Frank Jimmy Snider, Jr. v. W. K. Cunningham, JR., Superintendent of The Virginia State Penitentiary, 292 F.2d 683, 4th Cir. (1961)

292 F.
2d 683
Frank Jimmy SNIDER, Jr., Appellant,

v.
W. K. CUNNINGHAM, Jr., Superintendent of the Virginia
State
Penitentiary, Appellee.
No. 8267.
United States Court of Appeals Fourth Circuit.

Argued March 29, 1961.
Decided June 23, 1961.
Harvey S. Lutins and T. Warren Messick, Roanoke (Morton Honeyman

and Stuart A. Barbour, Jr., Roanoke, Va., on the brief), for appellant.
Clarence F. Hicks, Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen. of Virginia, (A. S. Harrison, Jr.,
Atty. Gen. of Virginia, on the brief) for appellee.
Before SOBELOFF, Chief Judge, and HAYNSWORTH and BOREMAN,
Circuit judges.
HAYNSWORTH, Circuit Judge.
A state court prisoner, under sentence of death for the rape of a 9-year old
child, filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the District Court. Since the
sentence was about to be executed, the writ was issued and, thereafter, a
hearing was held, after which the District Judge concluded that there had been
no showing of any denial of any of the prisoner's constitutional rights.1
On appeal, we remanded the case to the District Court for further proceedings.
The prisoner's principal claim was that he was insane at the time the crime was
committed, a defense which had not been raised at the trial. This fact, the
prisoner claims, demonstrated the incompetency of his counsel. This Court
suggested in its opinion2 that evidence of the prisoner's actual mental condition
would be of assistance in the resolution of the question tendered.
Thereafter, a further hearing was held in the District Court in which evidence of
Thereafter, a further hearing was held in the District Court in which evidence of
the prisoner's mental condition was taken. The District Court again discharged
the writ and ordered the dismissal of the petition.3
At the second hearing in the District Court, the Superintendent and Clinical
Director of the Southwestern State Hospital, an institution for the care and
treatment of mental patients supported by Virginia, testified that the prisoner
was not psychotic or neurotic, but that he had a sociopathic personality disorder
with an antisocial reaction. A physician selected by the prisoner, or his counsel,
testified that the prisoner had a mental disease, and that his sex urge was so
strong as to become compulsive and irresistible in the presence of a female
under his control in a secluded place. The doctors seemed in agreement that his
mental condition now was substantially what it was at the time the offense was
committed and at the time of the prisoner's trial.
There is nothing in the evidence relating to the prisoner's mental condition that
suggests that he was not competent to stand trial. The record as a whole
discloses that he was entirely capable of assisting his counsel in his defense,
and that he did so. Though we may assume that the evidence introduced at the
second hearing in the District Court would have been sufficient had it been
offered at the time of his trial in the state court, to require the submission of the
question of insanity to the jury,4 it does not disclose such an extreme condition
as to require the conclusion that counsel was so grossly neglectful of the
prisoner's interest in failing to rely upon his mental condition as a defense as to
convert the proceedings into a farce or a mockery of justice.5 Clearly the
prisoner is sexually abnormal. His history preceding the crime is a lurid one
filled with sexual activity with a succession of women and childeren, much of it
with the consent of his companion of the moment, but much of it accompanied
by violence, depravity, or both. Perhaps, it was this history suggesting extreme
sexual abnormality, which led the state court prior to trial to have the prisoner
examined by a commission of two physicians under the provisions of Section
19-202 of the Code of Laws of Virginia of 1950 (Section 19.1-228 of the 1960
revision). The commission reported orally to the Commonwealth's attorney and
to the attorney for the prisoner that, after examining the defendant, they were of
the opinion that he was not of unsound mind. These two doctors were
subpoenaed as witnesses by the Commonwealth and were present in the
courtroom at the time of the trial.
While the prisoner now relies upon his history of sexual excess and depravity,
including the crime of which he was convicted, to show his mental
derangement, at the time of trial he insisted that he had not committed the
crime. He sought to establish an alibi. At the time of the trial, therefore, his
counsel based the defense upon the contention that he was not present and did
not commit the crime. Since the physicians who had examined him were
prepared to testify that he was not of unsound mind, they could hardly have
developed a defense of insanity without admitting this and other sexual crimes,
which, collectively, may well suggest a deranged mind, or very poor control of
his conduct. A prisoner who insists that he did not commit a crime can hardly
be forced by his counsel to confess it in order to support a tenuous defense of
insanity.6
7
At the time of his trial the prisoner was represented by an attorney appointed by
the court, assisted by another attorney from Gadsden, Alabama employed by
the defendant's parents. The depositions of these attorneys were taken in
connection with the hearings in the District Court. The privately employed
counsel thought the attorney appointed by the court, who took the lead in the
defense, was a good lawyer, and he found no fault with what the court
appointed counsel did in the preparation or trial of the case. The privately
employed attorney arrived in Roanoke only on the evening preceding the day
before the 3-day trial commenced. There was no motion for a continuance, or
anything to suggest that the defendant and his attorneys were not prepared for
trial. Indeed, the court appointed attorney said that he had completed his
preparation before the trial commenced, and there is every indication that the
prisoner was fairly tried and adequately represented by his two attorneys. If
someone now may think that the defense would have stood a better chance if
the unwilling defendant had confessed the crime and pleaded insanity, it shows
no such neglect of their client's interest or lack of skill on the part of the
attorneys as to make the proceedings so unfair that they may be said to have
been wanting in due process.7
The prisoner also complains that the pretrial report of the physicians who
constituted the commission to examine the defendant, was submitted orally,
rather than in writing. He reads Virginia's statute as requiring a written report.8
If the Virginia statute did require a written report, however, the receipt of the
verbal report was a procedural defect out of which no possible question of due
process could arise.9
These and other contentions of the prisoner are more fully considered in the
two opinions of the District Court, where the facts are fully set forth. For the
reasons stated by the District Judge in those opinions and because of what we
have here said, we think the District Court properly discharged the writ.
10
Because the prisoner in under a sentence of death, this Court, as the District
Court, has sought to give the prisoner opportunity to develop every possible
contention, however baseless it may seem. The result has not disclosed a basis
upon which a federal court may issue a writ, but the proceedings in the District
Court have developed medical testimony which is much more complete and
revealing than the oral report which the state trial court received. Out of this
additional evidence there may arise a moral question as to whether Virginia
should take the life of a man having the deficiencies this prisoner is said to
have. Any such question may properly be addressed to Virginia's Chief
Executive.
11
Moreover, should it be claimed that, aside from his mental condition at any
earlier time, the prisoner is now so deficient in his faculties that it would
amount to a denial of due process to execute hime,10 Virginia's statutes give
him an opportunity to raise the question.11 The possibility that such questions,
cognizable in proceedings in Virginia, may be present has no bearing upon our
consideration of the adequacy of prior state court proceedings under
constitutional standards, with which, alone, we are concerned.
12
Affirmed.
Snider v. Smyth, D.C.E.D.Va., 187 F.Supp. 299
Snider v. Smyth, 4 Cir. 263 F.2d 372
Snider v. Smyth, D.C.E.D.Va., 187 F.Supp. 299
Lucas v. Commonwealth, 201 Va. 599, 112 S.E.2d 915
Avery v. State of Alabama, 308 U.S. 444, 60 S.Ct. 321, 84 L.Ed. 377; Michel v.
State of Louisiana, 350 U.S. 91, 76 S.Ct 158, 100 L.Ed. 83; But see Powell v.
State of Alabama, 287 U.S. 45, 53 S.Ct. 55, 77 L.Ed. 158; White v. Ragen, 324
U.S. 760, 65 S.Ct. 978, 89 L.Ed. 1348; Hawk v. Olson, 326 U.S. 271, 66 S.Ct.
116, 90 L.Ed. 61
The medical evidence in the District Court suggests little or no control of his
sex urges in the presence of a female under his control in a secluded place. The
doctors all agree he could and did control such urges in the presence of others.
The testimony at the trial was that he forced a little girl into his automobile
after blocking her passage through an alley in Roanoke. He then drove to a
secluded spot where the attack occurred. En route he had compelled her to
commit certain acts for the purpose of exciting his genitals. The circumstances
suggest that the crime was planned at a time when his controls were not at their
lowest. These facts make the defense that he acted on an irresistible impulse
less appropriate than it might have been had he first encountered the child
under other circumstances
7
Michel v. State of Louisiana, 350 U.S. 91, 76 S.Ct. 158, 100 L.Ed. 83; Avery v.
State of Alabama, 308 U.S. 444, 60 S.Ct. 321, 84 L.Ed. 377
It is very doubtful that the Virginia statute does require a written report unless
the examination is followed by a commitment
Hebert v. State of Louisiana, 272 U.S. 312, 47 S.Ct. 103, 71 L.Ed. 270; Rogers
v. Peck, 199 U.S. 425, 26 S.Ct. 87, 50 L.Ed. 256
10
See Solesbee v. Balkcom, Warden, 339 U.S. 9, 14, 70 S.Ct. 457, 94 L.Ed. 604
(dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Frankfurter); Caritativo v. People of State of
California, 357 U.S. 549, 550, 552, 78 S.Ct. 1263, 2 L.Ed.2d 1531; Phyle v.
Duffy, 334 U.S. 431, 68 S.Ct. 1131, 92 L.Ed 1494; Nobles v. State of Georgia,
168 U.S. 398, 405, et seq., 18 S.Ct. 87, 42 L.Ed. 515
11
Code of Virginia, 1950, as revised, 1960 19.1-235

Frank Jimmy Snider, Jr. v. W. K. Cunningham, JR., Superintendent of The Virginia State Penitentiary, 292 F.2d 683, 4th Cir. (1961)

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292 F.

Frank Jimmy SNIDER, Jr., Appellant,

United States Court of Appeals Fourth Circuit.

Harvey S. Lutins and T. Warren Messick, Roanoke (Morton Honeyman

Snider v. Smyth, D.C.E.D.Va., 187 F.Supp. 299

Snider v. Smyth, 4 Cir. 263 F.2d 372

Snider v. Smyth, D.C.E.D.Va., 187 F.Supp. 299

Lucas v. Commonwealth, 201 Va. 599, 112 S.E.2d 915

Code of Virginia, 1950, as revised, 1960 19.1-235

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