Johnson v. Massachusetts

390 U.S. 511, 88 S. Ct. 1155, 20 L. Ed. 2d 69, 1968 U.S. LEXIS 2062

• Court: Supreme Court of the United States
• Decided: April 1, 1968
• Docket: 702
• Status: Published

Opinions

Per Curiam.

In 1964 petitioner was tried and convicted in a Massa--chusetts Superior Court for murder, armed robbery, and other offenses. The conviction was affirmed by the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. Commonwealth v. Johnson, 352 Mass. 311, 225 N. E. 2d 360. We granted certiorari because there appeared to be substantial questions concerning the voluntariness of a confession of petitioner which was admitted in evidence at his trial. After oral argument and study of the record, we have reached the conclusion that the record relevant to the constitutional claims now asserted is insufficient to permit decision of those claims.

* The writ is therefore dismissed as improvidently granted. Cf. Smith v. Mississippi, 373 U. S. 238; Massachusetts v. Painten, 389 U. S. 560.

It is so ordered.

Petitioner’s claim on voir dire was that his confession was beaten out of him by police. The trial judge found as a fact that it was not. At the trial itself petitioner did not attack the voluntariness of the confession on any other ground, or raise the other constitutional challenges argued in this Court. The defense at the trial was primarily directed at persuading the jury not to impose the death penalty. The petitioner made an unsworn statement to the jury at the close of summations in which he said, “all the evidence which the prosecutor presented to you was true. There was no sense in my taking the stand because all the evidence points to me. ... All that I ask is just clemency .... I put my life into your hands. Please recommend clemency, life imprisonment.”