Court Opinion

ID: 9474147
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:49:02.827996+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:43:55.448500
License: Public Domain

HARRISON L. WINTER, Chief Judge,
dissenting:
United States v. Cronic, 466 U.S. 648, 104 S.Ct. 2039, 80 L.Ed.2d 657 (1984) teaches that the effective assistance of counsel is basic to the ability of an accused to receive a fair trial — a right guaranteed by the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States. While the burden is ordinarily on the accused to show a violation of this right, there are circumstances in which a violation of this right is presumed. Two examples are the complete denial of counsel at a critical stage of the trial, and a complete failure to subject the prosecution’s case to meaningful adversarial testing. Cronic, 80 L.Ed.2d at 668. But, as Cronic careful-, ly points out, these two examples are not exclusive:
Circumstances of that magnitude may be present on some occasions when although counsel is available to assist the accused during trial, the likelihood that any lawyer, even a fully competent one, could provide effective assistance is so small that a presumption of prejudice is appropriate without inquiry into the actual conduct of the trial.
80 L.Ed.2d at 668.
As I read and analyze the record in this case, it is one where the likelihood that defense counsel could provide effective assistance is so small that a presumption of prejudice is appropriate. I am therefore led to conclude that Griffin’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus should be granted. From the majority’s contrary conclusion, I respectfully dissent.
I.
The issue of whether counsel could likely provide effective assistance is largely factual, and as the majority and the district court point out, the facts in this case are largely undisputed.
Griffin was convicted of rape in a one-day trial. He was indicted on Monday, December 1, 1975, and, represented by a court-appointed public defender Dale Cobb, he was tried and convicted on Thursday, December 4, 1975. He was immediately sentenced to hard labor for forty years with service of only two days suspended. In the two days between appointment to represent Griffin and Griffin’s trial, Cobb was constantly in trial until late evening hours representing other defendants. On December 3, another public defender, George Dan Bowling, was also appointed to assist Cobb in preparing the legal issues for Griffin’s trial, but Bowling had no factual knowledge of Griffin’s case until the night before the trial began. Cobb was required to be in court on December 3 until 11:00 or 11:30 p.m., and he could tell Bowling nothing about the case until then. They worked on Griffin’s case that night until 2:00 a.m. and began the trial the next day after their renewed motion for a continuance was denied. They presented no witnesses in Griffin’s defense. Indeed, their testimony that they lacked the time to reflect upon the ease or to determine if defenses were available or even to prepare Griffin as a witness is not controverted.
*1237It is true that Cobb had other contact with Griffin prior to December 1, 1975, but an analysis of those contacts and the events prior to December 1 shows that they provide no basis on which Cobb or Bowling could reasonably be expected to be effective as defense counsel.
Griffin was arrested on September 19, 1975 on a charge of rape. On September 23, Cobb had his first contact with Griffin when Cobb was telephoned by the police to come to the county jail for a lineup involving Griffin, although as a technical matter Cobb was appointed, without his knowledge, on September 19. At the time, Cobb was representing by court appointment 121 other clients and was working as much as 18 hours per day. He was assigned new clients at the rate of 4-6 per week. He had no opportunity to interview Griffin until the next day when he talked to him “briefly” and “just pre-emptively found out something about the ease.” The identity of the prosecutrix was disclosed at the lineup, but Cobb talked to no one about her prior to the preliminary hearing.
A preliminary hearing was scheduled on several occasions during October but had to be postponed because of Cobb’s other court commitments or the unavailability of the police. Prior to the preliminary hearing, Cobb talked to Griffin at the jail and on the telephone several times.- Griffin suggested the names of some witnesses that he wanted Cobb to talk to. Cobb talked to one with whom Griffin had spent some time on the date of the alleged rape, but the information that he obtained was relatively meaningless since Cobb did not know at what hour the prosecutrix would fix as the time of the crime. Similarly, he talked to two others, but they had nothing substantial to offer at that time. He also assigned an investigator to look for a particular truck which Griffin suggested had contained two men who had seen him on the day of the crime. Cobb was shown the prosecutor’s file immediately prior to the preliminary hearing. Ordinarily, the public defender makes little investigation before the preliminary hearing because it is then that he learns about the prosecution’s case.
The preliminary hearing was finally held on November 11, 1975. Cobb talked to Griffin then and again on November 13. They talked about whether Griffin would be willing or able to make bail, and Griffin said that he wanted his release and that he could get the necessary funds from his father or friends. Also, they discussed Griffin’s representation. Griffin said that he knew of the case load of all of the public defenders, that he thought a private attorney would probably have more time to devote to his case and that if he was released, he thought that he could work a double shift driving a taxicab and, with supplementation from his father, earn enough to engage counsel. Cobb agreed to this plan of action and wrote Griffin a letter saying that when he was released he would no longer qualify for representation as a indigent and he should seek another attorney. Cobb then closed the case and did nothing more about it until December 1, 1975.1
Griffin was released on bond around November 20, 1975. He worked double shifts and, attending appointments between shifts, he tried to engage five lawyers. Only one indicated a willingness to represent him, and that one subsequently declined when the trial judge refused a motion for a continuance to prepare to trial.
On December 1, 1975, Cobb presented to the trial court a formal motion to withdraw as Griffin’s counsel. Similar motions in other cases were always granted, but the motion in Griffin’s case was denied, the trial court finding that Griffin had not earned enough money since his release to employ private counsel and that he was therefore indigent. On that day, Cobb learned for the first time that Griffin would be indicted that same day, arraigned immediately thereafter, and tried on December 4. Cobb was in court on December *12381 until 6:00 p.m., and he was advised that another assigned client charged with armed robbery would be tried on December 2. Cobb returned to his office on December 1 to prepare for the trial the next day, and the trial on December 2 was not concluded until approximately 10:00-10:30 p.m. that night. On December 2, Cobb was advised that the trial in another case involving three defendants charged with housebreaking, grand larceny, and receiving stolen goods would begin the next day so that on the night of December 2, he again returned to his office to prepare for the December 3 trial and worked until approximately midnight.
The trial on December 3 did not terminate until 10:30-11:30 that night. During the course of the trial, Cobb advised the trial judge that he was not ready to try Griffin the next day, and he informally requested a continuance. This was denied, the trial judge taking the position that cases would be tried as set by the solicitor but that Cobb should get help from someone else in his office to prepare him for the legal issues that the case would present. It was thus that Bowling was brought into the case and told to prepare the legal issues to be submitted at the trial.
Cobb left court on December 3 at 11:00-11:30 p.m. and worked with Bowling in his office until 2:00 a.m. This session was the first time that Cobb had the opportunity to tell Bowling about the facts of the case as they were known to Cobb. Cobb’s knowledge, however, was meager. After gaining some knowledge of the state’s case, he had talked to Griffin only 5-10 minutes on December 1 when Griffin was arraigned, and they did not discuss the facts of the case. After December 1, Cobb may have sent an investigator out to contact witnesses, but he talked to none of the witnesses himself. He did not obtain a transcript of the preliminary hearing for possible use in impeaching the prosecutrix because his secretary was too busy preparing papers for the December 2 and December 3 trials to transcribe it. During the night of December 3, Cobb may have talked to a friend of Griffin’s, but he did not talk nor had he talked to any prosecution witness, the police, the minister of the church in the community where the prosecutrix lived, the principal of her school, or any of her teachers.
On the morning of the trial (December 4), Cobb and Bowling again sought a continuance on the ground that they had insufficient time to prepare Griffin’s case. They cited Cobb’s continued presence in court and Bowling’s less than 24-hour involvement in the case. They reported that they had not talked to Griffin until that morning and had reached no decision as to whether he would testify. Even the prosecutor conceded that they had a problem. Ordinarily, trials are not scheduled immediately after indictment except where the accused is incarcerated. Griffin was released on bail, and Cobb was prepared to try other cases on that date. The continuance was denied, however, solely on the ground of prosecu-torial convenience. The trial began immediately after denial of the continuance. Although there was participation and cross-examination by Cobb and Bowling based upon their limited knowledge of the case, no defense theory was advanced, no defense witnesses were presented, and Griffin was convicted.
In the course of the trial, a legal issue was presented which Cobb and Bowling failed to recognize and to raise. There was evidence that after Griffin was arrested he requested an attorney, but notwithstanding his request, interrogation of him continued at the instance of the police, in the course of which Griffin consented to a warrantless search of his apartment during which evidence used at his trial was seized. While Cobb and Bowling contested the validity of the search on Fourth Amendment grounds, they were apparently unaware that Griffin also had a Fifth Amendment claim since he had requested counsel. See Edwards v. Arizona, 451 U.S. 477, 484, 101 S.Ct. 1880, 1884-85, 68 L.Ed.2d 378 (1981); Michigan *1239v. Mosley, 423 U.S. 96, 101 n. 7, 96 S.Ct. 321, 325 n. 7, 46 L.Ed.2d 313 (1975).
A factual question for which they were not prepared was that because of a cyst at the base of his spine, Griffin wore silk or nylon underwear rather than the more customary cotton. Absent the ability to explain, Cobb and Bowling were unable to counter the prosecution’s repeated references to the fact that Griffin wore “ladies panties” suggesting that Griffin was sexually deviant.2
Subsequent to the trial, Cobb and Bowling became aware of evidence which could have been used to impeach the prosecutrix. At the preliminary hearing, she had testified that she was chaste and did not use drugs, and at the trial she again asserted her virginity. After the trial, Cobb learned from a neighbor of the prosecutrix, a Baptist minister in the community in which she lived and two state witnesses at the trial that neither statement was true. In the words of Cobb, this evidence, if known before trial, “would have been extremely important ... [it] could have been used to impeach her credibility or what she perceived happened did not happen during the time of the incident ...”
II.
On the facts that I have set forth, I can only conclude that while Griffin had in attendance at his trial two lawyers who purportedly represented him, they could not have conceivably afforded him effective representation. They were grossly unprepared for trial through no fault of their own or fault on the part of their client. With the work pressures on Cobb, he could not have been expected to investigate thoroughly or carefully the case prior to the date of the preliminary hearing when he ascertained both that there was a case against Griffin sufficient to hold him for the grand jury and what were the facts of that case. Contemporaneously with the preliminary hearing, Griffin was admitted to bail, and the facts relating to his financial situation were such that he was no longer entitled to the services of a public defender in addition to his desire for private counsel. Cobb could hardly be expected to prepare himself more when he quite reasonably expected that he was no longer counsel. Griffin was released on a Saturday night, and he began his search for a lawyer the following Monday. He was refused representation by five lawyers in the three-week period between his release and his indictment. There is no reason to believe that when he was working a double shift to generate income to pay a lawyer that he could have done more in finding one.
The shortness of time between the indictment and the actual trial coupled with the court obligations of Cobb make self-evident the fact that it was impossible for Cobb, even with the aid of Bowling, to prepare even minimally adequately for trial. See State v. Bush, 163 W.Va. 168, 255 S.E.2d 539 (1979).
Thus I would conclude that Griffin is entitled to a presumption of ineffectiveness of his representation and that there was ineffectiveness per se. I would direct the writ to issue.

. When released, Griffin made $125-150 per week. At the time, the standard to qualify for appointment of counsel as an indigent for a person having Griffin’s support obligations was earnings less than $350 per month.

. It is perhaps significant that in sentencing Griffin immediately after the trial, the presiding judge stated that Griffin had an “emotional disorder in regard to sexual matters.” There had not been any psychiatric or medical evidence that Griffin suffered from any such emotional disorder.