Court Opinion

ID: 9463548
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 23:09:47.894514+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:38:09.995470
License: Public Domain

OAKES, Circuit Judge
(dissenting):
I agree that, in all probability, Rickenbacker’s defense counsel’s performance, while hopelessly inept, was probably not a “farce and mockery” within the long line of cases in this circuit referred to by the majority, despite such features as “cross” examinations of the key prosecution witnesses that served only to give the witnesses an opportunity to repeat their direct testimony. But, particularly in view of this court’s promotion of higher standards of advocacy, in the wake of Chief Judge Kaufman’s well-chosen remarks,1 I think the time has come to follow the lead of the six other circuits (including the originating circuit) that have rejected the rule of Diggs v. Welch, 80 U.S.App.D.C. 5, 148 F.2d 667, cert. denied, 325 U.S. 889, 65 S.Ct. 1576, 89 L.Ed. 2002 (1945). And I cannot agree that counsel’s performance here was up to the standard of reasonable competency to which the better rule speaks.
Judge Smith for the majority has, as always, stated the facts fully and fairly, so they need not be restated. In my view it was unreasonably incompetent for appellant’s counsel not to drive home the fact that neither Fichera, the store owner, nor Petrancosta, the victim’s son, could identify the defendant and not to query Officer Walsh regarding the weapon he said he had found, the absence of fingerprints on it, and his opportunities for observation of the third man during the chase. Counsel did not even object to the introduction of the weapon. These examples could be multiplied; I need not belabor the point, as I think footnotes 1-4 of the majority opinion are almost self-compelling. When these are considered along with the facially absurd proposition advanced by counsel in summation, that perhaps it was a shot from Fich-era’s own weapon that killed Vito Petran-costa, it is a wonder that the jury took as long as it did to convict.
United States v. Wight, 176 F.2d 376 (2d Cir. 1949), cert. denied, 338 U.S. 950, 70 S.Ct. 478, 94 L.Ed. 586 (1950), the case that established our circuit’s “farce and mockery” standard, followed Diggs and its District of Columbia Circuit progeny and United States ex rel. Feeley v. Ragen, 166 F.2d 976 (7th Cir. 1948), which also relied on Diggs, id. at 981. As the majority opinion recognizes, both the District of Columbia and Seventh Circuits, along with four others, have now abandoned this standard. Diggs simply cannot withstand analysis. The Supreme Court cases on which it relied, 148 F.2d at 669 n. 3,2 all held that, where the trial proceedings had been turned into a farce or mockery of justice, a conviction could not stand; none held that the proceedings must have come to that point to warrant judicial intervention. The principal rationale advanced in Diggs, id. at 670, that “[i]n many cases there is no written transcript,” thereby giving a habeas petitioner “a clear field for the exercise of his imagination” (and thereby presumably inundating the federal courts), no longer holds true, since written transcripts are now generally available. Gideon’s Trumpet *68has long since sounded.3 We should join the several other circuits that have rejected Diggs as no longer having precedential value and declare it a dead letter, bringing the law of our circuit into line with the rule of, e. g., United States v. DeCoster, 159 U.S. App.D.C. 326, 487 F.2d 1197 (1973), that, under the Sixth Amendment, “a defendant is entitled to the reasonably competent assistance of an attorney acting as his diligent conscientious advocate,” id. at 1202 (emphasis omitted). See also Finer, Ineffective Assistance of Counsel, 58 Cornell L.Rev. 1077 (1973); Waltz, Inadequacy of Trial Defense Representation as a Ground for Post-Conviction Relief in Criminal Cases, 59 Nw.U.L.Rev. 289 (1964); Note, Effective Assistance of Counsel for the Indigent Defendant, 78 Harv.L.Rev. 1434 (1965).
Forty-four years ago, Mr. Justice Sutherland wrote: “The right to be heard would be, in many cases, of little avail if it did not comprehend the right to be heard by counsel.” Powell v. Alabama, 287 U.S. 45, 68-69, 53 S.Ct. 55, 77 L.Ed. 158 (1932). In 1976 I think our court should recognize that the right is equally meaningless if counsel is not at least reasonably competent.
I dissent.

. See, e. g., Kaufman, The Court Needs a Friend in Court, 60 A.B.A.J. 175 (1974); New Admission Rules Proposed for Federal District Courts, 61 A.B.A.J. 945 (1975) (summary of work of advisory committee to Second Circuit Judicial Conference and of advocacy qualifications for admission to Second Circuit bar). See also Burger, The Special Skills of Advocacy: Are Specialized Training and Certification of Advocates Essential to Our System of Justice?, 42 Fordham L.Rev. 227 (1973).

. The five cases cited were Moore v. Dempsey, 261 U.S. 86, 43 S.Ct. 265, 67 L.Ed. 543 (1923) (mob violence); Powell v. Alabama, 287 U.S. 45, 53 S.Ct. 55, 77 L.Ed. 158 (1932) (mob violence; no counsel appointed); Mooney v. Holo-han, 294 U.S. 103, 55 S.Ct. 340, 79 L.Ed. 791 (1935) (knowing use of perjured testimony by prosecutor; writ not issued for failure to exhaust state remedies); Brown v. Mississippi, 297 U.S. 278, 56 S.Ct. 461, 80 L.Ed. 682 (1936) (coerced confession); and Johnson v. Zerbst, *68304 U.S. 458, 58 S.Ct. 1019, 82 L.Ed. 1461 (1938) (no counsel at trial).

. See Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335, 83 S.Ct. 792, 9 L.Ed.2d 799 (1963); A. Lewis, Gideon’s Trumpet (1964).