Peters v. Dillon

227 F. Supp. 487, 1964 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7207
CourtDistrict Court, D. Colorado
DecidedJanuary 3, 1964
DocketCiv. A. No. 8174
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 227 F. Supp. 487 (Peters v. Dillon) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Colorado primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Peters v. Dillon, 227 F. Supp. 487, 1964 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7207 (D. Colo. 1964).

Opinion

ARRAJ, Chief Judge.

This matter is before the Court on petition for writ of habeas corpus. A Show Cause Order was issued on September 18, 1963, and respondent’s answer and petitioner’s traverse have since been filed. A hearing was had on December 18,1963, at which counsel for both sides presented an able and complete argument on the questions raised.

Petitioner was convicted of the charge of larceny by bailee in the District Court in and for the City and County of Denver on May 16, 1961. The conviction was affirmed on November 5, 1962, by the Colorado Supreme Court, 376 P.2d 170 (Colo.1962). Petitioner contends here that evidence indispensable to that conviction was obtained by an illegal search and seizure and that by virtue of Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 6 L.Ed.2d 1081 (1961), its use at trial constituted a violation of his rights to due process as guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Respondent takes no position concerning the legality of the [489]*489search and seizure, but contends that petitioner has not exhausted his state remedies and is therefore not properly before this Court, and that even if this Court does have jurisdiction, Mapp v. Ohio cannot be applied retroactively in this case, relying on Gaitan v. United States, 317 F.2d 494 (10th Cir.1963).

In view of the disposition we have presently chosen to make of this matter, it is not necessary to set forth in detail the facts surrounding the alleged search and seizure. The objections of respondent, however, will be dealt with at some length.

I. Exhaustion of State Remedies.

28 U.S.C. § 2254 requires that all available state remedies be exhausted before habeas corpus can issue from this Court. Inasmuch as this requirement is jurisdictional in character, a determination must be made that it has been fulfilled.

Though respondent has not argued these questions in his answer, it seems proper to observe here that petitioner’s failure to apply for certiorari to the United States Supreme Court or to apply for a writ of habeas corpus in the Colorado courts does not bar his petition here. As to the former, see Fay v. Noia, 372 U.S. 391, 435-438, 83 S.Ct. 822, 847-848, 9 L.Ed.2d 837 (1963). As to the latter, it seems clear that even a cursory review of Colorado law on habeas corpus indicates that it would not afford a remedy for this petitioner. As noted by Professor Austin Scott in a survey of post-conviction remedies in Colorado,

“The Colorado law, then, seems clear: habeas corpus will never lie to afford relief from a conviction obtained at a trial at which any of the defendant’s federal or state constitutional procedural rights have been violated, so long as the trial court in question had jurisdiction over the crime and over the defendant and imposed a sentence within statutory limits. No matter how unfair the trial, no matter what constitutional rights were violated, habeas corpus cannot be used to remedy the wrong.” Scott, Post-Conviction Remedies in Colorado Criminal Cases, 31 Rocky Mt.L.Rev. 249, 256-57 (1959).

Respondent’s contention that petitioner may still avail himself of a motion under Colo.R.Crim.P. 35(b) raises a more difficult question, since it is clear that the Rule was intended to fill the void created by the narrowness of the Colorado concept of habeas corpus above described by creating an entirely new post-conviction remedy. See Symposium, The Colorado Rules of Criminal Procedure, 34 Rocky Mt.L.Rev. 66-78 (1961). However, a determination whether petitioner would come within the scope of that Rule is handicapped by the fact that the Rule is so new that the Colorado Supreme Court has not yet had an opportunity to fully construe it.1

[490]*490A recital of the procedural steps taken by petitioner in the Colorado courts to raise the question which is crucial to his petition here and the times such steps were taken should be helpful in reaching such a determination. The alleged search and seizure and the trial of petitioner both took place before the decision of Mapp v. Ohio was rendered; the jury returned its verdict on May 16, 1961, and Mapp was not decided until June 19, 1961. Sentence, however, had not been imposed on petitioner as of the time Mapp was decided, a motion for a new trial being pending at that time. An amended motion for a new trial was filed on August 2, 1961, in which petitioner requested a new trial or a special hearing to determine whether the evidence here complained of had been illegally seized. On September 8, 1961, after the amended motion for new trial had been denied but before judgment had been entered, petitioner filed a motion requesting the trial court to reopen the case for the taking of testimony relating to the competency and admissibility of the evidence which had been obtained by the search and seizure in question.

Petitioner made no motion to suppress this evidence before or during trial, nor was any evidence adduced at trial on the specific issue of the alleged illegal search and seizure “because,” as petitioner alleges, “of the then status of Colorado local law permitting the admissibility of illegally seized evidence * * The trial court, therefore, heard no evidence on the search and seizure as such, and in denying petitioner’s amended motion for a new trial it rejected an opportunity to hold such a hearing. It rejected a second such opportunity when it denied the motion made on September 8, just before petitioner was sentenced, that the case be reopened for the taking of testimony on this point. The Colorado Supreme Court, on the Writ of Error seasonably brought by petitioner, held as follows:

“We conclude that the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States went no farther than to exclude in the state courts the use of evidence obtained by way of an unreasonable search and seizure as forbidden by the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. It does not exclude all evidence which might be obtained as an incident to a lawful arrest, nor does it preclude the admission of all evidence which may have been obtained without the sanction of a search warrant. The evidence before the court clearly indicated a permissive search and there is nothing whatever in the record to indicate ‘an unreasonable search and seizure’ within the coverage of Mapp v. Ohio, supra.” Peters v. People, 376 P.2d 170, 175 (Colo. 1963).

On petition for rehearing to the Colorado Supreme Court, petitioner objected to the above language noting that:

“Defendant merely seeks an opportunity for a hearing on the issues presented by his ‘motion to Suppress.’ Defendant admits that the record does not specifically reflect an unreasonable seizure; the Defendant was never given the opportunity to present such evidence. (See Defendant’s Opening Brief, p. 79 and Reply Brief, pp. 15-17.) The Trial Court ruled on the substantive merits of the Defendant’s motion without allowing evidence to be offered in support of the motion (f. 1431).

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Bluebook (online)
227 F. Supp. 487, 1964 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7207, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/peters-v-dillon-cod-1964.