DocketNumber: 630
Judges: Stewart, Clark, Harlan
Filed Date: 6/3/1963
Status: Precedential
Modified Date: 10/19/2024
delivered the opinion of the Court.
On. the evening of February 16, 1961, a man robbed a bank in Lake Charles, Louisiana, kidnapped three of the
Some two weeks later, Rideau was arraigned on charges of armed robbery, kidnapping, and murder, and two lawyers were appointed to represent him. His lawyers promptly filed a motion for a change of venue, on the ground that it would deprive Rideau of rights guaranteed to him by the United States Constitution to force him to trial in Calcasieu Parish after the three television broadcasts there of his “interview” with the sheriff.
Three members of the jury which convicted him had stated on voir dire that they had seen and heard Rideau’s televised “interview” with the sheriff on at least one occasion. Two members of the jury were deputy sheriffs of Calcasieu Parish. Rideau’s counsel had requested that these jurors be excused for cause, having exhausted all of their peremptory challenges, but these challenges for cause had been denied by the trial judge. The judgment of conviction was affirmed by the Supreme Court of Louisiana, 242 La. 431, 137 So. 2d 283, and the case is here on a writ of certiorari, 371 U. S. 919.
The record in this case contains as an exhibit the sound film which was broadcast. What the people of Calcasieu Parish saw on their television sets was Rideau, in jail, flanked by the sheriff and two state troopers, admitting in detail the commission of the robbery, kidnapping, and murder, in response to leading questions by the sheriff.
In Brown v. Mississippi, 297 U. S. 278, this Court set aside murder- convictions secured in a state trial with all the formalities of fair procedures, based upon “free and voluntary confessions” which in fact had been preceded by grossly brutal kangaroo court proceedings while the defendants were held in jail without counsel. As Chief Justice Hughes wrote in that case, “The State is free to regulate .the procedure of its courts in accordance with its own conceptions of policy .... [But] it does not follow that it may substitute trial by ordeal.” 297 U. S., at 285. Cf. White v. Texas, 310 U. S. 530. That was almost a generation ago, in an era before the onrush of an ■ electronic age.
The case now before us does not involve physical brutality. The kangaroo court proceedings in this case involved a more subtle but no less real deprivation of due process of law. Under our Constitution’s guarantee of due process, a person accused of committing a crime is vouchsafed basic minimal rights. Among these are the right to counsel,
The record shows that such a thing as this never took place before in Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana.
Reversed.
The motion stated: “That to require the Defendant to be tried on the charges which have been preferred against him in the Parish of Calcasieu, would be a travesty of justice and would be a violation to the Defendant’s rights for a fair and impartial trial, which is guaranteed to every person accused of having committed a .crime by the Constitution of the State of Louisiana and by the Constitution of the United States.”
The Supreme Court of Louisiana summarized the event as follows: “[0]n the morning of February 17, 1961, the defendant was interviewed by the sheriff, and the entire interview was filmed (with a sound track) and shown to the audience of television station KPLC-TV on three occasions. The showings occurred prior to the arraignment of defendant on the murder charge. In this interview the accused admitted his part in the crime for which he was later indicted.” 242 La., at 447, 137 So. 2d, at 289.
Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U. S. 335.
“Q. Mr. Mazilly, you have been in police work roughly 21 years?
“A. Yes, sir.
“Q. Were you in court yesterday at the time a sound on film picture was shown to the court which had been shown on KPLC-TV encompassing an interview between Sheriff Reid and Rideau?
“A. I was.
“Q. In all of your 21 years, do you know of any similar case in this parish or Southwest Louisiana where a man charged with a capital crime was allowed — that pictures were made of him and the general public was shown the pictures and a sound track in which he confessed to a capital crime?
“A. No, sir.”