The petitioner was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in the Superior Court of California for Los Angeles County. The Supreme Court of California, affirmed the judgment March 21, 1939, two judges dissenting. A rehearing was granted, the case was reargued and, October 5, 1939, the decision was reaffirmed and the former opinion adopted and amplified, two justices dissenting. No question arising under the Constitution of the United States had been raised or decided. In a second petition for rehearing the petitioner, for the first time, asserted that his conviction violated the Fourteenth Amendment. November 3, 1939, the Court ruled: 'The petition for a rehearing herein is denied.'
The Chief Justice of the State allowed an appeal November 6, 1939, and November 8, 1939, executed a certificate in which he enumerated the constitutional questions presented by the second petition for rehearing; stated that the court entertained the petition, and explicitly overruled each of the contentions made therein; certified that the decision denying rehearing 'is to be interpreted and considered as holding against the appellant's contention that his rights under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States * * * were violated'; and concluded: 'It ordered that this certificate be filed in this court and made part of the record on appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States.' On the record so made this Court has jurisdiction to review the judgment.
The appellant did not draw in question the constitutional validity of any statute of California. We, therefore, dismissed the appeal but, treating the papers as a petition for certiorari, we granted the writ. This case is No. 4.
October 31, 1939, the petitioner prayed the Supreme Court of California for a writ of habeas corpus on the theory that his trial and conviction had deprived him of his life without due process. He submitted affidavits of one Hope, who had turned state's evidence against him. In these Hope asserted that his testimony was false, had been coerced by threats and induced by promises of leniency and by fraud.
November 9, 1939, habeas corpus was denied, without prejudice. The Chief Justice of California allowed an appeal and made, and ordered filed of record, a certificate respecting the constitutional questions presented and decided by the court, similar to that entered in No. 4. We followed the same course as in No. 4 and the case is here as No. 5.
The appeals were presented in forma pauperis. The typewritten record is of great length. In the belief that only by briefs and oral argument, and on a record printed by the court, could proper consideration and decision be had of certain apparently important questions presented, we issued the writs. The cases were argued at the October 1940 term, and the judgments were affirmed by a divided Court. A petition for rehearing before a full Court was granted, the affirmances set aside, and the causes set for rehearing at this term.
The petitioner, who used, and was commonly known by, the name of Robert S. James (and will be so called), and one Hope were indicted May 6, 1936, for the murder of James' wife on August 5, 1935. Hope pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life imprisonment. James pleaded not guilty, was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. The trial was a long one in which the petitioner made objections to rulings and to the charge, which raise questions of state law decided by the opinion below, with which we have no concern. We shall refer only to so much of the evidence as bears upon the constitutional questions open here.
The State's theory is that the petitioner conceived the plan of marrying, insuring his wife's life by policies providing double indemnity for accidental death, killing her in a manner to give the appearance of accident, and collecting double indemnity.
James employed Mary E. Busch as a manicurist in his barber shop in March, 1935, and, about a month later, went through a marriage ceremony with her, which was not legal as he then had a living wife. While they were affianced, insurance was negotiated on her life, with James as beneficiary. Upon the annulment of the earlier marriage a lawful ceremony was performed. The petitioner made sure that the policies were not annulled by the fact that when they were issued Mary had not been his lawful wife.