Court Opinion

ID: 9466388
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 01:14:11.48601+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:42.146468
License: Public Domain

COLEMAN, Chief Judge,
concurring.
I agree that in the present state of habe-as corpus law the judgment of the District Court must be vacated and remanded. Nevertheless, I must make a few comments on this case.
On January 20, 1970, ten years ago, Paprskar and a companion killed three people because Paprskar thought he had been sold “bad heroin”. One of those killed was a four year old child. The father of the child had just been killed when the malefactors unexpectedly discovered the presence of the child, in an automobile parked at the scene. They discussed the matter and agreed that the child “had to be killed”, which was done forthwith. A more deliberate, cold-blooded murder of an inoffensive child who hardly could have comprehended the danger he was in, or why he was in it, would be hard to imagine.
For the murder of the child, Paprskar was convicted and assessed the death penalty. This, however, was reversed because certain items seized as the result of a warrantless search had not been suppressed, Paprskar v. State, 484 S.W.2d 731 (Tex.Cr.App., 1972). Paprskar was never again tried for the murder of the child. Instead, represented by retained counsel, he was allowed to plead guilty to the indictments which charged the murder of the other two individuals and received concurrent sentences of twenty years. As a matter of ultimate fact, Paprskar was sentenced to twenty years for three murders.
He has been in prison for ten years. After unsuccessfully filing several other petitions for habeas corpus he again seeks to invoke the Constitution, on grounds never before suggested, to void his pleas of guilty and to avoid an unusually mild sentence.
Of course, the Constitution is supreme and must be obeyed. I do not quarrel with that. I do find it to be painfully incongruous that he who defies all civilized notions of due process in the summary theft of a human life is allowed, years after the event and years after his conviction has become final, to raise all kinds of constitutional claims which, if they existed, could have been raised at trial or, at least, soon thereafter.
The fault, of course, is not with the Great Writ. It lies in the manner in which it is allowed belatedly to be invoked. While Congress has commendably made some effort to limit jurisdiction for the entertainment of these eleventh hour attacks on state court convictions it is readily apparent to one regularly dealing with the subject that those efforts have not met with much success.
Very few belated applications for habeas corpus claim that the petitioner is innocent. The fundamental purpose of the Writ has been distorted. The confidence of the general public in the ability of state courts to bring criminals to justice has been eroded. The deterrent effect of law prohibiting criminal conduct has been seriously damaged. The decisions say that the Writ may not be used as a second appeal, but from experience the outlaws know better. Instead of being a bulwark of freedom for the citizen it has been allowed to become a last, and too often a sure, refuge for those who have respected neither the law nor the Constitution.
I would not limit the Writ, if I could, but I most assuredly would limit its application in situations such as we encounter in this case.
As I do here, I must follow the law as it exists. I do not understand, however, that I am not allowed to mention serious defects in the law.
In this case it is a fact that Paprskar did plead guilty in two cases. On remand, I would like to direct the attention of the District Court (if that is necessary) to the following language in Tollett v. Henderson, 411 U.S. 258, 267, 93 S.Ct. 1602, 1608, 36 L.Ed.2d 235 (1973):
*1009“[A] guilty plea represents a break in the chain of events which has preceded it in the criminal process. When a criminal defendant has solemnly admitted in open court that he is in fact guilty of the offense with which he is charged, he may not thereafter raise independent claims relating to the deprivation of constitutional rights that occurred prior to the entry of the guilty plea. He may only attack the voluntary and intelligent character of the guilty plea by showing that the advice he received from counsel was not within the standards set forth in [the trilogy].”