Court Opinion

ID: 9465086
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 00:35:09.89688+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:38:57.823123
License: Public Domain

WIDENER, Circuit Judge,
concurring and dissenting:
While I otherwise join the decision of the court, I respectfully dissent from the majority’s determination that Proffitt’s counsel provided ineffective service.
The court holds “that a court-appointed attorney who conditions the investigation or presentation of an insanity defense upon the receipt of a fee for himself and expenses for a psychiatrist has not afforded the accused effective representation.” The court further holds that “when it appears to counsel that the accused is mentally ill and that he cannot afford to consult a psychiatrist, it is counsel’s duty to inform the court of this situation and move for a psychiatric examination.” Although I agree with these statements as abstract matters, their application in this ease is not consistent with the facts that should be controlling, especially when considered in the light of the findings of fact adverse to Proffitt by the district court which heard the attorney testify ore tenus in open court.
The record indicates that during the visit with Proffitt in jail, the criminal, not the attorney, brought up the question of vacating the court appointment. The lawyer testified that Proffitt asked “[i]f he could be in a position to retain me, is there anything else that could be done with respect to the case.” 1 Based on a defense he had conducted in the District of Columbia, the attorney knew of a minority of psychiatrists who thought that sociopaths and psychopaths are not responsible for their anti-social actions. The attorney reasoned that if both he and the psychiatrists were privately employed, the psychiatric reports were favorable, and the testimony were not rebutted by the government because taken by surprise, then a favorable result might be obtained.2
In light of this background, I think the characterization of the attorney’s conduct as “conditioning” the defense upon the private employment of himself and the psychiatrists is not fair to the attorney. The client raised the issue by asking his attor*861ney the hypothetical question of what the attorney could do if he were privately retained. The attorney did not initiate discussion of the issue; he merely responded truthfully to his client’s inquiry. Instead of evading the question as could have been done, the attorney to his credit answered candidly and fairly. Perhaps he was too competent, but we should not condemn him for it. Nothing in this exchange strikes me as a failure to give the client the competent legal representation that was his constitutional right.3 There is no objection that a privately-employed attorney may, in some instances, be able to aid his client in ways otherwise unavailable if his services were rendered under court appointment. See Ross v. Moffitt, 417 U.S. 600, 612, 616, 94 S.Ct. 2437, 41 L.Ed.2d 341 (1974).
This leads to the issue of whether the attorney could have accomplished the same objectives if court-appointed as he might have if privately retained. And again I must disagree with my brothers. The lawyer’s professional judgment that he could utilize the “minority of psychiatrists” to his client’s interest, if the court appointment were vacated, is not, I think, so egregious on this record that the court should proceed to render a judgment of ineffectiveness without the benefit of further factual consideration by the district court. Indeed, were I forced to the choice on the facts now before us, I think the record forecloses any conclusion except that the client was well and truly served by his lawyer. For all of Mr. Proffitt’s cases and allegations, neither he nor any of his counsel ever raised the issue of the quality of the attorney’s representation in the context now presented until after remand. It arose for the first time during the testimony of the attorney at the hearing below. I think Proffitt’s failure, despite his other creative efforts, to raise the issue before is of itself strongly indicative that the services of the attorney were within the range of competence we demand of attorneys in criminal cases. I also note that the district judge who tried the cases said this of the attorney’s conduct of the case: “All you have got to do is read the record in this case and soon determine that he did more than man’s job in the ordinary presentation of evidence, cross examination, and tactical strategy and so forth.”
The majority indicates that the attorney thought his client to be “mentally ill,” ante at 858, and also states that the need for psychiatric assistance was “apparent,” id. at 857, but the record and the opinion of the district court do not support these assertions, I think. At one point the attorney testified “I had no question in my mind he [Proffitt] was perfectly competent for trial.” The district judge was of a similar opinion,4 and, in fact, viewed the possible psychiatric defense outlined by the attorney as “almost drumming up a defense, what you say you did here.” Statements such as these, especially by the district court, I would have thought, should have averted the conclusion on this record that the need for psychiatric assistance was apparent, and that the attorney thought Proffitt was mentally ill. At the least, the statements would seem to justify a remand for factual determination of whether the attorney believed Proffitt was mentally ill, or whether there was apparent need for psychiatric consultation.
The basis for the psychiatric defense was, as previously related, the attorney’s ac*862quaintance with a minority of psychiatrists who were of opinion that sociopaths and psychopaths are not criminally responsible for their anti-social actions. That the government should not, in his view, be afforded an opportunity to prepare a rebuttal to the testimony of his psychiatrists is hardly surprising. In United States v. Chandler, 393 F.2d 920, 926 (4th Cir. 1968), this court en banc adopted the American Law Institute’s test for mental competency, including the caveat that “an abnormality manifested only by repeated criminal or otherwise antisocial conduct” would not establish a successful defense. On its face, the evidence the attorney contemplated eliciting from his psychiatrists seems quite similar to evidence this court rejected in Chandler, and thus appears to justify the attorney’s opinion that the government should not be afforded the opportunity to prepare rebuttal evidence, and that the district court would not order a court appointed psychiatrist on no urging of insanity but that Proffitt was a psychopath or sociopath. The majority’s rejoinder is that under United States v. Albright, supra, we had held that a district court had authority to recess a trial for a mental examination of a defendant at the instance of the government when the defendant disclosed only at the time of trial he relied upon an insanity defense. Such a procedure, of course, would nullify to greater or lesser extent the advantage of surprise. But who can gainsay that the element of surprise would not have been of practical, tactical advantage to the defendant, and who is to say whether or not the government would have moved to recess the trial, or whether or not the district court would have recessed the trial on the government’s motion? It is difficult to see how raising these questions would have been to the defendant’s disadvantage, and, on a longshot, he may have been able to capitalize on them. What Proffitt, in effect, asked his attorney was what sort of far-fetched defense might be dreamed up if enough money were available, and the attorney simply told him. In this I see no conditioning of representation on payment. Indeed, the record suggests to me that Proffitt was represented well “within the range of competence demanded of attorneys in criminal eases.” McMann v. Richardson, 397 U.S. 759, 771, 90 S.Ct. 1441, 1449, 25 L.Ed.2d 763 (1970); Marzullo v. Maryland, 561 F.2d 540 (4th Cir. 1977).
ORDER
The appellee’s petition for rehearing and suggestion for rehearing en banc has been submitted to the court. A poll of the court was requested, and in the poll a majority of the judges eligible to vote, voted to deny a rehearing en banc.
The panel considered the petition for rehearing and is of the opinion that it should be denied.
IT IS ORDERED that the petition for rehearing and suggestion for rehearing en banc are denied.
Entered at the direction of Judge Butzner, with the concurrence of Judge Lay. Judge Russell, Judge Widener and Judge Hall dissent from the denial of rehearing en banc.

. Proffitt had attempted to retain the attorney at least once before while awaiting trial in the District of Columbia on a firearms possession charge.

. The majority relates, “[t]he lawyer testified that this idea of asserting a psychiatric defense initially occurred to him after Proffitt’s first trial.” If the statement may imply the attorney had considered the idea prior to the visit with Proffitt in jail, it seems to be in error; the attorney testified the idea came to him when Proffitt raised the possibility of vacating the court appointment, and this occurred during the jail visit.

. The only issue that conceivably might arise is that the attorney required a fee for himself as well as the psychiatrists, instead of offering to continue the court appointment and hiring only the psychiatrists. Of course, it is difficult to imagine that a defendant who can afford to retain the services of private psychiatrists might qualify for a court-appointed attorney. As this issue has not been briefed or argued, however, I express no opinion on it.

. At the hearing below, the court commented: “I presided at the trials. I saw all of them. I watched the participation. There wasn’t a scintilla of evidence that I ever observed indicating that he didn’t know everything. There wasn’t anything wrong with his mentality whatsoever.” The court stated a similar finding in its opinion:
“There was no claim prior to the trial of the Nokesville bank robbery case or now that Proffitt was insane or mentally incompetent to stand trial — To the contrary, his demeanor and participation in the trial of the Dale City and Nokesville cases and in his numerous post-conviction proceedings confirm his counsel’s observation that he was very bright.”