The Incorporation Debate: The Adamson Case

Mrs. Stella Blauvelt was a sixty-four-year-old widow who lived alone in an apartment at 744 Catalina Street in Los Angeles. Her late husband had been a Chicago insurance executive, and as a moderately wealthy widow, Mrs. Blauvelt had led an apparently uneventful life in Los Angeles for twenty years 3' That uneventful existence ended for her one day in July of 1944. Mrs. Blauvelt had become active in the Red Cross during World War II, and on Tuesdays she usually accompanied one of her neighbors in the apartment building to -the Red Cross center. On the evening of the twenty-fifth of July, the neighbor went to Mrs. Blauvelt's apartment but received no answer after knocking on the door. The neighbor then consulted the manager of the apartment building, and the two of them returned to the Blauvelt apartment. Using a passkey, the manager opened the door and discovered Mrs. Blauvelt lying dead on the living-room floor.

The police were immediately summoned, and after a brief inspection of the body, they determined that Mrs. Blauvelt had been murdered. Two bloodstained pillows were lying on her face and head, and a coat covered the lower portion of her body. An electric-lamp cord had been wound around Mrs. Blauvelt's throat. A subsequent medical examination determined that Mrs. Blauvelt had been severely beaten, but that the cause of her death had been strangulation. The time of death was determined to have been on Monday, July 24.

Further investigation of the Blauvelt apartment revealed that the motive for the murder had been burglary. Diamond rings that Mrs. Blauvelt had been known to wear on her left hand were missing, and her purse had also been rifled. The burglar had apparently gained entrance to the apartment through a garbage compartment in the kitchen. This compartment was connected with the apartment by a door through which garbage cans could be inserted, and another door connected the garbage compartment with the hallway, so that garbage from the compartment could be collected from the hallway. The burglar had apparently entered the garbage compartment from the hallway door. The inside door to the compartment had been latched, but the burglar had simply forced the inside door off its hinges and entered the apartment. The inner door was found by the police leaning against the kitchen sink.

This inner door of the garbage compartment provided the police with their first solid clues to the murderer of Mrs. Blauvelt. On the door a police fingerprint expert discovered several latent fingerprints that did not belong to Mrs. Blauvelt. Further investigation of the murder apartment also turned up some interesting facts about the murderer. Although Mrs. Blauvelt had not been sexually assaulted, under her body the police discovered one of her stockings with the top missing. The other stocking was not in the apartment. The police deduced that they were looking for a burglar who had a fixation in regard to women's stockings, particularly women's stocking tops.

A month after the murder, on August 24, the Los Angeles police arrested Admiral Dewey Adamson, a forty-three-year-old black man, and charged him with first-degree murder and burglary in the Blauvelt case. Adamson had a prior criminal record, although it dated from twenty years earlier. He had been convicted in Missouri of burglary in 1920 and of robbery in 1927, and he had served time for these offenses in the Missouri state prison. Adamson was booked in at the University Police Station on the charge of murder and burglary in the early morning hours of August 24, but from the beginning he maintained his innocence and told the police that he had an alibi for the day of the murder.

At his preliminary hearing, Dewey Adamson entered a plea of not guilty, but he was bound over for trial on charges of murder and burglary in the Superior Court for Los Angeles County. His trial began on November 14, 1944, before a jury of eleven women and one man. Judge Charles W. Fricke presided at the trial; Deputy District Attorney S. Ernest Roll represented the state; and Dewey Adamson was represented by Milton B. Safier.

The most important evidence introduced against Adamson at the trial was fingerprint evidence from the unhinged inner door of the garbage compartment in the Blauvelt apartment. A police expert testified that the fingerprints were definitely those of Adamson, and this testimony was supported by a court-appointed fingerprint expert.

Only two other items of evidence were introduced by the prosecution that tended to link Dewey Adamson directly to the murder of Mrs. Blauvelt. Frances Jean Turner, a black woman who patronized the Colony Club bar, testified that she had overheard Adamson offer to sell a diamond ring to another customer in the bar. Also, Officer William H. Brennan of the homicide detail of the Wilshire Detective Bureau, along with his partner, had located the apartment where Dewey Adamson lived, and during a search of the apartment, they had discovered women's stocking tops in a bureau drawer in the bedroom. Over the objections of defense counsel, these stocking tops were admitted into evidence by Judge Fricke, although they were not those of Mrs. Blauvelt."

No witnesses were called in Adamson's behalf, and he himself did not testify because of his prior criminal record. If he had testified in his own behalf, the prosecution could have revealed his prior record to the jury for the purpose of impeaching his credibility as a witness. Under article I, section 13, of the California Constitution, on the other hand, the prosecution could comment on Dewey Adamson's failure to testify in his own behalf, and Deputy District Attorney Roll took full advantage of this opportunity in his closing argument to the jury."

Roll pointed out that the jury had not "heard from the lips of the defendant or a single witness called by the defendant where he was other than in that apartment." As far as Adamson was concerned, he said, "he does not have to take the stand. But it would take about twenty or fifty horses to keep someone off the stand if he was not afraid. He does not tell you. No." Adamson had had the presumption of innocence at the outset of the trial, Roll continued, but as the state's case developed, he had been stripped "of that presumption of innocence, and finally, at the conclusion of the People's case, when he did not take the stand or did not put any witnesses on the stand, he stood here with that presumption removed, based on the evidence in this case." Adamson could have explained a lot of things, Roll declared. "If he wasn't [in the Blauvelt apartment], where was he? Where was he? . . . He could explain how his prints got on there." Adamson had the right to testify in his own behalf, Roll continued, "and he did not do it. You can consider that with all the testimony in this case, and I ask you to consider it." In conclusion, Roll said, "I am going to make this one statement to you: Counsel asked you to find this defendant not guilty. But does the Defendant get on the stand and say, under oath, `I am not guilty'? Not one word from him, and not one word from a single witness. I leave the case in your hands."

On November 22, 1944, the jury returned verdicts of guilty on both the murder and burglary counts against Dewey Adamson. And on November 27, Adamson was sentenced by Judge Fricke to death in the gas chamber in the state prison at San Quentin. Adamson was also adjudged an habitual criminal because of his prior criminal record, and he was sentenced to life imprisonment on the burglary count. The execution of Adamson's sentence was stayed, however, pending the outcome of an appeal of his case to the California Supreme Court.

The California Supreme Court nonetheless unanimously affirmed Adamson's conviction on January 4, 1946. Relying on Twining v. New Jersey, the court held that California's comment practice did not violate the federal Constitution. "Although there has been much discussion as to the wisdom of allowing comment upon and consideration of a defendant's failure to deny or explain incriminating evidence . . . ," it said, "the freedom from federal constitutional limitations of state provisions allowing such comment and consideration was settled in Twining v. New Jersey. . . ."

Counsel for Adamson had also argued that he had been denied a fair trial by the introduction of the women's stocking tops as evidence against him. The introduction of the stocking tops by the prosecution had been solely for the purpose of inflaming an all-white jury against a black defendant accused of murdering a white woman, Adamson's counsel argued, and the effect had been so prejudicial that Adamson had been denied a fair trial. But the California Supreme Court ruled that the stocking tops were evidence that Adamson "had some use for women's stocking tops. This interest in women's stocking tops is a circumstance that tends to identify defendant as the person who removed the stockings from the victim and took away the top of one and the whole of another." The stocking tops therefore constituted "a logical link in the chain of evidence," the court said, and "demonstrative evidence that tends to prove a material issue or clarify the circumstances of the crime is admissible despite its prejudicial tendency. "48 Neither the comment by the prosecution on his failure to testify nor the admission of the stocking tops as evidence against him, had denied Adamson a fair trial, the court held, and his convictions were affirmed.

After the decision of the California Supreme Court, the fight to save Dewey Adamson's life was carried to the United States Supreme Court. Since Adamson was incarcerated and without funds, the appeal to the Supreme Court had to proceed in forma pauperis, and Milton B. Safier's law partner, Morris Lavine, conducted the appeal on behalf of Adamson without fee.

Morris Lavine urged the Court to reverse Twining v. New Jersey and to hold that the Self-Incrimination Clause of the Fifth Amendment was applicable in state proceedings via the Due Process Clause. If the SelfIncrimination Clause applied to the states, he argued, California's comment practice was clearly unconstitutional, since it penalized a defendant's exercise of the right against self-incrimination, which included the right not to testify at one's trial. The nearly forty years that had passed since the Twining decision, he said, "have given us a new concept of ordered liberty, a concept based upon a clear examination of those things which should be included and excluded in a living world under a Constitution that was meant to protect all the human rights for which this republic stands." And under this new concept of ordered liberty, Lavine argued, "Justice Harlan's able and analytical dissenting opinion in Twining v. New Jersey should be the standard of due process today."

Even if it is assumed that the Self-Incrimination Clause does not apply to the states, however, Lavine argued, Dewey Adamson's convictions should still be reversed on the ground that he had been denied a fair trial as guaranteed by the Due Process Clause. Both the introduction of the stocking tops as evidence and the prosecution's comments to the jury on his failure to testify, Lavine said, constituted violations of due process. The comment practice denied the right to a fair trial in much the same manner as the admission into evidence of a coerced confession, Lavine contended, since the comment practice put "statutory heat" on a defendant to incriminate himself, replacing the "club, the fist, the bludgeon, and the rubber hose." If Adamson had testified, the prosecution could have brought out his prior criminal record, Lavine noted, and by not testifying the prosecutor could infer his guilt to the jury. The California comment practice, he concluded, required that "you get on the witness stand and subject yourself to the questioning of a clever prosecutor who is prepared to shrivel you to pieces, very much like the star chamber methods which were disapproved in England and the earlier ecclesiastical courts. The statute says, in effect, if you don't do so there is a presumption or inference of guilt which the jury has a right to consider from the mere fact of silence in the courtroom." The result, Lavine declared, was that "you are damned if you do and you are damned if you don't."

California counsel, on the other hand, denied that the comment practice violated the federal Constitution. The Due Process Clause did not protect a right against self-incrimination, they argued, and the "case of Twining v. New Jersey . . . would seem to be, and generally is considered by courts and text writers, as determinative of this question." Adamson had been accorded a fair trial, California counsel said, and the record disclosed that "if there were procedural errors they were not prejudicial and not of a character nor. importance to warrant this court in .taking cognizance of them." There was nothing in the record, they concluded, "that can be said to `shock the conscience' or that is `abhorrent to the sense of justice' or that offends any principle of justice so rooted in the conscience as to be ranked as fundamental."

Adamson v. California was argued before the Court on January 15 and 16, 1947, and was considered in the conference of the Court on January 18. According to Justice Rutledge's conference notes, Justice Burton voted to affirm the California Supreme Court's decision upholding Adamson's convictions. Rutledge, who voted next, voted to reverse, as did Justices Murphy and Douglas. Justices Jackson, Frankfurter, and Reed voted to affirm, with Reed arguing that even if the Self-Incrimination Clause applied to the states, there had been no violation of the right in the Adamson case. Justice Black passed, saying that although he believed the Self-Incrimination Clause applied to the states, he was unsure as to whether comment upon the failure of a defendant to testify violated the clause. Voting last, Chief Justice Vinson voted to affirm, and the vote was thus five votes to affirm and three to reverse, with Black passing.