Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caed-2_95-cv-01451/USCOURTS-caed-2_95-cv-01451-10/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 550
Nature of Suit: Prisoner - Civil Rights (U.S. defendant)
Cause of Action: 42:1983 Prisoner Civil Rights

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1

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

FERDINAND REYNOLDS, )

) 2:95-cv-1451-GEB-DAD

Plaintiff, )

)

v. ) ORDER

)

THEODORE WHITE, Warden; IVALEE )

HENRY; and STANLEY WANG, )

)

Defendants. )

)

On November 29, 2006, the Ninth Circuit remanded this action

for an evidentiary hearing “on the issue of whether [Plaintiff

Ferdinand Reynolds (“Reynolds”)] conditioned his waiver of a jury

trial on a bench trial before the magistrate judge.” (Order, Nov. 29,

2006, at 2.) The April 14, 2004 Order remanding the action stated:

[B]ecause an attorney cannot waive the client’s

right to a jury trial without the client’s

consent, and such consent can be conditioned (such

as on trial by a magistrate judge rather than a

district judge), Reynolds’ assertion that his

consent was so conditioned, his contemporaneous

letter to the district judge mentioning a

magistrate trial, and the trial judge’s refusal to

allow him to address the court, raise a factual

Case 2:95-cv-01451-JAM-JDP Document 266 Filed 11/20/07 Page 1 of 4
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1 Other than Reynolds’s motion for a new trial filed March 19,

2001, the court is unaware of a “contemporaneous letter to the district

judge mentioning a magistrate trial” or any other communication between

Reynolds and/or his then attorney and the court on this issue besides

Reynolds’s then attorney’s unconditional stipulation to waive a jury

trial.

2 The undersigned district judge referenced to the assigned

magistrate judge “[t]he matter of trying to find a lawyer for the

limited purpose of representing Reynolds at the evidentiary hearing.”

(Dec. 18, 2006 Order at 2.) Although numerous attempts were made, no

lawyer could be found. 

2

issue whether there was actual consent to the

waiver of Reynolds’ right to a jury trial.1 

An evidentiary hearing was held on August 6, 2007, and an

order issued on August 14, 2007 finding that Reynolds’s waiver of a

jury trial was not conditioned on a bench trial being held before the

magistrate judge.

Reynolds moves for reconsideration of the August 14 Order

and requests that a new evidentiary hearing be scheduled. Attached to

Reynolds’s motion is a March 16, 2001 letter from Plaintiff’s trial

attorney James J. Falcone (“Falcone”) to Plaintiff, in which Falcone

states: “When we spoke after the trial we discussed the

misunderstanding concerning having a jury trial with [Judge] Burrell

or a bench trial with [Magistrate Judge] Drozd.” Reynolds argues that

counsel should have been appointed to assist him at the August 6

evidentiary hearing, and that said counsel “could have successfully

presented and argued during the hearing [that Falcone] admitted in

writing . . . that [Reynolds] bugged him during the entire course of

[the] bench trial about why [Reynolds’s] case wasn’t being heard

before a jury or before Judge Drozd.”2

 Reynolds contends the “letter

was not presented during the [August 6, 2007] evidentiary hearing by

[Reynolds] based on his lack of legal skills and battle with Bipolar

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3

disorder.” These reasons have not been shown sufficient to excuse

Reynolds’s failure to have presented this letter at the August 6

evidentiary hearing. Reynolds certainly showed sufficient skill to

present the letter following the hearing and nothing about Reynolds’s

demeanor during the hearing indicated he suffered from any mental

illness. Further, the letter does not support Reynolds’s contention

that the misunderstanding between him and Falcone existed during the

trial. The letter references a “misunderstanding” that Reynolds and

Falcone discussed “after trial.”

The August 14 Order found that Reynolds’s testimony at the

August 6 hearing “was contradicted by Falcone’s testimony, by the

excerpt of the trial proceeding during which Reynolds contends he

tried to tell Judge Burrell about his conditional waiver of a jury,

and by Reynolds’s own statements during the August 6 evidentiary

hearing where he failed to explain why he did not tell Judge Burrell

about the alleged conditional waiver.” The August 14 Order stated:

[T]he partial trial transcript evidences that when

Reynolds tried to speak to Judge Burrell at trial,

it was when Falcone was making an argument against

Defendants’ motion under Rule 50(a) of the Federal

Rules of Civil Procedure. Reynolds argued at the

August 6 hearing that he did try to get Falcone to

tell Judge Burrell about the conditional waiver,

but Falcone did not respond. When Reynolds was

asked at the evidentiary hearing why he did not

ask Falcone a second time to tell Judge Burrell

about the waiver, Reynolds stated that he was too

depressed to say anything again because of his

bipolar disorder. His testimony is disbelieved. 

Because Reynolds still has not shown why he did not tell Judge Burrell

about the alleged conditional waiver and/or why he did not ask Falcone

a second time to tell Judge Burrell about the waiver, and since

Reynolds has not shown that he was entitled to have counsel appointed

to represent him at the evidentiary hearing or that the outcome of the

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3 The court’s questioning regarding why Reynolds did not ask

Falcone a second time to tell the court about the waiver does not

constitute a finding that Reynolds asked Falcone a first time to tell

the court about the waiver.

4

evidentiary hearing would have been different had counsel been

appointed, Reynolds’s motion for reconsideration is denied.3

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: November 19, 2007

Case 2:95-cv-01451-JAM-JDP Document 266 Filed 11/20/07 Page 4 of 4