Court Opinion

ID: 9538771
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 07:41:28.631689+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:58:09.291009
License: Public Domain

*351TOOZE, J.,
specially concurring.
I concur in the result reached in the majority opinion and think that the opinion is a splendid and valuable contribution to the law respecting the use of the writ of habeas corpus. I agree that in the instant case the proceeding by habeas corpus was proper and adequate to protect the constitutional rights of appellant.
However, as I interpret the opinion, the majority would deny the inherent power of a trial court to consider a motion in the nature of coram nobis for the correction of an erroneous judgment of conviction. With this I cannot agree. A motion in the nature of coram nobis is, to all intents and purposes, a delayed motion for a new trial. It is filed in the court where the conviction occurred, and after the time for filing a motion for a new trial and for appeal has expired under the criminal code. It is designed to protect the citizen in his rights, constitutional or otherwise, and to prevent oppression or persecution. It does not supersede the remedy by habeas corpus, nor does it conflict with it. In some respects it might be considered a concurrent remedy, and in others a superior one. It is a proceeding in the original court and criminal case and is addressed directly to the court that presumably has a better opportunity of securing firsthand knowledge of what occurred prior to and upon conviction than any other court; whereas, habeas corpus, if brought by a prisoner in the state penitentiary, must be filed in the circuit court for Marion county before a judge who may be a stranger to the record. In some cases it may be that habeas corpus would be the more effective remedy, but that is beside the point.
As authority for the proposition that a proceeding in the nature of coram nobis is not recognized in this *352state, the majority invites attention to State v. Rathie et al., 101 Or 368, 369, 200 P 790. I do not so interpret that opinion, but if it does so hold, I would expressly overrule it. In my opinion, the court there was referring to the writ of error coram nobis as a writ of review, and not to a motion in the nature of coram nobis such as we are discussing. It appears to me that that is what the court had in mind, because, after mentioning a writ of error coram nobis, it held that it had been abolished in this state by § 26-1301, OCLA, which provides:
“Writs of errors and of certiorari in criminal actions are abolished, and hereafter the only mode of reviewing a judgment or order in a criminal action is that prescribed by this chapter.”
If § 26-1301, OCLA, is to be held as denying the inherent power of the trial court to correct its own erroneous judgment of conviction, I would hold the statute unconstitutional to that extent.
It is my opinion that the true rule is to be found stated in People v. Gersewitz, 294 NY 163, 167, 61 NE2d 427. The New York court said:
“The court has nonetheless recognized, at the same time, that courts have always asserted and exercised authority which, though perhaps not expressly established by statute, is ‘based upon the inherent right and duty of the courts to protect the citizen in his constitutional prerogatives and to prevent oppression or persecution.’ ‘It is a power,’ the court said, ‘which the legislature can neither curtail nor abolish, and, to the extent that legislative enactments are designed to effect either of these ends, they are unconstitutional.’ (People v. Glen, 173 N. Y. 395, 400.) We have sanctioned the exercise of such a power by a court to correct its own record or to set aside an order or judgment *353which was induced by fraud or procured in violation of a constitutional right of a party. Perhaps that power can have no broader scope. No case has been presented to the court in which the court was called upon to define its exact limits, but in March, 19(43, thi^ court authoritatively decided (three judges dissenting) that a court of criminal jurisdiction has ‘inherent’ power to set aside a judgment procured by fraud and misrepresentation and to permit a defendant to withdraw a plea of guilty induced by violation of his constitutional rights (Matter of Lyons v. Goldstein, 290 N. Y. 19); and in Matter of Morhous v. N. Y. Supreme Court (293 N. Y. 131), we held that a motion to vacate a judgment procured by violation of the defendant’s constitutional rights is the corrective judicial process which is authorized by the law of the State to remedy the alleged wrong to the defendant and that it adequately meets the requirement of ‘due process’. * * *
* * A motion which invokes the ‘inherent’ power of the court to remedy an alleged violation of a defendant’s constitutional rights is analogous, in some respects, to proceedings initiated by the common law writ of comm nobis and to proceedings initiated by a petition for a writ of habeas corpus; but habeas corpus proceedings are special proceedings, classified by the Legislature as civil proceedings in the Civil Practice Act and an appeal from a final order in such a proceeding may be taken as provided in that act.” (First italics ours.)
EOSSMAN, J., concurs in this opinion.