Court Opinion

ID: 9458338
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:49:20.264242+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:43.705779
License: Public Domain

IRVING R. KAU'FMAN, Circuit Judge
(dissenting):
I find myself in disagreement with my brothers. I am of the view that Marcelin was denied effective or even reasonable assistance of counsel.
The majority opinion, it seems to me, falls prey to the pitfalls of rigid adherence to phrases and formulas which seem to gain strength by ritualistic repetition in haec verba in case after case. With the most respect for my brothers, I fear the majority opinion chants the teachings of the timeworn doctrine of this Circuit, but fails to weigh carefully the appropriateness of borrowing the words for application to this case.
We have before us a case where the petitioner was tried for first degree murder — the most serious charge a human being can face. The defense of a murder charge, particularly when the defendant faces the possibility of capital punishment (as did Marcelin), demanded the ultimate in resourceful and dedicated investigation and trial presentation that counsel could muster. Yet, it is distressingly apparent that counsel not only failed to exert that special effort required in a ease of such magnitude, but entirely ignored the one glaringly obvious defense that under the bizarre circumstances present here should have sprung at once to counsel’s mind. I refer to the defense of insanity at the time the crime was committed.
*47My brothers detail the “virtually airtight” ease of the prosecution, but tell us little about the nature of the defense. The fact is that the defense presented only one witness — Susie Borden, an elderly eye witness to the crime whom the state declined to call because of her age and ill health. On direct examination by counsel for the defendant — not the prosecutor — she identified the petitioner as the assailant and in all respects corroborated the testimony of the prosecution witnesses. This defense was indeed strange.
But, in evaluating a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, we are told, we must begin “by examining the strength of the prosecution’s case.” The difficulty I find with the majority view is that it both starts and ends with this consideration, with little regard to pertinent and legitimate avenues open to the defense.
I would not suggest, of course, that the failure to interpose a defense of insanity against an overwhelming prosecution case' is in every instance, even in most instances, an indication of ineffective assistance of counsel. But this is not a case, as my brothers indicate, where the defense attorneys did the best they could, or put forth even a tolerable effort, in the face of a strong case. See, e. g., United States ex rel. Crispin v. Mancusi, 448 F.2d 233, 234 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 404 U.S. 967, 92 S.Ct. 346, 30 L.Ed.2d 288 (1971); United States v. Katz, 425 F.2d 928, 930-931 (2d Cir. 1970); United States v. Garguilo, 324 F.2d 795, 796 (2d Cir. 1963). Counsel had good reason to question Marcelin’s competency as evidenced by two requests to the court in 1963 for orders requiring psychiatric examinations to determine if Marcelin was competent to stand trial. Although the 1963 examination at Bellevue and the subsequent examination by an independent psychiatrist indicated that Marcelin was without psychosis and competent to stand trial, the Bellevue report clearly stated that Marcelin had a “schizoid personality with sociopathic features.”
Given the lawyers' own doubts about Marcelin’s competency, which hardly could have been assuaged by these psychiatric reports, it is difficult to comprehend their nearly total failure to conduct any independent investigation. Even the most rudimentary investigation aimed at establishing an insanity defense would have uncovered a voluntary psychiatric admission to Bellevue in 1962 — one year before Marcelin shot his girl friend Jacqueline Bonds — where after a commitment of one week it was determined that Marceline suffered from “delusional grandiosity,” “suggestions of chronic schizophrenia” and “paranoid reaction personality." That is not all. The lawyers were to discover, but only in time for sentencing, that Marcelin had seen a psychiatrist when he was fourteen years of age.
My brothers would excuse counsel’s failure to undertake independent investigation because of Marcelin’s exasperating intransigence in totally refusing to aid his defense. But we may safely conclude that counsel’s persistent efforts to convince petitioner to plead guilty — as the record reveals — did little to inspire his confidence. In any event, I do not understand my brothers to suggest that an uncooperative defendant waives his right to counsel. See, e. g., Rastrom v. Robbins, 440 F.2d 1251, 1256 (1st Cir. 1971); Jones v. Cunningham, 313 F.2d 347 (4th Cir.), cert. denied, 375 U.S. 832, 84 S.Ct. 42, 11 L.Ed.2d 63 (1963). It would seem to me, however, that Marcelin’s eccentric behavior toward counsel, which indeed caused counsel to question the petitioner’s competency to stand trial would have led any lawyer of average competence to plead Marcelin’s insanity or, at the very least to double his efforts in seeking some evidence of an earlier psychiatric history.
I recognize that a failure by counsel to investigate should lead to a finding of ineffective assistance only if it results in prejudice to the defendant. See Coles v. Peyton, 389 F.2d 224, 226 (4th Cir.), *48cert. denied, 393 U.S. 849, 89 S.Ct. 80, 21 L.Ed.2d 120 (1968); Note, Effective Assistance of Counsel for the Indigent Defendant, 78 Harv.L.Rev. 1434, 1435 (1965). But, in evaluating counsel’s performance in this case, I cannot overlook that in New York State once the defendant has raised a substantial question concerning his competence at the time of the crime, the burden is placed squarely on the state to prove the defendant’s sanity beyond a reasonable doubt. People v. Kelly, 302 N.Y. 512, 515, 99 N.E.2d 552 (1951).
Accordingly, we cannot ignore the testimony of Dr. Wilke, a court-appointed psychiatrist who examined Mareelin and who testified at the hearing on this petition with the aid of the discovered past psychiatric history that “a possibility of insanity can be entertained.” Although it is true that the petitioner has not put forth any evidence which would lead one to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that he was insane at the time of the crime, this is not the burden he would have been required to carry at the trial. As we have indicated, the burden at the trial would have been on the state to prove that Mareelin was sane beyond a reasonable doubt. In light of the court-appointed psychiatrist’s testimony that he entertained the “possibility” of Mar-celin’s insanity, I do not see how we can stamp our imprimatur on the cavalier and perfunctory defense interposed in this murder trial.
It is also of some interest that despite the overwhelming case presented by the prosecution, the jury deliberated for almost four hours. After two and one-half hours it returned for further instructions on the question of premeditation. Thus, even if I were able to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that the jury would not have found Mareelin innocent by reason of insanity, I can not conclude that evidence of the past psychiatric history would not have produced a verdict of guilty in a lesser degree than first degree murder.
Bearing in mind that the standards of effective assistance of counsel must be applied with greater stringency in capital eases, Harley v. United States, 100 U.S.App.D.C. 54, 242 F.2d 27 .(1957), I find counsel’s representation of petitioner nothing less than shocking. I disagree entirely with my brothers’ conclusion that counsel did not totally fail to present the cause of the accused in any fundamental respect. Indeed, given the circumstances present here, I am of the view that a neophyte lawyer would not have failed to press the only appropriate defense available to the defendant — insanity. I therefore can come to but one conclusion: counsel exhibited a callousness in investigating and presenting the defense. This rendered the assistance of counsel totally ineffective.
I recognize only too well that we must resist the temptation to analyze trial counsel’s performance from the vantage point of 20-20 hindsight. But, we are dealing here not merely with the vagaries of trial tactics, but with pretrial preparation — a step in the process of administering criminal justice where standards of normal competency must prevail. See Brubaker v. Dickson, 310 F.2d 30, 39 (9th Cir. 1962), cert. denied, 372 U.S. 978, 83 S.Ct. 1110, 10 L.Ed.2d 143 (1963); see also Moore v. United States, 432 F.2d 730 (3d Cir. 1970). As with any area of procedural due process, we cannot tolerate the debasement of the judicial process by preoccupation with a correct result regardless of the violence done to a litigant’s fundamental rights.