Court Opinion

ID: 9453033
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 18:00:16.261705+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:33:28.344952
License: Public Domain

BURGER, Circuit Judge
(concurring in the disposition):
There is no doubt that the great increase in criminal trials and appeals has. helped to create a critical problem in the delay of the preparation of transcripts. At the end of January, there were approximately 17,000 pages of transcript ordered but not supplied because of the reporters’ press of work. Because of discussion of the reporter crisis in the-majority opinion filed January 18 and because of the failure of the Judicial Council to deal with the problem administratively, I feel constrained to point out. that a major, if not the decisive, cause is a factor that lies largely within the control of this court and ought to be remedied by us. In short, the reporter crisis is largely a self-inflicted wound arising out of our practice of appointing new counsel for virtually every appeal by an indigent rather than continuing the trial counsel who is familiar with all *933facts and issues in the case. Trial counsel should continue in the case in a large proportion of cases.
Since this discussion began, five court reporters have been added on a temporary basis to meet the emergency situation, and this very likely explains the improvement which the Per Curiam notes. If these reporters become a permanent addition, the added permanent cost would be almost $50,000 per year; this would represent the reporters’ base salary, but not other expenses of their operation.
The point I wish to make is that this added expense is to a large extent wasteful and unnecessary. The problem can be vastly improved even if not totally solved in a more efficient manner and on a more long-range basis by appointing trial counsel to handle a substantial number of appeals. I am gratified that my proposal has finally, after much delay, brought forth a recognition by my colleagues that the Council has an obligation to deal with this matter. The proposal to use trial counsel has received no attention from the Court except as it has been surfaced in this case.1
Private litigants who lose cases in the District Court sometimes, but not always, take appeals to this Court. Before they do so they make a sober appraisal of their prospects of success on appeal and the probable costs. Unless the prospects seem reasonably encouraging the private litigant usually decides not to put “good money after bad” and accepts the trial outcome. And when the private litigant takes an appeal he does not ordinarily need a complete transcript of the record since, except in a lengthy trial, the recollection and trial notes of the lawyer serve most of the need.
But this is not done with the criminal cases of indigent defendants. The government furnishes a lawyer, as it should, to assist him in his defense. If there is a guilty verdict, as there is in most cases as a matter of statistical fact, the government also gives him a free appeal. At this stage the Court appoints a different lawyer to prepare and argue the appeal.2
The new lawyer must then try to learn all that went on before, and the best source is a verbatim transcript of the trial, preparation of which is often extensive in time and expensive in cost. The private litigant does not engage in the expensive luxury of a new lawyer on appeal or if he does so in a rare case his trial counsel remains available to tell the new lawyer what went on at trial thus reducing if not eliminating the need for a transcript.
The lawyer newly assigned by us for appeal is put to the test; in a sense, he is challenged to unearth some error. Because someone else has tried and lost, the new lawyer must gain a victory if he is to satisfy the indigent defendant, and if on appeal he fails to raise every conceivable point — no matter how frivolous — the indigent, if he loses, will likely embark on a campaign of attack on his counsel. A large number of baseless postconviction attacks on lawyers point up this possibility.
Surely the appeal lawyer thus put to the test and aware of the hazards of future attack from convicted prisoners cannot be blamed for wanting all the tools necessary for handling an appeal in a case which he did not try. A transcript is the basic tool in these circumstances, even though all of it may not be necessary *934in every case. By this program the appeal can become more expensive than the trial and indeed far more expensive a process than most private litigants can afford. The indigent need not consider the cost factor as the private litigant must; the lawyer appointed on appeal is doing simply what we ask of him.
I would not go so far as to say that trial counsel should conduct the appeal in every case but it seems obvious that there are numerous advantages, of which cost is not a decisive one, in continuity of representation in the great majority of cases. Continuity as the general practice would eliminate a large part of the problem of delay in transcripts and duplicated work of counsel, each of whom must be paid.3
All this is compounded by the hard fact that fewer and fewer accused persons are willing to plead guilty; they prefer to go to trial, on the theory, however dubious, that they have nothing to lose. Whether providing defense facilities at public expense is the reason for this recent decrease in guilty pleas or whether accused persons have some vague notion that everything is “going their way” because of our legitimate concern for defendants, I am unable to say. But the realistic fact is that a large number of cases which ought to be disposed of by guilty pleas — for the best interests of the accused — are being tried, and the automatic free appeal under Coppedge v. United States, 369 U.S. 438, 82 S.Ct. 917, 8 L.Ed.2d 21 (1962), then floods court reporters with demands for thousands of pages of verbatim transcripts with which they are not able to cope.4 In the fiscal year 1966, 272 convictions were followed by 252 appeals, most of which were at public expense, Report op the President’s Commission on Crime in the District op Columbia 303 (1966).
I do not suggest that retaining the trial lawyer on appeal would eliminate all need for complete transcripts, nor do I suggest that it be done automatically in every appeal. I do suggest it is a fallacy to treat all criminal trials as the same kind of “animal”; some are long, some short, some are simple, some complicated. The need for a full transcript in a one or two day trial is very different from that in an extended trial, and the majority of criminal cases in this jurisdiction are tried in two days or less. With deference to the concurring utterances of Justice Goldberg in Hardy v. United States, 375 U.S. 277, 288, 84 S.Ct. 424, 11 L.Ed.2d 331 (1964), I submit that a competent lawyer who has tried a short, simple case does not ordinarily need a full transcript; he can do without a full transcript unless his appeal rests on insufficiency of the evidence and even then he does not need the voir dire examination, closing arguments, or the instructions, which often amount to half the transcript.
Judges Bazelon and Leventhal suggest that appointing trial counsel to the appeal will not reduce the demand for transcripts since full transcripts were ordered in all the recent cases where appoint*935ed trial counsel did argue the appeal. What this overlooks is that at the present time it is automatic for an appointed counsel to ask for a full transcript because we have casually allowed it without reference to need; no lawyer worth his salt needs the complete transcript on appeal for a ease which he tried in two days or less. Since new counsel appointed on appeal require and receive full transcripts, such a demand seems to have become a matter of course for all counsel. If court-appointed counsel are casually demanding full transcripts simply because the transcript is “free,” this is a matter which surely should have long since engaged the attention of a court concerned with sound judicial administration and reasonable allocation of public resources. These transcripts are “free” only in the sense that they are supplied at public expense.
My colleagues contend that appointing new lawyers on appeal effects a more equitable division of the burden among lawyers than would continuing the trial lawyers on appeal. But I fail to see how appointing a trial lawyer to conduct the appeal would place any greater burden on him than does the present arrangement. A lawyer handling both trial and appeal should receive roughly half as many appointments. Moreover, he would be required to spend less time on two stages of one case than if he had to familiarize himself with two different cases at either stage.
My colleagues urge another ground for appointing new counsel on appeal. New counsel, they say, view the case with a “fresh eye”; perhaps this is a euphemism for saying they embark on a quest for error at the risk of being charged •with ineffective performance if they do not find it. But in applying the decisional and statutory laws relating to indigents, perhaps we should ask whether Congress and the Supreme Court intended that the public should pay the additional costs required for new counsel to gain a “fresh approach” when this rarely occurs for the accused person who pays his own way. Moreover, the “fresh approach” often delays the appeal while the new lawyer waits for the transcript and then studies it. Balancing the chance that a change of counsel might benefit a particular appellant against the obvious waste involved in needless transcripts, delays in the proceedings, and duplication of legal work and cost, I would make the choice for retaining trial counsel on appeal in most cases, provided the District Judge certifies in some way that counsel is competent.
It is also suggested that a full transcript is needed to aid this court; this is simply not so as to the great majority of our cases. A full transcript is rarely required except on a genuine claim of insufficient evidence; the parties surely can agree on a statement of the evidence presented in short trials, using a transcript only for disputed and crucial testimony. Even on a claim of insufficient evidence we do not need the transcript of examination on voir dire, the closing arguments of counsel, or the Court’s charge. The only “aid” I can see is that providing the court with a full transcript in every case enables judges of this court to comb through it to find some error which has thus far eluded all others. But I submit that this court’s delegated function is not to act as a third appointed counsel and I question whether Congress intended or will support such a system.
In 1966 indigents were provided with almost 65,000 pages of transcript at public expense, the cost being nearly one dollar per page. The current “crisis” arises from the fact that in January 1967, when the majority opinion was released, reporters were about 17,000 pages “behind” and appeals were delayed as a result. It is a matter of simple arithmetic that the elimination of about 25% in indigents’ demand for transcripts by reasonable supervision from this court would solve the problem, i. e., 25 % of the 65.000 page total represents roughly the 17.000 pages of “delay.” I submit that far more than 25% of the present demand for transcripts is readily avoidable and therefore fairly warrants character*936izing our current problem as a self-inflicted wound.
Sooner or later perhaps there will be an awakening that these thousands of pounds of blue-covered transcripts prepared at large cost in many cases which are totally without merit on appeal might better be spent on the more significant aspects of the administration of justice such as preventive programs, better prisons, and improved rehabilitation treatment. The unfortunate man in the dock is not always best served by courtroom conflict and multiple appeals which prolong his warfare with society, sometimes for years, and erode whatever potential may exist for rehabilitation.
Bench and bar alike need to make a sober re-examination of what we are doing and consider whether it really serves society or its delinquents to become so obsessed with the techniques of judicial machinery that we forget the purposes of a system of justice.

. I heartily agree with the observation of my colleagues that it is hardly “the province of an opinion to deal * * * with what is essentially an administrative problem”, but on this administrative problem the administrators have not yet administered. Perhaps this dialogue will prompt some constructive action by the Court.

. This practice is not an inadvertence on our part. Prior to 1962, District Judges appointed counsel on appeal. On October 12, 1962, by an Order of the Circuit Judicial Council, we indicated our willingness, on an experimental basis, to appoint counsel to represent appellants allowed to appeal in forma pauperis. Although this Order did not preclude the District Court from continuing to appoint counsel, its practical effect resulted in this court making all appointments.

. The President’s Commission on Crime in the District of Columbia made this same point and suggested that continuity could best be accomplished — and duplication of work avoided — by an expanded public defender program. Report Op The President’s Commission On Crime In The District Op Columbia 346 (1966). The current “public defender,” the Legal Aid Agency, generally does not represent defendants on appeal in our court since it interprets its statutory power to preclude representation in this court. See D.C.Code § 2-2202.
Experience to date suggests that in large metropolitan centers representation ed indigents can be most efficiently and economically supplied by a full time specially trained legal aid staff.

. This Circuit because of its unique jurisdiction over D.C.Code crimes has a greater problem than any other Federal Circuit. Presently some court reporters are unable to prepare transcripts for periods of six months and more after an appeal is taken. A court reporter cannot cover a trial on a daily basis and prepare transcripts of earlier trials at the volume at which such transcript requests are currently made.