Court Opinion

ID: 9454827
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 19:00:25.600911+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:34:19.637863
License: Public Domain

PHILLIPS, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent. Although the District Court held an evidentiary hearing at which the petitioner testified, it deferred to what it regarded as a state court finding that the petitioner was not indigent at the time he sought to appeal in forma pauperis to the Kentucky Court of Appeals. The state courts never held an evidentiary hearing as to whether the petitioner was indigent, and there is no written finding by the state courts to the effect that he was not indigent. On such a record it is my view that the District Court erred in deferring to the decisions of the state courts. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d).
Before the District Court the attorney for the Commonwealth of Kentucky said:
“At the time that Mr. Duke attempted to get a free transcript for his appeal, this was in 1954, the rule followed in Kentucky, of course, was that it was within the discretion of the Circuit Court whether to grant it or not.”
Braden v. Commonwealth, 277 S.W.2d 7 (Ky.), makes it clear that in Kentucky prior to Griffin v. Illinois, 351 U.S. 12, 76 S.Ct. 585, 100 L.Ed. 891, appellate proceedings in forma pauperis and their prerequisites could be denied even though the defendant established the fact that he was a pauper. From the state court records in this case I am not able to determine what was the basis of the denial of an appeal in forma pauper-is to the Kentucky Court of Appeals. The uncontradieted evidence presented during the evidentiary hearing in the District Court on the question of indi-gency was to the effect that Duke was an indigent at the time he sought to appeal.
I therefore would grant the writ conditioned on the petitioner’s being allowed a delayed appeal to the Kentucky Court of . Appeals or granted a new trial.