Waddy v. Heer
Decision Date | 10 October 1967 |
Docket Number | No. 16919.,16919. |
Citation | 383 F.2d 789 |
Parties | James Milton WADDY and James Barrow Ransom, Petitioners-Appellants, v. Henry HEER, Warden, Tennessee State Penitentiary, Respondent-Appellee. |
Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit |
Karl P. Warden (Court Appointed), Nashville, Tenn., for appellants.
Ed R. Davies, Nashville Tenn., for appellee, Henry C. Foutch, Asst. Atty. Gen., State of Tennessee, Nashville, Tenn., on brief, George F. McCanless, Atty. Gen., State of Tennessee, Nashville, Tenn., of counsel.
Before WEICK, Chief Judge, and PHILLIPS and McCREE, Circuit Judges.
This is an appeal from a judgment of the District Court denying and dismissing petitions for writs of habeas corpus. Petitioners contend that their pleas of guilty in the criminal court of the Tenth Judicial Circuit at Nashville, Tennessee, were improperly induced by physical coercion by the police and by the promise of the trial judge that he would give them specific less-than-maximum sentences. They also contend that their pleas may not stand because their voluntariness was not determined by judicial inquiry in open court before acceptance. They further attack their pleas because they were denied access to counsel by the police during the interval between their arrest and arraignment and because they were without counsel at the preliminary hearing where they first offered pleas of guilty. Finally, they contend that the designation of their race as Negro on each indictment returned against them vitiated the proceedings.
The facts are as follows. A white Nashville police officer had been shot on March 23, 1960 and petitioner Waddy was advised by his aunt that police officers were looking for him. He went to police headquarters where he surrendered. He was taken into an interrogation room where he contends he was not advised of his rights, was refused permission to call his aunt or an attorney and was beaten by police officers until he confessed orally not only to the shooting but also to several unrelated burglaries and armed robberies. He subsequently signed a formal confession to the offense of assault with intent to commit murder in the first degree and to the other crimes.
Petitioner Ransom was arrested on the same morning with three other persons who were also charged with shooting the officer. Ransom contends that he and the other persons arrested with him were also beaten until they confessed orally and subsequently signed formal confessions which had been prepared for them.
The next morning, both appellants, still without counsel, were taken to a preliminary hearing where each entered a guilty plea to the charge of assault with intent to commit murder in the first degree and to the several burglaries and robberies. The proceedings at the preliminary hearing, including the pleas, were not introduced or referred to at the hearing when sentence was determined.
Appellants and the other three persons were remanded to jail and on March 28 and 29, were indicted by the grand jury which accused them of three charges of third degree burglary, five charges of armed robbery, two charges of third degree burglary and attempted larceny (one not involving appellant Waddy), and assault with intent to commit murder in the first degree.
In the interval between the preliminary hearing and indictment, appellants retained counsel to represent them at the trial. According to petitioner Waddy, counsel advised them that because of their signed statements and guilty pleas at the preliminary hearing, they "had forfeited all our rights for a trial because of the fact that those confessions would be presented against us at our trial." Counsel's testimony confirmed this:
Of course, I explained to them that an officer was shot and I says, and I told them this, I told them more, if they are all mad at us, and if we don\'t go along with it, they are going to get us in most of them anyway with these confessions and everyone of them will be consecutive.
On May 18, the day set for trial, defense counsel discussed the cases with the prosecuting attorney in an attempt to negotiate favorable consequences to a plea of guilty. Following this discussion, the trial judge took the defendants and defense counsel into a room and, according to defense counsel, a sentence of from 23 to 41 years was discussed. Appellants deny having heard any mention of 41 years. On this point, appellant Waddy testified:
Defense counsel testified on the question of appellant's understanding of the proposed disposition,
Following the discussion in the judge's office, the cases were called in court and the judge read the indictment and defense counsel entered a plea of guilty for the defendants. No examination to determine the voluntariness of the plea was conducted by the trial judge. Defense counsel testified on this point:
Under Tennessee practice, any recommendation by the prosecutor, if accepted by the court, is submitted to the jury which then fixes sentence. Accordingly, a minimum of proof was presented to the jury which then returned sentences as recommended by the prosecutor. At the evidentiary hearing, the only testimony on what occurred at this point was that of appellant Waddy who testified as follows:
No stenographic minutes of these proceedings wre introduced at the evidentiary hearing.
The District Judge characterized the participation of the trial judge in this language.
THE COURT: Well, of course, the testimony here which I thought was fantastic until Mr. Rutherford confirmed it, testimony of the petitioner that Judge Weimar told them the sentence.
Nevertheless, in his order denying the petition for habeas corpus, he found that petitioners failed to carry the burden of showing that the pleas of guilty entered upon the advice and recommendations of their privately retained counsel were involuntary or entered unknowingly and without an understanding of their rights. He did not make specific findings or conclusions of law concerning petitioners' other contentions.
The court found that petitioners failed to sustain their burden on this point. A petitioner in a habeas corpus proceeding must prove his allegations by a preponderance of the evidence. Fiedler v. Shuttleworth, 153 F.2d 999 (6th Cir. 1946); Gray v. Johnson, 354 F.2d 986 (6th Cir. 1965). Findings of fact of the...
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Frank v. Blackburn
...of the Constitution, state courts are not bound to follow the federal plea-taking procedures thereby established. See Waddy v. Heer, 383 F.2d 789 (6th Cir. 1967), cert. denied, 392 U.S. 911, 88 S.Ct. 2069, 20 L.Ed.2d 1369 (1968) (14th Amendment does not obligate the states to adhere to Rule......
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People v. Earegood, Docket No. 2755
...prosecutor-defendant plea bargaining, but opined that judge-defendant sentence bargaining should not be permitted; Waddy v. Heer (C.A.6, 1967), 383 F.2d 789, 793, dictum that 'the promise of a lesser penalty by a judge as an inducement for a plea of guilty (was) properly condemned' in certa......
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...the reach of the critical stage doctrine. A quick cataloguing of the chief examples of limitation is helpful here. In Waddy v. Heer, 383 F.2d 789 (6th Cir.1967), we affirmed the denial of habeas for Tennessee defendants who did not have access to counsel at a preliminary hearing where they ......
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