Court Opinion

ID: 9650663
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 15:47:57.89554+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:21:35.023759
License: Public Domain

EDGERTON, Associate Justice
(dissenting).
Appellant was entitled to counsel at his preliminary hearing, and again when he was arraigned on his indictment.2 He had none. It is undisputed that he had no counsel until after he had pleaded guilty. The question is whether he waived his right. He did not waive it unless he knew of it and intelligently chose not to enforce it. “ ‘Courts indulge every reasonable presumption against waiver.’ ”3 It has been strongly intimated that the court must in*410form the accused of his right and ascertain his attitude.4
There is no finding or evidence that appellant chose, intelligently or otherwise, not to enforce his right to counsel. There is no finding that he knew he had such a right. He knew that, despite his plea of guilty, he could have counsel before conviction and sentence, but there is no clear evidence that he knew he could have counsel before plea.5 If he knew it he knew what was widely unknown in this jurisdiction until later, when the Evans and Wood cases were decided.
Counsel appointed after arraignment may have been less inclined to substitute a not guilty plea for a guilty plea already entered than he would have been to plead not guilty had he been in the case from the start; especially since appellant had pleaded guilty on preliminary hearing as well as on arraignment, and it was widely thought that a plea of guilty on preliminary hearing was competent evidence against the accused on his trial.6 But we cannot know and need not guess whether appellant was injured by having no counsel in the early stages of his prosecution. “The right to have the assistance of counsel is too fundamental and absolute to allow courts to indulge in nice calculations as to the amount of prejudice arising from its denial.”7 “Compliance with this constitutional mandate is an essential jurisdictional prerequisite to a federal court’s authority to deprive an accused of his life or liberty.”8

 Wood v. United States, 75 U.S.App.D.C. 274, 128 F.2d 265, 141 A.L.R. 1318; Evans v. Rives, 75 U.S.App.D.C. 242, 126 F.2d 633.

 Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U.S. 458, 464, 58 S.Ct. 1019, 1023, 82 L.Ed. 1461.

 Glasscr v. United States, 315 U.S. 60, 71, 62 S.Ct. 457, 86 L.Ed. 680; Wood v. United States, 75 U.S.App.D.C. 274, 128 F.2d 265, 277,141 A.L.R. 1318.

 “Q. Did he tell you that even though you had pled guilty that you could change your plea to not guilty if you did not do it? A. He did not. * * *
Q'. Did you know that you could have counsel if you wanted one? A. I did.”

 United States v. Adelman, 2 Cir., 107 F.2d 497; Cooper v. United States, 6 Cir., 5 F.2d 824 ; 2 Wharton, Criminal Evidence, 11th Ed., §§ 586, 587; 28 Iowa L.Rev. 136, 138. The Wood ease to the contrary was decided later.

 Glasser v. United States, 315 U.S. 60, 76, 62 S.Ct. 457, 467, 86 L.Ed. 680; Evans v. Rives, 75 U.S.App.D.C. 242, 126 F.2d 633, 640.

 Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U.S. 458, 467, 58 S.Ct. 1019, 1024, 82 L.Ed. 1461.