United States ex rel. Collins v. Patterson
United States ex rel. Collins v. Patterson
Opinion of the Court
OPINION
Petitioner, now confined to the Eastern New York Correctional- Facility, pursuant to a judgment of conviction for the crimes of attempted murder, robbery, first degree, and possession of a weapon as a felony, entered upon a jury verdict, seeks his release upon a federal writ of habeas corpus. -He is serving concurrent indeterminate sentences with a maximum of twenty years. He attacks the judgment of conviction as void for violation of his constitutional right to a fair trial, denial of his right of confrontation of witnesses against him, and the admission of hearsay evidence upon his trial. Petitioner’s conviction was affirmed by the Appellate Division, Second Department, without opinion; his application for leave to appeal to the Court of Appeals was denied. It appears that available state remedies have been exhausted.
Ill Petitioner’s first claim for relief is that only hearsay evidence was presented against him at his trial and that such evidence amounts to “no evidence.” His contention, however, disregards the trial record. Petitioner admits that two police officers testified at his trial that he was “one of the robbers whom they encountered” during the hold-up and further that he “was placed at the scene of the alleged crimes because his car was seen [there] and used for a get away car.”
This is not a case which comes within the exception to the foregoing rule, where the conviction is so “devoid of evidentiary support” as to offend due process standards of a fair trial.
Petitioner’s second claim for relief is equally without merit. Here petitioner seeks to bootstrap his case onto Bruton v. United States,
“Although detective .Riggio did not go so far as to testify that Jacobs and Easley had specifically named the petitioner as one of their accomplices, the implication was unmistakable. For the jury could hardly be expected to believe that the state would go to the time and expenses of trying petitioner, if his co-defendants had not named him. Thus, the jury was allowed, in effect, to consider the unsworn testimony of Jacobs, and Easley, that petitioner was their accomplice.”5
The argument is ingenuous, but it is without substance, in the light of all the evidence in the case. As previously 'noted, there was direct testimony by eyewitnesses as to petitioner’s participation in the crime. Even assuming that the admission of the policeman’s testimony was error, the writ of habeas corpus “is not available to review errors in a state trial in the admission of evidence . . . absent a showing that they deprived defendant of a fundamentally fair trial.”
The admission of the police officer’s testimony which did not name defendant, even if error, did not deprive defendant of a fundamentally fair trial so as to require the issuance of a federal writ of habeas corpus and the vacatur of the judgment of conviction.
Petitioner’s application for the issuance of a writ is denied.
. Petition p. 2.
. Schaefer v. Leone, 443 F.2d 182, 185 (2d Cir. 1971); United States ex rel. Griffin v. Martin, 409 F.2d 1300, 1302 (2d Cir. 1969); United States ex rel. Santiago v. Follette, 298 F.Supp. 973, 974 (S.D.N.Y. 1969); United States ex rel. Birch v. Fay, 190 F.Supp. 105, 107 (SJD.N.Y. 1961).
. Gregory v. Chicago, 394 U.S. 111, 112, 89 S.Ct. 946, 22 L.Ed.2d 134 (1969).
. 391 U.S. 123, 135-36, 88 S.Ct. 1620, 20 L.Ed.2d 476 (1969).
. Petition p. 5.
. United States ex rel. Santiago v. Follette, 298 F.Supp. 973, 974 (S.D.N.Y. 1969); United States ex rel. Birch v. Fay, 190 F.Supp. 105, 107 (S.D.N.Y. 1961). See also Lisena v. California, 314 U.S. 219, 228-29, 62 S.Ct. 280, 86 L.Ed. 166 (1941).
Reference
- Full Case Name
- UNITED STATES of America ex rel. Robert J. COLLINS v. J. W. PATTERSON, Superintendent, Eastern New York Correctional Facility
- Status
- Published