Title: Williams v. Jasper
Citation: 250 So. 2d 701
Docket Number: N/A
State: Alabama
Issuer: Alabama Supreme Court
Date: April 29, 1971

250 So. 2d 701 (1971)
Ronald WILLIAMS
v.
Joseph JASPER, Judge, etc.
Ex parte Ronald Williams.
Wayland BRYANT
v.
Joseph JASPER, Judge, etc.
Ex parte Wayland Bryant.
6 Div. 845, 846.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
April 29, 1971.
*702 Drake &amp; Knowles, University, for petitioners.
William J. Baxley, Atty. Gen., for respondent.
SIMPSON, Justice.
Petitioners insist that, being indigents, they are entitled to a free copy of the proceedings on preliminary hearing. Petitioners rely on Roberts v. LaVallee, Warden, 389 U.S. 40, 88 S. Ct. 194, 19 L. Ed. 2d 41 (1967) where the Supreme Court of the United States held in a case coming to it from New York, that the State was compelled to furnish an indigent with a free copy of such transcript. It must be noted, however, that New York had a statute which provided that a transcript of the hearing would be furnished "`on payment of * * * fees at the rate of five cents for every hundred words.'" (N.Y.Code Crim.Proc. § 206).
The pertinent language of the decision is:
The real question is whether or not the above decision means that a state is constitutionally required to provide that transcripts of preliminary hearings be made and to furnish an indigent a free copy of such transcripts, or whether the constitutional requirement is that if a transcript of a preliminary hearing is provided for by statute (or otherwise), a free copy must be furnished indigents.
In 1969 the Legislature of Alabama repealed a statutory requirement that transcripts of preliminary hearings be made. (Title 15, § 135 et seq., repealed by Act 1106, September 12, 1969.) Under present Alabama Law, therefore, there is no statutory provision for such transcripts.
Various courts have interpreted Roberts v. LaVallee in various ways. Gardner v. United States, 132 U.S.App.D.C. 331, 407 F.2d 1266 (1969) will serve as an example of one view. There Chief Judge Bazelon interpreted the case to mean that a preliminary hearing transcript must be made, saying:
In People of State of Illinois v. Hubbard, 107 Ill.App.2d 79, 246 N.E.2d 44, Illinois in 1969 presents an opposite interpretation of LaVallee. There the defendant contended that he was denied a constitutional right when the court denied his motion for a copy of the transcript of the preliminary hearing at which he was bound over to the grand jury. The Illinois court said:
We agree with the Illinois Court that LaVallee is inapplicable in the present cases, because there is no longer any statutory requirement that a transcript of preliminary *704 hearings be made in Alabama. A court reporter was present at the request of the petitioners, not at the request of the State. (See also: Sharbor v. Gathright, D.C., 295 F. Supp. 386, where the court said the rule in Roberts v. LaVallee was inapplicable because "There is no similar statute in the State of Virginia.")
The view taken by the Illinois Court in People v. Morris, supra, apparently was that a free transcript must be supplied under Griffin in those states where the preliminary hearing is a "critical stage" in the criminal process. That court concluded that the preliminary hearing in Illinois was not a critical stage in the criminal process.
The decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in Coleman v. Alabama, 399 U.S. 1, 90 S. Ct. 1999, 26 L. Ed. 2d 387 (1970) seems clearly to say that the preliminary hearing is a critical stage of the criminal process in this state, requiring the appointment of counsel for indigent defendants. However, we do not read Griffin as apparently the Illinois Court did, to mean that that is a factor which determines whether the State must provide some means of preserving the testimony for distribution free to indigents upon request. Indeed, it was twice noted in the course of the various opinions in Coleman that no record of transcript of any kind was made of the preliminary hearing. The defect which the Supreme Court found there, however, was not in the State having failed to provide a transcript of the proceedings, but in having failed to appoint a lawyer on preliminary hearing.
We agree with the Court of Criminal Appeals that since Alabama has no statutory provision for the making of transcriptions of the proceedings had on preliminary hearing, Roberts v. LaVallee is inapplicable.
Petitions denied.
HEFLIN, C. J., and COLEMAN, BLOODWORTH and McCALL, JJ., concur.