Dewease v. Cox

327 F. Supp. 652, 1971 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13519
CourtDistrict Court, W.D. Virginia
DecidedApril 30, 1971
DocketCiv. A. No. 71-C-39-R
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 327 F. Supp. 652 (Dewease v. Cox) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, W.D. Virginia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Dewease v. Cox, 327 F. Supp. 652, 1971 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13519 (W.D. Va. 1971).

Opinion

OPINION and JUDGMENT

DALTON, Chief Judge.

This case comes before the court upon a petition for a writ of habeas corpus, filed in forma pauperis by Frank Hendrick Dewease, Jr., a state prisoner, pursuant to the provisions of 28 U.S.C. 2241 and 2254.

Petitioner is currently serving a sentence of twenty years pursuant to a judgment of the Circuit Court of Montgomery County, Virginia imposed on April 11, 1968 for second degree murder.

At the petitioner’s trial, he was represented by court appointed counsel, entered a plea of not guilty and was tried and convicted by a jury.

Petitioner, assisted by court appointed counsel, sought and perfected an appeal to the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals which refused his writ of error and supersedeas. Petitioner has also sought state habeas corpus relief on a variety of allegations. Petitioner’s habeas corpus application was dismissed and relief denied by the Circuit Court of Montgomery County on the face of the petition and the transcript of the trial. No evidentiary hearing has been held in the state courts concerning the petitioner’s allegations.

An appeal was taken from the trial court’s denial of habeas corpus relief. The Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals, finding no reversible error, affirmed the judgment of the Circuit Court after an inspection of 'the petition and the trial transcript.

In the present federal habeas corpus petition, the petitioner alleges four separate instances of error committed by the state courts in which it is alleged his constitutional rights have been violated.

[654]*654Petitioner states that his conviction cannot stand because the trial court allowed the striking for cause of certain members of the prospective jury panel because of their opposition to the imposition of the death penalty.

Petitioner also alleges that he was arrested in his own home without a warrant and without circumstances to justify such a warrantless arrest.

Petitioner’s third claim of constitutional infringement is that he was entitled to a pre-trial psychiatric examination and that he was ignorant of such fact.

The final allegation made by the petitioner in the present action is that he was not present when his counsel, the prosecutor and the trial judge decided to allow the jurors to mingle with others during recesses, a decision which resulted in substantial prejudice to the petitioner in that the jurors received improper information during the recesses.

The petitioner’s allegation of constitutional infirmity due to the exclusion of jurors opposed to capital punishment is without merit in the present case where the jury did not impose the death sentence. In fact, the petitioner was convicted of second degree murder for which the death penalty is wholly inapplicable in the Virginia courts. The Supreme Court has held in Witherspoon v. Illinois, 391 U.S. 510, 88 S.Ct. 1770, 20 L.Ed.2d 776 that a death sentence cannot constitutionally be executed if imposed by a jury from which have been excluded for cause those who, without more, are opposed to capital punishment or have conscientious scruples against imposing the death penalty. However, the Supreme Court in the same term of court more clearly defined the scope of the decision in Witherspoon. In Bumper v. North Carolina, 391 U.S. 543 at 545, 88 S.Ct. 1788 at 1790, 20 L.Ed.2d 797 the Supreme Court said,

Our decision in Witherspoon does not govern the present case, because here the jury recommended a sentence of life imprisonment. The petitioner argues, however, that a jury qualified under such standards must necessarily be biased as well with respect to a defendant’s guilt, and that his conviction must accordingly be reversed because of the denial of his right under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to trial by an impartial jury. Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 145, 88 S.Ct. 1444, 20 L.Ed.2d 491; Turner v. Louisiana, 379 U.S. 466, 471-473, 85 S.Ct. 546, 13 L.Ed.2d 424; Irvin v. Dowd, 366 U.S. 717, 722-723, 81 S.Ct. 1639, 6 L.Ed.2d 751. We cannot accept that contention in the present case. The petitioner adduced no evidence to support the claim that a jury selected as this one was is necessarily ‘prosecution prone,’ and the materials referred to in his brief are no more substantial than those brought to our attention in Witherspoon. Accordingly, we decline to reverse the judgment of conviction upon this basis.

The present case is analogous to Bumper v. N. C., supra,, but in this instance the petitioner has received a penalty of twenty years as opposed to the life term imposed in Bumper. Also, in the present case there is no allegation, much less proof, that such a jury would be so prosecution prone as to deny the petitioner his right to trial by an impartial jury.

The present situation also varies from the constitutional violative situation in Witherspoon. Here the jurors were excused only after they had affirmatively answered the trial judge’s inquiry as to their opposition to the death penalty. This court is of the opinion that the trial judge’s exclusion of the prospective jurors was proper since it was based upon his pointed inquiry:

Should the evidence and the law that the Court will give you establish beyond a reasonable doubt the charge of murder in the first degree, are either of you so opposed to capital punishment that you could not inflict it?

The Supreme Court in Witherspoon v. Illinois, supra, made it a special point [655]*655that the issue before it in that case did not,

* * * involve the State’s assertion of a right to exclude from the jury in a capital case those who say that they could never vote to impose the death penalty or that they would refuse to even consider its imposition in the case before them.

Thus, the present allegation of the petitioner is without merit as to the exclusion of jurors who were opposed to capital punishment. Not only did the petitioner not received the death penalty, but there was no proof and no allegation that such a jury deprived him of a right to a fair and impartial trier of fact. Furthermore, it appears from the trial transcript that the jurors who were excluded by the trial court could have been constitutionally excused even under the Witherspoon standard.

The petitioner’s second contention, that his conviction cannot stand because he was arrested illegally, is entirely without merit. His allegation of prejudice resulting from statements made by him to the arresting officers is clearly contradicted by the trial transcript. Only one police officer testified at the petitioner’s trial and he was not the arresting officer. He testified only as to his connection with the rescue squad in trying to revive the victim, Mrs. Ann Mae Dewease.

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Related

Hancock v. Slayton
341 F. Supp. 436 (W.D. Virginia, 1972)
M. A. P. v. Ryan
285 A.2d 310 (District of Columbia Court of Appeals, 1971)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
327 F. Supp. 652, 1971 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13519, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/dewease-v-cox-vawd-1971.