Wright v. Craven

• Decision Date: 25 March 1971
• Docket Number: No. 50677.,50677.
• Citation: 325 F. Supp. 1253
• Parties: Roland Wayne WRIGHT, Petitioner, v. Walter E. CRAVEN, Warden, Respondent.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of California

325 F. Supp. 1253

Roland Wayne WRIGHT, Petitioner, v. Walter E. CRAVEN, Warden, Respondent.

No. 50677.

United States District Court, N. D. California.

March 25, 1971.

Charles G. Miller, San Francisco, Cal., for petitioner.

Thomas C. Lynch, Atty. Gen. of State of Cal., San Francisco, Cal., Don Jacobson, Deputy Atty. Gen., for respondent.

ORDER GRANTING WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS

WOLLENBERG, District Judge.

An "habitch" in California prison parlance is an inmate subject to a mandatory life sentence following a finding of habitual criminality as defined by Calif.Pen.Code, § 644(b).¹

Petitioner is an "habitch". A 1962 information, charging him with various offenses including robbery and carrying a concealed weapon, also recited six prior convictions suffered by him. Petitioner admitted the priors, following which a jury found him guilty of the principal offenses. On January 16, 1963, petitioner was sentenced as a recidivist.

At no time prior to sentencing was petitioner apprised in open court that he could be convicted as a recidivist. The information did not invoke § 644 (b), and petitioner's admission was taken without any reference to the fact that it left him open to a finding of habitual criminality. On the day of judgment, this finding was made and petitioner was sentenced to the term "prescribed by law". The term prescribed by Calif.Pen.Code. § 644(b) is imprisonment for life.

Petitioner alleges that his admission of the priors was the equivalent of a plea of guilty, that the plea was taken without any notice of the recidivism charge or of the effects of a finding of habitual criminality. Petitioner claims he did not know any of these things when he admitted the priors recited in the information. He alleges further that had he prior notice of the § 644(b) charge, he would have shown that at least two of the priors were constitutionally defective. He asks that his admission of the priors be set aside.

The Court issued an Order to Show Cause on September 17, 1969, heard oral argument by the Attorney General on March 20, 1970, and following this ordered a full evidentiary hearing. Mr. Charles Miller of San Francisco was appointed to represent petitioner, which function Mr. Miller has performed eloquently and ably. The hearing was held on November 6. The body of petitioner was produced, and testimony was heard from petitioner, the judge who presided at his 1962 trial, his defense attorney, and from the Deputy District Attorney who had acted as prosecutor.

Perhaps surprisingly, petitioner-defendant proved to be in substantial agreement with his one-time counsel, prosecutor, and judge. The prosecutor affirmed that it was not the custom of his office to automatically seek a determination of recidivism whenever appropriate priors were charged, but that in the instant case a decision had early been made to ask for such a finding. He said that normally defense counsel would be told informally of this decision, but that he had no memory of having done so in the instant case.

Counsel for the defense, now himself a Superior Court judge, testified that prior to sentencing he thought of the alleged priors only as regarded their possible prejudicial effect on the jury. "I was not familiar with the habitual criminal statute * * * and had never represented anyone in that situation. * * * I don't remember discussing it with defendant." The admission of the priors was seen solely as a device to prevent their being read to the jury as part of the information. "I don't believe I ever discussed the recidivist statute with him before or after trial. * * * my later correspondence with defendant had nothing to do with it. * * * I was not thinking in terms of sentence, rather of acquittal."

The trial judge remembered no discussion of the recidivism finding with defense counsel, though he testified to his practice of advising counsel of his intentions on the day of sentencing. He added that it was never the custom to advise a potential recidivist of the effect of admitting the priors with which he was charged.

Roland Wright, the seasoned convict, admitted having heard of "big habitches" and "little habitches", but testified to his inability to give any precise definition of the phrases, other than that they referred to persons serving long terms for committing "a lot of all one certain kind of crime". He added that he has often tried to attack collaterally his having been declared an habitual criminal, but admitted that he raised "all the wrong issues". He concluded that he never knew that the statute was being invoked against him until the day of sentencing and had he known he never would have "pleaded to an automatic life sentence".

Various exhibits before the Court indicate that petitioner on other occasions was charged with, and admitted, prior convictions, but that he had never had the recidivism statute raised against him. Nor did the presentence report entered after the 1962-63 trial alert him to the possibility of an habitual criminality finding.

The above testimony and documentary evidence amply supports a finding, which the Court now makes, that petitioner, at the time that he admitted the priors charged against him, had not been informed by the Court, by his attorney, or by the prosecution that he was subject to conviction as a recidivist. Petitioner did not learn of the consequences of his admission until the day he was sentenced.

But facts, though certainly found, do not make the law of this case. It is not yet clear whether an admission of priors in a context of habitual criminality is to be judged by the standards applied to pleas of guilty in other areas. California argues that prior convictions do no more than increase punishment, are in themselves notice of this fact, and in no way constitute a separate offense. Also doubtful is the standard applicable even if the admission is to be treated as a guilty plea. Finally, the Court must consider issues raised by California's own particular way of handling the recidivism issue.

A finding of habitual criminality has been called an adjudication of status, and not of guilt as to a separate offense. Cuomo, Mens Rea and Status Criminality, 40 So.Calif.L. Rev. 463 (1967); Chandler v. Fretag, 348 U.S. 3, 75 S.Ct. 1, 99 L.Ed. 4 (1954). But the effects on a defendant of such a finding are so drastic that trial of the issues raised by a charge of recidivism has been called an independent proceeding to which most of the incidents of traditional due process apply. The defendant may demand a full "judicial hearing" on the validity of any of the priors charged; he may insist on his right to representation by counsel; and he must have adequate notice of the State's invocation of its recidivism statutes. Chandler v. Fretag, cit. supra; Oyler v. Boles, 368 U.S. 448, 82 S.Ct. 501, 7 L.Ed.2d 446 (1962); Johnson v. Kansas, 284 F.2d 344 (10 Cir. 1960); Tucker v. Craven, 421 F.2d 139 (9 Cir. 1970); see also People v. Newton, 8 Cal.App.3d 359, 87 Cal.Rptr. 394 (1970).

An admission of priors is as telling in many ways as any guilty plea. Normally, the State must prove alleged priors beyond a reasonable doubt. People v. Niles, 227 Cal.App.2d 749, 39 Cal.Rptr. 11 (1964). There is no such burden as to priors which are admitted. People v. Herod, 112 Cal.App.2d 764, 247 P.2d 127 (1952). Ordinarily, the State must defend and affirmatively show the validity of those priors which the defendant claims are invalid for constitutional or other reasons. With an admission, validity is no issue, either at trial or on appeal. People v. Womack, 252 Cal.App.2d 761, 60 Cal.Rptr. 870 (1967). Nor with an admission need there be any showing of the nature of the priors (a most significant issue when foreign convictions are alleged) or of the sentences imposed and served. Bevins v. Klinger, 365 F.2d 752 (9 Cir. 1966). Hence an admission of prior convictions waives a wide range of rights, and may, as here, leave one defenseless against invocation of a statute which carries a mandatory life sentence.

California's treatment of an admission of priors as a waiver of various rights places such an admission on a par with pleas of guilty, which, if knowingly and voluntarily made are now seen as working a forfeiture of a vast range of rights, procedural and substantive. Brady v. United States, 397 U.S. 742, 90 S.Ct. 1463, 25 L.Ed.2d 747 (1970). If the plea or admission is valid, it serves to insulate even unconstitutional state action from subsequent review. McMann v. Richardson, 397 U.S. 759, 90 S.Ct. 1441, 25 L. Ed.2d 763 (1970); Oyler v. Boles, cit. supra.²

This Court concludes that an admission of prior convictions in the context of California's habitual criminality statute is the functional equivalent of a plea of guilty to an independent criminal charge.

The effects of this conclusion fall even-handedly on both sides herein. The defendant who admits the priors charged against him will be deemed to have waived nearly all rights later to question their validity. But the harshness of this result is mitigated by one, fragile principle: waiver must be a "knowing, intelligent act done with sufficient awareness of the relevant circumstances and likely consequences". Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U.S. 458, 58 S.Ct. 1019, 82 L.Ed. 1461 (1938). Guilty pleas must be both "voluntary" and "intelligent". Brady v. United States, cit. supra, 397 U.S. at 747, 90 S.Ct. 1463. "The standard was and remains whether the plea represents a voluntary and intelligent choice among the alternative courses of action open to the defendant." North Carolina v. Alford, 400 U.S. 25, 91 S.Ct. 160, 27 L.Ed.2d 162 (1970).

The weighty consequences which the courts now attach to guilty pleas are constitutionally justified only because of the procedural safeguards which have been erected about the taking of such pleas. Failure by a trial judge, federal or state, to follow the litany prescribed by Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Criminal...