LAW.coLAW.co

Charles F. WAUGAMAN, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Appellee

United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit1964-04-27No. No. 21077
331 F.2d 189

Summary

Holding. The court affirmed the denial of habeas corpus, holding that a prisoner's previous lack of success on a § 2255 motion does not render that remedy inadequate or ineffective to test the legality of detention, though the court found the underlying speedy trial and involuntary plea claims presented serious questions warranting factual hearing if properly presented to the sentencing court.

Charles Waugaman, a federal prisoner confined at Atlanta Penitentiary, appealed the denial of his habeas corpus petition. He argued that a prior motion under 28 U.S.C.A. § 2255 was inadequate, but the court found that a previous denial does not automatically render § 2255 an ineffective remedy. Waugaman raised two substantial claims: first, that a 2.5-year delay between his November 1959 indictment for bank robbery and May 1962 trial violated his Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial, and second, that his guilty plea was involuntary because the sentencing judge failed to honor part of a negotiated plea arrangement—specifically, denying his motion for sentence reduction under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 35, despite granting concurrent five-year sentences and the government's dismissal of other charges.

The court found both claims presented serious questions affecting the fundamental fairness of the proceedings and appropriate for § 2255 relief. However, the court concluded that these issues required factual development and could not be resolved from the case record alone. The court expressed confidence that the sentencing court or the Sixth Circuit would provide the required hearing and grant appropriate relief if the claims were presented with sufficient factual detail in a properly prepared § 2255 motion.

Summary generated by law.co from the public-domain opinion. The opinion text itself is public domain.

Key issues

  • Whether prior denial of § 2255 motion renders the remedy inadequate or ineffective
  • Whether 2.5-year delay from indictment to trial violated Sixth Amendment speedy trial right
  • Whether guilty plea was involuntary due to unfulfilled plea bargain regarding sentence reduction
  • Whether sentencing judge should have decided § 2255 motion despite being material witness to alleged arrangement

Procedural posture

Federal prisoner appealed in forma pauperis from the district court's denial of his habeas corpus petition challenging his conviction and sentence.

Authorities cited

No cited authorities resolved to law.co cases yet.

Opinion

majority opinion

JOHN R. BROWN, Circuit Judge.

This is an appeal in forma pauperis, pursuant to leave granted by the District Judge, from the denial of an application for writ of habeas corpus addressed to the Warden of the Atlanta Penitentiary where Appellant is confined under sentence of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio.

The petitions are met at the outset with 28 U.S.C.A. § 2255 which provides that a federal prisoner may not proceed by application for writ of habeas ■corpus unless “the remedy by motion [under § 2255] is inadequate or ineffective to test the legality of his detention.” 28 U.S.C.A. § 2255. To overcome this obstacle, several theories are advanced in the vigorous, professionally skilled arguments of appointed counsel whose assistance the Court gratefully acknowledges. But the principal contention is that Appellant’s remedy by motion is ineffective because he was unsuccessful in his ■earlier § 2255 motion since it was denied by the sentencing Court.

The record does not contain a copy of the § 2255 motion, so we do not actually know what grounds were there alleged, or with what factual particularity they were set forth. However, Appellant in these petitions now asserts in very plain and positive terms, in sufficient factual detail, two contentions why his conviction, should be set aside.

First, he asserts that the delay of some 2% years between indictment for bank robbery in November 1959 and trial in May 1962 amounted to a denial of his right to a speedy trial guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment even though the period from September 1960 to December 1961 was consumed in the trial, conviction, and successful-(for him) appeal of a case charging conspiracy to escape and attempted escape from federal custody. Appellant’s counsel make a persuasive argument that there is substantial merit to this contention. Although courts recognize that the test in this area cannot be a mechanical one, there is nothing very speedy about a trial occurring 2% years after indictment. E. g., United States v. McWilliams, D.D.C., 1946, 69 F.Supp. 812, aff’d, 82 U.S.App.D.C. 259, 1947, 163 F.2d 695. Likewise, they emphasize that it is generally true that a defendant’s right to a speedy trial is not affected by the fact that he is incarcerated in jail on another charge or conviction. United States ex rel. Coleman v. Cox, 5 Cir., 1931, 47 F.2d 988; United States ex rel. Whitaker v. Henning, 9 Cir., 1926, 15 F.2d 760; Frankel v. Woodrough, 8 Cir., 1925, 7 F.2d 796. The Government suggests that the trial was delayed partly because of the collateral proceedings in this Circuit involving a motion by a co-defendant to suppress certain evidence. United States v. Koenig, 5 Cir., 1961, 290 F.2d 166, aff’d, 1962, 369 U.S. 121, 82 S.Ct. 654, 7 L.Ed.2d 614. But the fact remains that it took the Government some 2% years to bring Appellant, who apparently was at most indirectly involved with the suppression proceedings, to trial.

Second, Appellant contends that the plea of guilty made some time on the third day of the belated 1962 trial was involuntarily made because induced by and the result of an arrangement between his counsel and counsel for the Government, and only part of which “bargain” was kept. Under the arrangement, which he asserts was entered with the full, active knowledge and consent of the sentencing Judge, he was to plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to escape federal custody and one count of conspiracy to rob a FDIC-insured bank, 18 U.S.C.A. § 751. In return, the Judge was to sentence him to five years on each count, the sentences to run concurrently, and the Government was to dismiss the escape and robbery charges. Finally, Appellant was to receive credit on his sentence for the 2y2 years that he had already spent in prison. This latter was to be accomplished by a motion for reduction of sentence under F.R.Crim.P. 35. The papers, show that Appellant did plead guilty to the conspiracy counts, that the sentence imposed was five years on each count, the sentences to run concurrently, and that the Government did dismiss the other charges. However, the motion for reduction of sentence was denied. Again, counsel argue with considerable force that under these circumstances a serious question relating to the voluntariness of Appellant’s plea is raised. See, Shelton v. United States, 5 Cir., 1957, 242 F.2d 101, reversed en banc, 5 Cir., 1957, 246 F.2d 571, reversed, 1958, 356 U.S. 26, 78 S.Ct. 563, 2 L.Ed.2d 579.

As a third ground which we only briefly mention, Appellant suggests that it was error for the sentencing Judge to pass upon the § 2255 motion (see note 2, supra) since he was a material witness to any arrangement of the sort alleged by Appellant.

Of course we have no way of knowing from the present papers — inartfully drawn as they were by an indigent prisoner, uneducated and uninformed in the ways of the law — whether these allegations were either set out at all or set out with sufficient factual detail in the § 2255 motion before the sentencing Court. But if and when they are presented with sufficient factual particularity, we are confident that the Southern District of Ohio and if necessary on appeal, the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, would take cognizance of two things. First, grounds one and two present serious charges of a character which go to the fundamental fairness of the proceeding and are therefore within the scope and compass of § 2255. Second, grounds one and two are in all likelihood the kind of things that cannot be resolved conclusively from the files and records of the ease. As a result, a factual hearing would be necessary with the Appellant present. Machibroda v. United States, 1962, 368 U.S. 487, 82 S.Ct. 510, 7 L.Ed.2d 473; United States v. Hayman, 1952, 342 U.S. 205, 72 S.Ct. 263, 96 L.Ed. 232; Sanders v. United States, 1963, 373 U.S. 1, 83 S.Ct. 1068, 10 L.Ed.2d 148. There is, therefore, every assurance that the sentencing Court and the Sixth Circuit will accord the hearing which the law requires and will grant the relief which the circumstances justify.

These eventualities will again demonstrate the soundness of the decisions of this and other Courts that previous lack of success does not render the remedy by motion under § 2255 inadequate or ineffective. Birchfield v. United States, 5 Cir., 1962, 296 F.2d 120; Adam v. Hagan, 5 Cir., 1963, 325 F.2d 719; Smith v. Settle, 8 Cir., 1962, 302 F.2d 142. Denial of habeas corpus was therefore correct.

Affirmed.

. Appellant urges on several theories that the petitions in an earlier habeas corpus proceeding (No. 8496, denied July 1963) and the petition in the proceeding below (No. 8598, denied November 7, 1963) are before this Court on appeal. To the extent that the matters set forth in the earlier petition are not technically before us on appeal, the papers are treated as a petition addressed to us as Circuit Judges, 28 U.S.C.A. § 2241.

. The § 2255 motion was denied presumably without hearing on February 27, 1963. The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit denied leave to appeal in forma pauperis by unpublished order dated April 24, 1963.

. Appellant was arrested in Beaumont, Texas, in September 1959 and extradited to Obio in October after which he was indicted in November 1959 for robbery of an FDIC-insured bank in Yorkville, Ohio. He was placed in the federal section of the Columbus, Ohio City Prison. He escaped in July 1960, was recaptured and, in September-October of that same year, tried and convicted of attempted escape and conspiracy to escape. The conviction was reversed from the bench in December 1961 and by formal opinion of March 14, 1962, because Appellant was denied a fair trial. United States v. Koenig, 6 Cir., 1962, 300 F.2d 377. During all of this time, by numerous motions at least one of which he alleges was never acted upon, he asserted his right to a speedy trial on the robbery indictment. He was finally brought to trial in May of 1962.