Court Opinion

ID: 9460616
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:55:41.484236+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:42.323889
License: Public Domain

HERBERT F. MURRAY, District
Judge dissenting:
I dissent. In my view, the sole reason Congress gave an accused charged with a capital crime the right to two attorneys was the possibility of imposition of the death penalty. When the Supreme Court in Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 92 S.Ct. 2726, 33 L.Ed.2d 346 (1972) abrogated the death penalty, the crime of murder with which Watson was charged no longer was a capital crime. It necessarily follows that his otherwise undoubted right under Title 18, Section 3005 to have a second counsel appointed on his request disappeared. Therefore, his rights have not been violated and the conviction below should be affirmed.
It is somewhat remarkable that the two counsel provision of Title 18, Section 3005, which has existed continuously in our law since 1790, is without any explanatory comment that the diligence of court and counsel can discover. The founding fathers, so eloquent on many of our other basic rights, seem to have maintained an unbroken silence with regard to this provision.
It does appear that they took pains to depart from the English practice with regard to the right of counsel. The harsh rule of the English common law permitted counsel in misdemeanor cases, but denied it in cases of felony or treason. Felony defendants were not allowed to testify, to call sworn witnesses on their behalf or see their charges before trial.1 It was not until 1695 that Parliament adopted a statute permitting representation by counsel in cases of treason.2 The same right was not extended to all felony cases until 1836, nearly half a century after the Sixth Amendment was added to the American Constitution.3 Contrastingly in this country, as Justice Sutherland noted in his extensive historical review in Powell v. State of Alabama, 287 U.S. 45, 64, 53 S.Ct. 55, 62, 77 L.Ed. 158 (1932):
“It thus appears that in at least twelve of the thirteen colonies the rule of the English common law, in the respect now under consideration, had been definitely rejected and the right to counsel fully recognized in all criminal prosecutions, save that in one or two instances the right was limited to capital offenses or to the more serious crimes; and this court seems to have been of the opinion that this was true in all the colonies.”
In adding the right to additional counsel in capital cases, it seems obvious that the reason for it was the finality of the punishment involved, not any inherent complexity of capital cases. Many such cases are much simpler and easier to try *1131from the point of view of counsel than, for example, a multi-defendant narcotics conspiracy trial. The writer of this opinion believes that in a desire to guard against human error, the first Congress felt it desirable to have two lawyers keeping watch on each other when the life of the client was at stake.
When the death penalty is abolished, admittedly it gives rise to difficulties in the administration of the criminal law. However, these difficulties are not insuperable4 and in regard to the statutes mentioned in the majority opinion, could be solved judicially on a case by case basis or by the Congress.

. Lewis, Gideon’s Trumpet, Chapter 8, p. 104.

. 7 & 8 Wm. Ill, c. 3, Sec. 1 (1695).

. 6 & 7 Wm. IV, c. 114, Sec. 1 (1836),

. See Donaldson v. Sack, 265 So.2d 499 (Fla. 1972); Commonwealth v. Truesdale, 449 Pa. 325, 296 A.2d 829 (1972); State v. Pett, 253 Minn. 429, 92 N.W.2d 205 (1958).