Ex parte Danziger

77 F. Supp. 466, 1948 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2698
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. California
DecidedMarch 18, 1948
DocketNo. 7808
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 77 F. Supp. 466 (Ex parte Danziger) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. California primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Ex parte Danziger, 77 F. Supp. 466, 1948 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2698 (S.D. Cal. 1948).

Opinion

HALL, District Judge.

I have examined the transcript of record on appeal with particular reference to the assignment of errors on appeal. I have also examined the petitioner’s brief and reply brief on appeal in the Circuit Court, the petition for rehearing, and supplement to petition for rehearing, and the briefs of both parties thereon, the petition for certiorari to the Supreme Court and the supplemental transcript of record filed therewith, as well as the supporting and opposing briefs thereon. And it appears, with one exception to be noted hereafter, that the matters and things raised in the petition for writ of habeas corpus, and at the hearing, and argument and in the briefs were previously raised by petitioner in his appeal proceedings either in the Circuit Court or in the Supreme Court.

In the decision of the Circuit Court of Appeals (9 Cir., 161 F.2d 299) affirming petitioner’s conviction, the court indicated it had considered all of the points and things raised by petitioner, but not specifically discussed in the opinion, and found no error.

The petition for rehearing was denied by the Circuit Court without opinion, as was the petition for certiorari by the Supreme Court. 68 S.Ct. 81. While it is true that mere denial of a petition for certiorari is not to be deemed an affirmance of all of the propositions of law which may have 'been stated or touched on in the lower court’s opinion, I cannot agree with petitioner that such denial indicates no consideration of the matters and things covered in the petition. But I must on the contrary, hold that such denial was made upon appropriate judicial consideration, and is the law of the case as to all points raised in either or both the petition for rehearing and petition for certiorari.

Whatever the boundaries are of the power of a District Court under the writ of habeas corpus (see Sunal v. Large, 332 U.S. 174, 175, 67 S.Ct. 1588, and its dissents, for a general discussion of the necessity of keeping such boundaries flexible) it cannot be said that there lies within such boundaries the power of a United States District Court to act as a reviewing court on a habeas corpus proceeding to both the Circuit Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court on matters and things previously considered and decided by such Appellate Courts on appeal in a specific case. And that is what the petitioner here asks, with a view to getting a different result, which amounts to a request for a reversal in the District Court of both the Circuit Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court.

The new thing brought into these proceedings is a statement by the trial judge after the conclusion of the trial, and after the notice of appeal, to the general effect that it had become evident to him [468]*468from an early stage of the trial that he was practically dealing with a “guilty plea” because of admissions of the defendant which had been reduced to writing, and introduced in evidence.

If such statement indicated error on the part of trial judge during the trial, surely the petitioner waived it when he did not either include it as an assignment of errorj or even bother to print it in the record on appeal of which, incidentally, there were over 1800 printed pages, which would indicate that petitioner, himself a lawyer, and his learned counsel, were not without assiduity and diligence, to say nothing of the petition for writ of prohibition, the appeal, the petition for rehearing, and the petition for certiorari. But even if it were not waived, I can see no violation of due process, or of any other constitutional provision or of law, so as to entitle the petitioner to a writ of habeas corpus. The statement was made after the trial had concluded, and judgment and sentence had been pronounced, and after appeal had been taken. It was made on a hearing in connection with bail, and as I read the record, was merely a way of emphasizing the importance of the defendant’s admissions in connection with the refusal of the trial judge to grant bail on appeal.

Something should also be said about the other points made by the petitioner, which I suggested should be discussed in the briefs and on arguments.

One was the asserted error of the trial judge in refusing to grant petitioner’.s motion for a continuance based on the affidavit of petitioner filed at the commencement of the trial and the contention that such asserted error was not ruled on by the higher courts, because such affidavit was not contained in the transcript of record before the Circuit Court of Appeals, although it was in the supplemental record before the Supreme Court.

It must be pointed out that the petitioner never asked for a continuance after the filing of the affidavit, either at the conclusion of the government’s case, when all of its evidence had been disclosed to petitioner, or at any other time, on the ground that the name or location of any witness, or of any evidence, not then available to him, either in any foreign countries or elsewhere, might aid in his case.

Moreover, the petitioner did raise the point before the Circuit Court of Appeals. In his brief to the Circuit Court of Appeals appears the following (pp. 84-85): .

“Specifications of Error
“Appellants rely upon each and every ■ one of their 35 Assignments of Errors set forth at pages 175 to 377 of the printed Record, which are set out in the appendix herein, commencing at page 3 to and including page 100. In addition to the errors thus specified, appellants have also designated in their statement of points upon which they intend to rely (R. 1844-1846) the following:
“ ‘In addition to said assignment of errors, appellants herein urge the following additional points:
“‘(2) Error in denying the motion of the defendant Jacob Morris Danziger for a continuance by reason of the inaccessability of material records in countries foreign to the United States involved in the transactions specified in the indictment and to the impossibility of production of witnesses residing in foreign countries whose testimony would be material to the defendants.’ ”

It was petitioner’s record. He made it. He was its architect and builder. He designated the things which it should contain. And if he did not think enough of the point, by putting his affidavit in support of it in the record, he cannot now have still another bite at the apple of judicial review by taking advantage of his own mistake in a habeas corpus proceeding.

It was also urged that petitioner was indicted by a grand jury upon which there were no women, and which accordingly was selected with “systematic and intentional exclusion” of some “economic, social, religious, racial, political and geographical groups of the community.” Thiel v. Southern Pacific Co., 328 U.S. 217, 66 S.Ct. 984, 985, 90 L.Ed. 1181, 166 A.L.R. 1412, to wit, women Ballard v. United States, 329 U.S. 187, 67 S.Ct. 261.

[469]*469The petitioner’s complaint is that the “definitive rulings” on this point had not “crystalized” within the ten days allowed to challenge the indictment from the date of the arraignment, allowed by Sec. 556a, Tit.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
77 F. Supp. 466, 1948 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2698, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ex-parte-danziger-casd-1948.