Court Opinion

ID: 9445988
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:43:14.556652+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:28.956821
License: Public Domain

FINNEGAN, Circuit Judge
(concurring),
In my study of this case one point lost but lurking throughout the extensive record encompassing the Gibson Circuit Court proceedings, implemented by evidence taken in the United States District Court, emerges into sharp focus. Counsel for Irvin grounded their petition for a writ of habeas corpus, filed in the United States District Court on allegedly constitutional deprivations arising before Irvin’s escape from jail. The adverse ruling on the motion for a new trial, by the Indiana judge, and Indiana Supreme Court’s decision on that point are unchallenged. Irvin does not expressly say that overruling his motion for a new trial violated his rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. He had access to the Indiana Supreme Court on appeal from his conviction. Indeed the brief filed for him in our court informs us “ * * * he was permitted to appeal without objection, counsel were appointed for * * * [him] for the purpose of appealing his conviction in the Gibson Circuit Court to the Indiana Supreme Court * *
We are reviewing a District Judge's findings of fact and conclusions of law underpinning a judgment approving the Indiana detention as being legal and denying a petition to stay execution. Irvin v. Dowd, D.C.Ind.1957, 153 F.Supp. 531. Rule 52, Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, 28 U.S.C., circumscribes our review of findings of fact in appeals where habeas corpus has been refused below. Hunter v. Dowd, 7 Cir., 1952, 198 F.2d 13. Judge Parkinson, then presiding as District Judge, held a hearing on Irvin’s petition and received some testimony. Measured by Rule 52, his relevant findings of fact can be left undisturbed.
Requiring as it does exhaustion of remedies available in state courts, the statute (28 U.S.C. § 2254) precluded relief in the district court. Nothing in the record before us suggests any official interference or incapacity justifying Irvin’s failure to use the Indiana remedy by appeal. Brown v. Allen, 1952, 344 U.S. 443, 485-486, 73 S.Ct. 397, 97 L.Ed. *554469. Again I point out we are not called upon, nor can we now review, the Indiana Supreme Court’s holding that no error was committed “in overruling the motion for a new trial under the circumstances.” 139 N.E.2d 898, 902. Since the point is not raised on Irvin’s behalf, he abandoned his motion for a new trial by departing from the Gibson Circuit Court’s jurisdiction. Only an attack on the Indiana holding that its corrective judicial process was forfeited would put in issue such proposition.
By his flight after verdict, Irvin forfeited a timely appeal to the Indiana Supreme Court for the purposes of obtaining review of the adverse ruling on his motion for a new trial. But he was no longer at large when the State Supreme Court handed down its opinion reported as Irvin v. State of Indiana, 1957, 139 N.E.2d 898. That fact distinguishes the situation facing our court from Eisler v. United States, 1949, 338 U.S. 189, 69 S.Ct. 1453, 93 L.Ed. 1897, in so far as there could possibly be any question about reviewing a conviction while a defendant-appellant is a fugitive from the state reviewing tribunal’s jurisdiction.
Though the Indiana Supreme Court viewed Irvin’s case as if no motion for a new trial had been filed, and consequently found that the denial of it was procedurally sound, that tribunal pressed further, saying, inter alia: “ * * * however, because of the finality of the sentence in the case we have reviewed the evidence to satisfy ourselves that there is no miscarriage of justice in this case.” Irvin v. State of Indiana, 1957, 139 N.E.2d 898, 902. (Italics added.) After relating and discussing various evidentiary elements disclosed by the record the Indiana court concluded (Id. at page 902): “It does not appear from the record and argument had, that the appellant was denied due process of law under the Fourteenth Amendment, or due course of law under the Bill of Rights, Const. art. 1, § 12, or that there was any miscarriage of justice when he (Irvin) was convicted and given the death penalty.” (Id. at page 902.) Certainly those quoted passages manifest a cautionary mood and judicial reluctance to rely solely on a technicality, regardless of its validity. Of course I think whatever was said by the Indiana Court after passing their decision point on the motion, was dicta. Supporting that motion were some 415 alleged reasons and grounds, among which a fair proportion concerned aspects of the jury problem and they, I assume, were unreviewed for the reasons already stated.