Court Opinion

ID: 9472404
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 03:59:26.089451+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:42:55.195706
License: Public Domain

WINTER, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
I concur fully in the ruling that the “jurisdiction” issue does not raise a federal constitutional claim. However, I respectfully dissent from the conclusion that a reasonably competent New York attorney would not have pressed the jurisdiction ar*745gument on appeal.1 In my view, the present record is inadequate to support that conclusion, and I would remand in order to supplement the record with appropriate evidentiary materials and to conduct whatever other proceedings seem appropriate.
This case is unusual in that all agree that Roche’s conviction on the possession count, the sole grounds for his present incarceration, would have been reversed had the jurisdiction argument been made by his appellate counsel. While the majority may be correct in asserting that the potential success of that argument would not have been reasonably apparent to a New York practitioner at the time of Roche’s appeal, the present record allows that conclusion to be drawn only upon speculation. That record consists only of the pleadings and the cover page and index of the two briefs filed on Roche’s behalf in New York appellate courts. We do not have before us, therefore, any of the briefs filed on Roche’s behalf or a verified statement by Roche’s attorney as to why the jurisdiction argument was never made. The record also contains no evidence of the practice of the New York defense bar as to the jurisdiction issue. Nor do we have the briefs filed in People v. King, 61 A.D.2d 1035, 403 N.Y.S.2d 109 (2d Dept.1978) and People v. Cullen, 65 A.D.2d 594, 409 N.Y.S.2d 263 (2d Dept.1978), rev’d on other grounds, 50 N.Y.2d 168, 428 N.Y.S.2d 456, 405 N.E.2d 1021 (1980), which might inform us as to that practice.
Even more unsettling is the fact that, in rebutting Roche’s claim that the jurisdiction argument has federal constitutional overtones, the state in its brief before us has relied upon Wainwright v. Sykes, 433 U.S. 72, 97 S.Ct. 2497, 53 L.Ed.2d 594 (1977) and argued that Roche’s counsel had “cause” to raise the issue in the state appellate courts. Brief of Appellee, p. 15. The state thus flatly asserts, contrary to the majority’s conclusion, that King was published in the New York Law Journal before the argument in Roche and would have alerted competent counsel to the issue.. Id. The state also attributes significance to the fact that the jurisdiction issue was raised in the trial court by Roche’s first attorney. Id. at 15.
Finally, the assertion that Roche’s lawyer “winnowed out” the jurisdiction argument so as to bolster the agency claim on appeal is wrong as a factual matter. The agency argument was strong only as to the sale conviction. What Roche needed was a winning argument on the possession count.
T fully sympathize with my colleagues’ reluctance to accord a hearing upon a claim of lack of adequate representation absent cause to believe that a colorable claim exists. In the instant case, however, such cause exists in the acknowledged fact that Roche had a winning argument which was not made. That seems to me sufficient to require that some record be established to support the .proposition that a reasonably competent New York practitioner would not have made that argument at that time, an issue which does not require an extensive evidentiary hearing. Roche’s attorney asserted at oral argument before us that the claim which succeeded in Cullen was routinely and successfully made by the criminal defense bar in New York. I think he should have an opportunity to show that through transcripts, pleadings, and decisions in the New York trial courts. I would also note that, since the majority’s conviction is so obviously based on their view that the decision in Cullen was unexpected because it was wrongly decided, courtesy as well as comity calls upon us to be confident of that conclusion before drawing it.

. My decision assumes that Strickland v. Washington, -U.S.-, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984) and Trapnell v. United States, 725 F.2d 149 (2d Cir.1983) apply retroactively to the present case.