Court Opinion

ID: 9454473
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 18:47:32.276961+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:34:07.944194
License: Public Domain

LUMBARD, Chief Judge
(concurring) :
I reluctantly concur in the result, but only because I believe that the district court will deny the writ if the Attorney General moves for a new hearing based on the recently uncovered 1932 letter written by the Illinois Assistant State’s Attorney.
On the evidence before the district court it is difficult for me to understand how it could have granted the writ. Petitioner’s obviously self-interested testimony concerning the events occurring in 1932, at odds with the written contemporaneous statements by the victim and 'the arresting officer, was inherently incredible. The district court’s acceptance of petitioner’s version is all the more surprising since it had previously found several of petitioner’s factual allegations concerning his other three convictions to be untrue. For example, in its findings and conclusions dated March 24, 1964, the court rejected the claim of petitioner that he had not been represented by counsel in connection with his 1929 Tennessee conviction.
Perhaps the district court was led into its unsatisfactory resolution below by reading too much into this court’s remand “for further consideration” of the identification issue posed by the Illinois conviction. Obviously this court did not mean by its order to suggest a view concerning the proper disposition of the issue, nor a belief concerning petitioner’s credibility.
I feel confident that the district court will take a different view of the matter if the State gives it the opportunity, by promptly moving for a new hearing, to examine the contemporaneous letter written by the Illinois Assistant State’s Attorney. This letter makes it crystal clear that the method of identification used was “a show-up made up of 7 men,” and not the patently suggestive procedure claimed by petitioner. This letter clarifies any ambiguities in the statements of the victim and the arresting officer, and reenforces their probity. I thus concur because of my belief that after a new hearing the district court will adopt the version of events in 1932 reflected in these three contemporaneous written statements, and consequently deny the writ.