Court Opinion

ID: 9420046
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:52:41.908143+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:21.998347
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Rutledge,
with whom Mr. Justice Black, Mr. Justice Douglas, and Mr. Justice Murphy concur,
dissenting.
A sixteen-year-old boy, indigent and alone, without relatives, friends, money or counsel to aid him and, according to the undenied allegations of the petition, with-
*150out knowledge of his constitutional rights,1 pleaded guilty in 1938, under an indictment specifying two highly technical and distinct charges,2 to the crime of burglary in the third degree.3 The property he was charged with intending to steal4 consisted of cigarettes of the value of seventy-five cents, two flashlights worth one dollar, and three dollars in currency. The sentence imposed on that plea has been served.5 He is now confined as a second offender under sentence for another offense of similar character imposed in 1941,6 when he was nineteen *151and also without relatives, friends or counsel so far as appears.7
One part of the opinion announced in this case, as I understand, takes the view that because Gayes did not attack the 1938 sentence in 1941, when he was sentenced as a second offender, he is forever foreclosed from doing so on the facts and issues presented on this record, although as a second offender he is now suffering the consequences of the 1938 sentence.8 For this conclusion reliance is placed upon no New York authorities; indeed, as I read the state cases, the Court’s decision is made in the face of their rulings that the procedure petitioner has followed is the appropriate one for raising the issues he presents.9
I am unwilling to subscribe to such a doctrine of forfeitures concerning constitutional rights, which in the extreme circumstances of this case seems to me shocking.
*152Under all of the New York decisions which have passed upon the question,10 the proper and apparently the necessary procedure, see People v. Keller, 37 N. Y. S. 2d 61, 62, for attacking a sentence as second offender, upon the ground that the former conviction was invalid, is first by motion in the court imposing the initial sentence to vacate it, after which if the motion is successful the sentence for the second offense may be attacked and vacated.11 In other words, the second offender, situated as is petitioner, must first overturn his first conviction in the court where it was obtained, before he can attack the second sentence founded in part upon that conviction.
This procedure in my opinion is a reasonable one within the power of a state to require, at least where both offenses have taken place within its jurisdiction. And I know of no reason why this Court should disregard or override it. Much less is it within our province to invert the state procedure, if that is the effect of the dubious suggestion that petitioner’s rights perhaps may be saved upon some other record “that discloses circumstances other than those *153before us,” presumably if at all by motion before the court which imposed the 1941 sentence to vacate it.12
No state decisions are cited or, it would seem in view of the contrary authorities cited above,13 can be cited to support such a view. Nor is it required by anything said or done in Canizio v. New York, 327 U. S. 82, if indeed such a matter could ever be within our function. The Canizio decision has no relevance to this case, either for prescribing the state procedure or for the constitutional issue. It held only that where a defendant had counsel at the time of his sentence and could then have moved to withdraw his prior plea of guilty, he was not prejudiced by the convicting court’s previous failure to inform him of his right to counsel.
*154■ That case had nothing to do with the state procedure open to one convicted as a second offender for challenging his sentence on the ground that the first conviction was invalid for federal constitutional reasons. And the facts, on the merits, were very different from those presented here. Whereas, among other things, in that case the petitioner did have counsel before his sentence was imposed, here not only was Gayes denied counsel altogether in the first trial, but so far as the record discloses he had none in the trial for the second offense. I do not think the Canizio decision can be held to cover such a wholly different situation as this. It did not rule that, if a convicted person has never had counsel, the fact that in a later proceeding he conceivably might have had such aid if he had applied for it cures the denial, more particularly when so far as appears he was treated no better during his trial for the second offense than during the first, and when moreover his present attack is made as a preliminary one required by state law for showing the second sentence invalid.
In my judgment it is for the state, not this Court, to say whether the attack upon the first sentence as increasing the second shall be made on the flank or frontally, or perchance in either way. Indeed, under the law of New York, which is controlling on us, the so-called “flank” attack is apparently the only one now open to petitioner. In the face of so clear a violation of constitutional right as this case presents, we should neither foreclose that avenue nor substitute for it another dubiously available one of our own manufacture.
The judgment should be reversed.

 No answer was filed to the petition and the trial court determined the issues on the pleadings without hearing or appearance of petitioner in court, in person or by counsel. The allegation of petitioner that when asked whether he “desired counsel,” he answered “no” in the belief that he would have to pay the lawyer’s fee, and was not informed to the contrary is, of course, to be taken as true in the absence of denial and of contrary evidence which might have been tendered on a hearing.

 The first count charged that petitioner “broke and entered the building and garage of Francis Marlow . . . with intent to commit therein the crime of larceny”; the second count charged petit larceny of the property described in the text above.

 The sentence was to confinement in the New York State Vocational Institute, which when imposed for an unspecified term under New York Penal Law § 2184-a carried a maximum of ten years, which is the maximum for burglary in the third degree as a first offense. N. Y. Penal Law § 407 (3).

 Under the second count, for petit larceny or theft, being also presumably the property with respect to which it was charged in the first count that petitioner broke and entered with intent to commit larceny.

 Petitioner was held under the first sentence, see note 3, until December 14, 1943, when the New York Board of Parole directed that service of the sentence as second offender begin. The date of termination of the latter sentence, see note 6, was correspondingly postponed.

 The sentence of ten to twenty years as second offender is mandatory. N. Y. Penal Law § 1941. Had petitioner been sentenced in *1511941 as a first rather than a second offender, the maximum sentence allowed would have been five to ten years, N. Y. Penal Law §§ 2189, 407, and he might have been sent to a reformatory rather than prison. N. Y. Penal Law § 2185.

 The “Record of Conviction” in the trial for the second offense, contained in the record here, discloses that petitioner, having been charged and arraigned, first pleaded not guilty, then withdrew that plea and entered one of guilty. It is then recited that petitioner appeared for judgment and, “having been asked by the clerk whether he had any legal cause to show why judgment should not be pronounced against him, and no legal cause having been shown” or appearing to the court, judgment and sentence were thereupon pronounced. There is no recital that petitioner was represented by counsel, was informed of his rights in any manner, or was admonished of the consequences of his plea.

 See notes 3, 5, 6 supra. See also note 12 infra and text.

 See note 11 infra.

 In the absence of determination by a state’s highest tribunal the rule announced and applied by other state courts is to be taken by us as determining questions of state law. Cf. West v. A. T. & T. Co., 311 U. S. 223.

 If the 1938 conviction is held void, under state law petitioner then may move to vacate the 1941 sentence in the court which imposed it, and for resentencing according to state law. See People ex rel. Sloane v. Lawes, 255 N. Y. 112; People ex rel. Carollo v. Brophy, 294 N. Y. 540; People v. Keller, 37 N. Y. S. 2d 61. And the proper forum for attacking the 1938 conviction, as a preliminary to attack on that of 1941, is the one where the former was obtained, by the motion to vacate which petitioner has employed. People v. Bernoff, 61 N. Y. S. 2d 46; People v. Foster, 182 Misc. 73; People v. Paterno, 187 Misc. 56, with which compare People v. Paterno, 182 Misc. 491; cf. People v. Gersewitz, 294 N. Y. 163, 167; People v. Keller, supra, at 63.

 The opinion announced in conjunction with the Court’s judgment seems to suggest that the decisions establishing the state procedure followed in this case are not controlling for our disposition, on what basis I am unable to understand, see note 10 supra, unless upon the untenable one that state rulings upon criminal procedures and the proper forum for utilizing them are not binding for federal determinations to the same extent as are such rulings in civil matters.
Only upon some such basis is the dubious suggestion justified that petitioner should have raised the question of the validity of his first sentence at the time of his sentencing as a second offender and in that forum. Not only is this contrary to the established state procedure, see note 11, but it is expressly qualified by the further suggestion that petitioner’s rights may possibly be saved “upon a record that discloses circumstances other than those before us,” and it seems to be contradicted by the further statement that “the questions that may be raised regarding the circumstances attending the imposition of Gayes’ commitment ... in 1938 are not now open.” It is pertinent to inquired whether Gayes is to have another chance, through a local procedure prescribed by this Court alone, or whether the constitutional questions now presented are foreclosed by his failure to follow a procedure not prescribed or, so far as appears, permitted by the state.

 See note 11.