Court Opinion

ID: 9463626
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 23:11:19.899654+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:38:11.667577
License: Public Domain

EDWARDS, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
This appeal is from the denial of a petition for writ of habeas corpus. The District Judge conducted no hearing but apparently had the state court record before him.
The case involves a repulsive set of facts — and in addition offers a difficult appellate problem. Appellant, Fairbanks, was sentenced to two years after being convicted of sodomy in a jury trial before a Kentucky state court.
The alleged victim of the sodomy was Charles Crittendon, who, though 32 years old, is severely retarded as a result of infantile paralysis. The record indicates that he has a mental capacity of a six-year-old and that his voice and responses could not be understood by most people. There was prosecution testimony from a police officer who arrested Fairbanks and from another person near the scene, which constituted complete proof of the crime except as to penetration. This last fact, essential under Kentucky law, was established only by Charles Crittendon’s testimony, as interpreted by his father. The appellant, a black vagrant from a Northern state, testified and flatly denied either attempting or committing the crime charged.
The following deficiencies appear in the handling of the crucial testimony of Charles Crittendon. Although the defendant was obviously retarded and said by his father to have the mentality of a six-year-old, no attempt was ever made to qualify him as a witness. Nothing in the record indicates that he was ever asked to swear or affirm that he would tell the truth or questioned about his capacity to do so. It is sometimes difficult to ascertain from the transcript whether the father’s reply is his or his son’s. Although the father was sworn as a witness, the record does not make clear whether he was also sworn as an interpreter.
Over and above these procedural problems, of course, there is the specific objection made in this appeal which is that the use of the alleged victim’s father as his interpreter constituted fundamental unfairness, in violation of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Additionally, no effort was made to ascertain whether a less emotionally involved person than the father could be found to interpret who was also capable of understanding the witness.
As noted above, this is an appeal from the dismissal of a petition for a writ of habeas corpus. Appellant relies upon Prince v. Beto, 426 F.2d 875 (5th Cir. 1970), as authority for granting the writ. The Prince case dealt with a habeas action attacking a state conviction for breaking and entering with intent to commit rape. The husband of a deaf mute, who was alleged to be the prospective victim, was chosen as the interpreter. The Fifth Circuit said:
We are in complete agreement with the district court.
While the choice of a husband to interpret for a wife would normally be, at most, an abuse of the trial court’s discretion,3 Billy Ray's appointment under the facts of the instant case passes “the line of tolerable imperfection and fall[s] into the field of fundamental unfairness.”4 Disregarding the extortion attempt which was unknown to the court, prosecution or defense counsel during Prince's trial, we cannot approve the action of the state trial court in permitting the husband to interpret for his wife in the criminal trial of her alleged assailant. One can imagine few situations in which there would be a greater potential for bias by an interpreter. The trial court’s appointment injected an intensely interested party into the center of an emotion-packed criminal trial to interpret the testimony *101of the only witness to the alleged offense. This conduct is intolerable. Furthermore, the tremendous potential for bias and prejudice inherent in such an appointment is substantially enhanced by the extortion attempt.
In defending the state court’s appointment, the appellant cites several cases which discuss the qualifications of interpreters. Each of these is factually distinguishable from the instant case. The decision bearing the closest factual resemblance to the present case is Almon v. State,5 where a mother was permitted to serve as interpreter for her tongue-tied daughter, the victim of an alleged rape. The Alabama Court of Appeals held that appointment of the mother did. not consti-' tute error because the victim “could not be understood by any one not familiar with her.”6 Thus, the nature of the victim’s speech impediment prevented the court from obtaining a wholly disinterested person. The following comments of the court support our decision in the instant case; “Of course, the law contemplates that a fair, impartial, and correct interpretation shall be had, and to this end, a disinterested interpreter should be provided if possible to be secured.”7 It was clearly possible to secure a disinterested interpreter in the instant case. Fundamental fairness requires no less.
Prince v. Beto, supra at 876 — 77.
Since I agree fully with the holding of the Prince case set out above, I respectfully dissent from the majority opinion in our present appeal. Even without proper objections, the facts revealed in the 20-page transcript of the state court trial show repeated omissions of mandatory procedural protections of the fact-finding process which together appear to me to represent such fundamental unfairness as to violate federal due process.
I would reverse for issuance of the writ, absent a new trial under due process standards.

 See Hardin v. United States, 324 F.2d 553 (5th Cir. 1963); United States v. Sosa, 379 F.2d 525 (7th Cir. 1967): See also, Peoples National Bank of Greenville v. Manos Bros. Inc., 226 S.C. 257, 84 S.E.2d 857, 868-869 (1954).

 Curran v. Delaware, 259 F.2d 707, 713 (3d Cir. 1958). See In re Murchison, 349 U.S. 133, 75 S.Ct. 623, 99 L.Ed. 942 (1955); Turney v. Ohio, 273 U.S. 510, 47 S.Ct. 437, 71 L.Ed. 749 (1927); Luna v. Beto, 395 F.2d 35 (5th Cir. 1968). See also, Pointer v. Texas, 380 U.S. 400, 85 S.Ct. 1065, 13 L.Ed.2d 923 (1965); Chessman v. Teets, 354 U.S. 156, 77 S.Ct. 1127, 1 L.Ed.2d 1253 (1957); Mooney v. Holohan, 294 U.S. 103, 55 S.Ct. 340, 79 L.Ed. 791 (1935).

 21 Ala.App. 466, 109 So. 371 (1926).

 Id. 109 So. at 372.

 Id. 109 So. at 372.