Court Opinion

ID: 9459097
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:10:31.631327+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:01.343488
License: Public Domain

WELLFORD, District Judge*
(dissenting) .
The trial judge did not direct that a transcript be prepared for the defendant after the original trial December 8, 1971, (resulting in a mis-trial) since the matter was re-set for a prompt hearing with the same lawyer representing the defendant for December 23, 1971. The defendant’s request for transcript at government expense was made December 15, 1972, indicating desire for delay, since there was no designation as to what parts were desired or needed in light of so recent a trial with only three government witnesses having appeared to testify.
The trial judge set out in his order that transcript had been denied because the reporter was available to read back at any time any portion of the first trial that might have been requested or deemed relevant. There were only three witnesses who testified at both trials “. . . [and] there was no material variance in their testimony”. As was noted in Britt v. North Carolina, 404 U. S. 226, 92 S.Ct. 431, 30 L.Ed.2d 400 (1971), this situation would seem to fit within the exception to the rule requiring transcript to an indigent defendant where there is “availability of adequate alternatives to a transcript”. The second trial was before the same judge, with the same counsel, and the same court reporter, and the two trials were only two weeks apart. We do not know whether a complete transcript could ever have been available even to a non-indigent defendant within the time specified for the second trial, but it is indicated that the government had no benefit of a transcript; no advantage over the defendant in this regard. We would affirm the lower court under what we conceive to be the spirit and authority of Britt, supra. We do not ascribe to this situation that the alternative which is determined to have existed here to defendant and his counsel was merely “conjured up by a court in hindsight”.
Nor do we feel that this case necessarily is determined by the Griffin v. Illinois, 351 U.S. 12, 76 S.Ct. 585, 100 L.Ed. 891 (1956), principle that “there can be no equal justice where the kind of trial a man gets depends on the amount of money he has”, (p. 19, 76 S.Ct. p. 591). We cannot assume that a wealthy defendant under these circumstances could or would have been furnished a transcript of the first trial proceedings. Finally, the evidence presented to the jury which returned the guilty verdict was clear and convincing as to defendant’s guilt. If there were error in denial of the transcript, we feel it was harmless error. We do not find *631that the denial of transcript under the peculiar circumstances affected the “substantial rights” of defendant Young or that “there was a reasonable possibility” that the error complained of contributed to the conviction. Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 24, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967). We therefore respectfully dissent from the per curiam opinion.

 Honorable Harry W. Wellford, United States District Judge, Western District of Tennessee, sitting by designation.