Lead Opinion
In 1938 petitioner served a 24-hour sentence imposed by the District Court of New Jersey after pleading guilty to a “technical violation” of the Mann Act, then 18 U.S.C. § 398, now 18 U.S.C. § 2421. In 1962 he filed in the same court a verified document styled “Petition for a Writ of Coram Nobis” which prayed that the conviction and sentence be vacated. The petition alleged that petitioner originally pleaded “not guilty” and had gone to trial, that after the Government had rested, although petitioner was of the belief that the Government had failed to adduce any evidence of his guilt, he withdrew his plea of “not guilty” and entered a “technical plea of guilty”, that he did this upon thе advice of the Court and his attorney, and with the assurance of the Court that only a 24-hour sentence would be imposed. The petition further alleged that the petitioner did not enter the plea intelligently, understandingly, or
While neither the petition nor the Wilderman affidavit allege any constitutional violation, it is clear from the briefs that it is petitioner’s claim that he was convicted and sentenced in violation of the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment.
The District Court held a hearing at which the petitioner and Wilderman testified and the Clerk’s notes and docket entries pertaining to the case were introduced in evidence. Upon this record the District Court rendered an opinion in which it found that petitioner’s plea had been entered with sufficient knowledge and adequate advice, United States v. Carióla,
A document substantially like that filed by petitioner has been characterized as a motion in the nature of a writ of error coram nobis and has been held to be an appropriate means in a proper case to obtain the vacation of a conviction and sentence after sentence has been served. United States v. Morgan,
At the outset the Government asserts that the case is moot. It is true that the petition on its face presents no justiciable controversy. Although the petition alleges that the plea was not entered competently or understandingly and was never intended as a plea of actual guilt to the crime charged, the only consequence alleged is the petitioner’s embarrassment and loss of prestige. This is not enough to justify a judicial determination of petitioner’s rights. The moral stigma of a judgment which affects no legal rights presents no case or controversy of federal cognizance. St. Pierrе v. United States,
The jurisdictional deficiency of the petition, however, was cured by the proof. At the hearing the petitioner testified that he had been living in Buffalo, New York since 1954 and that because of the position of leadership which he occupied in union affairs, it was particularly important that he participate in political activities. He stated that under the laws of New York his conviction in 1938 makes it a crime for him to vote. New York Penal Law, § 510 — a, which makes it a criminal offense for a person who has been convicted of a felony to vote, has been in effect during the period of petitioner’s residence-in New York. See also § 152(4) of the-New York Election Law. Thus, the-judgment of conviction, although satisfied, has affected and continues to affect petitioner’s legal rights. The validity of the conviction, therefore, is not moot., A case cannot be said to be moot when a-, conviction entails collateral legal disadvantages which survive the satisfaction of the sentence. Government of' Virgin Islands v. Ferrer,
The Government asserts that.. there is no evidence that petitioner’s., conviction has in fact deprived him of his right to vote in New York. The:
Nor is there merit to the Government’s position that the plaintiff is barred from relief because he has delayed 24 years in seeking it. If petitioner has been denied a fundamental constitutional right, the passage of time will not preclude him from relief. The writ of error coram nobis was available at common law “without limitation of time.” United States v. Morgan, supra, 346 U.S. p. 507, 74 S.Ct. p. 250; Farnsworth v. United States,
This brings us to the merits of the •case. In September 1937 the petitioner and three others were indicted by the Grand Jury of the District of New Jersey for violating the Mann Act. On November 5, 1937 petitioner pleaded not guilty. On January 24, 1938 petitioner was tried separаtely from his co-defendants before Judge Avis. He was then represented by Louis H. Wilderman, Esquire. After the Government rested its case, Judge Avis called the petitioner, his attorney, and the United States Attorney to the bench. According to the petitioner:
“He [Judge Avis] then said to the U. S. Attorney that he didn’t think that the government has proved its case and he then turned to me and he said, T think under the circumstances there is a minor violation here, a technical violation, and my advice to you would be to change your plea to a technical plea of guilty, and if you do that I will sentence you to 24 hours in the custody of the U. S. Marshal.’ ”
Wilderman testified:
“Judge Avis called us up to the bench at the time and he indicated primarily that he didn’t think it was much of a case there by the government; that at the most this was the most technical violation possible that you could think of; * * So Judge Avis said, he suggested that we should enter a technical plea of guilty, and if so, he said, ‘Just let him sit in the courtroom for the rest of the day and that will be it and he can go home.’ ”
This is the only evidence of what transpired.
Following the side bar discussion, the petitioner and Wilderman retired and consulted for a few moments. Wilder-man advised the petitioner to take Judge Avis’ advice. Petitioner then withdrew his prior plea of not guilty. The testi
The petitioner testified that when he entered his plea he understood that he was pleading to something very minor, that he felt that he was not guilty of the crime, and that he was not pleading 100% to a violation of the Mann Act, but only to its technical violation. According to petitioner, his only activities were the receipt of a phone call while working as a waiter in a nightclub at Atlantic City from a person in Philadelphia requesting him to give a message to a girl to go to a certain address at a certain time in Philadelphia, and the subsequent transmittal of that message to the girl. Although the record does not disclose the fact, the girl apparently went to Philadelphia for purposes of prostitution.
These, in substance, are the facts upon which the petitioner bases his claim that his plea was entered without a full understanding or realization of its consequences in derogation of his constitutional rights.
Coram nobis is an extraordinary writ. The jurisdiction of a court to grant relief under it is of limited scope. Any proceeding which is challenged by the writ is presumed to be correct and the burden rests on its assailant to show otherwise. United States v. Morgan,
Here, we are not confronted with a plea entered by an illiterate youth. At the time of trial petitioner was a man of 28 or 29 years who had two years of high school education and was gainfully employed as a headwaiter in an Atlantic-City nightclub. The inherent competence of petitioner is attested by the-positions of responsibility which he occupied during the ensuing years.
Nor was petitioner unrepresented at the trial. His attorney, Wilderman, was-one of his own choosing. Wilderman. had studied criminal lаw at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, had been admitted to the Pennsylvania bar in 1933, and to the New Jersey bar in
There is no suggestion that Wilderman was incompetent or unfaithful to petitioner’s interest. The most that can be said is that he was young, his experience in criminal matters was limited, and his trial preparation was probably less extensive than it should hаve been.
Petitioner did not enter his plea until after he had consulted with Wilderman out of hearing of the Court. Although the consultation lasted for only a few minutes, so far as the record discloses, the Court imposed no time limitation which would have prevented more extended consideration. Only after Wilder-man had advised petitioner to enter the plea did he do so. Wilderman testified that he advised petitioner to enter the technical plea because it was his “strategy that that was the proper thing to do * * * and that it was in his (the petitioner’s) best interest”-.. He said, “I advised him to do it.” According to Wild-erman petitioner replied, “You arе the lawyer and I will go along with your •opinion. After all, you are the lawyer.”
Lawyers generally are prone to accept suggestions which emanate from the bench. Young and inexperienced lawyers are apt to be especially amenable to views which the court expresses. And Wilderman was probably no exception. Undoubtedly, when Judge Avis advised petitioner to change his plea from one of not guilty to a “technical plea of guilty”, and stated that if petitioner did so he would be sentenced to only 24 hours in the custody of the Marshal, Wilderman gave weight to this advice. But there was another consideration of a compelling kind which underlay his decision. Wilderman testified that when Judge Avis called him to the bench, he gained the impression that Judge Avis might have to let the case go to the jury. Wil-derman testified that he felt that this was quite a risk for the petitioner to undertake since at that time there was a great deal of hysteria about prostitution because of raids in Atlantic City, New Brunswick, and Camden. He said that if the case should go to the jury, “I felt here we were kind of playing with a great deal of fire”, and that by taking Judge Avis’ advice he would “minimize the risk of an eventual probable verdict of guilty and the perhaps more severe imposition of penalty”.
Wilderman testifiеd that he felt that the plea which petitioner entered was not “a full plea of guilty” and that petitioner was not pleading guilty to a Mann Act violation “in the fullest sense”. But at the trial Wilderman recognized and advised petitioner that if he should go to trial and be found guilty of a “technical violation”, the Judge could impose a serious sentence because “they [the judges] don’t draw distinctions”. Since Wilderman was of the opinion and advised petitioner that if the jury should find the petitioner guilty, the judge would not differentiate between technical and substantial guilt in imposing sentence, it is difficult to perceive how either Wilderman or petitioner cоuld have believed that the effect of a plea of guilty to a technical violation of the law would
It cannot be supposed that Judge Avis threatened to submit the case to the jury in the belief that petitioner was innocent. Although petitioner in effect so testified, the District Court stated “Judge Avis was not persuaded of petitioner’s innocence.” This finding was not attacked in this Court. It was justified not only because of the inherent improbability of petitioner’s testimony given twenty-four years after the ’event, but because petitioner’s testimony was inconsistent with Wilderman’s version of what Judge Avis said.
It has been stated broadly that out of just consideration fоr persons accused of crime, courts are careful that a plea of guilty shall not be accepted unless made voluntarily after proper advice and with full understanding of the consequences. Kercheval v. United States,
Despite the breadth and frequency of the judicial statements that a defendant cannot be held to a plea of guilty which is made without an understanding of its consequences, the factual situations which have occasioned the statements afford no basis for holding that the finality of a conviction depends-upon a contemporaneous realization by the defendant of the collateral consequences of his plea. United States v. Parrino,
Any such requirement would impose upon the judge an impractical burden out of all proportion to the essentials of fair and just administration of the criminal laws. The instant case illustrates the point. The only consequence of the petitioner’s conviction which enables him to prеsent a justiciable controversy concerning its validity, is the deprivation of petitioner of his voting rights in New York. Yet at the time of the trial the petitioner lived in New Jersey. Under New Jersey law, as it existed in 1938 and at the present time, one convicted of a Mann Act violation is not disenfranchised.
Federal Criminal Rule 11 which became effective seven years after the plea of petitioner had been entered, is substantially a restatement of prior law. See Notes of Advisory Committee on Rules, which follows Rule 11 in 18 U.S. C.A. at p. 298. Rule 11 prohibits a court
Petitioner makes the further contention that at common law, as under Criminal Rule 11, there are only three possible pleas in a criminal case — guilty, not guilty, and nolo contendere. It is argued that a plea of guilty to a technical violation of the law is unknown to the law, and hence it cannot constitute a valid foundation for a sentence. This objection is a purely formal one. Technical objections to precise verbiage of a plea were given much more weight formerly than they are now. Garland v. State of Washington,
We do not condone the conduct of the trial judge in suggesting the plea to be entered accompanied by a promise of the sentence which was to follow. It is not a salutary practice and it is one that should be avoided. Nevertheless, in the instant case no claim is made that the Judge coerced the petitioner into entering his plea,
The judgment of the District Court will be affirmed.
Notes
. The efforts of the District Court to obtain more enlightenment were fruitless. It said (211 F.Supp. at pp. 424-425) :
“This court has made diligent effort to obtain a transcript of the proceedings to ascertain what colloquy transpired between court and counsel. Both trial judge and court reporter are deceased, and the latter’s notes are not in existence. It also appears that the Government’s records of this case cannot be located.”
. The docket entry and Clerk’s notes made contemporaneously with the event would seem to more reliably reflect the plea that was actually entered than thе somewhat divergent testimony of petitioner and Wilderman related 24 years later. The notes of the Clerk and docket entry do, however, appear to corroborate the fact that something was said by Judge Avis about the violation being a technical one warranting a one-day sentence.
. Four years after the trial petitioner became president of the Waiters’ and Waitresses’ Union in Philadelphia, which had between 2200 and 2500 members. Later, be was appointed International Representative for the State of Florida of the Hotel and Restaurant and Bartenders International Union which had about 15,000 members. In 1954 petitioner was assigned to Buffalo, New York where he became the president of the Hotel & Restaurant Employees’ Union which had 2500 members. At the same time he was also president of the Joint Council of four organizations having 5000 members. His area of responsibility covered a radius of 150 to 200 miles where he negotiated contracts with 150 employers.
. The petitioner makes no claim that he was denied the effective assistance of counsel in the constitutional sense.
The services of counsel meet the re•quirements of due process when he is a member in good standing at the bar, gives his client his complete loyalty, serves him in gоod faith to the best of his ability, .and his service is of such character as to preserve the essential integrity of the proceedings as a trial in a court of justice. Only when the representation of an attorney is so lacking in competence or good faith that it becomes the duty of the trial judge or prosecutor as officers of the state to observe and correct it, is there a denial of due process. United States ex rel. Darcy v. Handy,
. The New Jersey statute that lists the crimes which work a voting disqualification does not include a Mann Act violation oi" any comparable offense. See N.J. S.A. 19:4-l, in its former and present form.
. Indeed coercion is implicitly disavowed in paragraph 17 of the petition, and in paragraph 6 of the affidavit of Wilder-man supporting it. These verified statements indicate that if petitioner and Wilderman had understood the consequences of the plea, it would not have been entered and the trial would have continued. They highlight the fact that petitioner’s only claimed basis for relief is his lack of understanding of the consequences of the plea. The situation before us is, therefore, sharply distinguishable from Euziere v. United States,
. Statements found in United States v. Paglia,
Concurrence Opinion
(concurring in part and dissenting in part).
I agree with the majority that the issue presented is neither moot nor barred by lapse of time. But I cannot agree that the petitioner, Carióla, is not entitled to relief. The writ of error comm nobis is apt for the purpose for which it is sought. See United States v. Morgan,
The petitioner testified that the trial judge stated in the course of the proceedings that he thought that the United States had not proved its case and that the petitioner had committed only “a minor violation”, “a technical violation”, of the Mann Act. The attorney for the petitioner, an inexperienced member of the bar, testified that the judge said that “he didn’t think it was much of a case there by the government; that at the most this [offense] was the most technical violation possible that you could think of [sic]”, and suggested that the petitioner should enter “a technical plea of guilty”, and that if the petitioner did so he would sentence him to twenty-four hours in the custody of the United States marshal. The docket entries show that the petitioner’s plea of not guilty wаs then withdrawn and a plea of guilty was “entered as a technical one” “by the order of the court.”
The petitioner is entitled to the writ sought by him.
First, a “technical” plea of guilty is unknown to the federal law. The court below could not enter a valid judgment of conviction on such a plea. It lost jurisdiction of the case when it tried to do so. It follows that the court’s act in entering the judgment of conviction was comm non judice, a nullity.
Second, there was bargaining between the court and the petitioner and his attorney for a light sentence if the technical plea of guilty was entered by the petitioner. The bargain was consummated despite the fact that the judge, as the present record shоws — and we must accept that record as it stands in the absence of anything more- — stated that he thought that the United States-had not proved its case. If the court was of this view, it should have directed a verdict in favor of Carióla. The course which the court pursued is repugnant to-our present day views of justice under the law and, in my opinion, the judgment of conviction is voidable and should now be voided as contrary to public policy.
Third, the petitioner was induced to-enter the plea, not by the United States attorney or by his deputy, but by the action of the judge himself. As was. said by the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit in Euziere v. United States,
This aspect of the case should be judged from another pertinent angle. A plea of guilty, made voluntarily and deliberately, to the charge of an indictment is not only a waiver of a right to a jury trial and a consent to the imposition of any sentence authorized by law,
Fourth and finally, it is clear that the petitioner entered the “technical” plea of guilty without any clear understanding' of the effect of the consequences which a judgment of conviction would impose upon him. The fact that an accused is-represented by counsel of his own choiсe-is insufficient to relieve the trial court of determining that the plea is made voluntarily and with an understanding' of the nature of the charge. This principle is embodied in Rule 11, Fed.R.Crim. Proc., 18 U.S.C.
For the reasons stated I am convinced that Carióla was denied his rights under the Fifth Amendment and therefore I must respectfully dissent from the refusal of the majority to grant the writ of error coram nobis and to vacate the-judgment of conviction.
. Ordinarily, allowing withdrawal of a plea of not guilty and the substitution of a plea of guilty is a matter which rests within the sound discretion of the court. Compare Rule 32(d), Fed.R.Crim.Proc., 18 U.S.C. See United States v. Swag-gerty, 218 E.2d 875 (7 Cir.), cert. denied,
. It may be observed that in Kercheval v. United States,
. There can be no suggestion that Rule 11 effected any substantial change in the law. See Notes of Advisory Committee on Rules.