Court Opinion

ID: 9646413
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 12:59:24.889262+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:37.952187
License: Public Domain

SPAETH, Judge,
concurring:
I agree in all respects with the majority’s discussion. I wish to add, however, that appellant in his brief makes quite an alarming allegation: that his trial counsel’s son and law partner represented the complainant in an equity suit against appellant’s parents during the same time that this criminal case was being tried, and that trial counsel and his son “attempted to use this [criminal] action to settle the equity suit by offering to drop the charges should the parents of the appellant grant another right of way to the property sold to [complainant and her husband].” Appellant’s Brief at 14. If this allegation is true, it may be demonstrable that trial counsel could not represent appellant effectively.
Since, as the majority notes, this claim was not raised in post-verdict motions by post-verdict (now appellate) counsel, we may not consider now whether it has any merit. If post-verdict counsel learned the facts now alleged before the lower court decided his post-verdict motions, he should have asked leave to file a supplemental motion. If he learned the *336facts after the post-verdict motions were denied, but before sentencing, he should have asked the court to vacate the order denying post-verdict motions and to grant him leave to file a supplemental motion. If he learned the facts after sentencing but before he filed this appeal, he should have filed a petition for reconsideration or for a hearing on after-discovered evidence. If he learned the facts after he filed this appeal, his only recourse was to raise the claim in his brief to us, telling us when he had learned the facts, so as to enable us to decide whether we should remand for a hearing.
None of these steps was taken. Therefore, if appellant wishes to pursue the claim that his trial counsel was ineffective because of a conflict of interest, he must do so by a petition under the Post-Conviction Hearing Act, raising first the question of effectiveness of post-verdict/appellate counsel.