Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-90-06317/USCOURTS-ca10-90-06317-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Attorney General
Appellee
Jimmy Dale Curliss
Appellant
Gary D. Maynard
Appellee

Document Text:

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

TENTH CIRCUIT 

JIMMY DALE CURLISS, 

Petitioner-Appellant, 

) 

) 

) 

) 

FIL D 

Uoited State$ Court of Appeals 

Tenth Circuit 

MAY Q - 1991 

ROBERT L. HOECKER 

Clerk 

v. ) No. 90-6317 

GARY D. MAYNARD, Warden; 

ATTORNEY GENERAL, State of 

Oklahoma, 

Respondents-Appellees. 

) (W.D. Okla. No. CIV-90-363-T) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

ORDER AND JUDGMENT* 

Before MCKAY, SEYMOUR, and EBEL, Circuit Judges. 

After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel 

has determined unanimously that oral argument would not assist the 

determination of this appeal. See Fed. R. App. 34(a); 10th Cir. 

R. 34.1.9. Therefore, the case is ordered submitted without oral 

argument. 

Petitioner Jimmy Dale Curliss appeals the denial of his 

habeas corpus petition by Chief Judge Ralph Thompson of the 

* This order and judgment has no precedential value and shall not 

be cited, or used by any court within the Tenth Circuit, except 

for purposes of establishing the doctrines of the law of the case, 

res judicata, or collateral estoppel. 10th Cir. R. 36.3. 

Appellate Case: 90-6317 Document: 010110106489 Date Filed: 05/06/1991 Page: 1 
United States District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma. 

We affirm. 1 

FACTS 

In December 1982, petitioner Jimmy Dale Curliss was charged 

with robbery with a dangerous weapon in the District Court of 

Cleveland County, Oklahoma. Petitioner was originally represented 

by retained counsel, Mr. Michael Gassaway. Mr. Gassaway 

represented the petitioner at the preliminary hearing and filed 

numerous pretrial motions, including a Motion to Suppress, a 

Motion to Compel Discovery of Brady material, a Demurrer to the 

Information, and a Motion to Quash. Petitioner pled not guilty to 

the offense, and the trial was scheduled to begin on March 22, 

1983. On that date, petitioner appeared and informed the court 

that he wished to discharge his retained counsel and that he 

wanted a continuance to be able to hire other counsel. There is 

no evidence in the record suggesting that the district court was 

advised why petitioner wished to discharge Mr. Gassaway or 

substantiating any complaint petitioner may have had against 

Mr. Gassaway. The trial court consented to the withdrawal of Mr. 

Gassaway on the express understanding that petitioner would retain 

new counsel for the trial and that the trial would be rescheduled 

for March 28, 1983. The court admonished petitioner that the 

trial, in any event, would be held on March 28, and that if 

petitioner failed to retain new counsel, that the court would 

appoint counsel at that time to represent petitioner. It was upon 

1 We grant petitioner's application for a certificate of probable 

cause and his motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis. 

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these terms that Mr. Gassaway was permitted to withdraw at the 

request of the petitioner. 

On March 28, petitioner arrived for trial without counsel. 

He stated that he had attempted to contact several attorneys who 

declined to represent him on such short notice, but the only 

affidavit that he submitted to the court was an affidavit from one 

attorney, Fred Shaeffer, which indicated that he had first been 

contacted to represent the petitioner at 8:00 a.m. on the day of 

trial, March 28, for the trial that was scheduled to begin at 

9:00 a.m. Mr. Shaeffer declined to accept the engagement by 

petitioner under those circumstances. 

Petitioner then sought a second continuance of the trial, 

which request was made at the time the trial was scheduled to 

begin. True to its word, the trial court denied that request, and 

he appointed Mr. Reginald Gaston to represent petitioner. Mr. 

Gaston had previously been the First Assistant District Attorney, 

and the trial court concluded that he was "as competent [a] 

criminal practitioner as there is in Cleveland County." Although 

Mr. Gaston had only about 20 minutes to meet with the petitioner 

and learn of the case prior to the voir dire, the court recessed 

for several hours before taking evidence in order to allow Mr. 

Gaston the opportunity to review the transcript of the preliminary 

hearing and further to prepare. The court also recessed at 5:00 

p.m. that day in order to allow Mr. Gaston the evening to prepare 

for the second day of trial. The court gave Mr. Gaston the 

opportunity to subpoena any additional witnesses that he wished 

for the defense. 

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Petitioner failed to appear for the second day of trial and 

he was ultimately apprehended as a fugitive in another state and 

brought back to Oklahoma for sentencing. The trial apparently 

continued for a part of the morning of the second day, after which 

the defendant was convicted. He ultimately received a 25-year 

sentence. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals (Judge Brett) 

affirmed the conviction upon direct appeal. Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 

§ 2254, petitioner sought a writ of habeas corpus from the United 

States District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma. 

Petitioner asserted (1) that he was denied effective assistance of 

trial counsel, and (2) that the trial court abused its discretion 

by denying his second request for a continuance which was filed on 

the opening day of trial. The district court rejected both of 

petitioner's arguments and denied the habeas petition. Petitioner 

now appeals. We affirm. 

PETITIONER'S CLAIM OF INEFFECTIVE 

ASSISTANCE OF COUNSEL 

In Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1983), the Supreme 

Court enunciated a two-prong test for determining the viability of 

a defendant's claim for ineffective assistance of counsel. The 

Court held that in order to prevail on such a claim, a defendant 

must show: (1) that his attorney's conduct fell outside the "wide 

range of reasonable professional assistance," id. at 689-90; and 

(2) that the attorney's deficiencies actually prejudiced 

defendant's trial. The district court below applied this test to 

petitioner's case and concluded that petitioner failed to meet 

either prong. 

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Based upon a careful review of the record, we cannot conclude 

that the district court erred in finding that petitioner's 

attorney's conduct did not fall outside the "wide range of 

reasonable professional assistance" required by the Sixth 

.Amendment. Although Mr. Gaston was allowed only a very short 

period of time to prepare for trial, the Supreme Court has 

generally been disinclined to adopt a per se rule that 

incompetency of counsel can be presumed from the fact that counsel 

has had only a limited opportunity for preparation for trial. 

Instead, the Court has generally required that the attorney's 

actual trial performance be reviewed in order to determine whether 

the petitioner received effective assistance of counsel. When the 

evidence of the attorney's actual performance is available it 

seems preferable to rely on it rather than on a per se rule which 

ignores the realities of what actually happened at trial. 

We start our analysis with United States v. Cronic, 466 U.S. 

648 (1983). There, the Court reviewed defense counsel's 

performance and held that it was adequate under the Sixth 

.Amendment even though the case was so complicated that the 

government had taken four and one-half years to prepare it and the 

appointed counsel was a young lawyer with a real estate practice 

who was allowed only 25 days of pretrial preparation. The Court 

refused to apply a per se assumption of incompetence based on the 

short preparation time, and it evaluated the actual performance of 

trial counsel. The Court said that unless the defendant could 

show "the complete denial of counsel" or that "counsel entirely 

fails to subject the prosecution's case to meaningful adversarial 

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testing", or other circumstances of similar magnitude, "there is 

generally no basis for finding a sixth amendment violation unless 

the accused can show how specific errors of counsel undermined the 

reliability of the finding of guilt." (emphasis added) Id. at 

2 

p. 659, n. 26. 

The Court referred to only one case as an example of where 

the facts were so egregious that the ineffectiveness of counsel 

could be presumed. That case was Powell v. Alabama, 287 U.S. 45 

(1932). The facts of that case, however, are very different from 

the facts of the case here. There, defendants were uneducated and 

illiterate black youths who, in the early 1930s, were charged with 

the capital offense of raping several white girls in the state of 

Alabama. All of the defendants were from out-of-state, and the 

alleged offense occurred while they were riding a freight train on 

its way through Alabama. The crime was highly publicized, and it 

was necessary to call out the militia to safeguard the defendants 

pending trial. The defendants were closely confined and kept 

under military guard until trial. At the time of the indictment, 

the court generally appointed "all the members of the bar" for the 

purpose of arraigning the defendants, although there is no 

indication that any lawyer in fact assisted the defendants. The 

trials began six days later. At the commencement of the trial, 

when the court asked if the defendants were ready to proceed, no 

2 As will be discussed later in this Order, it could not by any 

stretch of the imagination be argued here that petitioner had a 

"complete denial of counsel" or that his counsel "entirely failed 

to subject the prosecutor's case to meaningful adversarial 

testing" or circumstances of similar magnitude, which must mean 

essentially the total failure of counsel. 

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lawyer appeared on their behalf. There was, in the courtroom, 

however a lawyer from Tennessee who said he had been sent to 

observe the trial by people who were interested in it. 

Notwithstanding his protestations of lack of familiarity with 

Alabama procedures or with the facts of the case, the court 

appointed him to represent the defendants with such local 

assistance as might be required from members of the local bar. 

The trial began immediately thereafter. The defendants were 

convicted and sentenced to death. 

In holding that the defendants were not given effective 

assistance of counsel under these circumstances, the Court made it 

clear that it was applying a presumption of ineffective counsel 

only in the extreme circumstances of that particular case. The 

Court said, 

"Whether this would be so in other criminal 

prosecutions, or under other circumstances, we 

need not determine. All that it is necessary 

now to decide, and we do decide, is that in a 

capital case, where the defendant is unable to 

employ counsel, and is incapable adequately of 

making his own defense because of ignorance, 

feeblemindedness, illiteracy, or the like, it 

is the duty of the court, whether requested or 

not, to assign counsel for him as a necessary 

requisite of due process of law; and that duty 

is not discharged by an assignment at such a 

time or under such circumstances as to 

preclude the giving of effective aid in the 

preparation and trial of the case." 

The other cases cited by the Court in Cronic were Avery v. 

Alabama, 308 U.S. 444 (1940); Chambers v. Maroney, 399 U.S. 42 

(1970); and Morris v. Slappy, 461 U.S. 1 (1983). In each of those 

cases, as indeed was the case in Cronic itself, the Court looked 

to the actual performance of trial counsel to see if the defendant 

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had received effective assistance of counsel, notwithstanding the 

lack of preparation time allowed to appointed counsel. 

In Avery, counsel was appointed in a capital case with only 

three days to prepare prior to trial. The trial court denied the 

counsels' request for additional time, even though both counsel 

submitted affidavits that they had been tied up in other trials 

during those three days and therefore had essentially no 

preparation time prior to trial. The Supreme Court found that the 

defendant had not been deprived of effective counsel, noting the 

conclusion of the state court that counsel performed 

" intelligently and well." The fact-based analysis suggested by 

the Court was to determine whether the tardiness of the 

appointment in fact rendered such appointments "a sham and nothing 

more than a formal compliance with the Constitution's requirement 

that an accused be given assistance of counsel." Counsel's actual 

performance in that case was sufficient to satisfy the Court that 

the defendant had effective assistance of counsel. 

In Morris v. Slappy, the Court reversed a court of appeals 

holding which had concluded that defendant had been denied 

effective assistance of counsel when counsel was appointed six 

days prior to trial on a charge of robbery, burglary, and rape. 

The defendant asserted that counsel had effectively been appointed 

only one and one-half days prior to trial and that counsel had 

been totally ineffective in communicating with him. The Court 

concluded that broad discretion must be granted to the trial 

courts concerning whether a continuance should be granted to allow 

appointed counsel more time to prepare, and, under the specific 

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facts of the representation there involved, the Court found no 

abuse of discretion. 

In Chambers v. Maroney, the defendant was represented by one 

legal aid lawyer during his first trial, which ended in a 

mistrial. Upon retrial, a second legal aid lawyer appeared to 

represent petitioner, and that lawyer did not consult with the 

defendant until just a few minutes before the second trial began. 

The defendant alleged that his second lawyer did not render 

competent legal assistance to him. The Supreme Court affirmed the 

court of appeals, which concluded that the second counsel provided 

adequate legal representation. In so ruling, the Supreme Court 

said, "[W]e are not disposed to fashion a per se rule requiring 

reversal of every conviction following tardy appointment of 

counsel .•. " 399 U.S. 42 at 54. 

Here, the record does not satisfy the petitioner's obligation 

to prove that his counsel made errors "so serious that counsel was 

not functioning as the 'counsel' guaranteed the defendant by the 

Sixth Amendment." Strickland, 466 U.S. 668, 687 (1983). In fact, 

the defendant was vigorously represented by counsel at every 

critical stage of the proceedings against him. His first counsel, 

Mr. Gassaway, represented him during the preliminary hearing and 

successfully got the initial charges dismissed for lack of 

jurisdiction. After the charges were refilled, he prepared and 

filed numerous pretrial motions that reflected thorough and 

competent pretrial representation of this defendant. His 

assistance continued up until the date that the initial trial was 

scheduled to begin and, had the trial court not approved the 

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defendant's request to dismiss him, there is nothing in the record 

to establish that he would not have been fully prepared 

competently to try the case at that time. 

Five days later, Mr. Gaston was appointed. Although his 

appointment came only twenty minutes before voir dire began, he 

had the advantage of being a very experienced and competent 

criminal attorney. As noted above, he had previously been a First 

Assistant District Attorney and the trial court had found he was 

"very well versed in the criminal law, and is as competent 

criminal practitioner as there is in Cleveland County." He had 

full access to the defendant, and the court gave a two-hour 

continuance after voir dire so that he could review the transcript 

of the preliminary hearing and otherwise prepare to cross-examine 

the state's witnesses. This time was apparently put to good use 

because his cross-examination was thorough, vigorous, and made use 

of the testimony at the preliminary hearing to attempt to impeach 

the state's witnesses. The court further recessed the trial at 

5:00 p.m. on the first day in order to give the defendant's 

counsel the evening to attempt to secure any additional witnesses 

he may wish and to prepare for any further witnesses that would be 

called the second day. The court also apparently made available 

to the defendant's counsel the opportunity to subpoena additional 

witnesses, even on the short notice available to him. 3 

3 The petitioner argues that trial subpoenas must be served ten 

days in advance of trial in Oklahoma, but the record suggests that 

the court was prepared to allow witnesses to be compelled for next 

day testimony. In any event, there is no evidence that subpoenas 

were served and were declared ineffective or challenged because of 

such a ten-day rule. 

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This was not a difficult case to try. The Information 

charged that the defendant and several accomplices had a quarrel 

with the victim at a bar following a failed drug transaction. 

They followed the victim out to the parking lot, where they 

assaulted him and beat him. The defendant approached the victim 

and stabbed him in the chest, and thereafter robbed him of his 

billfold. The assault was accomplished in the plain view of a 

number of witnesses and, at trial, testimony was adduced 

supporting these facts from the victim himself and from three eyewitnesses, all of whom identified the defendant and among them 

there was testimony unequivocally supporting all the essential 

allegations of the Information. The defense consisted of 

attacking the credibility and the accuracy of the state's 

witnesses, recalling the victim and calling two contrary witnesses 

(one of whom asserted her Fifth Amendment right not to testify) to 

challenge the government's story in various particulars. This 

assault presented the kind of simple and public factual scenario 

that an experienced defense lawyer could handle with a minimum of 

preparation. It did not involve an analysis of complex documents, 

or the understanding of protracted, secret, or complicated 

transactions. The entire trial only took two half-days to present 

the evidence. Defendant's counsel, in fact, vigorously crossexamined each of the state's witnesses and presented the defendant 

and two other witnesses of his own. His examination, both on 

cross-examination and direct examination, showed a full 

understanding of the facts and an artful application of defense 

counsel's skills. He gave an impassioned and thorough closing 

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argument. However, in light of the overwhelming evidence of the 

defendant's guilt, it is not surprising that the jury found the 

defendant guilty. 

The district court, in denying the defendant's motion for 

habeas corpus, concluded: 

"The attorney made numerous objections and 

vigorously cross-examined all of the state's 

witnesses, filed numerous motions to the 

court, offered witnesses on behalf of the 

defense, and presented effective opening and 

closing arguments. Given the position that 

the petitioner had placed his attorney in, his 

performance appeared to be nothing less than 

Herculean." 

The record fully supports these findings that the petitioner had 

effective legal counsel during his trial, notwithstanding the 

difficulties caused by his failure to secure other counsel prior 

to the trial which resulted in the last-minute appointment of Mr. 

Gaston to represent him. 

The petitioner has failed to establish the second prong of 

Strickland as well: that the attorney's deficiencies actually 

prejudiced his trial. The defendant must show "that there is a 

reasonable probability that, but for counsel's unprofessional 

errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different." 

United States v. Andrews, 790 F.2d 803, 814 (10th Cir. 1986), 

cert. denied 481 U.S. 1018 (1987). There is a "strong 

presumption" that counsel did provide effective assistance of 

counsel and it is the petitioner's burden of proof to overcome 

that presumption. United States v. Voigt, 877 F.2d 1465, 1468 

(10th Cir. 1989), cert. denied 110 S.Ct. 517 (1989). Here, there 

is absolutely nothing in the record to establish that "there is a 

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reasonable probability that, but for counsel's unprofessional 

errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different." 

Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 694. As noted previously, 

the state presented testimony from the victim himself and from 

three other objective and unrelated eye-witnesses who 

unequivocally established the elements of the offense charged 

against the defendant. The defendant admitted being present at 

the scene of the altercation, and denied the stabbing of the 

victim and taking his wallet. The jury obviously believed the far 

more credible and persuasive evidence put on by the state. 

The only specific claim of prejudice asserted by the 

defendant was his assertion that there were several other 

witnesses that he could have called if his counsel had had more 

time to prepare for trial. However, his first counsel, 

Mr. Gassaway, had plenty of time to subpoena any additional 

witnesses if he had concluded that they would have been helpful to 

the defendant's case. Further, his second counsel, Mr. Gaston, 

was accorded the opportunity to secure witnesses in the middle of 

trial if any helpful witnesses existed and could be identified. 

When defendant filed his Motion for Judgment of Not Guilty 

Notwithstanding the Verdict, or Alternatively, Motion for New 

Trial, he identified only three other potential witnesses he 

claimed might have been helpful to him if they could have been 

secured by subpoena. Those witnesses were Rory Johnson, James 

Smith, and Linda Curliss. He attached affidavits from each of 

those potential witnesses to the motion. R. 110-112. Although 

the affidavits indicated that those prospective witnesses would 

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have quarrelled with certain particulars of the government's case, 

none of those affidavits asserted that the affiant would have 

testified that the defendant did not stab the victim or take his 

wallet. Nor was there any indication that any of those witnesses 

would have been available to testify at trial if it had been 

continued. 

Given the overwhelming strength of the government's case 

against the defendant and the defendant's inability to point to 

specific prejudice that would likely have lead to a different 

result, we cannot conclude that the federal district court was in 

error when it concluded that "a review of the affidavits submitted 

by petitioner's witnesses does not convince the court that there 

is a reasonable probability that the result of the trial would 

have been different, even if those witnesses testified at trial. 

Thus, the petitioner also failed to demonstrate the prejudice 

prong of the Strickland standard." 

Finally, we note that 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d) requires us to give 

a presumption of correctness to any determination of a factual 

issue made by a state court in a proceeding to which the defendant 

was a party. Among the factual findings made by the state trial 

and appellate courts in petitioner's case are findings that 

(1) there were not, in fact, any witnesses helpful to the 

defendant that he was unable to secure; (2) that the defendant's 

intent in discharging counsel and appearing at trial without 

counsel was for the purpose of postponing the trial and was done 

in bad faith; (3) that the evidence introduced against the 

defendant at trial was overwhelming; and (4) that defendant's 

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trial counsel was highly competent in his training and reputation. 

To the extent that these conclusions involved factual findings, 

they must be given presumptive weight of correctness. 

In denying the defendant's Motion for Judgment of Not Guilty 

Notwithstanding the Verdict, or Alternatively, Motion for New 

Trial, the state district court that tried the defendant made the 

following findings: 

The Court is of the opinion that Mr. 

Curliss brought this delay and lack of counsel 

upon himself. He was advised that--Mr. 

Gassaway was advised, whenever Mr. Gassaway 

was allowed to withdraw, that there would be 

no delay in this trial; and yet Mr. Curliss 

insisted upon discharging Mr. Gassaway, with 

assurance to the Court that he was going to 

have counsel ready and prepared to try this 

case. The day for trial came up, and Mr. 

Curliss reported to this Court that he did not 

have any counsel; the Court appointed counsel, 

and Mr. Gaston was given every opportunity to 

secure the witnesses. It's the Court's 

finding that there were no witnesses to 

corroborate Mr. Curliss's story; that Mr. 

Curliss intended to delay this trial in hopes 

of the State's case falling apart, as 

evidenced by the fact that during the trial 

Mr. Curliss left this jurisdiction and was 

subsequently arrested and taken into custody 

and returned from the State of Nevada. If Mr. 

Curliss has difficulty with counsel, it's Mr. 

Curliss' [sic] own doing. 

When the case was appealed to the Court of Criminal Appeals 

for the State of Oklahoma, Judge Brett concluded: 

The victim, David Carter, and three eyewitnesses rendered one version of the offense, 

whereas appellant told a different version. 

The jury believed the victim and the three 

eye-witnesses and convicted appellant. The 

victim and the witnesses identified appellant 

as the person who plunged a buck knife or 

hunting knife into David Carter's chest while 

he lay on the ground in a semi-conscious 

condition after having been beaten by 

appellant and his companion. While on the 

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ground, appellant removed Carter's billfold 

from his rear pocket and departed with his 

three companions in an Orange Volkswagon 

Rabbit automobile. 

On the day of trial appellant 

appeared without counsel having been informed 

five days prior thereto that the trial would 

proceed on March 28, 1983. The trial had been 

earlier set for March 22, when appellant 

appeared with his retained counsel Mr. Michael 

Gassaway and informed the court that he was 

firing his attorney. At that time, the court 

informed appellant he must have retained 

counsel or one would be appointed to represent 

him. The court record reflects that Mr. 

Gassaway was allowed to withdraw as counsel 

because the appellant fired him. On the day 

set for trial, appellant was late and appeared 

without counsel. At that point the court 

appointed Mr. Reginald Gaston to represent 

him. The newly appointed counsel moved for a 

continuance, which was denied. Mr. Gaston was 

allowed until the afternoon to read the 

preliminary hearing transcript and to consult 

appellant. On the afternoon of March 28, 

1983, the trial commenced. 

The court specifically informed 

appellant he was to appear for trial with 

counsel. Appellant assured the court he would 

get an attorney. On the date set for trial, 

appellant appeared without counsel. 

We therefore hold in this case that 

appellant ran the risk of being without 

counsel with full knowledge of what he was 

doing. His lack of good faith seems to be 

borne out by his failure to appear on the 

second day of trial, when the court issued a 

bench warrant for his arrest. 

In his second assignment of error 

appellant asserts that he was denied effective 

assistance of counsel and was thereby denied 

his constitutional rights under the Sixth and 

Fourteenth Amendments to the United States 

Constitution. A very careful reading of the 

transcript of testimony and the original 

record before this Court refutes appellant's 

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contention. We have examined this claim in 

light of the standard announced by the United 

States Supreme Court in Strickland v. 

Washington, U.S. , 104 s.ct. 2052 

(1984), and find this claim to be without 

merit. In view of the testimony of three eyewitnesses, who had never met the victim until 

the night of this offense, there was little 

appellant could do to overcome their 

testimony. It is irrelevant whether or not 

appellant's companions were attempting to 

recover cocaine purchase money, as testified 

to by the appellant; the jury was bound to 

believe the eye-witnesses who testified and 

identified appellant as the person who 

inserted the knife into the chest of the 

victim and escaped with the victim's wallet. 

While it would have been far preferable if the trial court 

had granted a further continuance on March 28 to give petitioner 

time to employ other counsel or to give Mr. Gaston further time to 

prepare, we cannot say that petitioner has carried his burden of 

proving that he was unconstitutionally deprived of the effective 

assistance of counsel as those standards have been set forth in 

Strickland v. Washington. More than eight years have elapsed 

since the trial in this case, and the prejudice to the state, to 

the victim, and to society at large in requiring a retrial at this 

late date are not costs that we should lightly impose. Morris v. 

Slappy, 461 U.S. 1, 14. If the defendant's constitutional rights 

were violated, of course, these costs would have to be paid. 

However, here we have found no such violations, and accordingly we 

affirm the district court's denial of the defendant's petition for 

habeas corpus on a ground of alleged ineffective assistance of 

counsel. 

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TRIAL COURT'S REFUSAL TO GRANT 

A SECOND CONTINUANCE OF THE TRIAL 

The matter of whether to continue a trial date "is 

traditionally within the discretion of the trial judge, and it is 

not every denial of a request for more time that violates due 

process even if the party fails to offer evidence or is compelled 

to defend without counsel." Ungar v. Sarafite, 376 U.S. 575, 589 

(1964). See also, Avery v. Alabama, 308 U.S. 444, 446 (1940). 

Moreover, when a denial of a continuance forms a basis of a 

petition for a writ of habeas corpus, not only must there have 

been an abuse of discretion, but "it must have been so arbitrary 

and fundamentally unfair that it violates constitutional 

principles of due process." Case v. Mondragon, 887 F.2d 1388, 

1396 (10th Cir. 1989), cert. denied 110 S.Ct. 1490 (1990). 

"Obviously a defendant has no constitutional right to dictate the 

time, if ever, at which he is willing to be tried by simply 

showing up without counsel, or with allegedly unsatisfactory 

counsel, whenever his case is called for trial." Samply v. 

Attorney General of North Carolina, 786 F.2d 610, 613 (4th Cir. 

1986). The limit of the right to a continuance is "necessarily 

found in the contravailing state interest against which the sixth 

amendment right provides explicit protection: the interest in 

proceeding with prosecutions on an orderly and expeditious basis, 

taking into account the practical difficulties of 'assembling the 

witnesses, lawyers, and jurors, at the same place at the same 

time.'" Samply v. Attorney General of North Carolina, Id. at 613. 

Once again, the Supreme Court has counseled us to apply no 

per se rules, but rather to look at the facts of each case. Ungar 

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v. Sarafite, 376 U.S. 575, 589. "There are no mechanical tests 

for deciding when a denial of a continuance is so arbitrary as to 

violate due process. The answer must be found in the 

circumstances present in every case, particularly in the reasons 

presented to the trial judge at the time the request is denied." 

The case for a continuance in Ungar was much more compelling than 

petitioner's case here. There, the defendant was charged on 

December 8 with contempt. His trial was set for five days later, 

on December 13. At the beginning of trial, his counsel withdrew, 

claiming he had inadequate time to prepare a defense. The 

defendant then requested a continuance so that he could have time 

to obtain new counsel or to prepare adequately to defend the case 

himself. The trial court denied the continuance. The defendant 

proceeded to defend himself prose, and he was convicted. 

Although the defendant argued that the denial of the continuance 

resulted in depriving him of due process, the Supreme Court 

disagreed. It looked at the specific circumstances of his case, 

and concluded that he was able adequately to defend himself pro 

se, and that there was no constitutional violation because of the 

denial of the continuance. 

Here, it is not necessary to repeat all of the facts cited in 

the preceding section in order to conclude that the denial of 

petitioner's second request for a continuance did not violate his 

due process rights. We recite only some of the more salient 

facts. First, this was the second continuance sought by the 

petitioner. He previously had been granted a five-day continuance 

when he desired to fire his first counsel. Second, petitioner was 

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unequivocally told that no further continuances would be granted 

after the first one, and he consented to proceeding with trial on 

March 28 as a condition to being able to discharge his first 

counsel. Third, his second motion for a continuance was not made 

until the trial was scheduled to begin. Thus, neither the court 

nor the state was given an adequate opportunity to plan for a 

second continuance. Fourth, defendant made only a weak showing of 

any effort to secure counsel during the intervening five days 

between the first trial setting and the second one. The only 

evidence on the record was the affidavit of one attorney which 

showed that he was not contacted by petitioner until one hour 

before the scheduled commencement of the second trial date. 

Fifth, there is adequate evidence in the record to support the 

state court finding that defendant had not sought alternative 

counsel in good faith and that his further request for a 

continuance was a sham designed to secure a strategic advantage. 

Sixth, the trial court was solicitous of the need for new trial 

counsel to prepare, consistent with the court's insistence upon 

keeping the March 28th trial date. The trial court granted a twohour continuance before witnesses were called, and allowed defense 

counsel overnight before being required to rest the defense' case. 

He also indicated that he would permit the late securing of 

witnesses. Seventh, there was no showing of prejudice to the 

defendant because of the court's refusal to grant the second 

continuance. His trial counsel performed in an effective and 

thoroughly competent fashion. The defendant presented no credible 

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evidence to suggest that the outcome of the trial would have been 

any different had a further continuance been granted. 

Thus, we affirm the federal district court's conclusion that 

the petitioner was not denied due process by the failure to grant 

his second motion for trial continuance. 

For the reasons stated above, we AFFIRM the district court's 

denial of the defendant's petition for writ of habeas corpus. 

Entered for the Court: 

David M. Ebel 

Circuit Judge 

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