181 Opinion of the Court. Petitioner does not challenge this statement of the court. Indeed, at no stage of the proceedings has petitioner offered so much as an affidavit to prove that any juror was in fact prejudiced by the newspaper stories. He asks this Court simply to read those stories and then to declare, over the contrary finding of two state courts, that they necessarily deprived him of due process. That we cannot do, at least where, as here, the inflammatory newspaper accounts appeared approximately six weeks before the beginning of petitioner's trial, and there is no affirmative showing that any community prejudice ever existed or in any way affected the deliberation of the jury. It is also significant that in this case the confession which was one of the most prominent features of the newspaper accounts was made voluntarily and was introduced in evidence at the trial itself. We find no substance in petitioner's contention that he was deprived of effective counsel at a critical point in the case, namely, when he waived trial by jury on the issue of insanity. The attorney who consulted with petitioner as to whether he should make such a waiver was the Public Defender himself, although prior to that time two deputy public defenders had handled the case in court. The Public Defender took this action because the trial court, at the conclusion of the trial on the issue of guilt, had requested that he personally attend the trial on the insanity issue." We fail to see how this action harmed petitioner. As the California Supreme Court found, the Public Defender "was familiar with the case, having read the daily transcript and consulted with and advised [his two deputies] and interviewed witnesses during the trial"; 10 moreover, before consulting with petitioner on the waiver question, 9 The trial court made this request as a result of certain conduct on the part of one of the deputy public defenders, set forth in the opinion below at 36 Cal. 2d 628, 226 P. 2d 338-339. 10 36 Cal. 2d at 628, 226 P. 2d at 338. 994084 O-52-17 Opinion of the Court. 343 U.S. he discussed the matter with his two deputies. Thereafter, petitioner twice stated in open court, in reply to inquiries by the trial judge, that he wished to waive a jury trial on the issue of insanity. Furthermore, there was no real question as to petitioner's sanity. He introduced no additional evidence at the sanity hearing; instead the parties stipulated that the sole evidence would be that adduced at the trial on the issue of guilt, plus the complete reports of the psychiatrists who had testified at that trial. Every psychiatrist who had testified, whether on behalf of petitioner or on behalf of the prosecution, had reached the conclusion that petitioner was sane. On the motion for new trial, when petitioner's present attorney sought to set aside the waiver of jury trial on the issue of insanity, he offered no new evidence relating to petitioner's mental state and did not indicate that any such evidence was available. We conclude that petitioner received the full assistance of competent counsel in deciding that he wanted the insanity issue tried to the court. On that question, as on all others, he has been afforded "the assistance of zealous and earnest counsel from arraignment to final argument in this Court." Avery v. Alabama, 308 U. S. 444, 450 (1940).12 Nor can we agree with petitioner that a combination of these grounds with other circumstances, namely, unwarranted delay in arraignment and refusal to permit counsel 11 At no point has petitioner challenged that stipulation. Indeed, the stipulation had been entered into by one of the deputy public defenders, in whom petitioner states he had complete confidence, prior to the time the court asked the Public Defender to be personally present at the insanity trial. 12 In People v. Adamson, 34 Cal. 2d 320, 333, 210 P. 2d 13, 19 (1949), the Supreme Court of California had this to say about this same Public Defender and his office: "This court can take judicial notice, too, that it would be difficult to find in California any lawyers more experienced or better qualified in defending criminal cases than the Public Defender of Los Angeles County and his staff." 181 Opinion of the Court. to consult petitioner during the making of the confession, amounts to such unfairness as to deny due process. The arraignment was had within less than twenty-four hours after the arrest. The officials questioned petitioner only during the two-hour period in the District Attorney's office, described above. The remainder of that afternoon was devoted to a physical and mental examination, to which petitioner makes no objection. Counsel called on petitioner at the county jail at 9:30 p. m. the evening of the arrest; presumably petitioner remained alone from then until the time of his arraignment the following morning. Although the California Supreme Court found that the failure promptly to arraign petitioner before a committing magistrate was a violation of state law,13 that is not determinative of the issue before us. When this Court is asked to reverse a state court conviction as wanting in due process, illegal acts of state officials prior to trial are relevant only as they bear on petitioner's contention that he has been deprived of a fair trial, either through the use of a coerced confession or otherwise. Lisenba v. California, supra, at 234, 235, 240; Lyons v. Oklahoma, supra, at 597, n. 2; Gallegos v. Nebraska, 342 U. S. 55, 59, 65 (1951). Upon the facts of this case, we cannot hold that the illegal conduct of the law enforcement officers in not taking petitioner promptly before a committing magistrate, coerced the confession which he made in the District Attorney's office or in any other way deprived him of a fair and impartial trial. As to the refusal of the prosecutors to admit counsel during their interrogation of petitioner, counsel stated that he had come to the District Attorney's office at the request of petitioner's son-in-law merely to inquire of petitioner as to his guilt. At no point did petitioner himself ask for counsel. In light of these facts, the Dis 13 Cal. Const., Art. I, § 8. FRANKFURTER, J., dissenting. 343 U.S. trict Attorney's refusal to interrupt the examination of petitioner, which had been proceeding for almost an hour, so that counsel could make inquiry for petitioner's son-inlaw, does not constitute a deprivation of due process, either independently or in conjunction with all other circumstances in this case. While district attorneys should always honor a request of counsel for an interview with a client, upon the record before us there is no showing of prejudice. As was said in Adams v. United States ex rel. McCann, 317 U. S. 269, 281 (1942): "If the result of the adjudicatory process is not to be set at naught, it is not asking too much that the burden of showing essential unfairness be sustained by him who claims such injustice and seeks to have the result set aside, and that it be sustained not as a matter of speculation but as a demonstrable reality." The judgment of the Supreme Court of California is Affirmed. MR. JUSTICE FRANKFURTER, dissenting. One of the petitioner's grounds for attacking his conviction is that the trial lacked fundamental fairness because the district attorney himself initiated the intrusion of the press into the process of the trial. Such misconduct, the petitioner contends, subverted the adjudicatory process by which guilt is determined in Anglo-Saxon countries, so as to offend what the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment protects. The issue was raised after verdict, and the Supreme Court of California might have disposed of the claim by ruling that it had not been made at the stage of the proceeding required by State law. That court, however, chose not to do so. It permitted the petitioner to invoke the Due Process Clause and thereby tendered a federal constitutional issue, as this Court recognizes, for our disposition. 181 FRANKFURTER, J., dissenting. The Supreme Court of California thus formulated the issue and indicated its conception of the allowable standards of fairness under the Due Process Clause: "Defendant claims that he was deprived of a fair trial because the trial court did not protect him from, and the district attorney fostered, 'public pressure.' The killing and the subsequent search for defendant received much publicity. Immediately after defendant's arrest he was taken to the office of the district attorney, interrogated, and confessed. The district attorney, even before defendant completed his statement, released to the press details of the statement (including defendant's admissions of sex play with his victim and other children on occasions prior to the killing) and also announced his belief that defendant was guilty and sane. At the time of defendant's arrest and at the time of his trial (which began some seven weeks later) there was notorious widespread public excitement, sensationally exploited by newspaper, radio and television, concerning crimes against children and defendant's crime in particular. In these circumstances, defendant urges, it was impossible for him to obtain an unbiased jury, and due process requires a new trial even though there is no showing that any juror was actually influenced by the sensational publicity and the popular hysteria. "In connection with his claim of 'public pressure' defendant also calls attention to the following statement by one of his counsel (veteran Deputy Public Defender John J. Hill; defendant was not then represented by his present private counsel) made during his closing argument: 'I wish to make this commentary with reference to just what has occurred before the Court took the Bench. I refer to the televising |
