Court Opinion

ID: 9455340
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 19:19:15.602566+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:34:33.618169
License: Public Domain

COLEMAN, Circuit Judge
(concurring) :
I agree with Judge Morgan that the judgment of the District Court, denying habeas corpus, should be affirmed.
In view of the thoroughly exhaustive and admirably reasoned opinion of this Court in Pate v. Holman [Judges Rives, Wisdom and Bell] 341 F.2d 764 (1965), I find no necessity for elaborating upon the applicable law.
In my view, these are the decisive factors in this appeal:
1. Regardless of who paid the fee, Langford was represented at his trial by counsel privately retained and privately paid.
2. Upon the return of the verdict Langford did express a desire to appeal, but not as an indigent. Indigency was not mentioned.
3. The conversation between Lang-ford’s father and the trial judge did not amount to state rejection of a request for a trial transcript at public expense. Apparently this conversation took place in an informal manner, at the judge’s office, in which the father asked what a transcript would cost. The judge responded to this request for information. The father then said he didn’t “have any money”. This was considerably short of an assertion that he was without property or resources from which the money could be raised. In any event, the indigency of the defendant, not his father, was the real issue. Presumably the trial judge at the time of this conversation was under the impression that Langford was still represented by his privately retained counsel. Hence, at this informal conference the trial judge was under no obligation to assume the role of counsel and to advise the father of options which could have been exercised, Pate v. Holman, supra.
This isolated incident at the office of the trial judge simply did not amount to state rejection of a request for a trial transcript at public expense pursuant to a showing of indigency.