Gayes v. New York (332 U.S. 145)/Dissent Rutledge

Mr. Justice RUTLEDGE, with whom Mr. Justice BLACK, Mr. Justice DOUGLAS, and Mr. Justice MURPHY concur, dissenting.

A 16 year old boy, indigent and alone, without relatives, friends, money or counsel to aid him and, according to the undenied allegations of the petition, without knowledge of his constitutional rights, pleaded guilty in 1938, under an indictment specifying two highly technical and distinct charges, to the crime of burglary in the third degree. The property he was charged with intending to steal consisted of cigarettes of the value of 75 cents, two flashlights worth $1.00, and $3.00 in currency. The sentence imposed on that plea has been served. He is now confined as a second offender under sentence for another offense of similar character imposed in 1941, when he was 19 and also without relatives, friends or counsel so far as appears.

One part of the opinion announced in this case, as I understand, takes the view that because Gayes did not attack the 1938 sentence in 1941, when he was sentenced as a second offender, he is forever foreclosed from doing so on the facts and issues presented on this record, although as a second offender he is now suffering the consequences of the 1938 sentence. For this conclusion reliance is placed upon no New York authorities; indeed, as I read the state cases, the Court's decision is made in the face of their rulings that the procedure petitioner has followed is the appropriate one for raising the issues he presents.

I am unwilling to subscribe to such a doctrine of forfeitures concerning constitutional rights, which in the extreme circumstances of this case seems to me shocking.

Under all of the New York decisions which have passed upon the question, the proper and apparently the necessary procedure, see People v. Keller, Gen.Sess.N.Y. County, 37 N.Y.S.2d 61, 62, for attacking a sentence as second offender, upon the ground that the former conviction was invalid, is first by motion in the court imposing the initial sentence to vacate it, after which if the motion is successful the sentence for the second offense may be attacked and vacated. In other words, the second offender, situated as is petitioner, must first overturn his first conviction in the court where it was obtained, before he can attack the second sentence founded in part upon that conviction.

This procedure in my opinion is a reasonable one within the power of a state to require, at least where both offenses have taken place within its jurisdiction. And I know of no reason why this Court should disregard or override it. Much less is it within our province to invert the state procedure, if that is the effect of the dubious suggestion that petitioner's rights perhaps may be saved upon some other record 'that discloses circumstances other than those before us,' presumably if at all by motion before the court which imposed the 1941 sentence to vacate it.

No state decisions are cited or, it would seem in view of the contrary authorities cited above, can be cited to support such a view. Nor is it required by anything said or done in Canizio v. New York, 327 U.S. 82, 66 S.Ct. 452, 90 L.Ed. 545, if indeed such a matter could ever be within our function. The Canizio decision has no relevance to this case, either for prescribing the state procedure or for the constitutional issue. It held only that where a defendant had counsel at the time of his sentence and could then have moved to withdraw his prior plea of guilty, he was not prejudiced by the convicting court's previous failure to inform him of his right to counsel.

That case had nothing to do with the state procedure open to one convicted as a second offender for challenging his sentence on the ground that the first conviction was invalid for federal constitutional reasons. And the facts, on the merits, were very different from those presented here. Whereas, among other things, in that case the petitioner did have counsel before his sentence was imposed, here not only was Gayes denied counsel altogether in the first trial, but so far as the record discloses he had none in the trial for the second offense. I do not think the Canizio decision can be held to cover such a wholly different situation as this. It did not rule that, if a convicted person has never had counsel, the fact that in a later proceeding he conceivably might have had such aid if he had applied for it cures the denial, more particularly when so far as appears he was treated no better during his trial for the second offense than during the first, and when moreover his present attack is made as a preliminary one required by state law to showing the second sentence invalid.

In my judgment it is for the state, not this Court, to say whether the attack upon the first sentence as increasing the second shall be made on the flank or frontally, or perchance in either way. Indeed, under the law of New York, which is controlling on us, the so-called 'flank' attack is apparently the only one now open to petitioner. In the face of so clear a violation of constitutional right as this case presents, we should neither foreclose that avenue nor substitute for it another dubiously available one of our own manufacture.

The judgment should be reversed.