Court Opinion

ID: 9442744
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 18:58:15.128149+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:29:12.982771
License: Public Domain

On Petition for Rehearing,
DENMAN, Chief Judge.
The petition of the United States for rehearing, disagreeing with the dissenting opinion, concedes the validity of the motion’s pleading that Hayman has been denied the effective assistance of counsel, for it urges “that the judgment be reversed solely on the ground that a factual issue * * * [the effective assistance of counsel] is raised which requires appellant’s presence at the hearing below.”
One ground for a rehearing is the difference in views of the opinions of Judge Denman and Judge Stephens. This has been resolved, for, upon further considera*472tion, Judge Denman concurs in a reversal on the ground that Section 2255 is unconstitutional because not a substitute for the writ of habeas corpus and yet denies that writ if the motion is denied.-
No legislation states that one wrongfully imprisoned is confined to a single application for a writ of habeas corpus. The Supreme Court in deciding that the wrongfully imprisoned person may make more than one application for the writ on the same issues could not have placed its decision on statutory grounds. It must have done so on the character of the constitutional writ.
Section 2255 grants no such right. Since it is a coram nobis proceeding, a prior decision on a prior motion is res judicata of a subsequent motion on the same issues. Hence, as the statute states, the court “shall not be required” by the imprisoned man to entertain a second such motion. The “shall” is mandatory. No such discretion is granted the sentencing court, as is given the judge hearing the application for the writ under 28 U.S.C.A. § 2244.
In the alternative we are also agreed that in this case, where the issue to be tried is 5>n the facts not known to the court in which the conviction was had and as well and more expeditiously could be tried in a habeas corpus proceeding in the jurisdiction of confinement, the dismissal is required under the reasoning of Chief Judge Denman’s opinion.
The government’s petition’s sole remaining contention is that the Section 2255 proceeding is not “inadequate and ineffective to test the legality of the detention,” and is a substitute for the writ of habeas corpus because the moving party may make himself a witness in his motion proceeding by use of the writ of habeas corpus ad testificandum. Having made himself a witness he is then in court and may prosecute his case, introduce other witnesses and cross-examine those of the government. In other words the writ ad testificandum is a substitute for the writ ad subjiciendum.
Assuming the government’s contention that this writ is an exception to all the others and is not confined to the territorial jurisdiction of the issuing court, this does not make the Section 2255 proceeding the equivalent of one in habeas corpus. Thq writ ad testificandum would not be available to a moving party who does not intend to be or cannot be a witness at the hearing of the motion, but -has other witnesses who will prove, say, that he was convicted on perjured testimony procured by the prosecution.1 His application for the writ ad-testificandum, in which he swears he desires to testify when he has no such intention, would be based on perjury.
If the government’s contention is cor^ rect that use of the writ ad testificandum makes the Section 2255 proceeding the same as that in -habeas corpus, then, in Ahrens v. Clark, 335 U.S. 188, 191, 68 S.Ct. 1443, 92 L.Ed. 1898, the absurdity could be argued that upon the applicants’ filing for the writ of habeas corpus in the District of Columbia, they could be brought there by the writ ad testificandum and thus create jurisdiction in the District of Columbia court to prosecute their cause. Having arrived in court as witnesses they then would acquire the right to cross-examine opposing witnesses. We cannot believe that the Supreme Court was of the opinion that the writ ad testificandum so could be used.
In the instant case Hayman, if producing himself by the writ ad testificandum, would not be in custody of the court as under the writ ad subjiciendum. He would be in the custody of- the marshal. United States ex rel. Quinn v. Hunter, 7 Cir., 162 F.2d 644, and cases there cited. He would have no-power to introduce witnesses or cross-examine his opponents, an essential of the-“great writ.”
Fúrthermore, there is no merit in the-contention of the petition that the writ ad testificandum is excluded from 28 U.S.C.A. § 2241, which confines the district court’s, power to issue writs of habeas corpus to that court’s territorial jurisdiction. That, section specifically provides for the writ ad testificandum in its subsection (c) (5). In, this respect the section reads:
*473“(a) Writs of habeas corpus, may be granted by * * * the district courts * * * within their respective jurisdictions. * * *
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“(c) The writ of habeas corpus shall not extend to a prisoner unless—
“(1) He is in custody under or by color of the authority of the United States or is committed for trial before some court thereof; or
“(2) He is in custody for an act done or omitted in pursuance of an Act of Congress, or an order, process, judgment or decree of a court or judge of the United States; or
“(3) He is in custody in violation of the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States; or
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“(5) It is necessary to bring him into court to testify or for trial.” (Emphasis supplied.)
The words “to testify” cover the writ ad testificandum, which is as much restricted as to jurisdiction as the writ ad subjicien-dum considered by the Supreme Court in Ahrens v. Clark, 335 U.S. 188, 190, 68 S.Ct. 1443, 92 L.Ed. 1898. In that decision the writ is held to be confined to the district court’s territorial jurisdiction, the Court 335 U.S. at page 191, 68 S.Ct. at page 1444, giving as one of its reasons for holding that Congress did not contemplate bringing the prisoner “perhaps thousands of miles from the District Court that issued the writ: [that the] opportunities for escape afforded by travel, the cost of transportation, the administrative burden of such an undertaking negate such a purpose.”
We can conceive of no principle of interpretation which gives the district court extraterritorial jurisdiction for the one writ as distinguished from the other. The expense and difficulty in bringing Hayman the thousand miles from McNeil Island to Los Angeles are the same whether he is brought to testify or to litigate his motion.
Nor is there merit in the contention that pauper Hayman could have himself brought himself by subpoena at government expense from McNeil Island to Los Angeles under Criminal Rule 17(b), 18 U.S.C.A. Such a contention assumes the Section 2255 procedure to be a part of the criminal prosecution in which he was convicted. We do not agree.
The habeas corpus proceeding is civil in nature and Section 2255 as a substitute therefor is phrased to cover the same area of relief. Its order is one from which the appeal time is the longer period of a habeas corpus case than the 10 days for a criminal judgment, that statute providing that “An appeal may be taken to the court of appeals from the order entered <on the motion as from a final judgment on application for a writ of habeas corpus.” It is a coram no-bis proceeding independent from the case in which the conviction was had. Like the habeas corpus proceeding, it is civil in its nature. In this we are in agreement with the decision of the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia, Bruno v. United States, 86 U.S.App.D.C. 118, 180 F.2d 393, 395. A civil subpoena would be valueless to the pauper Hayman to bring either himself or his witnesses to the district court in Los Angeles.
The writ of certiorari is required because of the opposing decisions cited in Chief Judge Denman’s opinion. The Eighth Circuit, in Weber v. Steele, Warden, 185 F.2d 799, 800, creates a further ground for certiorari. It carries to a logical absurdity the proposition that litigation under Section 2255 is a condition precedent to the right to the writ of habeas corpus. That decision states: “The purpose of Section 2255 was to require a federal prisoner to exhaust his remedies in the courts of the District and Circuit in which he was convicted and sentenced, and to apply to the Supreme Court, on certiorari from a denial of such remedies, before seeking release on habeas corpus. This means that he must exhaust all the ordinary remedies available to him before applying for an extraordinary remedy.”
That is to say, the right to the writ is “suspended” in violation of the Constitution in any case until from eighteen months to two years after the motion under Section 2255 is filed, a period spent in' three successive courts. By such delay, the prisoner who, as here, may not even know a hearing *474was to be had on his motion, well may have served the remaining period of an illegal sentence. This, although the common law, our Habeas Corpus Act of 1867, and now 28 U.S.C.A. § 2243 provide a 3 to 20-day time limit on the warden’s return.
Since our opinions were filed, the motions under the statute have continued to mount. The purpose of its enactment is said to be to relieve the district judges of the multiplicity of applications for the writ. It seems that Chief Judge Parker is disappointed in his prognosis in 8 F.R.D. 178, that “The provisions of the Revised Code preserved everything of importance in that procedure while eliminating the abuses to which it has given birth.” (Emphasis supplied.)
The petition for rehearing is denied.

. As in Mooney v. Holohan, 294 U.S. 103, 55 S.Ct. 340, 79 L.Ed. 791.