Stanley Mockford v. United States

251 F.2d 857, 1958 U.S. App. LEXIS 3620
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
DecidedFebruary 6, 1958
Docket16867_1
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 251 F.2d 857 (Stanley Mockford v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Stanley Mockford v. United States, 251 F.2d 857, 1958 U.S. App. LEXIS 3620 (5th Cir. 1958).

Opinion

PER CURIAM.

This is an appeal from an order, entered after a hearing, denying a motion filed under Title 28 U.S.C. § 2255, to vacate a judgment and sentence. The sole question it presents is whether the district judge erred, in holding, at the conclusion of the hearing: “The court is of the opinion that the defendant has not been deprived of any constitutional right in the proceedings whereby he entered his pleas of guilty and was adjudged guilty”, and, thereupon, denying the motion.

As the appellant’s counsel sees it, the question for the purpose of its argument divides itself into two. The first which he poses, whether a guilty plea, brought about by extreme mental and physical coercion and entered without aid of counsel, is involuntary, is not really a question. It is a statement which by assuming a fact, which if true would establish the involuntariness of the plea, that it was brought about by extreme mental and physical coercion, merely begs the question. The second question, however, in effect whether the record supports the district judge’s conclusion that the defendant competently and intelligently waived his constitutional right to counsel, is not subject to criticism and deserves a direct answer.

In support of its begging question, the brief endeavors to make out of the undisputed facts of his having been shot while making an assault with a deadly weapon, a pistol, on a deputy marshal in a second attempt to escape from custody and his subsequent preventive and disciplinary confinement, a ground for setting aside an otherwise voluntary plea, and in doing so seeks to present the appellant, a person with a prior criminal record and a record for persistent attempts to escape, as a person greatly more sinned against than *858 sinning and, therefore, entitled to the relief he seeks.

But this will not do. For a reading of the record, both that taken upon this hearing and that taken at the time of the original hearing, shows that no complaint of the treatment, of which he now complains, was made by the prisoner either to the judge or to anyone for presentation to the judge at or before the entry of his plea, and that what is made so much of now is merely an afterthought.

In this state of the record, assuming that the treatment actually accorded him as a prisoner in the jail was as he claims it was and that it was illegal or improper, there is no basis for the claim that it in anywise caused or brought about his plea or entered into its making. Admittedly guilty of the offenses charged against him, he may not, we think, five years after the imposition of the sentence, bring forward as a ground against the voluntariness of his plea: that he was injured while making his second attempt to éseape; and that as a result of the attempt he was subjected to his confinement to more rigorous safety measures. In short, we are of the opinion that, whatever might be said with regard to whether the measures taken against appellant were, as matters of jail administration, proper or improper, or as to whether he would have been entitled to relief if he had complained of, and sought relief from, them, he cannot put them forward now upon this record as a ground for holding that his plea was not voluntary.

We come then to a consideration of the basic question whether the record as a whole furnishes any warrant for overturning the action of the district judge in holding that the waiver of counsel and the pleas of guilty were intelligently and voluntarily made, to say of it that we think it must be held that it does not. This careful record, made at the time of the sentencing, shows the facts following : that a few days after the attempted escape and assault, defendant notified the commissioner that he wished to plead guilty; that he was taken before the commissioner and so pleaded; that he was then brought before the judge, where the colloquy set out in the margin took place. 1

Thereafter, one by one the charges against him were taken -up. The first one, in No. 8388, was .the auto theft charge. Asked:

“How do you plead ?”
he answered:
“Guilty”.
The court then asked-:
“You plead guilty to that freely and voluntarily ?”
The defendant:
“Yes, sir.”
The court:
“You are guilty?”
The defendant:
“Yes, sir.”
*859 The court:
“The court adjudges him guilty on his plea of guilty.”

The charges ’ of attempting to escape and assault on the federal marshal then came up, ánd after his right to an indictment was fully explained to him, the defendant'was asked whether he wished to waive indictment arid proceed by information. He replied:

“I waive the indictment”.

The district attorney then carefully explaining the charges to him, the defendant stated:

“I wish to plead guilty to the first and third counts, assault on the officer and attempted escape.”

Whereupon the court querying:

“You plead guilty voluntarily and freely to each of the charges there. One is an, assault on a federal officer and the other is an attempt to escape ?”
the defendant answered:
“As I understand it to have a weapon of any kind and to use it in an attempt to escape would constitute an assault. Therefore, I plead guilty to it.”
The court: “All right, the court adjudges him guilty, Mr. Clerk.”
Mr.' Boggs: “The second count is dismissed. - This young man informed me yesterday that he desired if possible to have sentence pronounced this morning, and I have talked to the probation officer. I have the F.B.I. agent here and I want yqu to understand if you wish the court would refer this for a presentence investigation. Now, have I stated your wishes in that respect ?”
The defendant: “That is right.” Thereupon, the probation officer in open court stating:
“All of his previous records have been committed in Canada.” the court asked:
“He has a criminal record?”
and the probation officer answered: “In Canada, yes sir.”

There followed a colloquy about the offenses in this case. Included in it was a rather long statement by the defendant, in the course of which, to the question why he carried the gun and why he wanted to pull the gun, he stated that he wanted to frighten the marshal so he could run away. There was also a long colloquy about how the gun was gotten into' the j!ail and how defendant got hold of it.

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Related

Jerry Spencer Diamond v. United States
422 F.2d 1313 (Ninth Circuit, 1970)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
251 F.2d 857, 1958 U.S. App. LEXIS 3620, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/stanley-mockford-v-united-states-ca5-1958.