Williams v. State of Oklahoma

• Citation: 358 U.S. 576,3 L.Ed.2d 516,79 S.Ct. 421
• Decision Date: 24 February 1959
• Docket Number: No. 124,124
• Parties: Edward Leon WILLIAMS, Petitioner, v. STATE OF OKLAHOMA
• Court: United States Supreme Court

358 U.S. 576

79 S.Ct. 421

3 L.Ed.2d 516

Edward Leon WILLIAMS, Petitioner,

v STATE OF OKLAHOMA.

No. 124.

Argued Jan. 21, 1959.

Decided Feb. 24, 1959.

Rehearing Denied March 30, 1959.

See 359 U.S. 956, 79 S.Ct. 737.

Mr. John A. Ladner, Jr., Tulsa, Okl., for petitioner, pro hac vice, by special leave of Court.

Mr. Mac Q. Williamson and Sam H. Lattimore, Oklahoma City, Okl., for respondent.

Mr. Justice WHITTAKER delivered the opinion of the Court.

Upon his plea of guilty to a charge of kidnaping in the District Court of Tulsa County, Oklahoma, petitioner was sentenced to death. On appeal, the Criminal Court of Appeals of Oklahoma affirmed, Okl.Cr., 321 P.2d 990, and certiorari was sought on the ground that the sentence was imposed in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. We granted the writ to determine that question. 357 U.S. 925, 78 S.Ct. 1378, 2 L.Ed.2d 1369.

The undisputed facts are that on June 17, 1956, within a few hours after robbing a filling station attendant in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and eluding police in an ensuing chase, petitioner forced his way into an automobile being driven by one Tommy Cooke, a young divinity student, as it stopped for a traffic light in that city, and, at gunpoint, forced Cooke to drive beyond the City and County of Tulsa and for a considerable distance through northeastern Oklahoma to a point on a dead-end road in Muskogee County where he shot and killed him, and then escaped in the car. On June 19, 1956, petitioner was apprehended, and soon afterward he was charged in the District Court of Muskogee County with murdering Cooke in that county. On arraignment, he entered a plea of not guilty, but during the course of his trial petitioner, on November 19, 1956, withdrew that plea and entered a plea of guilty as charged. He was thereupon convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in the Oklahoma State Penitentiary.¹

Thereafter, on December 17, 1956, petitioner was charged in the District Court of Tulsa County with kidnaping Cooke in that county on June 17, 1956, in violation of Okl.Stat.1951, Tit. 21, § 745.² At his arraignment on December 19, 1956, petitioner entered a plea of not guilty, but on January 30, 1957, a few days before the scheduled date of trial, he withdrew that plea and entered a plea of guilty as charged. After interrogating petitioner to make sure that he had entered the plea of guilty voluntarily and that he understood that he might be sentenced to death upon it,³ the court accepted the plea and adjudged petitioner guilty of the crime of kidnaping Cooke as charged. Thereupon the court asked counsel for petitioner if he wished to be heard regarding the sentence to be imposed, and counsel replied that he preferred to reserve his statement until after the State's Attorney had spoken. The State's Attorney then made a statement—reading much of it from a prepared statement recounting the armed robbery of the filling station attendant and the following chase by and elusion of the Tulsa police; reciting the gruesome details of the kidnaping of Cooke in Tulsa County and of his murder in Muskogee County; stating petitioner's past criminal record as shown by the files of the Federal Bureau of Investigation;⁴ and concluding with a request for a death sentence. Counsel for petitioner objected to any reference to the murder on the ground that sentence for that crime had already been imposed by the District Court of Muskogee County and that it could not again lawfully be considered in imposing sentence on the kidnaping charge. The court, expressing the view that it was 'proper to advise the court of all the facts (occurring while petitioner) had the victim in his charge and under his control,' overruled the objection. After the State's Attorney had concluded, counsel for petitioner put in evidence a transcript of the sentencing proceedings had in the District Court of Muskogee County in the murder case, and made an extended plea for a sentence to life imprisonment rather than a sentence to death.

After thus fully hearing the parties, the court deferred the imposition of sentence for two days. Upon reconvening, the court called petitioner to the bar and asked him whether he wished to make any correction in the statement that had been made to the court by the State's Attorney. Petitioner answered that he did not, and that the matters related in that statement were true.⁵ There- upon, the court sentenced petitioner to death, and in the course of his pronouncement the judge said, among other things, that he had considered the facts 'which (had) been stated (by counsel) and which (petitioner had) admitted were (involved in) this crime (of kidnaping), committed in Tulsa County, which resulted in the murder of the victim, (all of) which the Court takes into consideration * * * as a continuing thing.'

As stated, petitioner's broad claim is that these proceedings show that the death sentence was determined and imposed in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In support of that position he makes, and variously repeats, a number of arguments which upon analysis come down to three contentions: first, that the trial court violated the presentence procedure prescribed by Okl.Stat.1951, Tit. 22, §§ 973, 974 and 975, in permitting the State's Attorney to make an unsworn statement to the court of the details of the crime and of petitioner's criminal record, and that this also denied to him the rights of confrontation and cross-examination; second, that the court in taking the murder into consideration in imposing sentence on the kidnaping charge punished him a second time for the same offense; and, third, that in any event the sentence to death for kidnaping was 'disproportionate' to that crime and to the life sentence that had earlier been imposed upon him for the 'ultimate' crime of murder.

Petitioner's contentions that the trial court deprived him of his legal rights and of fundamental fairness in failing to pursue the formal presentence procedures prescribed by Okl.Stat.1951, Tit. 22, §§ 973, 974 and 975, and in permitting the State's Attorney to make an unsworn statement to the court of the details of the crime and of petitioner's criminal record were also made by petitioner in the Criminal Court of Appeals of Oklahoma. That court rejected those contentions. Sections 973—975 provide in substance that after a plea or verdict of guilty in a case where the extent of the punishment is left with the court, the court, upon the suggestion of either party that there are circumstances which may be properly taken into view, either in aggravation or mitigation of the punishment, may, in its discretion, hold a formal hearing and take evidence thereon.⁶ The Oklahoma court held that whether those procedures shall be used is discretionary with the trial court, and that, at all events, petitioner waived their use by failing to request a hearing under those statutes. In construing those statutes it said: 'But, two things are clear under the provisions of § 973. First pursuing this method of procedure is a matter of the trial court's sound discretion. Second, its use is further contingent upon the request of either the state or the defendant.' (321 P.2d 993.) It further said: 'It is contended that under the provisions of § 975 it is the mandatory duty of the court to hear witnesses. But, in construing §§ 974 and 975 in light of the provisions of § 973, we are of the opinion that both the provisions of § 974 and § 975 are contingent upon the request for evidence under the provisions of § 973, (and that) (w)hen the parties fail to make a request for the privilege thereof, the same is waived and some other method of supplying the court with the necessary information for the pronouncement of judgment and sentence may be substituted instead.' This construction of the State's statutes by its court of last resort must be accepted here.

It is not contended that petitioner requested or suggested that the trial court hear evidence in mitigation of the sentence. Nor did petitioner request or suggest that the court require the State to offer evidence in support of the aggravating circumstances. In these circumstances, we cannot say that petitioner was deprived of any right or of fundamental fairness by the fact that the trial court did not pursue the presentencing procedures prescribed by the Oklahoma statutes.

Nor did the State's Attorney's statement of the details of the crime and of petitioner's criminal record deprive petitioner of fundamental fairness or of any right of confrontation or cross-examination. As we have seen, the Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma held in this case that when petitioner failed to request the privilege of adducing evidence in mitigation of the crime, and thereby waived the presentence procedures prescribed by §§ 973—975, the law of Oklahoma authorized 'some other method of supplying the court with the necessary information for the pronouncement of judgment and sentence (to) be substituted instead,' and it held that the State's Attorney's statement was a proper method in these circumstances under the law of Oklahoma. Moreover, after the State's Attorney had made his statement, petitioner, upon interrogation by the court, stated that the recitals of that statement were true. See Note 5. This alone should be a complete answer to the contention. But we go on to consider this Court's opinion in Williams v. People of State of New York, 337 U.S. 241, 69 S.Ct. 1079, 93 L.Ed. 1337. This Court there dealt with very similar contentions and held that, once the guilt of the accused has been properly established, the sentencing judge, in determining the kind and extent of punishment to be imposed, is not restricted to evidence derived from the examination and cross-examination of witnesses in open court but may, consistently with the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, consider...