Durley v. Mayo/Dissent Douglas

by William O. Douglas

United States Supreme Court

351 U.S. 277

Durley  v.  Mayo

 Argued: April 2, 1956. --- Decided: June 4, 1956

Mr. Justice DOUGLAS, with whom The CHIEF JUSTICE, Mr. Justice BLACK and Mr. Justice CLARK, concur. dissenting.

Petitioner is a prisoner in the Florida State Prison, serving a total sentence of 30 years for cattle stealing. In February 1955 he filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the Supreme Court of Florida. That court denied the petition without affording petitioner a hearing and without requiring a response from respondent, the custodian of the prison. A timely motion for rehearing was also denied. We granted certiorari. 350 U.S. 872, 76 S.Ct. 120.

In these circumstances, the allegations of the petition must be accepted as true for purposes of review. See Hawk v. Olson, 326 U.S. 271, 273, 66 S.Ct. 116, 117, 90 L.Ed. 61; Williams v. Kaiser, 323 U.S. 471, 473-474, 65 S.Ct. 363, 365, 89 L.Ed. 398. If they are taken as true, we have a shocking case of miscarriage of justice.

In 1945 the County Solicitor for Polk County, Florida, filed two informations charging petitioner and two codefendants, R. B. Massey, Jr., and Charles Bath, with six offenses of stealing cattle, each information containing three separate counts. The first count of the first information charged that the three defendants on July 7, 1945, stole two steers belonging to Mrs. Edna P. Bronson; the second count charged that the three defendants on July 7, 1945, stole two cows belonging to Mrs. Bronson; and the third count charged that on July 7, 1945, they stole one heifer belonging to Mrs. Bronson. In the second information, the first count charged that the three defendants on July 29, 1945, stole one cow belonging to William C. Zipperer; the second count charged that the three defendants on July 29, 1945, stole one heifer belonging to Mr. Zipperer; and the third count charged that, on the same day, the defendants stole one heifer belonging to Mr. Zipperer. The second and third counts of the second information are virtually identical.

At the trial petitioner asserted his innocence. His two codefendants, however, admitted their guilt and implicated petitioner. Their testimony was the only evidence liking petitioner with the crimes charged. All three were convicted. Bath apparently received a sentence of two years' imprisonment and Massey, 26 years. Petitioner, 53 years old at the time and never before accused of dishonesty, was sentenced to five years' imprisonment on each of the 6 counts, each sentence to be served consecutively, making a total sentence of 30 years. Petitioner, now 63 years old, has served more than 10 years of his sentence.

In May 1949 petitioner, without the assistance of counsel, prepared a petition for writ of habeas corpus and filed it in the Supreme Court of Florida. The petition was inartistically drawn. Petitioner contended that his trial on a bill of information rather than on a grandjury indictment violated the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution. Secondly, he contended that 'he is innocent of said offense and is falsely imprisoned by reason that verdict of guilty was wholly supported by prejudge (sic) and perjured testimony.' Accompanying the petition was an affidavit by one J. E. Croft relating a prison conversation he had with Bath, the codefendant who received the relatively light sentence of two years' imprisonment. According to this affidavit, Bath told Croft that petitioner was completely innocent. Bath described an agreement which he and codefendant Massey had made before they embarked on their cattle-stealing ventures. They agreed that, if they were caught, they would say they were working for petitioner, for whom they had worked as laborers on other occasions. Bath explained that by naming petitioner they had hoped to be 'passed up' and given a chance to get out of the country.

In addition to the Croft affidavit, the habeas corpus petition was accompanied by an affidavit signed and sworn to by Massey. He recanted his trial testimony, clearing petitioner of all responsibility for the stolen cattle. Massey stated that his story implicating petitioner 'was a falsehood and that I gave such testimony, hoping that it would aid me when my case came up.' The affidavit concluded, 'Before God is my judge Dan Durley, never had anything to do with any cattle stealing that I testified to at the trial.'

The Supreme Court of Florida denied the 1949 petition for a writ of habeas corpus on the ground that petitioner had failed to show probable cause that his detention was unlawful. It should be noted that the 1949 petition did not assert that the use of perjured testimony deprived petitioner of a federal constitutional right.

In January 1952 petitioner filed a second habeas corpus petition in the Circuit Court of Union County, Florida, this time assisted by court-appointed counsel. He contended that the six 5-year sentences amounted to double jeopardy because the two informations upon which he was convicted charged him in substance with no more than two offenses, each of which carried a maximum penalty of 5 years, and that petitioner had already served sufficient time to satisfy a 10-year sentence. He made a general claim that his imprisonment was 'in direct violation of his rights as set out in the Constitution of the United States.' There was no mention of the perjured testimony issue. After argument the Circuit Court of Union County quashed the writ. An appeal to the Supreme Court of Florida was dismissed.

The basis of the present litigation is the habeas corpus petition filed in the Florida Supreme Court in February 1955. Petitioner prepared it without the aid of counsel. The petition repeats the double-jeopardy contention as well as the charge that he was convicted solely on the basis of perjured testimony, coupling these allegations with a claim that his imprisonment deprives him of liberty 'in violation of his Constitutional Rights afforded him by the State of Florida and the Constitution of the United States of America.' His federal constitutional arguments were elaborated in the motion for rehearing. Petitioner's claim that it violates due process to let his conviction stand solely on perjured testimony was raised for the first time in the 1955 habeas corpus petition-the one now under consideration. ^[1]

The Court dismisses the case on the ground that the Florida Supreme Court order denying habeas corpus might have rested on an adequate state ground-res judicata. I disagree.

The Court concludes that under Florida law petitioner is barred from raising federal issues in the 1955 habeas corpus proceeding because he had raised them or at least had a fair and adequate opportunity to raise them in prior habeas corpus proceedings. The Court strangely relies on Washington v. Mayo, 77 So.2d 620. That case involved a habeas corpus petition in which two contentions were raised. The first contention had been expressly raised and decided in a previous habeas corpus proceeding. The second contention, however, had not been raised previously. This contention was decided on the merits by the Florida Supreme Court even though the petitioner 'has not shown that he did not have a fair and adequate opportunity to raise and have it determined.' Id., 77 So.2d at page 622.

Johnson v. Mayo, 69 So.2d 307, and Irvin v. Chapman, 75 So.2d 591, also relied on by the Court, are not in point. In both cases, the Florida Supreme Court held that an issue that could have been raised on direct appeal from the conviction could not be litigated in subsequent habeas corpus proceedings. ^[2] Those cases did not involve the question now before us-whether prior habeas corpus proceedings bar the litigation of issues which could not have been raised on direct appeal from the conviction. ^[3]

The Florida Supreme Court has expressly dismissed a number of habeas corpus proceedings on the ground that former habeas corpus adjudications were res judicata. But in those cases the habeas corpus petitions attempted to relitigate issues which had been expressly presented and decided in the previous habeas corpus proceedings. See Moat v. Mayo, 82 So.2d 591; Pope v. Mayo, 39 So.2d 286; State ex rel. Williams v. Prescott, 110 Fla. 261, 148 So. 533.

Res judicata is not a rigid doctrine in Florida. The Supreme Court recently refused to apply it where to do so would 'defeat the ends of justice.' Universal Const. Co. v. City of Ft. Lauderdale, 68 So.2d 366, 369. ^[4] Once the facts alleged by petitioner are conceded, as they must be on the present record, it defeats the ends of justice to deny relief here.

The language of the Florida Supreme Court's order in the present case indicates that petitioner's federal constitutional claims were rejected not on grounds of res judicata but on their merits. The petition was denied because of failure to show 'probable cause to believe that (petitioner) is detained in custody without lawful authority.' Faced with a similar state court order in Williams v. Kaiser, supra, 323 U.S. 478, 65 S.Ct. 367, we said: 'The denial of the petition on the grounds that it fails to state a cause of action strongly suggests that it was denied because there was no cause of action based on the federal right.' We should hold the same in the present case.

Once we reach the merits the answer seems clear. It is well settled that to obtain a conviction by the use of testimony known by the prosecution to be perjured offends due process. Mooney v. Holohan, 294 U.S. 103, 55 S.Ct. 340, 79 L.Ed. 791; Pyle v. State of Kansas, 317 U.S. 213, 63 S.Ct. 177, 87 L.Ed. 214. While the petition did not allege that the prosecution knew that petitioner's codefendants were lying when they implicated petitioner, the State now knows that the testimony of the only witnesses against petitioner was false. No competent evidence remains to support the conviction. Deprivation of a hearing under these circumstances amounts in my opinion to a denial of due process of law.

Perhaps a hearing on the charges would dispel them. But on the present record, we have a grave miscarriage of justice involving an invasion of federal rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.

Notes

1. In the 1949 petition, petitioner argued that the testimony was perjured, but he did not present this as a federal question. The 1952 petition did not mention the perjured testimony issue.
2. The Florida Supreme Court stated the rationale of these decisions as follows: 'It is elementary that a writ of habeas corpus cannot be used as a substitute for appeal, motion to quash or a motion in arrest of judgment.' Johnson v. Mayo, 69 So.2d at page 308.
3. Petitioner's claim of a denial of federal rights because his conviction is based solely on perjured testimony obviously could not have been raised on direct appeal. He did not obtain the affidavits showing that the witnesses had lied until long after the time to appeal his conviction had expired.
4. 'The basic principle upon which the doctrine of res judicata rests is that there should be an end to litigation and that 'in the interest of the State every justiciable controversy should be settled in one action in order that the courts and the parties will not be bothered for the same cause by interminable litigation.' (Gordon v. Gordon, 59 So.2d 40,) at page 44; italics supplied. Nevertheless, when a choice must be made we apprehend that the State, as well as the courts, is more interested in the fair and proper administration of justice than in rigidly applying a fiction of the law designed to terminate litigation.' 68 So.2d at page 369.