Walden v. Mosley

• Decision Date: 01 May 1970
• Docket Number: No. DC 7024.,DC 7024.
• Citation: 312 F. Supp. 855
• Parties: Mack Hoover WALDEN, also known as William B. Davis v. Charles MOSLEY et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Mississippi

312 F. Supp. 855

Mack Hoover WALDEN, also known as William B. Davis v. Charles MOSLEY et al.

No. DC 7024.

United States District Court, N. D. Mississippi, Delta Division.

May 1, 1970.

Fountain Dawson, Greenville, Miss., for petitioner.

Frank O. Wynne, Jr., County Atty., Cleveland, Miss., for respondents.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

KEADY, Chief Judge.

This is a petition for writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 brought by Mack Hoover Walden, alias William Baine Davis, who is presently incarcerated in the Bolivar County jail at Cleveland, Mississippi. Petitioner seeks his immediate release therefrom on the ground that the warrant of extradition to North Carolina under which he is being held is invalid. He also seeks immunity from prosecution in Leflore County, Mississippi on a burglary charge, for which a detainer has been placed against him in Bolivar County, asserting that the evidence supporting the Leflore County indictment was the fruit of illegal arrest, search, seizure and custodial interrogation. The affidavits now on file reveal the pertinent facts in the case to be as follows:

Petitioner was arrested by Cleveland city policeman B. D. Henderson at 2 a.m. on December 17, 1969, as petitioner was driving south on Highway 61 in Cleveland. Henderson testified at a state habeas corpus hearing that the station had called him and told him of a complaint against petitioner from a local cab stand. When he saw petitioner weave across the centerline, Henderson stopped him, placed him under arrest for driving while intoxicated, and took him to the Bolivar County jail where all city prisoners are kept. There he was booked for DWI and searched. The search revealed $2,352 in cash, including eleven $100 bills. His driver's license, which was from Georgia, gave his name as William B. Davis; his automobile tag was from Tennessee. Later in the morning of the 17th, sometime after 9 a.m., petitioner was allowed to make a phone call to Fountain Dawson, an attorney of Greenville, who called Deputy Sheriff Robert Baldwyn about posting bond for petitioner on the DWI charge. Charles Jacobs, attorney of Cleveland, Mississippi, was also engaged to represent petitioner.

When Cleveland Chief of Police Charles Mosley arrived at the jail that morning and was informed of the large amount of cash found on petitioner, he immediately summoned John Pressgrove, investigator for the Mississippi State Highway Patrol. Upon Mr. Pressgrove's arrival, he and the other officers began to question him. At some point during that interrogation petitioner's attorneys appeared, advised him not to answer any more questions, and tendered a $150 bond to Chief Mosley for petitioner's release. At about this time Mr. Pressgrove received word from Jackson that petitioner's driver's license was fraudulent and was the same one which had been used to rent a car at the Hinds County Airport at Jackson. Chief Mosley then told attorneys for petitioner that he was holding petitioner on the driver's license charge as well as the DWI and that the original $150 bond would not cover both charges. Petitioner's possible involvement in a December 15, 1969, safe burglary at Schlater was also mentioned. Thereafter, over the objections of his attorneys, petitioner was fingerprinted and mugged by Deputy Sheriff Baldwyn. Later that afternoon a telegram from J. P. Wilson, Chief of the Fugitive Section of the North Carolina Department of Correction, requested Chief Mosley to hold petitioner as an escapee from a North Carolina prison.

Unable to secure petitioner's release on bond that day, attorney Dawson contacted this court by telephone the following day, December 18, 1969, to request a hearing date on a petition for writ of habeas corpus. The court informed him through its law clerk that because petitioner was a state prisoner he should first seek habeas relief in state court.

On December 19, 1969, a warrant for petitioner's arrest for burglary of W. C. Burroughs' store in Schlater, Mississippi, was issued by Justice of the Peace W. B. Crump of Leflore County. On that same day petitioner filed an application for a writ of habeas corpus in the Circuit Court of Bolivar County, Mississippi, alleging that he was illegally arrested and incarcerated and asking that he be released absolutely, or on his own recognizance, or on his $150 bond already tendered. On December 29, 1969, an evidentiary hearing was held before Circuit Judge E. H. Green at which petitioner was represented by attorneys Jacobs and Dawson and at which all police and sheriff's officers connected with petitioner's arrest and incarceration testified and were cross-examined. Judge Green held that petitioner's incarceration was proper in view of the warrant for his arrest from Leflore County and the telegram from the North Carolina Department of Correction asking Chief Mosley to hold him as a fugitive, and refused to grant the writ.

Petitioner's attorneys then filed an original petition for writ of habeas corpus in the Supreme Court of Mississippi, which was denied without opinion on January 12, 1970. His attorneys also appealed the Bolivar County Circuit Court's denial of his application, which denial was affirmed without opinion on March 16, 1970. In the interim, on March 5, 1970, the grand jury of Leflore County indicted petitioner for burglary of W. C. Burroughs' safe in Schlater and Norman C. Brewer, an attorney of Greenwood, Mississippi, was appointed to represent him. That case was then continued to the June 1970 term of Leflore County Circuit Court, and a detainer filed against petitioner in the Bolivar County jail. This court was notified yesterday by telegram from George Everett, District Attorney for the Fourth Judicial District of Mississippi, who is responsible for the Leflore County prosecution, that the Leflore charge will not be pursued and that he will not delay petitioner's extradition to North Carolina.

On March 25, 1970, petitioner filed the present application for writ of habeas corpus in this court. Said petition alleged that petitioner's arrest in Cleveland was without warrant or probable cause and that officers at the Bolivar County jail conducted an illegal search of petitioner and illegally seized his automobile and personal effects and illegally fingerprinted him. Said petition further alleged that petitioner's North Carolina convictions and sentences were invalid because his guilty plea to the original charge of burglary in North Carolina in 1951 when he was 17 years old was not voluntarily or knowingly made and was made without the assistance of competent counsel. The petition further alleged that the North Carolina authorities waived all right to petitioner by failing to requisition him after his escape from North Carolina in 1956 until after he had served a federal sentence for escape in South Carolina in 1958, which caused him to serve his North Carolina sentence by installments. Petitioner further alleges that the failure of North Carolina authorities to request his extradition from South Carolina until after he served his South Carolina sentence deprived petitioner of his right to a speedy trial on the North Carolina escape charge and that the North Carolina and South Carolina escape charges should have been made to run concurrently.

Petitioner now seeks the following relief from this court:

(1) Release and immunity from extradition to North Carolina;

(2) Release and immunity from prosecution on the Leflore County charge; or

(3) Release on reasonable bail pending prosecution on the Leflore County charge.

On March 27, 1970, this court ordered named respondents Charles Mosley, Chief of Police of Cleveland, L. B. Williams, Sheriff of Bolivar County, John Pressgrove, Investigator for the Mississippi Highway Patrol, John Arterbury, Sheriff of Leflore County, and Frank Wynne, County Attorney for Bolivar County, to show cause within 10 days why a writ of habeas corpus should not issue. On April 3, 1970, respondents answered, alleging that petitioner was being held solely for extradition to North Carolina authorities and not on the Leflore County charge and that such incarceration was proper under Miss. Code 1942 Ann. § 2816,¹ the Mississippi statute which forbids release by habeas corpus of prisoners held for extradition to another state. Attached to the answer were numerous affidavits showing petitioner's record of convictions and escapes in North Carolina, the request for extradition from the Governor of North Carolina, the warrant allowing extradition from the Governor of Mississippi, and a certified transcript of the state habeas corpus hearing.

On April 9, 1970, petitioner traversed respondents' answer, denying their allegations and citing authority in support of his contentions. On the same day, which was 13 days after the order to show cause was entered, respondent Arterbury answered by his attorney, James W. Burgoon, admitting that petitioner had been indicted in Leflore County and that an attorney had been appointed to represent him, but denying all other allegations of the petition. On the following day, Mr. Dawson, attorney for petitioner, moved to quash the answer of respondent Arterbury on the ground that it was not timely filed. Although filed late, Arterbury's answer does not contain any significant new matter not previously pleaded. Therefore, petitioner's motion to strike is denied. The records and files being complete, the petition is now before the court for decision.

This court has jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 2241.² By his petitions in the Circuit Court of Bolivar County and the Supreme Court of Mississippi, petitioner has sufficiently exhausted his state remedies.³

Extradition of fugitives between states is essentially a federal question arising under the United States Constitution, Article 4, Section 2, Clause 2.⁴ That clause is not self-executing, but is implemented by 18 U.S.C. § 3182.⁵ State law which conflicts with the overriding federal leg...