Court Opinion

ID: 9454973
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 19:05:32.15622+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:34:24.254058
License: Public Domain

FRIENDLY, Circuit Judge
(dissenting) (with whom LUMBARD, Chief Judge, and MOORE, Circuit Judge, join):
Rules were adopted by the four Appellate Divisions of New York in 1964 (which were amended in 1966) and by the Supreme Court in 1966, see notes 5 and 6 to Judge Medina’s opinion, requiring counsel for a convicted defendant, whether assigned or retained, to notify him of his right to appeal in forma pauperis and to provide against the running of time bars. Like the majority I welcome these rules as having effected what experience over the years had shown to be an exceedingly desirable reform. But I cannot agree that the Federal Constitution required New York in 1959 to find out whether Joel Smith, who had been represented at trial by retained counsel, no longer was able to afford a lawyer to take an appeal on his behalf.
Whether the majority’s ruling rests on the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, on the Sixth Amendment’s guarantee of the right to the assistance of counsel as incorporated in the due process clause of the Fourteenth, or on the due process clause of the Fourteenth simpliciter, Smith is not entitled to relief unless the State deprived him of his constitutional rights. As Judge Wisdom observed in Pate v. Holman, 341 F.2d 764, 775 (5 Cir. 1965):
For a petitioner to be entitled to post-conviction relief, it is not enough to show that indigency occasioned the petitioner’s inability to employ counsel or to appeal; the petitioner must show that the State deprived him of his Fourteenth Amendment rights.
There was no problem about the existence of state action in the landmark decisions of the Supreme Court on which the majority relies. Griffin v. Illinois, 351 U.S. 12, 76 S.Ct. 585, 100 L.Ed. 891 (1956), and Douglas v. California, 372 *658U.S. 353, 83 S.Ct. 814, 9 L.Ed.2d 811 (1963), were classic examples of state action — discriminations against the indigent apparent on the face of the statutes or rules. Similarly both Swenson v. Bosler, 386 U.S. 258, 87 S.Ct. 996, 18 L.Ed.2d 33 (1967), and Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738, 87 S.Ct. 1396, 18 L.Ed.2d 493 (1967), dealt with situations where indigent defendants had appealed and the state employed procedures whereby, to the state’s knowledge, they were treated less favorably than defendants represented by retained counsel. The familiar observation in Carnley v. Cochran, 369 U.S. 506, 513, 82 S.Ct. 884, 889, 8 L.Ed.2d 70 (1962), that “where the assistance of counsel is a constitutional requisite, the right to be furnished counsel does not depend on a request,” must be read in the context of a defendant on trial, whose need for counsel was apparent to the state judge, whereas here New York had no way of knowing that, as Smith claims, he would have liked to appeal if he had known he could. The statement in Norvell v. Illinois, 373 U.S. 420, 422, 83 S.Ct. 1366, 1368, 10 L.Ed.2d 456 (1963),
“If it appeared that the lawyer who represented petitioner at the trial refused to represent him on the appeal and petitioner’s indigency prevented him from retaining another, we would have a different case.”
must also be read in context. The actual holding was that a state was justified in denying Griffin v. Illinois retroactive application where the free transcript once wrongfully denied could not even be furnished due to the intervening death of the court reporter and defendant had not appealed despite the availability of counsel for this purpose. The quoted language merely hints, without deciding, that Griffin will be given total retroactive application in a case where the requirements of Douglas v. California, supra, also a retroactive decision, were violated in addition.
Painting with a broad brush, the majority opinion does not pause to identify what New York did here which the Constitution forbade. My brother Medina rightly does not assert that because Smith’s attorney was licensed by New York and, in' the oft used phrase, was an “officer of the court,” his alleged omission to advise Smith of the availability of in forma pauperis is attributable to the State. The contrary is indicated by Mulligan v. Schlachter, 389 F.2d 231 (6 Cir. 1968) (assigned counsel), and the many other cases under the Civil Rights Act cited in 42 U.S.C.A. § 1983, n. 13. Rightly also my brother does not assert that holding a defendant in custody is itself the unconstitutional state action necessary to sustain federal habeas corpus. Such a principle would be far too expansive; it would mean, for example, that any claim of a material false statement by a witness would be a ground for federal collateral attack although the state had no responsibility for it or knowledge of it. The state action that gives rise to a claim in federal habeas corpus must be action by the state that constitutes a wrong, not its mere holding a defendant who claims to have been wronged by someone for whose conduct the state is not chargeable. The inarticulate premise of the majority thus must be that New York was bound not merely to afford known indigents the same rights of appeal as non-indigents but to make sure that an apparent non-indigent was informed of what would be available if he were indigent.
I would not deny that a state’s duty may sometimes be so compelling that continued inaction can fairly be regarded as violating the Fourteenth Amendment. But I see no justification for holding1 that in 1959 New York should have perceived a constitutional duty on its part to make certain that a convicted defendant whom it had no reason to believe to be indigent should be advised what New York would do for him if he were.
The rapid doctrinal development in this area began with the Douglas decision in 1963. While that decision is retroactive on the situation there presented, that does *659not mean that all its emanations should have been realized not merely then but four years earlier. I find it especially hard to condemn New York for inaction in 1959, when it was not until 1966 that the Supreme Court brought its own rule governing federal criminal appeals in line with what the majority holds to have been constitutionally required all along.
Today’s ruling may not be of great practical importance with respect to New York prisoners in light of Judge Keating’s sweeping language in People v. Montgomery, 24 N.Y.2d 130, 299 N.Y.S.2d 156, 247 N.E.2d 130 (1969), which the majority applauds. But the actual decision in that case, by a sharply divided court, related to assigned counsel, as to whom it would be arguable that the unfortunate rule of People v. Kling, 19 A.D.2d 750, 242 N.Y.S.2d 977 (2d Dept. 1963), aff’d, 14 N.Y.2d 571, 248 N.Y.S.2d 661, 198 N.E.2d 46 (1964) (4-3 vote without opinion), cert. denied, 381 U.S, 920, 85 S.Ct. 1539, 14 L.Ed.2d 440 (1965), whereby the duties of assigned counsel ended on sentence, itself constituted state action denying equal protection. Cf. American Federation of Labor v. Swing, 312 U.S. 321, 61 S.Ct. 568, 85 L.Ed. 855 (1941). We must also consider the effect of our decision on the two other states in the circuit and on federal convictions prior to the 1966 amendment of F.R.Cr.P. 32(a). In many instances the desired appeal cannot now be had because of unavailability of a transcript. Both in such cases and in those where the appellate court detects an error, only in rare instances relating to the basic issue of innocence, a new trial would confront “the familiar difficulties of proof long after the event.” Retroactive holdings like the present are of particular benefit to prisoners who have committed the most serious crimes and have received correspondingly long sentences.
I therefore respectfully dissent.