Joel Jacobsen

On February 15, 1941, Murray Hameroff was shot and killed in front of his home on Stillwell Avenue in Coney Island.  Charles Noia confessed to police he was the triggerman.  His two accessories, Santo Caminito and Frank Bonino, separately confessed.  They were all convicted.  The jury recommended life in prison for them all.

Noia's judge, Peter J. Brancato, told the defendant during sentencing:

I can understand how the jury made its recommendation as to your two accomplices.  I had seriously considered not accepting the jury's recommendation in your case, but without your knowledge you had pleading for you an excellent lawyer.  I am referring to my wife, Mrs. Brancato.  Her last word to me as I left home this morning was a request that I accept the recommendation of the jury in your case as well as the other defendants, and I shall do so.

Noia, perhaps grateful he didn't get the death penalty, didn't appeal his conviction.  But his two accessories did.  They argued

that the trial court committed reversible error in refusing to charge as requested on the subject of illegal detention of defendants by the police without arraignment, in excluding evidence which would have shown that one defendant complained to the jail physician on the day following the arraignment that he had been beaten by the police, ... and in leaving it for the jury to decide whether the confessions were voluntary.  (People v. Bonino, 50 N.E. 2d 654)

In 1944, New York's highest court affirmed the convictions with a one-sentence order finding any errors to be insubstantial.

Fast forward 11 years.  Caminito filed a petition for federal habeas corpus, raising essentially the same issue.  Federal Judge James Thomas Foley heard the petition.  He had a peculiar resume, even for a judge:

Private practice, Troy, New York, 1935-1942
Secretary, Hon. William H. Murray, New York State Supreme Court, 1939-1942
U.S. Naval Reserve, 1942-1945
Secretary, Hon. William H. Murray, New York State Supreme Court, 1946-1949

What, exactly, did it mean to be a "secretary" to a trial court judge (because in New York "supreme" means "not supreme") in those days?   And how did it qualify Foley to become a federal judge?   Well, it was good enough for President Truman and the Senate.

Judge Foley wrote:

The issue of involuntary confession under force and threat was clear cut as far as Caminito was concerned.  He took the stand and under the guidance of an experience and eminent defense attorney, narrated in detail his story of police persecution, brutality, false identification, intimidation, physical and mental, that he said compelled admission and confession.  The detectives flatly contradicted these assertions and the ones mainly accused reiterated such denials in rebuttal.  The questions of food and physical punishment presented by the testimony were essentially and completely factual and peculiarly fitted to the province of the jury.  A cold record, as I try to keep in mind when I am forced to the task of appellate review, can give little indication of the demeanor of the witnesses, their attitude, their tone of voice, their hesitancy, their emotions, their frankness, which are of fundamental importance in the determination where the truth lies.  (U.S. ex rel. Caminito v. Murphy, 127 F.Supp. 689) (the boldface was added for reasons that will become clear in part 2 of this series)

In addition, Judge Foley observed that Caminito hadn't been beaten: he was photographed immediately after his confession; and he never complained either to the magistrate or to his first attorney.  Caminito's trial attorney "flatly stated that he did not claim there were any marks upon the person of Caminito."

Caminito testified at trial "that he did not confess after extreme physical punishment or a staged and spurious identification, but only after a discussion with Noia."  On cross-examination he testified that "statements made in the confession ... came from his own mind and were not instilled in his own mind by the police as part of the alleged fabrication under pressure."  (That last line is just as ambiguous in context: it's unclear if Caminito was referring to all the statements contained in his confession, or only to particular bits - such as, say, his name and address.)

Judge Foley admitted to feeling a little queasy about some of the things that the police apparently acknowledged they had done to Caminito and his co-defendants: "The holding of the defendants incommunicado, the sleeping on a hard bench without pillow or blanket in a cell probably not overheated, the failure to arraign without unnecessary delay as provided by law, the admittedly false identifications, the intensive questioning by relays of detectives ... would cause hesitation and suspicion on my part."

But, the judge added, "the same feelings must have been in the minds of the jurors and they decided the issue in favor of the People after a complete, informative, detailed and conscientious charge."

 So here we have a convicted murderer claiming that the cops mistreated him and the cops denying it.  The factual issue of the voluntariness of Caminito's confession was submitted to the jury, and the jury believed the cops.  Like Judge Foley, you may wonder if they were right to do so, but the whole point of a jury system is that juries get to decide which witness is the credible one.

Isn't it?