Court Opinion

ID: 9489496
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 13:17:13.46553+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:53:33.862435
License: Public Domain

K.K. HALL, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
At the heart of this case lies the relationship between a Virginia lawyer and two of his clients. Thomas 0. Rainey III first undertook to represent the Commonwealth of Virginia in 1978 upon being hired as a part-time prosecuting attorney in Dinwiddie County. The professional affiliation between Rainey and the Commonwealth has continued, unbroken, to this day; Rainey was appointed as Dinwiddie County’s chief prosecutor in 1986, and has retained the post through several subsequent elections.
About a year prior to his promotion, Rai-ney accepted Gregory Warren Beaver as a client. Beaver had been accused of fatally shooting a Virginia state trooper during a traffic stop on Interstate 95. Beaver’s accuser was none other than the Commonwealth of Virginia, yet Rainey saw nothing wrong with representing both clients simultaneously. Although the majority has placed its imprimatur upon this arrangement, I cannot lend mine.
I.
To begin with, the majority misapprehends the test set forth in Cuyler v. Sullivan, 446 U.S. 335, 100 S.Ct. 1708, 64 L.Ed.2d 333 (1980), to determine whether a defense attorney’s divided loyalties have deprived the accused of his Sixth Amendment right to counsel. The accused is not required to demonstrate, as the majority states, “an actual conflict and a resulting adverse effect on [counsel’s] performance,” ante, at 1192 (emphasis supplied). Rather, he need only “establish that an actual conflict of interest adversely affected his lawyer’s performance.” Cuyler, 446 U.S. at 350, 100 S.Ct. at 1719. Once the conflict is established, counsel is conclusively presumed to have rendered ineffective assistance as a matter of law:
Glasser [u United States, 315 U.S. 60, 76, 62 S.Ct. 457, 467-68, 86 L.Ed. 680 (1942) ] established that unconstitutional multiple representation is never harmless error. Once the Court concluded that Glasser’s lawyer had an actual conflict of interest, it refused “to indulge in nice calculations as to the amount of prejudice” attributable to the conflict. The conflict itself demonstrated a denial of the “right to have the effective assistance of counsel.”
Cuyler, 446 U.S. at 349, 100 S.Ct. at 1719 (emphasis supplied).1
*1199II.
As to whether there was an actual conflict in this case, the majority simply recites the state habeas court’s conclusion that there was not, and it appears to characterize that conclusion as a “historical fact,” entitled to the presumption of correctness accorded such findings by 28 U.S.C.A. § 2254(d) (West 1994). Ante, at 1195. This rubber-stamp approach contravenes Cuyler, which plainly states that the ultimate issue of whether a conflict of interest exists in a particular case “is a mixed determination of law and fact that requires the application of legal principles to the historical facts,” id. at 342, 100 S.Ct. at 1715, and that does not, therefore, fall within the ambit of § 2254(d). Id. at 341, 100 S.Ct. at 1714.
It must be remembered that Glasser, Cuyler, and their progeny dealt only with the potential conflict of interest posed when a defense lawyer attempts to represent more than one defendant in the same or related criminal proceedings. Because the conflict posed by such scenarios is only a potential one, it is often necessary to delve into a myriad of historical facts involving the code-fendants’ competing interests and counsel’s actual performance.
Requiring or permitting a single attorney to represent codefendants, often referred to as joint representation, is not per se violative of constitutional guarantees of effective assistance of counsel. This principle recognizes that in some cases multiple defendants can appropriately be represented by one attorney; indeed, in some cases, certain advantages might accrue from joint representation.
Holloway v. Arkansas, 435 U.S. 475, 482, 98 S.Ct. 1173, 1178, 55 L.Ed.2d 426 (1978).
Beaver’s situation is wholly different, and far more egregious. Rainey did not simultaneously represent codefendants whose interests were merely potentially conflicting, but instead simultaneously represented the opposing party, whose interests, by definition, were diametrical to those of Beaver.2 The dual nature of Rainey’s representation is the only “historical fact” of which we need take note.
Applying established legal principles to that lone fact, I must conclude that a conflict of interest existed as a matter of law.3
Apparently, the only authority that can be cited to support the proposition that Virgi*1200nia’s condonation of dual representation does not violate the Sixth Amendment is, unfortunately, our own opinion in Goodson v. Peyton, 351 F.2d 905 (4th Cir.1965). See discussion ante, at 1193.
In my view, Goodson was wrongly decided.4 Therein, we fell victim to the same analytical flaw regarding Glasser’s application that afflicts the majority here in applying Cuyler. Quite simply, we failed to note the fundamental difference between representing several defendants against the state, and representing a defendant and the state simultaneously. Hence, we proceeded, as the majority does today, to analyze the scope of counsel’s prosecutorial duties and to dissect his performance, searching for possible prejudice to the defendant. See Goodson, 351 F.2d at 908-09. Because we found no “actual” prejudice, we found no conflict.5
That line of reasoning impermissibly puts the cart before the horse. Our adversary system of justice inevitably engenders conflict. The opposing parties to a dispute are immutably in conflict, and there is, therefore, no clearer conflict of interest than when a lawyer undertakes to represent both sides. As the Supreme Court has repeatedly told us, once the conflict is established, the prejudice is conclusively presumed. Though the act that Beaver is accused of committing is a particularly evil one, he should not be compelled to face that most final of judgments without ever having had the assistance of a lawyer whose loyalty is beyond question.
I dissent.

. Cf. United. States v. Tatum, 943 F.2d 370, 375-76 (4th Cir.1991):
An attorney has an actual conflict when he actively represents conflicting interests.... When the attorney is actively engaged in legal representation which requires him to account to two masters, an actual conflict exists when it can be shown that he took action on behalf of one. The effect of his action of necessity will *1199adversely affect the appropriate defense of the other.
(citation omitted) (emphasis supplied).

. See Zuck v. Alabama, 588 F.2d 436, 439 (5th Cir.) (holding that an actual conflict existed where the law firm appointed to represent the defendant in a murder trial was also the prosecuting attorney’s counsel in personal civil matters), cert. denied, 444 U.S. 833, 100 S.Ct. 63, 62 L.Ed.2d 42 (1979):
An actual conflict of interest occurs when a defense attorney places himself in a situation inherently conducive to divided loyalties.... If a defense attorney owes duties to a party whose interests are adverse to those of the defendant, then an actual conflict exists. The interests of the other client and the defendant are sufficiently adverse if it is shown that the attorney owes a duty to the defendant to take some action that could be detrimental to his other client.
(citation and quotation marks omitted). By simultaneously representing Beaver and the Commonwealth, Rainey could hardly take any action beneficial to one that would not also be detrimental to the other. The point is so elementary as to scarcely require explanation.

. See Richard H. Underwood, Part-Time Prosecutors and Conflicts of Interest: A Survey and Some Proposals, 81 Ky. LJ. 1, 37 (1992): "In virtually every state there are ethics opinions stating that a part-time prosecutor may not defend in criminal cases — not just in the prosecutor's own county but anywhere else in his or her state. In some states the prohibition has been enacted into statutory law.” (footnotes omitted). There is no statute or case law in Virginia that directly addresses the practice, but, according to that state’s rules of legal ethics:
Maintaining the independence of professional judgment required of a lawyer precludes his acceptance or continuation of employment that will adversely affect his judgment on behalf of or dilute his loyalty to a client.
Virginia Code of Professional Responsibility, Canon 5; EC 5-14 (1996) (emphasis supplied).

. Regardless of the wisdom of its holding, Good-son would, of course, bind subsequent panels of this court. See, e.g., Busby v. Crown Supply, Inc., 896 F.2d 833, 840-41 (4th Cir.1990). However, I believe that Goodson was effectively overruled by Cuyler. The Court in Cuyler reaffirmed and clarified Glosser's dictate that the question of conflict is paramount to that of actual performance. See Cuyler, 446 U.S. at 350, 100 S.Ct. at 1719 (counsel’s active representation of conflicting interests establishes the constitutional predicate for a claim of ineffective assistance). Cuyler thus sapped Goodson of any vitality it may once have had.

. The relatively simple character of the charge in Goodson (escape) appears to also have influenced our decision in that case. Id. at 909-10. The capital murder charge against Beaver is, obviously, a far more serious and complex one, belying the majority's assertion that "the facts [here] are indistinguishable from those in Goodson. ...” Ante, at 1193.
We also took pains in Goodson to limit its prospective application: “[W]e think it may well be that the only workable rule of the future will be a per se one...." Id. at 909. A few years later, another court of appeals, in holding that the appointment of a part-time magistrate as counsel did not amount to a per se conflict, observed that "[t]he Fourth Circuit has reached a similar result in Goodson ... under circumstances considerably more disturbing than we here consider .... [We] join in [its] caution that the practice should not persist.” Jones v. Baker, 406 F.2d 739, 740 (10th Cir.1969) (emphasis supplied).
It follows from the preceding discussion, along with that in note 4, supra, that I would not hold Beaver's conflict-of-interest claim to be barred by Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288, 109 S.Ct. 1060, 103 L.Ed.2d 334 (1989). See ante, at 1193-94 n. 8. Likewise, even if the conflict present in this case were one capable of being waived, I would not hold Beaver's mere acquiescence in Rainey's representation to have been an effective waiver. See ante, at 1193. n. 7.