Court Opinion

ID: 9457506
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:23:48.073497+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:22.703686
License: Public Domain

ELY, Circuit Judge
(dissenting):
I respectfully dissent. Eisentrager has thrice sought an evidentiary hearing in the District Court. He has proceeded without the assistance of counsel, and I can see that his first two petitions were so inadequate as to justify their summary dismissal. The third, however, contains detailed allegations which, in my view, adequately raise serious claims of constitutional dimensions. The majority discusses only two, the alleged denial to Eisentrager of counsel during a critical stage of the Nevada proceeding and alleged unlawful searches and seizures by Nevada officers. There is, too, the suggested possibility that Eisentrager was impermissibly deprived of his right to a speedy trial.
Eisentrager’s third petition was filed on May 28, 1970, and summarily denied by the District Court on the same day. A federal court may not, in habeas proceedings, defer to the conclusions of law of a state court (Brown v. Allen, 344 U. S. 443, 73 S.Ct. 397, 97 L.Ed. 469 (1953)), and it may not rely on state court factual determinations absent its own independent review of the state court record. Selz v. California, 423 F.2d 702, 703 (9th Cir. 1970); cf. Linden v. Dickson, 287 F.2d 55 (9th Cir. 1961). Insofar as I can ascertain, there was no state court evidentiary record before the District Court when it summarily made the order of dismissal that is now challenged.
I am not satisfied that Eisentrager has ever been afforded the full consideration required by Townsend v. Sain, 372 U.S. 293, 83 S.Ct. 745, 9 L.Ed.2d 770 (1963); henee, I would vacate the order of dismissal and remand the cause with the suggestion that competent counsel be appointed to assist Eisentrager in the District Court. This would more nearly *493assure the full and careful exploration of all significant factual and legal issues, especially those relating to the searches and seizures claimed to have been illegal.