Court Opinion

ID: 9463938
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 23:20:55.48495+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:38:22.539969
License: Public Domain

GIBBONS, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I join in Judge Layton’s opinion. I also note, however, that at the time the court accepted Houmis’ guilty plea the district court was made aware that a single attorney was representing three defendants, and apparently continued this representation after Houmis expressed the desire to enter into plea bargaining negotiations; negotiations which would result in his guilty plea in consideration for lenient treatment of those co-defendants. This placed the defense attorney in the position of patently conflicting loyalties. The conflict is apparent on the record of the Rule 11 proceeding. No advice was given to Houmis by the court, the prosecutor, or his own attorney respecting the existence of a conflict in his attorney’s joint representation. I do not see how a guilty plea accepted in such circumstances can be permitted to stand. See Matter of Grand Jury Impaneled January 21, 1975, 536 F.2d 1009 (3d Cir. 1976); United States ex rel. Horta v. DeYoung, 523 F.2d 877 (3d Cir. 1975); United States ex rel. Hart v. Davenport, 478 F.2d 203 (3d Cir. 1973); United States v. Garafola, 428 F.Supp. 620 (D.C.N.J.1977).