Court Opinion

ID: 9463251
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 23:01:54.785463+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:38:00.359934
License: Public Domain

MURRAY M. SCHWARTZ, District Judge
(concurring and dissenting).
I fully concur with the majority’s holding that petitioner had been unconstitutionally deprived of a transcript which ultimately resulted in his being denied any meaningful appeal of his conviction. However, as a matter of logic, I either do not understand or cannot accept the majority position with respect to abridgment of right to counsel.1 Far more important and necessitating this dissent, is an inability on my part to subscribe to the proposed remedy. Rather than remanding for an evidentiary hearing by the district court, I would grant the writ of habeas corpus 120 days from the date of issuance of the mandate of this court if the State of New Jersey has not retried and convicted petitioner in the interim.
Apparently recognizing the impossibility in this case of a meaningful appeal nunc pro tunc2 the majority has opted to remand the petition to the district court, with instructions to hold an evidentiary hearing, presumably pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254. The majority’s suggestion that through this hearing the district court should attempt “[to] reconstruct a record of the trial”3 is hard to fathom. If the majority intends for *1206the district court to act as a surrogate state appeals court and decide the merits of petitioner’s appeal, the effect would be an impermissible substitution of a habeas corpus hearing for an absolute right of appeal. The majority has cited no authority nor can this writer find any case which would sanction the “Great Writ” being employed as a procedural device to cure the unconstitutional denial of an appeal from a life sentence. The purpose of this extraordinary writ “is to test in a court of law the legality of restraints on a person’s liberty.”4 The Writ was never intended as a federal substitute for a state court appeal.
Not only does the remedy proposed by the majority result in an inappropriate use of the writ, it also constitutes an unwise and unwarranted intrusion upon state court jurisdiction. If the district judge concludes he cannot make whatever requisite findings the majority envisions, he will have to conditionally grant the writ and that will end the matter. The majority implicitly recognizes that it is impossible to reconstruct the record 25 years after the trial took place.5 Under that circumstance, one must question why there should be a fruitless remand to an overburdened district court. Aside from the practical aspects, one must also ask why there should be a remand remedy when that remedy is totally unrelated to the constitutional deprivation of the right to appeal which forms the basis of the habeas corpus petition.
If, on the other hand, the district judge denies the writ, there will surely be another appeal to this court encompassing constitutional and comity questions created solely by the majority’s proposed remedy. Among the questions and answers being subsumed in the affirmative by reason of the majority are: Can federal habeas corpus ever be a substitute for a constitutional right of appeal in a State court? Should it be? Does a federal district court have the necessary grant of jurisdiction to be a surrogate State appeals court? Must a poor person who has been denied the right to appeal because of his poverty establish he would have won the appeal as a prerequisite to the obtaining of habeas corpus relief?
While the short term effect of the remedy of the majority might assuage the feelings of the State of New Jersey by affording it “an opportunity to demonstrate, factually and legally, that the petitioner is not entitled to the relief he seeks,”6 the long term result might be an exacerbation of state-federal relationships. “[Collateral review of state-court convictions by the federal courts, while certainly needed as a final safeguard against unconstitutional losses of liberty, nevertheless ‘results in serious intrusions on values important to our system of government.’ [footnote omitted]. Among those values are ‘the minimization of friction between our federal and state systems of justice, and . . . the maintenance of the constitutional balance upon which the doctrine of federalism is founded.’ [footnote omitted].”7 If the District Court of New Jersey pursuant to the majority remedy, after hearing, performs the unprecedented, majority mandated state court appellate function and concludes adversely to the State of New Jersey, has not the federal intrusion upon a state court appellate function resulted in an increase of friction between federal and state systems of justice? Is this intrusion not exacerbated where the identical question has already been before the New Jersey State court which “inexplicably failed” to follow its own precedent?8
In summary, I do not believe it is the function of federal habeas corpus proceedings to repair state court proceedings which were correct as a matter of law in 1951 but made retroactively unconstitutional which had the effect of adversely affecting the rights of criminal defendants. If the error cannot be corrected at the state level, the *1207only appropriate recourse is for the federal court to conditionally grant the writ.

. At note 9 of the majority opinion, it is stated:
“For this reason [unavailability of a transcript], we also are unable to consider, at this time, Cleveland’s contention that the withdrawal of his appointed attorneys, prior to his attempted appeal in 1951, abridged his right to counsel. Even assuming that petitioner’s interpretation of Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738, 87 S.Ct. 1396, 18 L.Ed.2d 493 (1967) is tenable, we could not determine whether the original appeal was ‘wholly frivolous,’ absent a record of the trial proceedings.”
If the majority is using the word “record” to mean the trial record, it has expressly noted that the trial record has been destroyed and thus could never be produced. If, on the other hand, the majority reference to “record” is the “possible reconstruction of the trial record through an evidentiary hearing” (p. 1203), I question the validity of this alternative. With the destruction of the trial notes prior to preparation of a trial transcript, neither trial counsel nor any other counsel can make a conscientious investigation and thereafter opine that the appeal is frivolous. Further, if some oddity not now apparent would permit counsel to make the necessary representations without benefit of transcript and twenty-five years after the trial, a federal district court simply could not accept counsel’s evaluation and documentation. Cf. Ellis v. U.S., 356 U.S. 674, 78 S.Ct. 974, 2 L.Ed.2d 1060 (1958); Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738, 87 S.Ct. 1396, 18 L.Ed.2d 493 (1967). On the other hand, it cannot be said petitioner had an absolute right to counsel on appeal, for, while under Douglas v. California, 372 U.S. 353, 83 S.Ct. 814, 9 L.Ed.2d 811 (1963), one has the right to counsel on an appeal of right, it is equally clear that counsel may withdraw from the proceeding if, after a conscientious investigation, counsel opines that the appeal is frivolous and the Court is satisfied with counsel’s evaluation and documentation. With no trial transcript and the lapse of twenty-five years, the right to counsel on appeal for Sixth Amendment purposes can never be conclusively determined. Under that circumstance, if forced to reach the right to counsel issue, I would resolve it against defendant. But for the majority’s mention of the issue, under my view of this case, the issue would never have to be addressed.

. Reinstatement of petitioner’s right of appeal nunc pro tunc has been prescribed as the appropriate remedy in a number of habeas cases considering the denial of an appeal of right. See, e. g., Joseph v. White, 404 F.2d 322 (5th Cir. 1968); Bosler v. Swenson, 363 F.2d 154 (8th Cir. 1966); aff’d per curiam 386 U.S. 258, 87 S.Ct. 996, 18 L.Ed.2d 33 (1967). Garton v. Swenson, 266 F.Supp. 726 (W.D.Mo.1967); U.S. ex rel. Kumitis v. Rundle, 244 F.Supp. 894 (E.D.Pa.1965); Spaulding v. Taylor, 234 F.Supp. 747 (D.Kan.1964).

. P. 1204.

. Sokol, Federal Habeas Corpus § 1 (2d ed.).

. P. 1204.

. Id.

. Zicarelli v. Gray, 543 F.2d 466 (3d Cir. 1976).

. Cf. Majority opinion, n.10.