Court Opinion

ID: 9657130
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 20:15:12.529011+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:41.185429
License: Public Domain

T. E. Brennan, J.
(dissenting). I am unable to agree with the disposition proposed by my Brother Williams.
This is a delayed appeal from denial of a delayed motion for new trial.
The parameters of this appeal are determined by the motion for new trial from which the appeal is taken.
That motion was filed on September 8, 1967, and it was accompanied by an affidavit. The motion and affidavit are as follows:
“DELAYED MOTION FOB SETTING ASIDE OF PLEA OF GUILTY AND FOR A NEW TRIAL
“Now Comes the above-named defendant by his attorney, Kenneth A. Webb, and moves that this Honorable Court set aside his plea of guilty to the offense of Murder in the Second Degree entered and accepted by the Court on November 26,1962 and that he be granted a new trial for the following reasons and grounds:
“1. That the defendant was not questioned by the Court at the time he entered his plea of guilty as to whether he was pleading guilty of his own free will.
“2. That the defendant was not questioned by the Court at the time he entered his plea of guilty as to whether he was pleading guilty voluntarily.
“3. That the defendant was promised by his attorney, an assistant prosecuting attorney and a police officer that his sentence would be for a term not ex*321ceeding ten years in prison if he plead guilty to murder in the second degree.
“4. That the defendant was threatened, beaten and forced to plead guilty to murder in the second degree by police officers.
“5. The allegations of paragraphs 3 and 4 hereof are supported by the attached affidavit of the defendant.
“Wherefore, defendant prays that this Honorable Court enter an order setting aside defendant’s plea of guilty and granting defendant a new trial.
“Kenneth A. Webb
“Attorney for Defendant
“872 Penobscot Building
“Detroit, Michigan 48226
“Telephone: 961-0990
“September 8, 1967

“Affidavit

“When I was arrested a day after the incidence the Police official named ‘CHUBB’ and his partner (name unknown) beat me and administered the 1st degree of corporal punishment on me from about 12 o’clock in the day to about 9 o’clock in the night until I passed out.
“Later on after I regained consciousness they the police told me that if I did not cop out or enter a plea of guilty when I go to Court that they ‘would call me from over from the Wayne County Jail to 1300 Beaubien Detroit Police Headquarters and beat the hell out of me again’. * * *
“During the events of the time from June 14th, to Nov. 26, officer Chubb or some, other interrogation officer called me from over from the Wayne County Jail to 1300 Beaubien police headquarters to warn me what would happen if I did not cop out.
“Some time after arraignment, I was appointed an Attorney (name unknown). He came to visit me at the Wayne County Jail, first thing he told me was that he could not beat the charge and that the only and best thing to do was to enter a plea of second *322degree, I refused to enter a plea. He left, but every-time I saw Mm, he would bring it up again until I ask him to please get off the case. Which he did and Willis Ward was appointed. He came to see me at Wayne County Jail. He said almost the same thing as the other Attorney, two day after he left my Mother came and said to me that she had talked to Mr. Ward and the Judge or Prosecutor, and that they said if I cop out to second degree that would get no more than a ten year Max * * *
“I told her that I would not cop out because I was not guilty of murder. She got mad and said that I was a God Damm Pool and left.
“At the final examination or final arraignment, Mr. Ward, the Prosecutor and one of the officers who has interrogated and beaten me told me that they has talked to the judge and that it was all arranged for me to enter a second degree plea. That I would receive no more than a Ten Year Max.
“I said that I didn’t want to cop out. The lawyer and the prosecutor left but the police officer stayed and when we was alone he told me that I ‘Better cop out if I knew what was good for me’ ‘Because if you don’t I will beat the hell out of you.’
“I knew that he was not joking because he had already prove that, so I told Mr. Ward when he came back that I had changed my mind and that I wanted to cop out. He instructed me that I must say that I wasn’t threatened or promise that they would be lenient on me., ect. * * *
“Because the Judge would not except the Plea if I did not answer the question right.
“Respectfully submitted, “/s/ Roger Johnson
“July 19, 1967
“Sworn and subscribed to before me this day AD 1967.
“/s/ Paul J. LaDow
“Notary Public, Jackson County, Mich.
“My Commission Expires April 5,1969”
*323That motion was denied on January 30, 1968, by Honorable Geraldine Bledsoe Ford, Judge of Recorder’s Court. The appendix on appeal does not contain a transcript of the record made before Judge Ford on the hearing of that motion.
A motion for new trial addresses itself to the discretion of the trial judge. Abuse of discretion is not to he presumed by an appellate court.
Appellant’s motion for new trial attacks the integrity of the proceedings before Recorder’s Judge Arthur Koscinski had on November 26, 1962, at which the appellant’s plea of guilty was accepted.
In such a case, where the allegations in the motion for new trial, supported by affidavit, are such that, if true, would vitiate the voluntariness of the plea, the trial court, to whom the motion is addressed ought to conduct an evidentiary hearing to determine the truth of the allegations made.
Such an evidentiary hearing is not a new invention, nor an innovation in the area of post conviction remedies. It has always been within the discretion of trial judges to take testimony upon the hearing of a motion for new trial.
On this record, we have no way of knowing whether Judge Ford conducted an evidentiary hearing on January 30, 1968, or not.
Normally, it is the burden of the appellant to present to this Court all pertinent portions of the record below. If this were not an appeal in pro per, I would favor affirmance on that ground alone; but since the appellant is unschooled in such things, and since we have already come this far, I would vote to remand for the sole purpose of supplementing the appendix filed here with the addition of a verbatim transcript of the proceedings had before Judge Ford.
*324If no testimony was taken before her controverting the allegations of coercion and promise of leniency, then I would favor remand for that purpose.
Such a remand would amount to nothing more than a rehearing of the motion for new trial.
Black, J., concurred with T. E. Brennan, J.