Court Opinion

ID: 9587369
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:21:23.356355+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:38:13.324543
License: Public Domain

Hall, Justice,
dissenting.
I dissent to the judgment of affirmance and to Divisions 1 and 2 of the majority opinion.
From my reading of the transcript, the evidence of Munford’s guilt was so slight as to render the co-defendants’ confessions plainly harmful error under Bruton. I cannot reconcile Division 1 with our recent *226decision in Williams v. State, 239 Ga. 12, 13 (235 SE2d 504)(1977) in which, even under a much less rigorous test, we found circumstantial evidence weak and doubtful.
The total evidence against Munford is as follows: An hour before the robbery he came into the store and bought matches, and then drove away in a white automobile with two unidentified black companions. (Those companions are still unidentified.) After the robbery he and his automobile were seen behind a nearby church and footprints of the two robbers were found around the automobile. Munford gave a palpably false excuse for being there and the two robbers were soon flushed out of nearby woods.
It completely escapes me how four members of this court can find this evidence so "overwhelming” and the co-defendants’ confessions so "insignificant” by comparison, that it is "clear beyond a reasonable doubt that the improper use of the... [confessions] was harmless error,” under Schneble v. Florida, 405 U. S. 427, 430 (1972). Munford is entitled to reversal of his conviction for harmful Bruton error.
With respect to counsel’s conflict of interest at trial, it was patent. Munford neither confessed nor testified; Daniels confessed and implicated the other two, but did not testify; and Williams confessed and implicated the other two, but did testify, repudiated the confession, exonerated Munford, and tried to cast all the blame onto Daniels. The conflicts among the three defendants were numerous and plain. Moreover, at the habeas hearing counsel himself testified that he thought he had been ineffective in not recognizing the conflicts of interest involved in representing ail three defendants.
The members of the majority opinion seem to fear something which I find absent in this transcript, namely, the possibility that defense counsel could deliberately create a Bruton error or a possibility of conflict so that if a conviction ensues, counsel may impugn his own performance and secure his clients’ release on habeas or appeal.
Every appellate judge knows that prisoners filing habeas petitions frequently allege ineffectiveness of trial counsel. There is always the possibility that counsel could *227unscrupulously connive with this ploy by attempting to interject trial error in myriad ways. On this record there is no hint of this having happened. The majority ignore constitutional error out of fear of an irrelevant bugaboo»’ Munford is entitled to reversal of his conviction because of the ineffectiveness of his trial counsel flowing from, Munford’s conflicts of interest with his other jointly represented defendants. See Holloway v. Arkansas, — U. S. — (98 SC 1173, 55 LE2d 426) (1978).
In my view this habeas record presents a case of grievous, multiple constitutional errors, which a majority of this court wish to overlook because of the probable factual guilt of the petitioner, the fact that he was implicated in his co-defendants’ confessions, and the fact that he initially planned to plead guilty.
I dissent.