Court Opinion

ID: 9796146
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 03:50:18.941041+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:48:20.535423
License: Public Domain

Malone, J.,
concurring: I concur that the district court’s judgment should be affirmed in this case, but not for the reasons stated in the majority opinion.
Initially, I find merit in the argument expressed in the dissenting opinion on the right to effective assistance of counsel in a K.S.A. 60-1507 proceeding. I agree that to recognize that an indigent defendant has a statutory right to counsel, but then to refuse to require some modicum of competence by such counsel, renders the statute meaningless. Although a court was not required to appoint an attorney to represent McCarty, once it did so, McCarty deserved effective representation.
Turning to the merits of McCarty’s claim, however, I find absolutely no evidence that his attorney’s representation was ineffective. A review of the sparse record provided in this case renders it clear to me that the district court appointed counsel for McCarty and scheduled a preliminary, nonevidentiary hearing to determine whether further proceedings were warranted. After hearing from both counsel, the district court determined that McCarty’s claims were conclusory and denied the relief sought in his 1507 motion.
*409From this record, McCarty argues on appeal that his counsel at the 1507 hearing was ineffective for not calling witnesses necessary to prove McCarty’s claim. As stated, the court only conducted a nonevidentiary hearing, at which McCarty was not even present, before summarily denying McCarty any relief.
McCarty is not claiming that the district court erred in summarily denying his 1507 motion. Instead, he is trying to blame the outcome in district court on his attorney. There is no evidence to support the single issue McCarty has raised on appeal, and, accordingly, the district court’s judgment should be affirmed.