Court Opinion

ID: 9452015
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 17:28:53.210349+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:33:01.441241
License: Public Domain

CLARIE, District Judge
(dissenting):
I respectfully dissent.
This case is unique in that the Legislature of the State of New York has, since the defendant’s conviction in 1943, amended1 the Juvenile Delinquency Act in 1948 and 1949 so that a child under the age of 15 has no criminal responsibility, as such, irrespective of the act involved. Thus, under existing laws a 13-year-old could never again be presented for murder in the first degree for a homicide, for which he had been the causative agent. However, this law is not applicable to this defendant, because the New York Court of Appeals has ruled that this legislation “cannot be applied in favor of an offender tried and sentenced to imprisonment before its enactment.” People v. Oliver, 1 N.Y.2d 152, 163, 151 N.Y.S.2d 367, 375, 134 N.E.2d 197, 203 (1956).
The matter comes before this Court on appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York denying the defendant’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus without a hearing. The legal issues raised by the defendant and on which the Court based its decision were two, namely:
(1) A state procedure which permits an epileptic 13-year old to plead guilty to murder, especially when, according to the trial judge’s own statement, the trial judge did not know whether the defendant was guilty or innocent, constituted a violation of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment;
(2) The suppression by the prosecutor of a medical report, which showed the petitioner to be an epileptic constituted a violation of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The majority of this Court has selected as a basis for its decision a legal issue other than that raised by the petitioner and on which the District Court below made no factual findings. It appears to have selected as a basis for its conclusions, facts educed in the coram nobis hearing in the County Court of Dutchess County at Poughkeepsie, New York, as disclosed in that Court’s opinion of February 8, 1963; 38 Misc.2d 445, 237 N.Y.S.2d 389 (1963). This latter hear*968ing had been ordered by the New York Court of Appeals on November 30, 1961, 10 N.Y.2d 361, 223 N.Y.S.2d 457, 179 N.E.2d 475 (1961), for the specific purpose of determining whether the trial court, in accepting a plea of guilty of murder in the second degree from so young a defendant, had exercised “an extreme measure of caution and at least certainty of guilt and of the complete absence of any plausible defense.”
The State Court County Judge after hearing all the evidence said:
“The Court concludes that it has complied with the directions of the Court of Appeals and has proceeded with extreme caution in determining whether this defendant had a defense and whether sufficient consideration was given to it. * * *
“It is the conclusion of the court therefore, that Edwin Codarre was legally sane in 1943 when he committed the offense based on the only accepted definition of legal sanity, i.e. ‘He knew the nature and quality of the act and he knew the act was wrong.’ (See 1120 Penal Law).
“ * * * Petitioner was represented by competent counsel * * *.
“ * * * (I)tis the conclusion of this Court after reviewing all the facts that the acceptance of a plea of guilty to murder in the second degree in this case did not violate the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States.” 237 N.Y.S.2d at 394-395.
The foregoing decision was unanimously affirmed by the five members of the Appellate Division, of the Supreme Court of New York, Second Department on December 16, 1963, 20 A.D.2d 98, 245 N.Y.S.2d 81 (2d Dept. 1963). Their decision was affirmed by a 5-2 majority of the New York Court of Appeals oh July 10, 1964, 14 N.Y.2d 370, 251 N.Y.S.2d 676, 200 N.E.2d 570 (1964); and certiorari was denied by the United States Supreme Court without dissent on October 17, 1964. 379 U.S. 883, 85 S.Ct. 153, 13 L.Ed.2d 89 (1964).
The same two issues passed upon by all of the foregoing tribunals, were considered by Judge Sugarman of the District Court and he decided, without a hearing, that the petitioner was not denied due process on the occasions of his trial for first degree murder and his ultimate plea of guilty to the lesser offense of second degree murder.
If, after 23 years, a majority of this Court is now disposed to consider that the circumstances surrounding the petitioner’s plea of guilty made on the advice of two competent counsel were illegal, then orderly judicial procedure requires that the case be remanded to the District Court for a hearing and findings. Independent medical experts should be called by the Court itself, if necessary, to supplement the original record with advanced, current medical knowledge in this specialized field. This would aid in establishing a modern scientific factual basis for an objective evaluation of the conflicting medical opinions both at the trial2 and the coram nobis hearings. For this Court to select excerpts from the minority medical opinion in the record and the quotations out of context of judicial discussions made in chambers prior to the acceptance of the lesser plea, as against the overall record of the case, does startling violence to orderly judicial procedure.
For this reason, I would remand the case to the District Court for a hearing on the merits.

. N.Y.Laws 1948, Ch. 553-557.

. Of the four physicians who examined Co-darre, three expressed the opinion that his vivid recollection of every detail of the crime was totally inconsistent with his having suffered an epileptic seizure; one asserted that such recollection was not inconsistent with an epileptic attack and that he was experiencing a psychomotor epileptic attack at the time of the killing.