1. Where an inferior state court quashes a writ of habeas corpus
sought to review an alleged denial of rights under the Federal
Constitution and its order cannot be reviewed by any higher state
court, a petition for a writ of certiorari to obtain review of that
order is properly addressed to this Court. P.
332 U. S. 561.
2. Whether, upon the facts of this case, habeas corpus is an
appropriate remedy in the state court to correct a denial of due
process is a question of state law upon which this Court accepts
the concession of the State's Attorney General. P.
332 U. S.
562.
3. On the facts recited in the opinion and confession of error
by the State's Attorney General, this Court concludes that, in his
trial for murder, petitioner was denied due process of law contrary
to the Fourteenth Amendment. P.
332 U. S.
562.
Certiorari granted; judgment vacated and remanded.
PER CURIAM.
Petitioner sought a writ of habeas corpus in the Circuit Court
of Winnebago County, Illinois, alleging that his conviction in 1925
on a charge of murder was the result of a denial of his rights
under the federal Constitution. That court, after a hearing,
quashed the writ, and, as its order cannot be reviewed by any
higher Illinois court under Illinois practice, this petition for a
writ of certiorari is properly addressed to this Court.
See Woods v.
Page 332 U. S. 562
Nierstheimer, 328 U. S. 211; 15
U. of Chic.L.Rev. 118, 122.
The facts conceded by respondent are as follows:
The common law record recites that petitioner was arraigned in
open court and advised through interpreters of the meaning and
effect of a plea of guilty, and that petitioner signed a statement
waiving jury trial and pleading guilty. He was sentenced to life
imprisonment. It does not appear, however, that an attorney was
appointed to represent him. The waiver was not in fact signed by
him, and no plea of guilty was entered at the trial. He was 18
years old at that time, and had been in this country only two
years. He did not understand the English language, and it is
doubtful that he understood American trial court procedure. The
arresting officer served as an interpreter for petitioner at the
original trial.
The State of Illinois, speaking through the Attorney General,
admits the foregoing facts, confesses error, and consents to a
reversal of the judgment below. He states that the writ of habeas
corpus is a proper remedy in Illinois in this case because the
facts, which he concedes to be a denial of due process of law under
the decisions of this Court, were known to the court at the time of
the original trial, though they were not a matter of record at the
trial. Whether or not on this showing habeas corpus is an
appropriate remedy in the court to correct a denial of due process
is a question of state law as to which we accept the concession of
the state's Attorney General.
In light of the confession of error (
see Young v. United
States, 315 U. S. 257;
Bozza v. United States, 330 U. S. 160;
cf. Baltzer v. United States, 248 U.S. 593) and the
undisputed facts, we conclude that petitioner was denied the due
process of law which the Fourteenth Amendment requires.
Page 332 U. S. 563
Permission to proceed
in forma pauperis is granted. The
petition for a writ of certiorari is granted, and the judgment
below is vacated and remanded to the Circuit Court.
So ordered.
MR. JUSTICE RUTLEDGE, with whom MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS and MR.
JUSTICE MURPHY join, concurring.
This case sharply points up a much larger problem, of growing
concern to this Court, than merely the disposition to be made of
Marino's petition in view of the state's confession of error. I
agree that relief is due him, and I join in the Court's opinion.
But I do not find his case different, except in one respect, from
many others which have come regularly to this Court from Illinois
in recent years, in which relief has been as regularly denied. The
only substantial difference, in my judgment, is that here, the
state has confessed error. That confession raises, in my opinion,
the question of the course this Court should follow in the future
concerning the disposition of similar petitions from Illinois.
During the last three terms, we have been flooded with petitions
from Illinois alleging deprivations of due process and other
constitutional rights. Thus, in the 1944 term, out of a total of
339 petitions filed
in forma pauperis, almost all by
prisoners, 141 came from Illinois; in the 1945 term, 175 out of 393
were from Illinois, and in the 1946 term, 322 out of 528 came from
that state. [
Footnote 1] With
mechanical regularity, petitions for certiorari to review
Page 332 U. S. 564
Illinois' refusals to grant relief, often even to grant a
hearing, have been denied. [
Footnote 2] We have adhered consistently to the practice
of not entertaining such a petition when it seemed to appear that
the applicant had not sought the appropriate state remedy.
Woods v. Nierstheimer, 328 U. S. 211.
And, as a corollary of this practice, we have insisted that the
federal courts deny a hearing to an applicant for habeas corpus who
has not exhausted his state remedies.
Ex parte Hawk,
321 U. S. 114;
Ex parte Abernathy, 320 U. S. 219, and
cases cited.
This rule, requiring exhaustion of state remedies as a condition
precedent to federal relief, has been firmly established by
repeated decisions of this Court. Even in extreme situations, its
application has been justified by sound administrative reasons.
See Mooney v. Holohan, 294 U. S. 103,
294 U. S. 115.
But it has always been clear that the rule may be applied only on
the assumption that an adequate state remedy is actually available.
Carter v. Illinois, 329 U. S. 173,
329 U. S. 176;
Woods v. Nierstheimer, supra, at
328 U. S. 217;
Ex parte Hawk, supra, at
321 U. S. 118.
And it would be nothing less than abdication of our constitutional
duty and function to rebuff petitioners with this mechanical
formula whenever it may become clear that the alleged state remedy
is nothing but a procedural morass offering no substantial hope of
relief. Experience has convinced me that this is true of
Illinois.
This case presents a flagrant example of deprivation of due
process. In 1925, petitioner was convicted of murder and sentenced
to life imprisonment. He was then 18 years old, and unable to speak
English, having arrived in the United States from Italy less than
two years before.
Page 332 U. S. 565
The police officer who arrested him served as one of the two
interpreters at his trial. He was not represented by counsel, nor,
as far as can be determined, was his right to counsel explained to
him.
See Foster v. Illinois, 332 U.
S. 134, dissenting opinion
332 U. S. 141.
Although the record shows that petitioner signed a written waiver
of jury trial which stated that he had entered a plea of guilty, in
fact he did not sign any such waiver, and no guilty plea appears to
have been entered. His sentence was imposed one week after the
indictment.
Twenty-two years later, these facts were established at a
hearing in the Circuit Court of Winnebago County, Illinois, on
petitioner's application for habeas corpus. Nevertheless, the writ
was denied without assignment of any ground. [
Footnote 3] Petitioner sought certiorari in this
Court, and, when called upon for a response, Illinois confessed
error. While I concur in the Court's judgment, the light which the
confession of error sheds on the Illinois procedural labyrinth
confirms the growing conviction that Illinois offers no adequate
remedy to prisoners situated as is the present petitioner.
The trouble with Illinois is not that it offers no procedure. It
is that it offers too many, and makes them so intricate and
ineffective that, in practical effect, they amount to none. The
possibility of securing effective determination on the merits is
substantially foreclosed by the probability -- indeed the all but
mathematical certainty -- that the case will go off on the
procedural ruling that the wrong one of several possible remedies
has been followed. [
Footnote
4]
Page 332 U. S. 566
Thus, our understanding of Illinois law at the time of
Woods
v. Nierstheimer, supra, was that habeas corpus would not lie
in such a case as this, because petitioner neither challenged the
jurisdiction of the court which convicted him, nor alleged any
subsequent events having the effect of voiding that conviction.
328 U. S. 328 U.S.
211,
328 U. S. 215.
Hence, we assumed that
coram nobis would be the
appropriate remedy. But Illinois now suggests that we have
oversimplified the situation. That habeas corpus is appropriate
here is explained by the state's attorney general as follows:
"In order to keep Illinois' position constant and consistent
before this court, we venture to point out that, although the
present Attorney General has prevailed upon this court to recognize
that
coram nobis is a remedy in Illinois exclusive of
habeas corpus, where the facts constituting denial of due process
but
dehors the record were not known to the trial court at
the time of the imposition of sentence, we have always conceded
that, where, as in the instant case, those facts, although not a
matter of record at the trial, were nevertheless known to the trial
court, habeas corpus may be available in proper cases. We deem
habeas corpus to be clearly appropriate under the Illinois law in
this case. We do not concede, however, that there are no cases in
which writ of error, as distinct from either
coram nobis
or habeas corpus, would be the proper remedy."
Notwithstanding the explanation, the extent of the applicability
of this expanded scope of habeas corpus "in
Page 332 U. S. 567
proper cases" is by no means clear. Perhaps it is limited to a
case where over 20 years have elapsed since the conviction, and
hence neither writ of error nor
coram nobis is available;
perhaps it would be available any time after the five-year statute
of limitations on
coram nobis had run. [
Footnote 5] Possibly the rule is general for
cases of deprivation of constitutional rights whenever the judge
responsible for the deprivation had knowledge of the facts. I can
only indulge in speculation, because I am aware of nothing in the
Illinois statutes or decisions which defines these novel
limitations on the use of habeas corpus or supports the attorney
general's position. Nor do I know whether the lower Illinois courts
accept this position in view of the limited area to which the writ
has been confined by the state supreme court decisions.
See
e.g., Thompson v. Nierstheimer, 395 Ill. 572, 71 N.E.2d 343;
Barrett v. Bradley, 391 Ill. 169, 62 N.E.2d 788.
In short, the effect of the state's confession of error in this
case is not to clarify, it is rather to confuse further, a
situation already so muddled that only one rational conclusion may
be drawn. It is that the Illinois procedural labyrinth is made up
entirely of blind alleys, each of which is useful only as a means
of convincing the federal courts that the state road which the
petitioner has taken was the wrong one. If the only state remedy is
the possibility that the attorney general will confess error when
he determines that a flagrant case will not survive scrutiny by
this Court, [
Footnote 6] it is
hardly necessary to point out that the federal courts should be
open to a petitioner even though he has not made his way through
several
Page 332 U. S. 568
courts applying for habeas corpus, then writ of error, and
finally
coram nobis. [
Footnote 7]
Moreover, even though there may be an avenue of escape through
the state courts in a rare case, the situation is no different as
long as the technical distinctions between the various remedies are
so fine that only an oracle could point out the proper procedural
road. The "exhaustion of state remedies" rule should not be
stretched to the absurdity of requiring the exhaustion of three
separate remedies when, at the outset, a petitioner cannot
intelligently select the proper way, and in conclusion he may find
only that none of the three is appropriate or effective. That each
is severely restricted is clear. [
Footnote 8] That any one
Page 332 U. S. 569
is available as a matter of right is by no means clear.
[
Footnote 9] And even if each
has a limited function exclusive of the other two, it may well be
that no one is adequate in a case where the petitioner must show a
combination of facts to establish a violation of his constitutional
rights. [
Footnote 10]
The Illinois scheme affords a theoretical system of remedies. In
my judgment, it is hardly more than theoretical. Experience has
shown beyond all doubt that, in any practical sense, the remedies
available there are inadequate. [
Footnote 11] Whether this is true because in fact no
remedy
Page 332 U. S. 570
exists, or because every remedy is so limited as to be
inadequate, or because the procedural problem of selecting the
proper one is so difficult, is beside the point. If the federal
guarantee of due process in a criminal trial is to have real
significance in Illinois, it is imperative that men convicted in
violation of their constitutional rights have an adequate
opportunity to be heard in court. This opportunity is not adequate
so long as they are required to ride the Illinois merry-go-round of
habeas corpus,
coram nobis, and writ of error before
getting a hearing in a federal court.
Consequently, as far as I am concerned, the Illinois remedies
are exhausted here, apart from the state's confession of error. I
also think that, until that state affords a reasonably clear and
adequate means for presenting and disposing of such questions as
Marino's case involves, this Court should no longer require
exhaustion of its present scheme of ineffective and inadequate
remedies before permitting resort to the federal district courts
sitting in Illinois. [
Footnote
12] We should neither delay nor deny justice, nor clog its
administration, with so useless and harmful a procedural strangling
of federal constitutional rights.
[
Footnote 1]
This increasing volume no doubt is due in part to the assiduity
with which prisoners seek relief either from prison or from the
tedium of prison life. But that not all of it can be attributed to
that factor seems clear from the facts that no other state presents
anything approaching such a volume of petitions or so complicated a
procedure for finally disposing of the questions raised.
[
Footnote 2]
Of the 322 petitions filed in the 1946 term, only two were
granted. In
Foster v. Illinois, 332 U.
S. 134, the narrow scope of review by writ of error in
Illinois precluded relief here; in
McLaren v.
Nierstheimer, 329 U.S. 685, the judgment was vacated and the
case remanded after the state confessed error.
[
Footnote 3]
But for the state's confession of error, our usual practice in
these cases would lead us to assume that the denial had been on the
ground that habeas corpus was not the appropriate state remedy.
See note 4
[
Footnote 4]
Since the petitions more often than otherwise are disposed of by
mere denial, without assignment of grounds, it is seldom possible
for this Court to know whether the Illinois court has acted on the
merits, or on the state ground that the wrong remedy has been
followed. It is therefore always possible to assume here that the
ruling was of the latter type, and this would seem to be true if
not of every such determination, at least of all until the last
conceivably possible route has been followed.
[
Footnote 5]
Ill.Rev.Stat. (1947) c. 110, § 196. This five-year limitation
period applies to "all
coram nobis proceedings."
People v. Touhy, 397 Ill. 19, 26, 72 N.E.2d 827, 831;
People v. Rave, 392 Ill. 435, 65 N.E.2d 23. Writ of error
is governed by a common law limitation period of 20 years.
People v. Chapman, 392 Ill. 168, 64 N.E.2d 529;
People
v. Murphy, 296 Ill. 532, 129 N.E. 868.
[
Footnote 6]
See McLaren v. Nierstheimer, 329 U.S. 685.
[
Footnote 7]
"Under present procedures, it is nearly impossible to secure
adjudication of the in Violation of Due Process in Illinois,
judgments of conviction in Illinois courts; yet petitioners must
present their applications for consideration seven to twelve times
in order to escape the procedural maze of the state courts and to
secure their initial hearings on the truth of their allegations in
the federal courts."
Note, A Study of the Illinois Supreme Court, 15 U. of Chi.L.Rev.
107, 120.
[
Footnote 8]
Review by writ of error in Illinois is limited to matters in the
common law record where no bill of exceptions is filed.
Carter
v. Illinois, 329 U. S. 173;
Foster v. Illinois, 332 U. S. 134;
People v. Owens, 397 Ill. 166, 73 N.E.2d 274. The bill of
exceptions must be preserved within 50 days after judgment was
entered unless an extension is granted during that time.
Ill.Rev.Stat. c. 110, § 259.70A. Habeas corpus has been thought to
be available only to challenge jurisdiction in the narrow sense of
jurisdiction over the person or the subject matter, or to show
events subsequent to the trial which render the original conviction
void.
Woods v. Nierstheimer, 328 U.
S. 211;
Thompson v. Nierstheimer, 395 Ill. 572,
71 N.E.2d 343;
Barrett v. Bradley, 391 Ill. 169, 62 N.E.2d
788.
Coram nobis is available only to present factual
questions of a certain kind,
People v. Drysch, 311 Ill.
342, 349, 143 N.E. 100, which were not known to the trial court,
People v. Schuedter, 336 Ill. 244, 168 N.E. 323, which do
not conflict with jury findings, and which petitioner failed to
raise because of excusable mistake, rather than negligence on his,
or his attorney's part,
see People v. Rave, 392 Ill. 435,
440, 65 N.E.2d 23.
See Comment, Collateral Relief from
Convictions in Violation of Due Process in Illinois, 42 Ill.L.Rev.
329.
[
Footnote 9]
It is questionable whether Illinois affords a remedy for a man
deprived of his right to counsel.
See Foster v. Illinois,
332 U. S. 134,
dissenting opinion
332 U. S. 141;
People v. Evans, 397 Ill. 430, 74 N.E.2d 708. The trial
judge would surely know that he had refused to appoint counsel, and
would be presumed to be familiar with the record,
see People v.
Rave, 392 Ill. 435, 440, 65 N.E.2d 23; hence,
coram
nobis would not lie. Assuming that the clerk makes the routine
entry to the effect that the accused was apprised of his rights,
which he promptly waived,
see People v. Green, 355 Ill.
468, 189 N.E. 500, writ of error would afford inadequate review.
See Carter v. Illinois, 329 U. S. 173.
Only if the attorney general's view of habeas corpus would extend
to such a case would a remedy be available. There may even be doubt
whether an allegation that a confession was obtained by coercion
would warrant review,
see People v. Drysch, 311 Ill. 342,
143 N.E. 100;
People v. Schuedter, 336 Ill. 244, 168 N.E.
323.
[
Footnote 10]
For example, petitioner might allege that he had inadequate time
to prepare his defense, that the trial court denied him counsel,
and that a forced confession was used as evidence at the trial. The
first allegation could be made only by writ of error, because the
crucial dates would be a matter of record; the second only by
habeas corpus, if at all, because the trial court is presumed to
know what is in the record, and he would certainly know that he had
refused to appoint counsel, and the third allegation only by
coram nobis, because the facts would be unknown to the
trial court. Perhaps none of the allegations, considered
separately, would establish a deprivation of due process, yet, with
the whole picture before the court, a violation of constitutional
rights would be apparent.
[
Footnote 11]
See note 1 and text;
also |
note 1 and text;
also S. 561fn2|>note 2. "[The] inevitable conclusion must be
reached that the state of Illinois provides no satisfactory or
adequate method for post-conviction hearings. . . ." Note, A Study
of the Illinois Supreme Court, 15 U. of Chi.L.Rev. 107, 128.
[
Footnote 12]
This Court has frequently recognized that the policy underlying
the exhaustion of remedies doctrine does not require the exhaustion
of inadequate remedies.
Hillsborough Twp. v. Cromwell,
326 U. S. 620;
White v. Ragen, 324 U. S. 760;
Driscoll v. Edison Light & Power Co., 307 U.
S. 104;
Mountain States Power Co. v. Public Service
Commission, 299 U. S. 167;
Corporation Commission v. Cary, 296 U.
S. 452;
Pacific Telephone & Telegraph Co. v.
Kuykendall, 265 U. S. 196;
Oklahoma Natural Gas Co. v. Russell, 261 U.
S. 290;
Moore v. Dempsey, 261 U. S.
86;
Wallace v. Hines, 253 U. S.
66.