Court Opinion

ID: 9464911
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 23:46:10.776866+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:38:52.754911
License: Public Domain

TUTTLE, Circuit Judge, ■
with whom GOLDBERG and GODBOLD, Circuit Judges, join, dissenting.
With deference I dissent, because I am of the view that at the time of Bonds’ 1953 trial, the prevailing standard for adequate representation by trial counsel was that such counsel had a duty to advise his client that a right to appeal exists. As I read the majority opinion, I find it in agreement on this point. It says: “Our pre-Lumpkin cases differ somewhat from [the Shiflett rule] by the recognition in Thomas and Simpson that trial counsel has a duty to advise his client that a right to appeal exists.”
The findings of the trial court in this case are not satisfactory. They implied conclusions first one way and then the other. To me, however, the controlling fact in the trial court’s opinion is the twice-expressed explicit view that Bonds “was not familiar with his appellate rights.”1 This, I think, *322places this case squarely in the posture of the Thomas and Simpson cases which the majority describes as providing “that trial counsel has a duty to advise his client that a right to appeal exists.”
I discuss first the theory that Lumpkin established no new principle of law, in which event, of course, the rule of Lumpkin was in effect at the time of Bonds’ trial. I believe that the explicit requirements announced in Lumpkin that counsel “advise him of his right to appeal, the procedure and the time limits involved and of his right to appointed counsel on appeal” are all comprehended within the existing rule that counsel has a “duty to advise his client that a right to appeal exists.” When the Lump-kin court stated that the explicit requirements were “well established,” I believe it intended to express the view that the pre-Lumpkin requirements were not changed by any newly-announced rule. I believe this because I think it utterly fanciful to conclude that duty of counsel to inform his client of his right to appeal would have any meaning at all in a constitutional sense unless it included a requirement that contained substantially the same elements now required under Lumpkin. I, therefore, think Bailey was correctly decided and it properly articulates the law of this Circuit at the time of Bonds’ trial.
On the other hand, if Bailey is to be construed, as I had originally thought, as giving retroactivity to the Lumpkin standards, then I fully agree with the dissenting opinion of Judges Winter and Sobeloff in Shiflett in their view that of the standards outlined in Williams v. United States, 401 U.S. 646, 91 S.Ct. 1148, 28 L.Ed.2d 388 (1973) to enable a court to determine whether to give retroactive effect to new legal principles “the purpose to be served by the new standards is the most important.” I fully agree with the statement in that dissenting opinion that: “I would have no question but that an appeal goes to the very heart of the truth-finding process.” This then brings into play that part of the Williams opinion in which the court said:
[wjhere the major purpose of new constitutional doctrine is to overcome an aspect of the criminal trial which substantially impairs its truth-finding function and so raises serious questions about the accura*323cy of guilty verdicts in past trials, the new rule has been given complete retroactive effect. Neither good-faith reliance by state or federal authorities on prior constitutional law or accepted practice, nor severe impact on the administration of justice has sufficed to require prospective application in these circumstances. (Emphasis supplied; footnote omitted.) Williams v. United States, 401 U.S. at 646, 91 S.Ct. 1148, 23 L.Ed.2d 388. See also, Desist v. United States, 394 U.S. at 249, 89 S.Ct. 1030, 22 L.Ed.2d 248.
447 F.2d at 59.
Finally, I must say that the discussion of the requirements of Lumpkin and Bailey are irrelevant to the issue here before the Court. All concede that counsel had the duty at the time of Bonds’ trial to acquaint him of his right of appeal. The trial court determined that Bonds “was not familiar with his appellate rights.” I don’t think we have here any question as to whether Bonds was entitled to have his lawyer go through the formulation announced in Lumpkin, telling him about the procedure, the time limits and of his right to appointed counsel, because we have a determination by the trial court that there was a failure to afford Bonds the information about his appellate rights which the case law clearly required at the time of his trial.
I would reverse the judgment of the trial court.

. These two statements are contained in the following excerpt from the trial court’s opinion:
Shortly after the conviction, Klein and Durant had a conversation in the presence of *322the petitioner regarding “errors” which might warrant a new trial. At the time, Bonds was not familiar with his appellate rights, but it is clear that the lawyers, in Bonds’ presence, did give consideration to the prospects of a successful appeal. The trial ended on September 2nd, 1953. On September 4th, 1953, Durant and Klein filed a written motion for an order appointing them as attorneys for Bonds and for the allowance of attorneys’ fees. The motion recited that the defendant was indigent and could not pay a reasonable fee for representation “in the above styled cause”; that the attorneys had been paid no fee; and that “said attorneys have completed the duties of defending the said Jimmy Ray Bonds in this Court.” The motion prayed “for an order appointing them as attorneys for an indigent defendant and the allowance to them for a reasonable fee for their services in the above styled cause.” At the time of the filing of the motion an affidavit of insolvency was filed. That affidavit reads as follows:
“Before me, the undersigned authority, personally appeared Jimmie Raye [sic] Bonds, who being by me first duly sworn, upon his oath deposes and says:
That he is utterly unable to pay the costs of this cause or attorneys fees herein either in whole or in part; that he has no property or other means of payment either in his possession or under his control and that he has not divested himself from his property for the purpose of receiving benefit from this oath, and is also utterly unable to enter into any bond which might be required to secure the payment of costs in the event he should elect to prosecute an appeal in the above entitled cause.
Further affiant sayeth not.”
The affidavit was signed by Bonds on the 4th day of September, 1953. Thus, it appears that the petitioner had court-appointed counsel available to him for the purposes of appeal. Although Bonds signed the affidavit, he probably did not read it carefully and he signed it so that his lawyers “couldget paid." Nevertheless, there is no question but that Bonds had available to him appellate counsel and that there was at least some discussion relating to the possibility of an appeal. Not being familiar with his appellate rights, Bonds did not request his court-appointed counsel to take an appeal and no appeal was taken. (Emphasis added.)
This statement clearly implied that Bonds’ unfamiliarity with his appellate rights was the reason why he did not request his court-appointed counsel to take an appeal.