Court Opinion

ID: 9470783
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 03:15:58.224214+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:42:06.317148
License: Public Domain

MERRITT, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I agree that the Kentucky Supreme Court’s consideration of Hollin’s Rule 11.42 motion effectively eliminated any possible harm that he may have suffered as a result of his attorney’s negligence. I, therefore, concur in the Court’s judgment. I believe, however, that the Court’s opinion misconstrues certain aspects of the law and fails to answer all of Hollin’s arguments.
According to the Court, because “it is clear that the failure of counsel to perfect a direct appeal has not prevented Hollin from challenging his conviction in state court,” we need not decide whether Hollin had a right to the effective assistance of retained counsel on appeal, an issue on which the majority expresses some doubt. This procedure of deciding a right has been violated before determining whether the right exists would baffle anyone untutored in the ways of the doctrine of judicial restraint.
But our Court has already decided this issue. The majority opinion ignores this Court’s prior holding in Boyd v. Cowan, 519 F.2d 182, 183 (6th Cir.1975), where we confronted the question whether the state violated due process in refusing to grant petitioner a belated appeal when his retained counsel failed to inform him that counsel would not file his appeal. In commencing its discussion, the Boyd Court stated:
In this circuit we have held that failure of retained counsel to perfect an appeal when the facts of the case imposed a duty on him to do so could constitute denial of the constitutional right to counsel for appeal. Woodall v. Neil, 444 F.2d 92 (6th Cir.1971). See also Goodwin v. Cardwell, 432 F.2d 521 (6th Cir.1970).
Furthermore, in Perez v. Wainwright, 640 F.2d 596 (5th Cir.1981), the Fifth Circuit found that retained counsel’s failure to file a timely appeal constituted a violation of the petitioner’s Sixth Amendment right to a fair trial. Basing its decision in part on the Supreme Court’s “proclamation of equality” between retained and appointed counsel in Cuyler v. Sullivan, 446 U.S. 335, 100 S.Ct. 1708, 64 L.Ed.2d 333 (1980), the Fifth Circuit observed that, even before Cuyler, “[e]ach federal circuit court ... has, under varying circumstances, recognized a denial qf due process to defendants whose right to appeal is lost through wrongdoings or neglect of counsel.” 640 F.2d at 597, 598 n. 3 (citing cases).1
*269The majority correctly finds that Hollin’s Rule 11.42 motion enabled him to obtain review of his conviction by a higher court, an avenue through which his case received the same consideration that it would have elicited in a formal appeal. There is no point in having the state court reconsider a case that it has already addressed. Thus, our disposition of this case is perfectly consistent with the holding in Boyd v. Cowan, supra, where this Court granted the petition for a writ of habeas corpus conditioned on Kentucky’s granting Boyd an appeal. Although Boyd also involved an unperfect-ed appeal stemming from attorney negligence, it does not appear that Boyd had availed himself of the Rule 11.42 alternate route to challenge his conviction; unlike Hollin, Boyd had not received any post-trial consideration of his error claims by a state court.
Finally, this Court’s prior acknowledgement of the right to effective assistance of retained counsel on appeal seems to me to require us to address an argument based on a passage in Beasley v. United States, 491 F.2d 687 (6th Cir.1974), the case in which this Court established the standard governing effective assistance of counsel claims.2 In Beasley, this Court stated:
Harmless error tests do not apply in regard to the deprivation of a procedural right so fundamental as the effective assistance of counsel. Glasser v. United States, 315 U.S. 60, 76, 62 S.Ct. 457 [467], 86 L.Ed. 680 (1942); Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 23, 87 S.Ct. 824 [827], 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (Stewart, J., concurring) (1967).
Id. at 696. The Beasley Court made this statement in dicta, however, only after finding that “Potentially exonerating defenses were not explored by counsel and were not developed at trial” in that case. Id. Thus, the lawyer’s negligence may have caused the client actual harm.
In the instant case, by contrast, the attorney’s negligent failure to perfect the appeal did not cause the defendant any demonstrable harm, because Hollin’s claims were eventually considered and rejected on valid state grounds by the same court that would have heard his direct appeal. Thus, although his attorney’s conduct fell below the standard enunciated in Beasley, Hollin did not actually suffer any violation of his right to effective assistance of counsel. His lawyer’s negligence did not cause him any injury. Cf. Cuyler v. Sullivan, supra, 446 U.S. at 348, 100 S.Ct. at 1718 (to establish Sixth Amendment violation, defendant who raised no objection at trial must demonstrate that actual conflict of interest impaired lawyer’s performance).
The constitutionally protected interest at stake here under the due process clause is the Sixth Amendment right to effective counsel. Petitioner seems to concede, as I think he must, that a negligent act or omission on the part of counsel in a criminal trial is not in itself a constitutional violation. The state must participate in counsel’s conduct in the sense that it must impose some significant cost on petitioner as a result of counsel’s error. Counsel’s conduct must therefore lead to the loss of some state or federal right, privilege or advantage in a practical sense before the error becomes a federal due process violation. Legal malpractice that causes no injury satisfies neither the elements of common law tort nor the elements of a constitutional deprivation under the Sixth Amendment.

. In the same footnote, the court also cited many state court decisions espousing this position.

. According to this standard, “the assistance of counsel required under the Sixth Amendment is counsel reasonably likely to render and rendering reasonably effective assistance.” Beasley v. United States, supra, 491 F.2d at 695.