conviction could be returned only if Sheriff Ragsdale acted as he did with the purpose in mind of depriving Prisoner Williams of a constitutional right. This argument has plausibility. The Screws majority, in construing the same statute under which Ragsdale was convicted, stated that the Act required the showing of an intent to deprive a person of a right which had been made specific, either by the express terms of the Constitution or the laws of the United States or by interpreting court decisions. The problem for the defendant here and the thing that distinguishes Screws is the uncontradicted evidence, including Ragsdale's own testimony, which establishes the motive, intent and purpose of his summary punishment of this prisoner. In Screws evidence had been adduced that the Sheriff held a grudge against the prisoner he beat to death, but the executioners testified that the prisoner had reached for a gun and had resisted his detention. Thus, the proof lacked certitude as to why the reprehensible act took place. The trial court had only charged that if Screws and his accomplices used more force than was necessary to make the arrest of the prisoner, they violated the statute. The Supreme Court reversed because, they held, such an instruction stopped short of being sufficient under a proper interpretation of the statute, which was not intended to make a federal crime of every local act of police brutality. They added however, that Sheriff Screws and his cohorts need not have been thinking in terms of federal constitutional or statutory law and that the only additional instruction needed to make...