People v. Clayton

Last updated

People v. Clayton, 41 A.D.2d 204, 208 (N.Y. App. Div. 2d Dep't 1973) was a case before the Supreme Court of New York, Appellate Division. It determined that a trial court, when considering a "motion to dismiss in the interest of justice" [1] (subsequently known as a "Clayton motion"), must convene an evidentiary hearing to consider whether the dismissal would in fact be in the "interest of justice".

Contents

Background

Interrogation, confession, and conviction

On November 3, 1952, at 3 pm, Robert Clayton, an illiterate African American employed as a potato picker on a Long Island farm, was taken into police custody along with approximately ten others in connection with a murder which took place on the farm the previous day. [2] The suspects were placed in a small, uncomfortable room. [3] Each was privately questioned intermittently throughout the night. [4] On November 4, at five o'clock in the morning, a stenographer transcribed a forty-five-minute session of questioning of Clayton. [5] Late that afternoon, Clayton was confronted with a co-worker who had himself confessed falsely to the murder [6] and who now claimed that Clayton had killed the victim and had moved the body with his help. [7] Clayton continued to maintain his innocence. [8]

At 9 pm, Clayton and Mickens[ who? ] were arraigned as "material witnesses" before a judge, and Clayton was held in lieu of bail in a small lock-up with a wooden plank as a mattress. [9] During the next day, November 5, he was repeatedly questioned, until he confessed to the killing at 10:45 pm [10] The police then brought him to the farm, where he pointed out items involved in the homicide. [11] Back at the station house at about 3 am, Clayton amended and signed his confession. [12] The stenographer later testified that, as Clayton did so, "there was a sense of fatigue" and "a stumbling over words" in his speech. [13] He was then permitted to send a telegram to his mother which stated that "I have killed a man." [14]

The county court found Clayton's confession to be voluntary, and sentenced him to thirty years to life on February 25, 1953. Both the appellate division and Court of Appeals affirmed. [15]

Conviction reversed – confession found not voluntary

Clayton had not appealed the original judgment and only moved for coram nobis relief in 1965. [16] Following the rule laid down in People v. Huntley (15 N Y 2d 72), the County Court held a hearing in 1965 to determine whether the defendant's confessions were voluntary; it determined that they were. This was affirmed by a divided vote in the New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division (a dissenter holding that the defendant's will was overborne by police pressure while in detention for an inordinate length of time). [17]

Clayton instituted a federal habeas corpus proceeding. [18] At the conclusion of an evidentiary hearing in 1971, the District Court found that the confessions were not voluntary—that the defendant had been subjected to a sham arraignment and had been constantly questioned for over 60 hours without adequate food or rest. [19] The Court of Appeals implemented the order of the District Court requiring the defendant's release from custody unless he were retried within 30 days. The defendant in March 1972 was released on his own recognizance by that court.

Dismissal of indictment under 210.40

On June 30, 1972, Clayton moved in the County Court for a dismissal of the indictment on the ground that he had not been brought to trial as required by the mandate of the United States Court of Appeals. On July 12, 1972, the county court dismissed the indictment against Clayton—not on the grounds of his request, but on its own motion, sua sponte and without a hearing, exercising its authority under 210.40. [20] The reasons supporting the dismissal were the length of Clayton's imprisonment (nineteen years) in relation to the sentence he could serve if retried (twenty years to life imprisonment), and the court's conclusion that "court time could be better used for other purposes; that the defendant is presently free and working; and that the prosecutor had once offered to accept a plea to manslaughter [in the first degree], punishable by a maximum imprisonment of [twenty] years." [21]

The district attorney appealed this order.

Opinion of the court

The court reversed and remanded for a hearing.

Interpretation of CPL 210.40 and 210.45

First, the Court found that the provisions of CPL 210.40 and 210.45 require that when a court considers a dismissal sua sponte, the parties should present evidence and arguments as may be pertinent to the "interests of justice", for which considerations include: [22]

(a) the nature of the crime;
(b) the available evidence of guilt;
(c) the prior record of defendant;
(d) the punishment already suffered by defendant, in this case 19 years;
(e) the purpose and effect of further punishment;
(f) any prejudice resulting to defendant by the passage of time, and
(g) the impact on the public interest of a dismissal of the indictment.

The appellate division acknowledged the subjective nature of the calculus involved, which appealed to "factors largely resting on value judgments of the court," but emphasized that those judgments must necessarily rest on facts in the possession of the parties; such factors should also be set out in the record to facilitate review. The Second Department believed that this hearing requirement pitched the appropriate balance:

The sensitive balance between the individual and the State that must be maintained in applying the test of the interests of justice which CPL 210.40 contemplates moves in response to factors largely resting on value judgments of the court. But those judgments in turn hinge on the production of facts in the possession of the prosecution and the defendant. Moreover, the discretion of the court cannot be properly reviewed unless the record discloses the facts upon which the court's judgment was based. On the one side the statute allows an escape from the rigorous rules controlling the dismissal of an indictment only for reasons arising from substantial defects in supporting evidence or required procedure; on the other side, the statute erects the well-considered discretion of the court as a safeguard to prevent a dismissal of the indictment unless the public interests are as fully protected as the individual interests of the defendant for justice and mercy.
It may well be that the County Court will again conclude that the indictment should be dismissed in the furtherance of justice after giving deliberation to what the parties may offer on the remand. Certainly, we do not say that the court cannot reach such a conclusion; and, indeed, the defendant's interests and the public interests may coincide to compel that conclusion. All that we now hold is that full opportunity should be afforded to the People and the defendant to provide the court with such evidence and arguments that they deem relevant to the issue. [23]

Discussion of the facts

In this case, the defendant's motion to dismiss had not prayed for relief "in furtherance of justice", but rather on the ground that the mandate of the United States Court of Appeals had not been followed by the People. Hence, no adequate notice of that claim was given to the prosecution. Although extended colloquy between counsel and the court occurred on the argument of the motion, some of which related to the location and existence of witnesses, the question whether the defendant should stand trial in the interests of justice was not directly the subject of the defendant's motion.

The County Court in dismissing the indictment found that the defendant had already served 19 years in prison; that he could be retried only for murder in the second degree, which carries a penalty of an indeterminate sentence having a minimum of 20 years and a maximum of life (former New York Penal Law, § 1048); that court time could be better used for other purposes; that the defendant is presently free and working; and that the prosecutor had once offered to accept a plea to manslaughter [in the first degree], punishable by a maximum imprisonment of 20 years (former New York Penal Law, § 1051). All of these considerations plainly flow from events taking place after the homicide for which the defendant was indicted, and, of course, these considerations might be modified or amplified by other events relevant to the interests of justice.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Appellate procedure in the United States</span> National rules of court appeals

United States appellate procedure involves the rules and regulations for filing appeals in state courts and federal courts. The nature of an appeal can vary greatly depending on the type of case and the rules of the court in the jurisdiction where the case was prosecuted. There are many types of standard of review for appeals, such as de novo and abuse of discretion. However, most appeals begin when a party files a petition for review to a higher court for the purpose of overturning the lower court's decision.

Nolle prosequi, abbreviated nol or nolle pros, is legal Latin meaning "to be unwilling to pursue". It is a type of prosecutorial discretion in common law, used for prosecutors' declarations that they are voluntarily ending a criminal case before trial or before a verdict is rendered; it is a kind of motion to dismiss and contrasts with an involuntary dismissal.

In United States federal law, the Daubert standard is a rule of evidence regarding the admissibility of expert witness testimony. A party may raise a Daubert motion, a special motion in limine raised before or during trial, to exclude the presentation of unqualified evidence to the jury. The Daubert trilogy are the three United States Supreme Court cases that articulated the Daubert standard:

The Speedy Trial Act of 1974 establishes time limits for completing the various stages of a federal criminal prosecution in the United States.

Introduction: Issue Preclusion

Fellers v. United States, 540 U.S. 519 (2004), is a United States Supreme Court case regarding the Sixth Amendment's right to counsel.

Dennis v. Sparks, 449 U.S. 24 (1980), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that individuals who bribed a judge for an injunction were not protected by judicial immunity and therefore could be held liable for the damages resulting from the injunction.

A Doe subpoena is a subpoena that seeks the identity of an unknown defendant to a lawsuit. Most jurisdictions permit a plaintiff who does not yet know a defendant's identity to file suit against a placeholder defendant, using the name John Doe or Jane Doe. A plaintiff may then use the tools of the discovery process to seek the defendant's true name and amend the complaint to name the Doe defendant. A Doe subpoena is often served on an online service provider or ISP for the purpose of identifying the author of an anonymous post.

Walz v. Tax Commission of the City of New York, 397 U.S. 664 (1970), was a case before the United States Supreme Court. The Court held that grants of tax exemption to religious organizations do not violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. It was the first case to articulate the "excessive entanglement doctrine" that one year later became the third prong of the Lemon test.

The motion to dismiss in the interest of justice is a provision of the New York Criminal Procedure Law (CPL) § 210.40; since being interpreted in People v. Clayton, it has been known as a "Clayton motion".

Douglas v. California, 372 U.S. 353 (1963), was a case before the United States Supreme Court.

The Jiggetts case established New York City's Jiggetts housing assistance program, which was ultimately replaced by the Family Eviction Prevention Supplement in 2005.

Attaway v. Omega, 903 N.E.2d 73, was a decision by the Indiana Court of Appeals in which the Court found personal jurisdiction over an out-of-state defendant who bought a car on eBay then rescinded payment but returned the automobile at buyer's expense.

Mancusi v. DeForte, 392 U.S. 364 (1968), is a decision of the United States Supreme Court on privacy and the Fourth Amendment. It originated in the lower courts as United States ex rel. Frank DeForte, appellant v. Vincent R. Mancusi, Warden of Attica Prison, Attica, New York, appellee, a petition for a writ of habeas corpus by a prisoner who had exhausted all his state appeals. By a 6–3 margin the Court affirmed the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit's reversal of a district court denial of the petition.

<i>Doe ex. rel. Tarlow v. District of Columbia</i>

Doe ex. rel. Tarlow v. District of Columbia, 489 F.3d 376, is a unanimous decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, written by Circuit Judge Brett Kavanaugh, in which the Court upheld a 2003 District of Columbia statute that stated the conditions for authorizing a non-emergency surgical procedure on a mentally incompetent person. This case developed out of an appeal to a district court decision that was brought on behalf of a mentally incompetent patient who was subjected to an abortion without her consent and another patient who was subjected to an eye surgery without the patient's consent. Under the appellate court's interpretation of the statute, a court located in the District of Columbia must apply the "best interest of the patient" standard to a person who was never competent, and the court must apply the "known wishes of the patient" standard to a person who was once competent. The appellate decision was remanded to the District Court.

People v. Golb is a New York case in which Raphael Golb, a lawyer with a Ph.D. in comparative literature, was convicted for a variety of alleged criminal offenses relating to his use of pseudonymous blogs and emails to criticize and ridicule several Dead Sea Scrolls scholars. His conviction was largely reversed on constitutional grounds, but was partially affirmed. Golb later wrote a book about the case in which he reiterated his criticism of the scholars involved and maintained that the case amounted to a criminalization of satire, parody, and academic criticism.

Kimmelman v. Morrison, 477 U.S. 365 (1986), was a decision of the U.S. Supreme Court that clarified the relationship of the right to effective assistance of counsel under the Sixth Amendment to other constitutional rights in criminal procedure. In this case, evidence against the defendant was probably seized illegally, violating the Fourth Amendment, but he lost the chance to argue that point due to his lawyer's ineffectiveness. The prosecution argued that the defendant's attempt to make a Sixth Amendment argument via a habeas corpus petition was really a way to sneak his Fourth Amendment argument in through the back door. The Court unanimously disagreed, and held that the Fourth Amendment issue and the Sixth Amendment issue represented different constitutional values, and had different requirements for prevailing in court, and therefore were to be treated separately by rules of procedure. Therefore, the habeas corpus petition could go forward. In its opinion, the Court also gave guidance on how to apply its decisions in Stone v. Powell and Strickland v. Washington.

Haupt v. United States, 330 U.S. 631 (1947), was a Supreme Court case in which the Court affirmed the conviction of Hans Max Haupt—father of Herbert Hans Haupt— for treason, and that after the Constitution's Treason Clause's two witness requirement is satisfied, it does not preclude the prosecution from entering out-of-court confessions into evidence.

References

  1. ↑ CPL § 210.40 of the New York Criminal Procedure Law
  2. ↑ United States ex rel. Clayton v. Mancusi, 326 F. Supp. 1366, 1367 (E.D.N.Y. 1971), aff'd, 454 F.2d 454 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 406 U.S. 977 (1972); People v. Clayton, 279 N.Y.S.2d 605, 606 (App. Div. 2d Dep't 1967) (Christ, Acting P.J., dissenting from the affirmance of conviction), aff'd, 239 N.E.2d 734 (N.Y. 1968), cert. denied, 394 U.S. 909 (1969).
  3. ↑ Mancusi, 326 F. Supp. at 1367-68; Clayton, 279 N.Y.S.2d at 606.
  4. ↑ Mancusi, 326 F. Supp. at 1368; Clayton, 279 N.Y.S.2d at 606.
  5. ↑ Mancusi, 326 F. Supp. at 1368.
  6. ↑ Id. at 1368 n.3.
  7. ↑ Id. at 1368.
  8. ↑ Id.
  9. ↑ Id.
  10. ↑ Id. at 1368–69.
  11. ↑ Id. at 1369.
  12. ↑ Id.
  13. ↑ Id. at 1371.
  14. ↑ Id. at 1369.
  15. ↑ Clayton, 279 N.Y.S.2d at 606; see also N.Y. Crim. Proc. Law 60.45 (McKinney 1992) (providing a statutory basis for the exclusion of confessions obtained via pressure that undermines the defendant's ability to be silent); Spano v. New York, 360 U.S. 315 (1959) (defendant's confession found involuntary due to official pressure causing fatigue).
  16. ↑ People v. Clayton, 342 N.Y.S.2d 106, 107 (App. Div. 2d Dep't 1973). The appellate division maintained that Clayton's original counsel failed to file a notice of appeal despite Clayton's instructions to do so. Id. at 107 n.1.
  17. ↑ The New York Court of Appeals affirmed; and the Supreme Court of the United States denied certiorari.( People v. Clayton, 28 A D 2d 543 [Christ, Acting P. J. dissenting], affd. 22 N Y 2d 841, cert. den. sub nom. Clayton v. New York, 394 U.S. 909).
  18. ↑ Clayton, 239 N.E.2d 734 (terminating the availability of state review).
  19. ↑ That decision was affirmed by the Court of Appeals, Second Circuit, and certiorari was denied by the Supreme Court (United States ex rel. Clayton v. Mancusi, 326 F. Supp. 1366, affd. sub nom. Mancusi v. United States ex rel. Clayton, 454 F. 2d 454, cert. den. sub nom. Montanye v. Clayton, 406 U.S. 977).
  20. ↑ See People v. Clayton, 350 N.Y.S.2d 495, 495 (Suffolk County Ct. 1973) (detailing procedural history).
  21. ↑ Clayton, 342 N.Y.S.2d at 110.
  22. ↑ Clayton, 342 N.Y.S.2d at 110.
  23. ↑ Clayton, 342 N.Y.S.2d at 110-111.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.