Court Opinion

ID: 9460518
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:52:52.418694+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:39.435085
License: Public Domain

SEITZ, Chief Judge
(concurring).
The Magistrate’s report, approved by the district court, found that defendant was denied the effective assistance of counsel and that it was therefore unnecessary to decide whether the guilty plea was knowingly and voluntarily made. I think this approach is analytically unsound because it implies that the two issues, effectivenesss of counsel and vol-untariness of plea, are of independent significance in a guilty plea context. In fact the only issue where a defendant has entered a guilty plea, is whether it was knowingly and voluntarily made. An attack on the effectiveness of counsel in such a context is relevant only insofar as it supports the claim that the plea was not voluntary; if a defendant is not properly advised of his rights and of the consequences of a guilty plea, the defendant’s plea is said not to be voluntary.
A reading of the Magistrate’s report shows that he dealt primarily if not exclusively with counsel’s activities before the plea was entered. He should have been concerned, at least initially, with the record at the date of the plea. Was Davis denied the effective assistance of competent counsel at the time of the plea? United States ex rel. Johnson v. Russell, 444 F.2d 1177, 1179 (3rd Cir. 1971). Davis did not enter his plea until after the Commonwealth’s case had been fully presented. Given counsel’s knowledge of the strength of the prosecution’s case, I agree with Judge Aldi-sert that there is no basis for saying that counsel’s action in recommending a guilty plea was below the standard of normal competency.
Because Davis was adequately served by counsel when he entered his guilty plea, ordinarily no futher inquiry into the adequacy of representation during the trial phase of the proceeding would be needed. Id. In this case, however, the argument that counsel’s performance was substandard can only be predicated on the claim that trial counsel’s performance prior to the entry of the plea was so inadequate that it fatally flawed the competency of the advice to plead guilty. Assuming the propriety of this argument, Id. at 1179, n. 11, I note that Judge Aldisert has analyzed the record on this score, and I am in accord with his conclusion that counsel's performance was not below the normal competency standard.
I concur in the reversal.