Court Opinion

ID: 9456582
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 19:57:18.737687+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:02.142934
License: Public Domain

COLEMAN, Circuit Judge
(concurring in part and dissenting in part).
For a reason altogether different from those assigned in the foregoing opinion of the Court en banc, I concur in the result.
I also concur in that part of the opinion which overrules Stephens v. United States and Grant v. United States. I am happy to see the Court correct the prior departures from Eakes v. United States.
I respectfully dissent from that part of the opinion which holds that the matter of privileged communications between attorney and client involves only a rule of evidence rather than a right inherently incident to the Constitutionally guaranteed right of counsel. I likewise dissent from that part of the opinion which holds that the privilege is *1330governed by federal rather than state law. Such a decision is in direct conflict with the decision of the Eighth Circuit in Love v. United States, 1967, 386 F.2d 260, cert. denied 390 U.S. 985.
I concur in the result because I believe that Tucker v. United States, which started this whole business, should, itself, be overruled. The Tucker panel, 409 F.2d at 1295, remanded Woodall’s plea and directed a hearing in the District Court because “The record fails to show (emphasis mine) that he was informed, before he entered his pleas of guilty, as to the maximum penalties he was facing”. Upon remand, the lower court was to determine whether “from the judge, his lawyer (emphasis mine), his bondsman, or from some other source”, Woodall had been informed of the possible consequences of his plea.
The majority opinion points out that when Woodall withdrew his pleas of not guilty and entered the pleas of guilty he represented to the Court that he had consulted with his father and his attorney, that he had received no threats or promises, that there had been no plea bargaining, that he understood the charges to which he was pleading guilty, and was pleading guilty because he was indeed guilty of the crime charged.
It goes against all professional knowledge and experience, it smashes credulity to atoms, to assume on the mere silence of the record that Woodall, assisted by privately retained counsel of his own choice, pleaded guilty to two bank robberies without ever once inquiring about the possible consequences of what he was about to do. This was no hasty step. Woodall had first entered pleas of NOT GUILTY. Several months elapsed before the decision was made to withdraw from that position and to take a diametrically opposite course. Woodall is bound to have known that in so doing he was about to be subjected to a sentence within the limits of the law. In fact, he received far less than the máximums provided by law. He knew very well that he was not about to be paraded to the public square, acclaimed as a hero, and tendered the grateful thanks of an applauding populace.
In my opinion, the mere silence of the record, in the total context of this case, offers no more excuse for voiding a plea of guilty than that rejected last week by the Supreme Court in Procunier v. Atchley, 400 U.S. 446, 91 S.Ct. 485, 27 L.Ed.2d 524, 1971, as to an attack on the voluntary character of a confession.
These pleas were entered before the effective date of Rule 11, Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, effective July 1, 1966. The mere silence of the record, in the absence of affirmative allegations by Woodall, was not enough fatally to infect the patently voluntary character of the pleas. I would so hold, and I would set aside the remand which Tucker ordered.
The prior panel could not do this. In the absence of an en banc court it had to follow the directions of the predecessor panel as the law of the case. I respectfully dissent from that part of the opinion which, I believe, unnecessarily casts a shadow upon a vital aspect of the Constitutional right of representation by counsel, i. e., privileged communications between attorney and client.
The majority holds that because Wood-all attacked the guilty pleas he waived the privilege which attaches to communi-' cations occurring during the attorney and client relationship. Woodall did not say that his counsel was negligent, or incompetent, or had, in any respect, breached his professional duty. The Tucker opinion makes no mention of any such charge. Rather, the fatal flaw was the silence of the record. Obviously, privileged communications between attorney and client are not due to appear in the record.
The majority opinion says that Hunt v. Blackburn, decided by the Supreme Court in 1888, is precedent for deciding that Woodall waived the privilege. I must respectfully disagree. In that case, *1331Mrs. Blackburn alleged that she was deceived, misadvised, and misled by her counsel at a time when she was ignorant of her rights. At the same time, attempting to invoke the rule of privileged communication, she contended that her lawyer could not testify to give his version of the facts or defend himself. Of course, the Supreme Court rejected such an outrageous proposal. Speaking for the Court, Mr. Chief Justice Fuller wrote:
“The rule which places the seal of secrecy upon communications between client and attorney is founded upon the necessity in the interest and administration of justice of the aid of persons having knowledge of the law and skilled in its practice, which assistance can only be safely and readily availed of when free from the consequences or the apprehension of disclosure. But the privilege is that of the client alone, and no rule prohibits the latter from divulging his own secrets. And if the client has voluntarily waived the privilege, it cannot be insisted on to close the mouth of the attorney. When Mrs. Blackburn entered upon a line of defense which involved what transpired between herself and Mr. Weatherford, and respecting which she testified, she waived her right to object to his giving his own account of the matter.” 9 S.Ct. at 127.
That language is as sound today as it was when the Chief Justice penned it over eighty years ago. But that is not the case now before us. Woodall makes no such allegations. The Tucker opinion cites no such accusations. The attack, quite obviously, was directed to a failure of the record to demonstrate that either the prosecutor or the trial judge informed the defendant of the possible penalties. For the reasons already stated, I would reject that argument.
But in no event would I use it to erode the privileged communications rule, so basic and so essential to the preservation of the Constitutionally guaranteed right of representation by counsel.
I now refer to an even more ancient case than Hunt v. Blackburn—Chirac v. Reinicker, 24 U.S. 280, 11 Wheat. 280, 6 L.Ed. 474 (1826) in which Mr. Justice Story, with the concurrence of Mr. Chief Justice Marshall and the other Justices, wrote:
“The general rule is not disputed, that confidential communications between client and attorney, are not to be revealed, at any time. The privilege, indeed, is not that of the attorney, but of the client; and it is indispensable for the purposes of private justice. Whatever facts, therefore, are communicated by a client to counsel, solely on account of that relation, such counsel are not at liberty, even if they wish, to disclose; and the law holds their testimony incompetent.” 24 U.S. at 292.
This language was cited with approval by the Supreme Court in Alexander v. United States, 138 U.S. 353, 11 S.Ct. 350, 34 L.Ed. 954 (1891).
Citing Chirac v. Reinicker, supra, the Sixth Circuit has recently held, “It is a general rule that confidential communications between an attorney and his client, made because of the professional relationship and concerning the subject matter of the attorney’s employment, are privileged from disclosure, even for the purposes of the administration of justice”, United States v. Goldfarb, 1964, 328 F.2d 280, cert. denied, 377 U.S. 976, 84 S.Ct. 1883, 12 L.Ed.2d 746.
Love v. United States, supra, was an appeal from a Dyer Act conviction. It was there held [Circuit Judges Vogel, Matthes, and Blackmun] that the trial court was bound by the law of the forum state on the question of privileged communications between attorney and client, 386 F.2d at 265.
The panel opinion discusses the Alabama statute and judicial precedents in this field. It was there made clear that the Alabama statute was but declaratory of the common law, hence there is no difference between the state statute and Rule 26, Federal Rules of Criminal Pro*1332cedure, which provides that the admissibility of evidence and the privileges of witnesses shall be governed by the principles of common law as they may be interpreted by the courts of the United States in the light of reason and experience. Hence, even if the Federal Rules were controlling, the result should be the same. Therefore, I believe the declaration that Federal Rules control over state law is not necessary to the decision of the case and is obiter dicta. In any event, the rule is in conflict with the decision of the Eighth Circuit on the same subject and is silent as to the right of clients to depend upon the protection which is indispensably necessary to the preservation of the Constitutionally guaranteed right of representation by counsel.
The majority alludes to an affidavit in the record charging that Woodall’s attorney assisted in the coercion of the guilty pleas. This does not appear to have been considered by the panel in Tucker v. United States, supra. I note that if this affidavit is of importance then it should necessitate a remand of the case for the resolution of the factual issues by the trial court, in which, of course, counsel would have a right to defend himself from such charges.
As already indicated, I concur in the result but respectfully dissent from that part of the majority opinion which holds that communications between Woodall and his lawyer were not entitled to the benefit of the privilege.