Young v. Warden, Maryland Penitentiary

• Decision Date: 16 September 1974
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 72-690-W.
• Parties: William E. YOUNG v. WARDEN, MARYLAND PENITENTIARY.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Maryland

383 F. Supp. 986

William E. YOUNG v. WARDEN, MARYLAND PENITENTIARY.

Civ. A. No. 72-690-W.

United States District Court, D. Maryland.

September 16, 1974.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Barrett W. Freedlander, Baltimore, Md., for petitioner.

Francis B. Burch, Atty. Gen., John P. Stafford, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., and Emory A. Plitt, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., Baltimore, Md., for respondent.

WATKINS, Senior District Judge.

On May 9, 1967, Petitioner William E. Young was found guilty of murder in the first degree and assault with intent to commit rape by Judge John N. Maguire sitting without a jury in the Circuit Court for Baltimore County¹, Maryland. Young, who is presently serving concurrent sentences of life imprisonment and twenty years imprisonment in the Maryland Penitentiary, seeks in this Court the issuance of a federal writ of habeas corpus.

Following the appointment of counsel to represent him in these proceedings, Petitioner filed in this Court a petition for writ of habeas corpus and memorandum in support thereof, alleging that:

His conviction was in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution because:

a. There was insufficient evidence to convict.

b. His confession was inadmissible because it was the fruit of an illegal arrest c. His confession was inadmissible because it was induced by the lineup which in turn was a fruit of the illegal arrest.

d. The warnings prescribed by Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 17 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966) were not given to Petitioner.

e. The totality of the circumstances surrounding the interrogation, in this case, were so overbearing as to render the confession involuntary.

f. The State failed to rebut Petitioner's assertion that the confession was induced by a promise that he could go home afterwards.

Thereafter, Petitioner filed a supplementary petition and memorandum alleging as an additional ground for relief that:

g. He was denied effective assistance of counsel.

On February 23, 1973, this Court conducted an evidentiary hearing at which evidence was presented as to the legality of the arrest (contentions b and c) and competency of counsel (contention g), and argument was heard as to the remaining contentions. After full consideration of these proceedings, the briefs, and the record of Petitioner's trial, this Court concludes that the petition is without merit and therefore will be dismissed.

FACTS

Sometime on the night of October 14, 1966, Mrs. Elizabeth Roddy, age seventy-two, was sexually assaulted and killed in her apartment at 877 Park Avenue. The Medical Examiner fixed the time of death at 8:00 P.M., give or take several hours.

Apparently through their investigation of the homicide the police learned that on that evening a man had visited a number of apartments on Park Avenue, within the immediate vicinity of the deceased's residence, searching for a person named Frank.

On the afternoon of October 20, 1966, police responded to a call from a woman who lived at 869 Park Avenue. They were met by the complainant's niece, Mrs. Pauline Prendergast, who lived next door to her aunt at 867 Park Avenue. At trial Mrs. Prendergast testified that following the murder she had told her aunt that if anything unusual happened she (the aunt) should rap on the wall separating their apartments. Mrs. Prendergast further testified that on October 20, 1966, she had heard a hard rapping on her wall, and going to her door saw Petitioner come into her building and try her door. When Mrs. Prendergast left her apartment, Petitioner was no longer there; during this time her aunt had called the police. Mrs. Prendergast had not been home on the night of the murder and this was the first time she had seen Petitioner.

Detective Sergeant John Lewandowski, one of the officers who responded to the call, testified at the evidentiary hearing that upon arriving at 869 Park Avenue, he talked with a woman identified as Mrs. Prendergast, who directed his attention to a man standing on a street corner less than a block away. Lewandowski and another officer approached the man, who turned out to be Petitioner, identified themselves, and asked him his name and what he was doing. When Petitioner responded that he was looking for Frank, the officers placed Petitioner in their car and drove him to the Central District Police Station.

After being booked, Petitioner was taken to an interrogation room where he was questioned by Captain (then Lieutenant) James Cadden from approximately 4:45 P.M. until 6:00 P.M. With the exception of admitting that he had been on Park Avenue looking for Frank on the night of the murder, Petitioner made no statements at this time and denied having any connection with the homicide. At the conclusion of this interrogation Petitioner was fed, photographed, and then placed in a cell.

About two hours later, approximately 8:00 P.M., Petitioner took part in a line-up where he was identified by four Park Avenue residents as being the man who had visited their apartments on the night of the murder looking for Frank. Apparently, as a result of these identifications, Petitioner began to cry while still in the line-up and, as he was taken from the line-up room, still crying, he suddenly stated, "I didn't mean to kill her." At this point Petitioner was returned to the interrogation room where he repeated his statement to Captain Cadden several times. Thereafter Petitioner made a detailed statement which was reduced to writing. According to this statement, Petitioner had gone to Park Avenue around 11:00 P.M. on the night of the homicide to look for Frank, a man he had met several weeks earlier and who lived somewhere on Park Avenue. When he was unable to locate Frank's house, Petitioner went to several apartments and asked for Frank, without success. Petitioner was finally admitted to one apartment building by a woman, who after talking briefly with him, told him to leave. Petitioner pretended to leave the building, but instead entered a first floor apartment. There he encountered a woman whom he described as having gray hair and being in her late fifties, who yelled at Petitioner to get out. As he started towards the door the woman, following close behind him, continued to yell at him. Petitioner became angered and slammed the door at her; the door struck her and the woman fell down in the hall. According to Petitioner, he looked around the apartment for Frank, got a drink of water and left. Petitioner concluded this narration by saying that he didn't molest the woman and that he didn't mean to hurt her.

After making this statement, Petitioner refused to sign it. The volunteered statement and this confession plus the identifications of Petitioner as the man who was looking for Frank and the post mortem report, essentially constitute all the evidence against Petitioner.

EXHAUSTION OF STATE REMEDIES

28 U.S.C. § 2254 requires that a habeas petitioner, before presenting his claims to a federal district court, first exhaust any state remedies available to him at the time he files his petition. While Petitioner has satisfied this requirement with respect to contentions a, b, d and e, it does not appear that he has exhausted his state remedies with respect to contentions c, f and g.

The Maryland Uniform Post Conviction Act, §§ 645A-645J, Art. 27, Ann.Code of Md. (1971 Repl.Vol., 1973 Supp.) — permits the institution of proceedings to set aside a criminal sentence so long as the error alleged therein has not been waived or finally litigated. For purposes of the Act an allegation of error is finally litigated when the Maryland Court of Appeals or the Court of Special Appeals has rendered a decision on the merits thereof, either upon direct appeal or upon consideration of an application for leave to appeal filed pursuant to the Act; an allegation of error is deemed to be waived if it could have been raised before or at trial, on direct appeal (whether or not an appeal was taken), in a habeas corpus or coram nobis proceeding actually instituted by the petitioner, or in a prior proceeding under the Act, unless the failure to so raise the error is excused by special circumstances.

Although Petitioner did take a direct appeal of his conviction and thereafter instituted proceedings under the Post Conviction Procedure Act, he has not "finally litigated" those claims raised here as contentions c, f and g. In his initial post conviction proceedings Petitioner did not specifically raise the contention that his confession was inadmissible because it was induced by the lineup which in turn was the fruit of an illegal arrest (contention c); he did raise the alternative claim, also raised here, that his confession should have been excluded as the fruit of an illegal arrest. However, inasmuch as the Post Conviction Court disposed of this claim without considering the legality of the arrest, its resolution of the latter contention would not be determinative of the former. Similarly, Petitioner has not previously raised his contention that the State failed to introduce evidence to rebut his in-court assertion that the confession was induced by certain promises. While the Court of Special Appeals concluded in direct appeal that Petitioner's confession was voluntary, and the Post Conviction Court found that the issue of voluntariness had been "finally litigated," it is clear that Petitioner is not here challenging the voluntary character of his confession; rather, he simply contends that as a matter of state law the State had to introduce rebuttal evidence before his confession could be found to be voluntary. Finally, although Petitioner did raise the issue of competency of counsel in his post conviction proceeding, the specific instances of incompetency alleged there differ from those raised here. It is therefore questionable that Petitioner has properly presented those allegations for consideration in the state forum.

Since neither the Court of Appeals nor the...