Upon his plea of guilty of murder, petitioner was sentenced by a
Michigan state court to imprisonment for life. The State had long
before abolished capital punishment. Almost ten years later,
petitioner moved to vacate the sentence and for a new trial,
claiming that a federal constitutional right to assistance of
counsel had been infringed and that his plea of guilty had been
induced by misrepresentations by the prosecuting attorney and the
sheriff. The motion was heard before the same judge who had
received his plea of guilty and sentenced him. The motion was
denied, and the State Supreme Court affirmed.
Held: upon the record in this case, petitioner has
failed to sustain the burden of proving such a disregard of
fundamental fairness in the imposition of punishment by the State
as would justify this Court in setting aside the sentence as
violative of the Due Process Clause. Pp.
339 U. S.
661-665.
(a) In the circumstances of this case, the failure of the record
to show that petitioner was offered counsel does not offend the Due
Process Clause. Pp.
339 U. S.
665-666.
(b) When a crime subject to capital punishment is not involved,
each case depends on its own facts. P.
339 U.S. 666.
(c) To invalidate a plea of guilty, a state prisoner must
establish that an ingredient of unfairness actively operated in the
process that resulted in his confinement. P.
339 U.S. 666.
322 Mich. 351, 33 N.W.2d 904, affirmed.
Petitioner's motion to vacate a sentence of life imprisonment
theretofore imposed upon him, and for a new trial, was denied by a
Michigan state court. The State Supreme Court affirmed. 322 Mich.
351, 33 N.W.2d 904. This Court granted certiorari. 336 U.S. 916.
Affirmed, p.
339 U.S.
666.
Page 339 U. S. 661
MR. JUSTICE FRANKFURTER delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioner is in custody of the Michigan under a sentence of
life imprisonment for first-degree murder, confirmed upon
collateral attack by a judgment of the Supreme Court of Michigan,
here challenged. He claims that he was deprived of his right to
counsel to the extent that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment secures that right. The generalizations that are relevant
to such a claim no longer call for elaboration. They have been set
forth in a series of recent opinions. [
Footnote 1] It is now settled that, as to its
administration of criminal justice, a State's duty to provide
counsel, so far as the United States Constitution imposes it, is
but one aspect of the comprehending guaranty of the Due Process
Clause of a fair hearing on an accusation, including adequate
opportunity to meet it. And so we turn to the facts of this
case.
By information filed in the Circuit Court for Kalamazoo County,
Michigan, on July 16, 1937, Charles Quicksall, the petitioner, was
charged with the murder of one Grace Parker. She was a married
woman, and Quicksall was her paramour. Petitioner had been a
hospital patient, under police guard, between the time of Mrs.
Parker's
Page 339 U. S. 662
death on July 2 and July 15, when he was taken before the
Municipal Justice Court, where, after waiving examination, he was
bound over for trial. On arraignment the next day before the
Kalamazoo Circuit Court, he pleaded guilty to the charge of murder.
There is no evidence that, at the time of his plea, petitioner
requested counsel, or that appointed counsel was offered him. The
circumstances attending the plea were thus formally stated by the
judge who received it:
"The record may show that this respondent [petitioner] has just
offered to plead guilty and has pleaded guilty to a charge of
murder; that, after a full statement by the respondent in response
to numerous questions by the Court in open Court, and after a
private interview with respondent at chambers, in both of which he
has freely and frankly discussed the details of this homicide as
claimed by him, the Court being clearly satisfied that the plea of
guilty is made freely, understandingly, and voluntarily, an order
has been entered accepting such plea of guilty. [
Footnote 2]"
As required by the local law, the court then proceeded to
inquire into the degree of crime. Mich.Stat.Ann. § 28.550
(Henderson 1938), Comp.Laws 1948, § 750.318. The course of this
inquiry is shown by a summary of what developed. Quicksall, who was
forty-four years old at the time, had been married
Page 339 U. S. 663
and divorced twice. He had served penitentiary terms in Ohio and
Michigan. He had lived with the Parkers in Ohio and in Kalamazoo,
and he had become "intimate" with Mrs. Parker. She and Quicksall
had made an agreement that, if that "ever got caught" in their
"unlawful intimate relationship," they "would die together." About
a week before Mrs. Parker's death on July 2, petitioner was asked
by her husband to leave his house, but on that day, at Mrs.
Parker's request, he returned to see her. She told him that her
husband had threatened to leave and divorce her, and she asked
Quicksall to keep their agreement to die together. Thereupon she
produced a revolver, and petitioner shot her and then himself.
Neighbors who reached the Parker house shortly thereafter saw Mrs.
Parker, very near death, lying on a bed, with a revolver near her.
On being asked who shot her, she replied, "Charley did." Petitioner
was lying on the floor, unconscious, next to the bed. A deputy
sheriff who searched the premises found a note on the dresser in
the bedroom reading: "July 2, 1937. I am dying, Grace and I
together, because we cannot live apart. Charles Quicksall."
At the conclusion of these proceedings the court stated:
"In this case, the respondent [petitioner] having been arraigned
on the information charging him with murder, and having pleaded
guilty thereto and said plea of guilty having been accepted by the
Court, after an exhaustive interview with the respondent both in
open Court and at chambers, and the Court having proceeded with an
examination of witnesses to determine the degree of the crime,
after hearing the testimony of the witnesses Horace Cobb, Jesse
Pierce, Cora Ketter, and Charles Conner, and the testimony of the
respondent himself, unsworn, regarding the circumstances of this
crime, and it appearing from the testimony of such witnesses
and
Page 339 U. S. 664
from the statement of the respondent that the killing was
deliberate and premeditated, and under the testimony of the
respondent himself that it was in pursuance of a suicide pact,
so-called, the Court finds and determines that respondent is guilty
of murder in the first degree, and it is therefore ordered and
adjudged that respondent be and he is guilty of murder in the first
degree."
Michigan, as is well known, having long ago abolished capital
punishment, Quicksall was sentenced to solitary confinement at hard
labor for life. Mich.Stat.Ann. § 28.548 (Henderson 1938), Comp.Laws
1948, § 750.316.
Almost ten years after his sentence, on April 18, 1947, the
petitioner asked the Circuit Court for Kalamazoo County to vacate
it and to grant him a new trial. He claimed the sentence had a
constitutional infirmity in that he did not have the assistance of
counsel and was prevented from communicating with counsel of his
choice while he was hospitalized. He also claimed that his plea of
guilty had been induced by misrepresentations on the part of the
prosecuting attorney and the sheriff who, he asserted, had told him
that the charge against him was manslaughter for which his sentence
would be from two to fifteen years.
The motion to vacate the sentence was heard before the same
judge who had received his plea of guilty and sentenced him.
Petitioner was asked whether he desired to have a lawyer in this
proceeding, and he replied that he did not: "Well, your Honor, it
took me a long time to prepare the motion, and I figure that I
would be just as well qualified to present it myself." In answering
questions propounded by the judge, petitioner admitted that he knew
he had been bound over on a murder charge. He also recalled that,
after the judge had informed him that his guilt had been determined
to be of murder in the first degree, he was given full opportunity
to say
Page 339 U. S. 665
what he had to say before sentence was imposed, but had nothing
to say.
Cf. Canizio v. New York, 327 U. S.
82. However, he professed not to be able to recall
details of the proceedings because of illness at the time. A deputy
sheriff who had guarded petitioner during his hospitalization after
the shooting testified that, on the following day, petitioner had
said to him:
"How long will I have to lay here? I wish to Christ it had taken
effect on me like it did on her. If I get over this, it will mean
life for me anyway."
Notes made contemporaneously supported this testimony. The
prosecuting attorney at the time of sentencing was, by reason of
paralysis, unavailable as a witness. The sheriff testified that
neither he nor the prosecuting attorney, so far as he had
knowledge, had refused petitioner permission to communicate with
his family, friends, or a lawyer. Petitioner cross-examined the
sheriff, but declined to question the deputy sheriff.
The trial judge took no stock in the reconstructing memory of
the petitioner, and denied his motion. The Supreme Court of
Michigan affirmed. 322 Mich. 351, 33 N.W.2d 904. We brought the
case here out of a zealous regard for due observance of the
safeguards of the Fourteenth Amendment in the enforcement of a
State's penal code. 336 U.S. 916. The record exacts the holding
that the petitioner has failed to sustain the burden of proving
such a disregard of fundamental fairness in the imposition of
punishment by the State as alone would justify this Court to
invalidate the sentence by reason of the Due Process Clause.
Petitioner makes no claim that he did not know of his right to
be assisted by counsel,
see Mich.Stat.Ann. § 28.854
(Henderson 1938), and, in view of his "intelligence, his age, and
his earlier experiences in court," the Supreme Court of Michigan
rejected the notion that he was not aware of his right to be
represented by an attorney. 322 Mich. 351 at 355, 33 N.W.2d 904 at
906.
Cf. 334 U. S. S.
666� v. Burke,@
334 U. S. 728,
334 U. S. 730.
Since the Michigan courts disbelieved petitioner's allegations that
he had not been allowed to communicate with his family, his
friends, or a lawyer, and no request was made by him for legal aid,
the only question is whether, in the circumstances of this case,
the failure of the record to show that he was offered counsel
offends the Due Process Clause.
At least "when a crime subject to capital punishment is not
involved, each case depends on its own facts."
Uveges v.
Pennsylvania, 335 U. S. 437,
335 U. S. 441;
Betts v. Brady, 316 U. S. 455,
316 U. S. 462.
To invalidate a plea of guilty, the prisoner must establish that,
"for want of benefit of counsel, an ingredient of unfairness
actively operated in the process that resulted in his confinement."
Foster v. Illinois, 332 U. S. 134,
332 U. S. 137;
see Gibbs v. Burke, 337 U. S. 773,
337 U. S. 781.
Here, petitioner's claim that the consequences of his plea of
guilty had been misrepresented was disbelieved by the tribunal
especially qualified to sit in judgment upon its credibility.
See Wade v. Mayo, 334 U. S. 672,
334 U. S. 683,
334 U. S. 684.
In the light of what emerged in this proceeding upon a scrutiny of
what took place before the same judge ten years earlier, when
petitioner's plea of guilty was tendered and accepted, it would
stultify the Due Process Clause to find that any right of the
petitioner was infringed by the sentence which he incurred.
[
Footnote 3]
Foster v.
Illinois, supra, at
332 U. S. 138;
Bute v. Illinois, 333 U. S. 640,
333 U. S.
670-674.
Affirmed.
MR. JUSTICE BLACK dissents
MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS took no part in the consideration or
decision of this case.
[
Footnote 1]
Betts v. Brady, 316 U. S. 455;
Canizio v. New York, 327 U. S. 82;
Carter v. Illinois, 329 U. S. 173;
De Meerleer v. Michigan, 329 U. S. 663;
Foster v. Illinois, 332 U. S. 134;
Gayes v. New York, 332 U. S. 145;
Marino v. Ragen, 332 U. S. 561;
Bute v. Illinois, 333 U. S. 640;
Wade v. Mayo, 334 U. S. 672;
Gryger v. Burke, 334 U. S. 728;
Townsend v. Burke, 334 U. S. 736;
Uveges v. Pennsylvania, 335 U. S. 437;
Gibbs v. Burke, 337 U. S. 773.
[
Footnote 2]
Mich.Stat.Ann. § 28.1058 (Henderson 1938), provides:
"Whenever any person shall plead guilty to an information filed
against him in any court, it shall be the duty of the judge of such
court, before pronouncing judgment or sentence upon such plea, to
become satisfied after such investigation as he may deem necessary
for that purpose respecting the nature of the case, and the
circumstances of such plea, that said plea was made freely, with
full knowledge of the nature of the accusation, and without undue
influence. And whenever said judge shall have reason to doubt the
truth of such plea of guilty, it shall be his duty to vacate the
same, direct a plea of not guilty to be entered and order a trial
of the issue thus formed."
[
Footnote 3]
Assertions now made concerning irregularities in the hearing on
the degree of the crime were not urged before the Michigan courts.
They cannot be considered here for the first time, even as to their
supposed bearing on the right to counsel.