Court Opinion

ID: 9472937
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:15:13.022705+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:43:14.157972
License: Public Domain

LAY, Chief Judge,
concurring in the denial of a rehearing en banc.
I concur in the denial of a rehearing en banc, but write specially to address Judge Fagg’s dissenting opinion. In characterizing the issue in this case as whether the insistence of defendant’s counsel that the defendant testify truthfully denied the defendant effective assistance of counsel, Judge Fagg totally misreads the holding of Whiteside v. Scurr, 744 F.2d 1323 (8th Cir.1984). His dissent is certain to leave both lawyers and laypersons confused as to the breadth of the decision in this case.1
The panel opinion in Whiteside does not hold that the defendant was denied his constitutional rights because counsel demanded he testify truthfully. A lawyer must always insist that his or her client testify with veracity. As the panel opinion recognizes, such insistence neither creates a conflict of interest nor renders counsel ineffective. To suggest otherwise, sets up a straw-man, easily knocked down.
Ethical standards allow a lawyer to seek withdrawal when a client insists on giving testimony the lawyer knows to be perjurious. See American Bar Association, Project on Standards for Criminal Justice: The Prosecution Function and the Defense Function, Proposed Defense Function Standard 4-7.7 (2d ed. 1980). *717Counsel should not, however, advise the court of his or her reason for seeking withdrawal.2 In this case, defendant’s counsel threatened to take the stand and impeach his client. Such a threat is not only unethical, it creates a conflict of interest between the lawyer and the defendant rendering counsel ineffective in violation of defendant’s sixth amendment rights.
This court’s holding that a counsel’s threat to testify against his or her client in a criminal case violates the defendant’s constitutional rights does not lessen counsel’s duty to avoid subornation of perjury. As the Ninth Circuit observed in Lowery:
The problem presented is that which arises when defense counsel * * * forms the belief that his client’s defense is based on false testimony. We start with the basic proposition that if, under these circumstances, counsel informs the fact finder of his belief he has, by that action, disabled the fact finder from judging the merits of the defendant’s defense. Further, he has by his action openly placed himself in opposition to his client upon her defense. The consequences of such action on the part of counsel, in our judgment, are such as to deprive the defendant of a fair trial.
Lowery, 575 F.2d at 730. Judge Fagg’s dissenting opinion broadens the holding in Whiteside far beyond its limits. That it is both unethical and a denial of effective assistance of counsel for an attorney to threaten to testify against the defendant client as to information given in confidence by the client is uncontestable. That a lawyer must serve as a guardian of truth in the judicial process is also without doubt. The panel opinion in Whiteside does no more than tie these two certainties together.

. The Des Moines Sunday Register published a distortional article titled "Iowa lawyers criticize ruling, say it encourages perjury by defendants" and describing the panel opinion as holding “that an Iowa man convicted of murder must be retried or set free because his attorney wouldn’t let him commit perjury.” Des Moines Sunday Register, Oct. 14, 1984, at 3B. Similar misinterpretation is demonstrated by the former Iowa Attorney General’s characterization of the panel opinion as "outrageous,” and the admonition of a Drake University Law School professor to "pay attention to the Code of Professional Responsibility for Lawyers’ [sic] — and not be a party to perjury * * Id.

. I recognize that nonverbal acts may, in some circumstances, inform the court that the client is intending to give false testimony. In Lowery v. Cardwell, 575 F.2d 727 (9th Cir.1978), for example, counsel abruptly ceased questioning his client, the defendant, after she falsely denied shooting the victim in question. Counsel requested a recess, and made a motion in chambers to withdraw, but refused to state why he sought withdrawal. The motion was denied, and counsel continued his representation of the defendant. The attorney, however, did not argue that the defendant had not shot the victim, instead he contended that the state’s case was subject to reasonable doubt. The Ninth Circuit held that the attorney’s acts “amounted to such an unequivocal announcement to the fact finder as to deprive appellant of due process.” Id. at 730. Withdrawal before trial, or when feasible, without advising the trial judge of the particulars of the situation, normally will not constitute an "unequivocal announcement" depriving a defendant of his or her constitutional rights.