Haley v. Ohio/Dissent Burton

Mr. Justice BURTON, with whom The CHIEF JUSTICE, Mr. Justice REED and Mr. Justice JACKSON concur, dissenting.

The issue here is a narrow one of fact turning largely upon the credibility of witnesses whose testimony on material points is in direct conflict with that of other witnesses. The judgment rendered today by this Court does not hold that the procedure authorized by the State of Ohio to determine the admissibility of the confession of a person accused of a capital offense violates per se the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. It holds merely that the application made of that procedure in this case amounted to a violation of due process under the Fourteenth Amendment in that, on this record, it amounted to a refusal by the trial court to exclude from the jury this particular confession which this Court is convinced was an involuntary confession.

About midnight, on October 14, 1945, a storekeeper in Canton, Ohio, was shot to death in his store by one of two boys, Alfred Parks, aged 16, or Willie Lowder, aged 17. The accused, John Harvey Haley, then about 15 years and 8 months old and a senior in high school, was with these boys before they went into the store and was waiting for them outside of it at the time when the shooting occurred. Haley testified 'all of a sudden I heard a shot and a man hl lered, and I was scared and I ran.' The two other boys also ran away immediately after the shot was fired. The three soon met and Haley then went home. These boys had been together all that evening. Early in the evening, while Parks and Lowder waited outside of Haley's home, Haley went in to get a pistol for their joint use. Without the knowledge of William Mack, the owner of the pistol, Haley took from a trunk a .32 caliber automatic pistol which Haley had shot once on New Year's Day and, from another place in his home, a handful of ammunition for the pistol. The three boys took part in loading it. Haley then turned it over to Parks and Lowder, one or the other of whom thereafter retained possession of it throughout the evening. A day or two after the shooting, Haley asked the two boys what they had done with the gun. He testified that in answer 'They said they got rid of it.' This much of the story Haley testified to at the trial and has admitted substantially ever since his arrest and since abandoning his first, and admittedly false, statement that he and his two friends had gone to a show that evening. A .32 caliber automatic Colt pistol, the admission of which in evidence is not here in issue, was sent by the Canton police to the Federal Bureau of Investigation for identification, together with the bullet which killed the storekeeper and a cartridge shell found by the police at the scene of the crime. An uncontradicted expert witness from the F.B.I. fired three bullets from the pistol, compared the microscopic markings on them with those on the bullet which had killed the storekeeper and, on this basis, positively identified the pistol as the weapon which had fired the fatal shot. This fatal shot admittedly was fired while Parks and Lowder were in the store of the deceased and were in possession of the pistol with which Haley had supplied them. There is nothing in the record to suggest the presence in the store of any other pistol. Haley testified that this pistol 'looked like' the one he had given to his companions.

After hearing the foregoing and other material evidence, including the disputed confession of Haley, the jury found him guilty of murder in the first degree while attempting to perpetrate robbery. The verdict carried a recommendation of mercy which automatically reduced the statutory penalty from death to life imprisonment. In considering the record as a whole, and particularly in reaching a conclusion of fact that the police officers who examined Haley coerced him into making his confession, it is appropriate to note that the foregoing undisputed facts left comparatively little need for such a confession as was signed by Haley. That confession, in substance, added only the express statement by Haley that he knew that Parks and Lowder went into the store to rob the storekeeper and that Haley remained outside to serve as a lookout and to warn Parks and Lowder by tapping on the window in case anyone approached.

The procedure followed by the police as soon as they had the information upon which they arrested Haley was substantially as follows:

On Friday, October 19, 1945, again at about midnight, and while Haley was still up and about his home, after having returned from an evening football game, he was arrested by four policemen who came to his home in two cars. They were admitted to Haley's home by his mother and they took him with them to police headquarters, not using handcuffs. He was 'booked' there at about 12:30 a.m. From then until between 3 and 4 a.m. he was in the record room of the detective bureau, usually with two officers. What took place there leading up to his oral, and later signed, confession is the subject of directly contradictory testimony given by the accused and the police. Haley testified that he was roughly handled in such a manner that if this testimony is believed the confession was not voluntary. On the other hand, the police and everyone else who was present or saw Haley during or after this examint ion testified in detail, and with positiveness, that Haley was not abused or roughly handled in any degree and that his person and clothes presented a normal appearance after the examination. Immediately after Haley had been shown alleged confessions by Parks and Lowder and had read at least that by Parks, Haley made an oral statement evidently similar to that made by Parks. Thereupon, Haley was taken to a front room where a sergeant of detectives typed Haley's confession in question and answer form during a period which consumed from one hour to an hour and a half. Before taking this confession the sergeant testified that he typed and read to Haley, clearly and distinctly, the preliminary statement, a part of which is quoted in this Court's opinion as being at the beginning of the written confession. The sergeant testified that Haley, after hearing this introduction, said that he still desired to make a statement and tell the truth. When completed, the statement, so prepared, was signed by Haley in the presence not only of some of the police officers who had questioned him but also of two civilian witnesses called in for that purpose from outside of police headquarters. The Acting Chief of Police, who himself was a member of the Bar of Ohio, requested Haley to read the entire confession. When this had been done, the Acting Chief of Police, in the capacity of a notary public, administered the oath signed by Haley at the end of the confession, stating that the facts contained therein were true and correct as Haley verily believed. A newspaper photographer then took a picture of Haley in company with Parks and Lowder. Either then or on the following Monday, the date being disputed, Haley was taken back to his home where the police found the trunk described by him as that from which he had taken the pistol. After his confession he was placed in the city jail and, on the following Tuesday, October 23, he was removed to the county jail. On that day, a complaint was filed in the Court of Common Pleas of Stark County, Ohio, Division of Domestic Relations, Juvenile Department, by a sergeant of police, charging Haley with being a delinquent child.

On October 29, 1945, pursuant to a motion of the prosecuting attorney, the judge assigned to the above-mentioned Domestic Relations Division of the Court of Common Pleas appointed a doctor to make a physical and mental examination of the accused.

On November 1, 1945, the mental and physical examination was filed and, after hearing, the court found 'that the said child has committed an act which, if (it) had been committed by an adult, would be a felony; an examination having been made of the said John Haley by a competent physician, qualified to make such examination, it is ordered that the said John Haley shall personally be and appear before the of the next term thereof to answer for of the next erm thereof to answer for such act.'

On November 14, 1945, a transcript from the docket of the above-mentioned Juvenile Court was filed in the Court of Common Pleas. Thereafter, beginning with an indictment for first degree murder which was returned on January 8, 1946, the case proceeded to arraignment on January 11, and to trial in the Court of Common Pleas March 25-April 3, when a verdict of guilty as charged was returned, with a recommendation of mercy. A motion for a new trial was overruled and the case was appealed to the Court of Appeals for Stark County, Ohio, and there was unanimously affirmed October 25, 1946. Appeal was made, both on a motion for leave to appeal and as a matter of right, to the Supreme Court of Ohio. The motion for leave to appeal was overruled and the appeal, as a matter of right, was dismissed by unanimous action of the five judges sitting in the case. The reason given for dismissal was that the court found that no debatable constitutional question was involved in the case.

Beginning with the arraignment of the accused, the record shows that Haley has been represented by counsel. The case has proceeded in this Court in forma pauperis, the accused being represented by the same competent counsel who represented him in the state courts. It does not appear that the accused ever asked to have counsel appointed for him. It does not appear that, at any time before his arriagnment, he employed counsel or asked for counsel to represent him. The nearest approach to such action is that discosed by the testimony of Haley's mother and by a stipulation between the parties that Leroy Contie, an attorney, on Monday, October 22, was employed by Mrs. Haley to represent her son. Mr. Contie went to the city jail on two occasions after Haley's confession was signed, was unable to see him and was refused admission by the police authorities. Mr. Contie did not see Haley until after the latter had been transferred to the county jail, some days after that. He apparently did not become an attorney of record in the case.

It is not disputed on Haley's behalf that his arrest and uncoercive questioning after his arrest would have been proper under such circumstances. While the constitutional and statutory rights of the accused, under such circumstances, must be safeguarded carefully, it is eqully clear that serious constitutional and statutory obligations rest upon law enforcement officers to discover promptly those guilty of such an unprovoked murder as had been committed. Likewise, the comparative youth of these three boys who now have been convicted of this murder is entitled to full recognition in considering the constitutionality of the process of law that has been applied to them. This has been done. Haley's youth was recognized expressly by the preliminary proceedings before the Juvenile Department of the Division of Domestic Relations of the local court. Those proceedings markedly differentiated the procedure from that ordinarily followed in the case of an adult. Undoubtedly the thought of Haley's youth was reflected in the jury's recommendation of mercy, and in the care which the sergeant and the Acting Chief of Police testified that they took in preparing his confession for signature and in seeing to it that Haley understood it and his rights in connection with it. It is necessary to recognize, on the other hand, that the offense here charged was not an ordinary juvenile offense. It was a capital offense of the most serious kind. It involved the same fatal consequence to a lawabiding citizen of Canton as would have been the case if it had been committed by adult offenders. An obligation rests upon the police not only to discover the perpetrators of such a crime but also to determine, as promptly as possible their guilt or innocence to a degree sufficient to justify their prosecution or release. It is common knowledge that many felonies are being committed currently by minors and an obligation attaches to law enforcement officials to punish, prevent and discourage such conduct by minors as well as by adults. If Haley's part in this crime had been reasonably suspected by the police immediately after its commission at midnight, October 14, the police would have deserved severe criticism if they had not arrested ad questioned him that night. The same obligation rested on them, five days later, at midnight, October 19.

As admitted by the petitioner in this Court, the entire issue here resolves itself into a consideration of the methods used in obtaining the confession. This in turn resolves itself primarily into a question of the credibility of witnesses as a means of determining the contested question as to what methods in fact were used. A voluntary confession not only is valid but it is the usual, best and generally fairest kind of evidence. Often it is the only direct evidence obtainable as to the state of mind of the accused. The giving of such a confession promptly is to be encouraged in the interest of all concerned. The police are justified and under obligation to seek such confessions. At the same time, it is a primary part of their obligation to see to it that coercion, including intimidation, is not used to secure a confession. It should be evident to them not only that involuntary confessions are worthless as evidence, but that coercion applied in securing them itself constitutes a serious violation of duty.

The question in this case is the simple one-was the confession in fact voluntary? As in many other cases it is difficult, because of conflicting testimony, to determine this controlling fact. It may not be possible to become absolutely certain of it. Self-serving perjury, however, must not be the passkey to a mandatory exclusion of the confession from use as evidence. It is for the trial judge and the jury, under the safeguards of constitutional due process of criminal law, to apply even-handed justice to the determination of the factual issues. To do this, they need every available lawful aid to help them test the credibility of the conflicting testimony.

Due process of law under the Fourteenth Amendment requires that the states use some fair means to determine the voluntary character of a confession like that in this case. The procedure may differ in each state. The form adopted by Ohio is not criticized by this Court. The sole question here is the validity of the application of the Ohio procedure to the facts of this case. That application can be tested in this Court only under the great handicap of attempting to appraise, by use of the printed record, the action of the trial court and jury taken in the light of the living record. In connection with every confession that is unaccompanied by testimony as to how it was secured, all sorts of conditions may be conjectured as to the methods used to secure it. To rely upon conjecture, either in favor of or against the accused, is not justice. It is not due process of law by any definition. Similarly, all sorts of conditions as to the methods which might have been used in obtaining such a confession may be conjectured by a witness and falsely testified to by him. Such action puts the true testimony into direct conflict with the false. In the present case, the conflict of testimony is so clear that it is evident that one or more of the witnesses must have committed perjury. The issue resolves itself, therefore, not into one of civil rights but into one of the truth or falsity of the testimony as to the methods used in obtaining Haley's confession. This issue of credibility cannot be resolved here with nearly as good a chance of determining the truth as that which was enjoyed by the trial court and jury. They saw and heard the witnesses and they examined the exhibits. Furthermore, they and the State Appellate and Supreme Courts also were familiar with the general conditions and standards of law enforcement in effect in the long-established industrial civic center of over 100,000 people of Canton, Ohio, where this confession was made and used. The testimony of the witnesses as to the methods used should be read in the context of the community where such testimony was given in order for it to be fairly appraised. There is no suggestion that racial discrimination or prejudice existed in the attiu de of any of the witnesses, or of the courts or of the community of Canton. The issue is the credibility of these particular police officers and other local witnesses. It cannot be determined on the basis of published reports, however authentic, of police methods in other communities in other years. 'The mere fact that a confession was made while in the custody of the police does not render it inadmissible.' McNabb v. United States, 318 U.S. 332, 346, 63 S.Ct. 608, 615, 87 L.Ed. 819.

The present case, turning as it does upon the credibility of the testimony as to the existence of the coercion, if any, that was used to secure the confession, is readily distinguishable from cases relied upon by the accused. For example, in the present case, this Court does not rely on any claim that the confession was elicited by unreasonably delaying the arrignment of the accused or even by any alleged delay in charging him with delinquency in the Juvenile Court. The confession of the accused was given, transcribed and signed by 5:30 a.m. on October 20, immediately following his arrest at about midnight. There is, accordingly, no basis for contending that there was unnecessary delay in taking the accused before a court or magistrate having jurisdiction of the offense insofar as such unnecessary delay, if any, had relation to the confession. Whatever delay there was occurred after the confession was made and it is obvious that it was not unreasonable to delay the taking of the accused before a court or magistrate at least until after 5:30 a.m. United States v. Mitchell, 322 U.S. 65, 64 S.Ct. 896, 88 L.Ed. 1140, Cf. Anderson v. United States, 318 U.S. 350, 63 S.Ct. 599, 87 L.Ed. 829; McNabb v. United States, 318 U.S. 332, 63 S.Ct. 608, 87 L.Ed. 819.

If the unequivocal and consistent testimony of the several police officers is believed, including that of the Acting Chief of Police, the confession was clearly voluntary. The police officers were men of experience in the local detective service and, if inferences are to be indulged in, it may be inferred that they understood the necessity that the confession be uncoerced and voluntary if it was to be admissible in evidence. The principal examining officers were two detectives, one of nine and the other of eleven years' police service. The sergeant of detectives who typed the confession was a man of nine years' police service. Every policeman who took any part in the examination was called as a witness. Each testified that there was no use of force and no intimidation during the examination. Each testified that in fact the confession was uncoerced. The questioning of the accused was described as having been carried on while the parties to it were seated near a desk and not within arm's length of each other. It was conducted in the record room of the detective bureau, rather than in jail. The accused was not handcuffed nor subjected to indignities. The police, the newspaper reporter, and the iceman who was brought in to witness the accused's signature to the confession testified to the normal appearance of the clothing and person of the accused during or following the examination, including the time he was photographed. The witnesses testified only as to what they severally had observed during the respective periods that they were present but, together, they covered the entire period of the examination. If the confession was in fact voluntary, these witnesses could not have said more to prove it. If their testimony is true, it makes false much of the testimony of the accused. The testing of the credibility of this testimony is therefore important. This testimony, furthermore, should not be laid aside here merely because it is in conflict with opposing testimony. If the trial court and jury believed the police and disbelieved the accused on this testimony, there was no substantial ground left for any inference of coercion. If, on the contrary, they believed the accused and therefore concluded that the police and other win esses agreeing with them were perjurers, the trial court could not fairly have admitted the confession in evidence.

The evidence in the record includes ample evidence to support the action taken by the trial judge and jury against the accused if this Court chooses to believe that evidence and to disbelieve the conflicting evidence. Furthermore, that evidence, if so believed, is strong and specific enough greatly to offset conflicting inferences which otherwise might be suggested to this Court by the undisputed evidence.

As a reviewing court, we have a major obligation to guard against reading into the printed record purely conjectural concepts. To conjecture from the printed record of this case that the accused, because of his known proximity to the scene of the crime and his known association that night with the boys, one of whom did the actual shooting, must have been a hardened, smart boy, whose conduct and falsehoods necessarily made all of his testimony worthless per se, is as unjustifiable as it would be to assume, without seeing him or his mother as witnesses, that he was an impressionable, innocent lad, likely to be panicstricken by police surroundings and that all his testimony must be accepted as true except where expressly admitted by him to have been false. To assume from the printed record that the policemen, including the Acting Chief, and the civilians who gave unequivocal testimony as to the absence of force and intimidation in securing the confession or as to the normal appearance of the accused and of his clothing at the time of making the confession, were callous as to the feelings of a boy 15 years of age or were guilty of deliberate perjury would be as unjustifiable as it would be to assume, without hearing and seeing the respective police officers, as witnesses, that each of them was as well-informed, tolerant and thoughtful as an ideal juvenile judge. In this case, this Court seems to have laid aside all the conflicting testimony and then, without seeing or hearing the witnesses, has attempted to draw, from the meager balance of the record, important inferences of callousness and coercion on the part of the examining officers. By disregarding the conflicting material testimony instead of choosing between the true and the false material testimony, the material record is reduced largely to isolated items of subsequent conduct on the part of certain police officers who are alleged to have hampered the boy's mother or an attorney in trying to see him several days after his confession. There is no likelihood that these officers were the same ones who conducted the examination. It is not enough for this Court to say in its opinion today that if 'the undisputed evidence suggests that force or coercion was used to exact the confession, we will not permit the judgment of conviction to stand * *  * .' Recognition must be given also to the right of the trial court to weigh the credibility of the material disputed evidence.

We are not in a position, on the basis of mere suspicion, to hold the trial court in error and to conclude 'that this was a confession wrung from a child by means which the law should not sanction.' While coercion and intimidation in securing a confession should be unequivocally condemned and punished and their product invalidated, nevertheless such coercion should not be presumed to exist because of a mere suggestion or suspicion, in the face of contrary findings by the triers of fact. On the basis of the undisputed testimony relied upon by this Court, it is not justified in making such a determination of 'the callous attitude of the police' of Canton as thereby to override not only the sworn testimony of the State's public officials but also the conclusions of the triers of fact. The trial judge, with his first-hand knowledge, both of the credibility indicated by the testimony in open court and of the habitual 'attitude of the police' of Canton, if there be any such attitude, found to the contrary. That judge and the law enforcement officers of Canton have been entrusted by the State of Ohio with the enforcement of the constitutional obligations of the public to each individual and also of each individual to the public. In the absence of substantial proof to upset the findings of the trial court, these public officers should not be charged with callousness toward, or with violation of, their constitutional obligations.

The legal process governing the admission of confessions in evidence in jury trials in Ohio in a case like this takes conditions into consideration. The Ohio procedure provides for a preliminary examination by the trial judge, out of the presence of the jury, to determine whether the confession should be excluded as involuntary. Such an examination was made at length in this case and the judge, in the absence of the jury, overruled the objection made to the confession upon such ground. The motion was renewed in the presence of the jury and again denied. The judge likewise refused to direct a verdict for Haley at the close of the State's case and again at the close of the entire case. The admissibility of the confession was fully argued in the trial court and, before its admission, the trial judge took the subject under advisement while he adjourned the hearing over a week end. Having decided that the confession was not to be excluded, it was his duty to submit it to the jury. He did this with ample instructions advising the jury of its responsibility in connection with the confession. Testimony then was given at length, in the presence of the jury, bearing upon the voluntariness of the confession as well as upon the probable truth or falsity of its contents. The final instructions of the court emphasized not only the obligation and opportunity of the jury to pass upon the voluntariness of the confession but also its obligation to give appropriate weight to the confession in the light of all the testimony in the event that the confession was found by the jury to have been a voluntary one.

The rule of law governing this case is stated in Lisenba v. People of State of California, 314 U.S. 219, 238, 62 S.Ct. 280, 291, 86 L.Ed. 166: 'There are cases, such as this one, where the evidence as to the methods employed to obtain a confession is conflicting, and in which, although denial of due process was not an issue in the trial, an issue has been resolved by court and jury which involves an answer to the due process question. In such a case we accept the determination of the triers of fact, unless it is so lacking in support in the evidence that to give it effect would work that fundamental unfairness which is at war with due process.' (Italics supplied.)

This Court properly reserves to itself an opportunity to consider the record in a case like this independently from the consideration given to that record by the lower courts. However, when credibility plays as large a part in the record as it does in this case, this Court rarely can justify a reversal of the judgment of the trial court and the verdict of the jury. This is increasingly true where the judgment of the trial court has been affirmed, as here, by two Stae courts of review. In the preliminary examination as to the admissibility of the confession in this case, the trial court may have believed the police and disbelieved the accused. On that basis, there is more than ample evidence to support the trial court's conclusion in refusing to exclude the confession. A similar statement may be made as to the presentation of evidence to the jury. It is not justifiable for this Court, in testing the conclusions of the triers of fact, to rely on inferences drawn solely from those portions of the record which, when read separately, apparently were not disputed. The acceptance of one version or the other of the sharply conflicting testimony which was before the triers of fact could reasonably justify a conclusion of the trial court and jury to exclude or admit the confession without reference to, or even in spite of, implications which might be drawn from the comparatively colorless undisputed testimony if that undisputed testimony stood alone. This Court should include in its appraisal of the record not only the undisputed testimony, but it also should allow for a reasonable conclusion by the trial court and jury, based upon acceptance or rejection of the disputed testimony. On this basis, this Court is not justified, in this case, in holding that the determination by the trial judge that the confession was admissible, or that the holding by the trial jury that the confessor was guilty, 'is so lacking in support in the evidence that to give it effect woudl work that fundamental unfairness which is at war with due process.'

In testing due process this Court must first make sure of its facts. Until a better way is found for testing credibility than by the examination of witnesses in open court. we must give trial courts and juries that wide discretion in this field to which a living record, as distinguished from a printed record, logically entitles them. In this living record there are many guideposts to the truth which are not in the printed record. Without seeing them ourselves, we will do well to give heed to those who have seen them.