Court Opinion

ID: 9470067
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 02:56:29.843464+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:41:42.993824
License: Public Domain

OPINION ON PETITION FOR REHEARING
PER CURIAM:
The government’s motion for a rehearing en banc having failed, the majority of the panel itself responds to the argument made in that motion.
The government contends that our dissenting brother’s opinion should be adopted, so that, before a retrial is considered, there should be a factual determination of indigency vel non. The government did not argue the issue before, nor does it suggest any change in defendant’s financial circumstances during the trial that would render the trial court’s post-verdict indigency de*9termination and appointment of counsel for sentencing invalid as a measure of his indigency and entitlement to counsel for trial. If it had doubts about indigency, and an interest in reducing burdens, it could have suggested a post verdict hearing possibly avoiding an unnecessary appeal. Instead, it would now apply a double standard; little inquiry, as it admits is its custom, if a defendant seeks counsel before trial, but a searching one if he was not informed of his constitutional rights and has been put through an appeal to demonstrate that fact.
After accepting defendant’s affidavit with respect to needing appointed counsel for sentencing, the government now says that “two different interests were at stake.” There is only one interest. A defendant who fails to make a point at trial cannot ordinarily make it later. We are reminded of what the Court said in United States v. Shotwell Mfg. Co., 1957, 355 U.S. 233, at 244, 78 S.Ct. 245, at 252, 2 L.Ed.2d 234, although in another connection.
“The fair administration of justice is not ... a one way street.”
It is late in the game for the government to have second thoughts.