Opinion ID: 1129010
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: Counsel on Appeal [11]

Text: Two days after People v. Wells, supra, 33 Cal.2d 330, was filed a rehearing was denied on petitioner's appeal. ( People v. Walker, supra, 33 Cal.2d 250.) The Solano County Superior Court stated that the implications of Wells were immediately the subject of much discussion and that Why its application to Walker's case was not considered [presumably by his appellate counsel] is purely speculative.... Although testimony indicated that when Wells was filed it might well have provoked considerable discussion, no evidence was presented that it did so within two days after it was filed or that it was then even widely known. (19) In our opinion petitioner's counsel on appeal cannot be held to have been constitutionally inadequate for failing within a two-day period to apprise himself of People v. Wells, supra, 33 Cal.2d 330, somehow and to advise this court of any applicability he believed it might have to petitioner's case. Moreover, matters not presented to the trial court cannot be considered on appeal ( People v. Merriam, 66 Cal.2d 390, 396-397 [58 Cal. Rptr. 1, 426 P.2d 161]; People v. Reeves, 64 Cal.2d 766, 776 [51 Cal. Rptr. 691, 415 P.2d 35]; People v. Arguello, 61 Cal.2d 210, 213 [37 Cal. Rptr. 601, 390 P.2d 377]), and the transcripts on appeal contain no evidence that petitioner at the time of the murder was operating under a mental disability not amounting to legal insanity that prevented him from having the requisite intent for first degree murder; [12] nor does it appear that the court excluded any such evidence at the trial. (20) The Solano County Superior Court further found that defense counsel did not communicate with ... petitioner ... during the appeal nor seek any medical attention for him. Even if it be assumed that these matters are adequately supported by the record, they are insufficient in themselves to establish that petitioner's two privately retained counsel on appeal were constitutionally inadequate. The petition further alleged that Counsel failed to notice any appeals and permitted the two attempted murder convictions to become final. However, it was not alleged, or proven, that either of the two attorneys retained to represent petitioner on appeal was also retained to represent him in an appeal from the attempted murder convictions.