Court Opinion

ID: 9424366
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:11:26.540244+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:50.000735
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Blackmun,
whom The Chief Justice joins,
concurring.
I join Mr. Justice Stewart’s opinion. For me, however, there is an additional reason for the result.
The single sentence attributed in testimony by Shaw to Williams about Evans, and which has prolonged this litigation, was, in my view and in the light of the entire record, harmless error if it was error at all. Furthermore, the claimed circumstances of its utterance are so incredible that the testimony must have hurt, rather than helped, the prosecution’s case. On this ground alone, I could be persuaded to reverse and remand.
Shaw testified that Williams made the remark at issue when Shaw “went to his room in the hospital” and asked Williams how he made out at a court hearing on the preceding day. On cross-examination, Shaw stated that he was then in custody at the federal penitentiary in Atlanta; that he worked as a clerk in the prison hospital; that Williams- was lying on the bed in his" *91room and facing the wall; that he, Shaw, was in the hall and not in the room when he spoke with Williams; that the door to the room “was closed”; that he spoke through an opening about 10 inches square; that the opening “has a piece of plate glass, window glass, just ordinary-window glass, and a piece of steel mesh”; that this does not impede talking through the door; and that one talks in a normal voice when he talks through that door. Shaw conceded that when he had testified at Williams’ earlier trial, he made no reference to the glass in the opening in the door.
Carmen David Mabry, called by the State, testified that he was with the United States Public Health Service and stationed at the Atlanta Penitentiary. He described the opening in the door to Williams’ room and said that it contained a glass “and over that is a wire mesh, heavy steel mesh”; that he has “never tried to talk through the door”; that, to his knowledge, he has never heard “other people talking through the door”; that, during his 11 years at the hospital, the glass has not been out of the door; and that the hospital records disclosed that it had not been out.
I am at a loss to understand how any normal jury, as we must assume this one to have been, could be led to believe, let alone be influenced by-, this astonishing account by Shaw of his conversation with Williams in a normal voice through a closed hospital room door. I note, also,' the Fifth Circuit’s description of Shaw’s testimony as “somewhat incredible” and as possessing “basic incredibility.” 400 F. 2d, at 828 n. 4.
In saying all this, I am fully aware that the Fifth Circuit panel went on to observe, in the footnote just cited, “ [W] e are convinced that it cannot be called harmless.” And Justice Quillian, in sole dissent on the direct appeal to the Supreme Court of Georgia, stated, “[I]t obviously was prejudicial to the defendant.” 222 Ga. *92-392, 408; 150 S. E. 2d 240, 251. However, neither the Georgia Superior Court judge who tried the case nor the Federal District Judge who held the hearing on Evans’ petition for federal habeas concluded that prejudicial error was present. Also, we do not know the attitude of the Georgia Supreme Court majority, for they decided the issue strictly upon the pronounced limits of the long-established Georgia hearsay rule, 222 Ga., at 402; 150 S. E. 2d, at 248, and presumably had no occasion to touch upon any alternative ground such as harmlessness. I usually would refrain from passing upon an issue of this kind adversely to a federal court of appeals, but when the trial judges do not rule, I would suppose that we are as free to draw upon the cold record as is the appellate court.
I add an observation" about corroboration. Marion Calvin Perry, another federal prisoner and one who admitted numerous past convictions, including “larceny of automobiles,” testified without objection that he had known Williams and Evans for about 10 years, and Truett for about two years; that he spoke with Williams and Evans some 25 or 30 days prior to the murders of the three police "officers; that Williams owed him money; that he and Williams talked by telephone “[a]bout me stealing some cars for him”; that Williams told him that “Alex [Evans] would know what kind of car he [Williams] would want”; that a few days later “me and Alex talked about cars and. I told him I didn’t want to mess with Venson [Williams] ”; that Evans said, “if I got any, he said I could get them for him”; that seven or eight days before the murders Williams asked him by telephone whether he, Perry, “still had the Oldsmobile switch”; that the week of.the murders he argued with Evans about how much he should receive for each stolen car; that six days after the murders he saw Evans at a filling station; that they talked about the murders; that “I said if I wanted to know who did it, I would see *93mine and your friend”; and that Evans “got mad as hell” and “told me if I thought I knowed anything about it to keep my damn mouth shut.”
Another witness, Lawrence H. Hartman, testified that his 1963 red Oldsmobile hardtop was stolen from his home in Atlanta the night of April 16, 1964 (the murders took place on the early morning of April 17). He went on to testify that the 1963 Oldsmobile found burning near the scene of the tragedy was his automobile. There is testimony .in the record as to the earlier acquisition by Evans and Williams of another wrecked Oldsmobile of like model and color; as to the towing of that damaged car by a wrecker manned by Williams and Evans; and as to the replacement of good tires on a Chevrolet occupied by Williams, Evans, and Truett, with recapped tires then purchased by them.
This record testimony, it seems to me, bears directly and positively on the Williams-Evans-Truett car-stealing conspiracy and accomplishments and provides indisputable confirmation of Evans’ role. The requirements of the Georgia corroboration rule were fully satisfied and Shaw’s incredible remark fades into practical and legal insignificance.
The error here, if one exists, is harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Chapman v. California, 386 U. S. 18, 21-25; Harrington v. California, 395 U. S. 250.