Opinion ID: 333214
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: effectiveness of appellant's appointed counsel

Text: 19 A further alleged point of error urged by appellant concerns the failure of his court-appointed counsel to move for the appointment of a psychiatrist pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3006A(e), which provides as follows: 20 'Counsel for a defendant who is financially unable to obtain investigative, expert, or other services necessary to an adequate defense in his case may request them in an ex parte application.' 21 Appellant argues that the failure of his attorney to utilize this statute to secure the services of a psychiatrist to aid in the preparation of his insanity defense denied him 'counsel reasonably likely to render and rendering reasonably effective assistance,' United States v. Edwards, 488 F.2d 1154 (5th Cir. 1974), and thus deprived him of the Sixth Amendment's guarantee of effective assistance of counsel. The government contends, however, that appellant's counsel made full and effective use of the psychiatric testimony already available to him as a result of the competency examinations previously conducted under 18 U.S.C. § 4244, and that his decision not to seek additional psychiatric services which might be available under § 3006A(e) was a professional judgment which should not be subjected to second-guessing or hindsight by this Court. 22 This Court has consistently recognized a difference between the purposes served by the appointment of a psychiatrist by a district court pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 4244, for the purpose of ascertaining a defendant's competency to stand trial, and the appointment of a psychiatrist pursuant to § 3006A(e). An expert appointed pursuant to the latter second is intended to serve the interests of the defendant, as opposed to functioning as an objective, non-partisan expert when appointed pursuant to § 4244. United States v. Edwards, supra, 488 F.2d at 1160--61; United States v. Theriault, 440 F.2d 713 (5th Cir. 1971). Appellant urges that the holding in Edwards requires reversal here, but we are of the opinion that that case is sufficiently distinguishable as to not to dictate a finding of ineffective assistance in the situation here. 23 In Edwards, the defendant's court-appointed attorney successfully moved for the appointment of a psychiatrist pursuant to § 3006ma(e). Due to a procedural mixup, however, the psychiatrist filed a report of his examination (which found Edwards '(probably) competent at the time of his offense') with the court, thus making it available to both parties rather than giving it to Edwards and his counsel alone. The district court then issued an order finding Edwards competent to stand trial 'under Section 4244' and the case proceeded to trial without defense counsel ever raising the sanity issue again, or objecting to the court's treatment of the matter as one under Section 4244 prior to or during the trial on the merits. On appeal, this Court held that such inaction on the part of Edwards' attorney constituted ineffective assistance of counsel. The court reasoned that as a result of this failure to pursue the successful § 3006A(e) motion, Edwards received only a portion of the assistance that was the predicate for the initial request his attorney had addressed to the court. Moreover, the Court noted, the doubts about Edwards' mental competency that the court-appointed counsel had initially raised by an affidavit in support of his § 3006A(e) motion simply could not have been sufficiently resolved by the report of the pretrial competency examination so as to justify a complete abandonment of the § 3006A(e) motion. 488 F.2d at 1164. 24 In the case before us, we are faced with a situation in which appellant's court-appointed attorney had available to him, for purposes of preparing his client's defense, the testimony of two court-appointed psychiatrists who had examined appellant and had found him to be both incompetent to stand trial and legally insane under the standards enunciated by this Court in United States v. Blake, supra. While we remain cognizant of the distinction mentioned previously between the functions of a psychiatrist appointed under § 4244 and one appointed under § 3006A(e), we do not think Edwards establishes a per se rule that only a 's 3006A(e) psychiatrist' is capable of providing the kind of defense-oriented testimony that will enable court-appointed counsel to provide an acceptable insanity defense for his client. Under the circumstances here, we hold that defense counsel's failure to move for the appointment of a psychiatrist pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3006A(e) did not deprive appellant of his Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel. 25 We have examined appellant's remaining allegations of error and find them to be without merit. The judgment of conviction is AFFIRMED.