Court Opinion

ID: 9639915
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 16:51:46.691371+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:05:06.135517
License: Public Domain

HUTCHESON, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
The majority opinion in brushing Johnson v. Zerbst aside, as holding merely “that the purpose of that portion of the Sixth Amendment relating to the right of counsel was to protect an accused from conviction resulting from his own ignorance of his rights”, has in effect stripped an epoch making decision of its vital force and power, as a bulwark to defendants, who have not intelligently waived counsel, against their being tried, convicted or sentenced without the assistance of counsel. But the majority opinion does not stop with the mere brushing aside of the Johnson case. It proceeds to approve as correct, a practice with regard to counsel appointed by the court which, to say no more, if it keeps the promise of the Sixth Amendment to the ear, breaks it to the hope.
For the record shows that appointed counsel, applied for, and the court, con*218sented to, his release from further attendance on the trial after argument to the jury, and that the court, sentenced the defendant in the absence of his counsel, and immediately sent him off to the penitentiary. It thus appears that court and counsel considered the appointment of counsel as not affording defendant the assistance of counsel at his sentence, by requiring counsel to appear for and with him then, nor that of conferring with him afterwards, in regard to a motion for a new trial or appeal, before he was hurried off to the penitentiary.
Of this record, the majority solemnly declares that “the record establishes that the defendant was fully protected in his constitutional right to be represented by counsel.” I submit with deference that this view is not in accord either with the contractual or the ethical view of the relation of lawyer and client in a criminal case. I do not suppose that the majority would hold that a lawyer, privately employed to defend a client, would claim that his duty was done, his fee earned, when the jury retired to consider their verdict. I cannot believe that this court should approve a practice which requires of a lawyer, appointed by the court when the defendant is without means to employ counsel of his own choosing, any less duty than is required of a counsel privately employed. If the duty of appointed counsel is no less, and I cannot believe otherwise, I cannot see how the acts of the court and appointed counsel here, did not have the effect, of not only leaving defendant without, but of actually depriving him of, counsel in the case. The question presented here is not as to what' would have been the effect if counsel had absented himself without the court’s, but with his client’s permission, the question is what was the effect of the act of the judge in agreeing with counsel before the verdict, without consultation with defendant, that he might in effect withdraw from the active conduct of the case, leaving the defendant unrepresented in fact, at the most important step in the trial, the imposition of sentence, under a procedure, which gives the court the widest latitude including placing the defendant on probation.
In view of the sentence the defendant received, his counsel absent, I cannot at all agree with the conclusion of the majority that the defendant was fully protected in his constitutional right to be represented by counsel. I think it clear that he was deprived of that right and that because he was, it was error to discharge the writ. I dissent.