Court Opinion

ID: 9477811
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:31:52.92746+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:46:03.699423
License: Public Domain

BRIGHT, Senior Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I dissent. Contrary to the view of the majority, I cannot characterize the petitioner’s claims as incredible. Indeed, a close reading of the transcript finds those claims not only supportable, but compelling.
In this case, we have for consideration the claims of a twenty-year-old Vietnam refugee who, uprooted in a strange land, appeared at his plea hearing without the benefit of a day’s education in the English language. The state of Arkansas appointed a lawyer for him and brought him before the judge who spoke to defendant Tran in an unfamiliar tongue. While a plea hearing implies a dialogue, here all the talking was done by the judge or the appointed attorney, punctuated by Tran’s occasional laconic responses.
At no time did the trial judge ascertain that Tran knew or understood what was being said to him. All Tran did was say “yes” or “I understand”. But what did he know and what did he understand? The record does not tell us.
For example, the trial judge opened the guilty plea hearing with this beginning
THE COURT: Now, Mr. Tran to be sure that you understand and the Court wants to be satisfied that you do and if there is not any difficulty that might be caused by any inability that you might have not understanding these proceedings, it is necessary that I ask you are you guilty of causing the death of Tan Kim?
MR. TRAN:
A. Yes.
[Clerk’s Record 45-46].
What did the “yes” answer to this convoluted question mean? Did Tran agree that the court should be satisfied that Tran understands; or did Tran agree he was guilty?
To insure that Tran possessed knowledge of English sufficient to plea knowingly and voluntarily, all the state trial judge needed was to ask Tran to explain as best he could in English what had happened with respect to the victim.
But no one asked Tran to speak a word of explanation. Indeed, very curiously in fact, when the court addressed the very critical question quoted above to Tran, he received only a “yes” to a question needing more explanation. Tran did not provide that explanation but his appointed counsel chimed in with the following:
MR. LANGSTON: Your Honor, I have went [sic] over this paper with him about his rights and you have went [sic] over basically what this paper has on it but executed that with him this morning up in the conference room of *1070the jail and you may want to make that a part of the file.
After reading the record, I am left with the uncomfortable feeling that Tran may not have really understood what was happening to him. Without an interpreter or without an informed native friend beside him in court to explain the proceedings, who can really say that he knew and understood?
I cannot. Nor can I characterize Tran’s allegation as “incredible”, as does the majority.
I would vacate the judgment dismissing his writ and remand for an evidentiary hearing, giving Tran appointed counsel to assist him in these habeas proceedings in the federal district court.