Court Opinion

ID: 9454975
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 19:05:33.009253+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:34:24.266725
License: Public Domain

MOORE, Circuit Judge
(dissenting):
The relator-appellant Lawrence Con-don (Condon) appeals from an order denying his petition for a writ of habeas corpus. He is presently incarcerated in a New York State prison, serving a sentence for the last of a series of crimes to which he pleaded guilty.
*668Since Condon now focuses his argument upon the claim that he was inadequately represented by counsel at the time of his 1942 sentence — some 27 years ago — it would be well to base this decision on the actual facts before the sentencing judge on that occasion rather than hypothetical and speculative situations which he now presents.
In early 1942 Condon, then 16 years of age, and a codefendant, Farrell, 19 years of age, at gun point held up and robbed a storekeeper. They were indicted for the crimes of Robbery in the First Degree, Grand Larceny in the First Degree and Assault in the Second Degree. Condon was alleged to have been armed with a revolver.
Initially Condon and Farrell pleaded not guilty. Subsequently they pleaded guilty, Condon to Robbery in the Second Degree. Condon was represented by assigned counsel on pleading. Under the law, had Condon been convicted after trial of Robbery in the First Degree, he could have received an indeterminate term, the minimum of which would not have been less than ten years and the maximum not more than thirty years (New York Penal Law § 2125) and for Second Degree up to fifteen years (§ 2127).
On the day of sentence, the counsel assigned for pleading was not present and the judge assigned other counsel for purposes of sentence. Separate counsel were assigned for Condon and Farrell.
When called for sentence, the stenographic minutes disclose the fact that the judge was aware of Condon’s age (16). The following colloquy is revealing:
“The Court: (to Condon): * * * You actually wielded the gun, didn’t you?
“Condon: Yes, sir.
“The Court: Where did you get the gun?
“Condon: Bought it in a crap game.
******
“The Court: You’ve been in for burglary, you’ve been in for stealing an automobile ; you got probation, didn’t you ?
“Condon: Yes.
“The Court: After you were twice in trouble for crimes in the Children’s Court, the third time you were charged with stealing an automobile and you were brought into the Adolescents’ Court.
“Condon: That is right.”
The judge then said, “You are only sixteen, but you have had the experience of a man of forty, in crime. The sentence of the Court is you go to Sing Sing for a period of five to ten years.”
Despite the fact that Condon has tendered no proof that assigned counsel did not confer with him or that he objected to such an assignment, he now asserts (through his present assigned counsel’s brief) that “Mr. Kirby [sentencing counsel] did not consult with appellant and offered nothing at sentencing.”
1946 finds Condon released from incarceration but his propensity to crime apparently had not been radically altered and in 1948 he is again pleading guilty to Robbery in the Second Degree, Unarmed. The same judge imposed a sentence upon Condon on January 19, 1948 as a second felony offender, of twenty-five to thirty years.
It is this sentence which Condon now attacks as being predicated upon a second offender status and which he would now have declared invalid because of his claim of inadequate sentencing representation in 1942.

Other Proceedings

Condon’s various State and Federal court proceedings are set forth in the majority opinion. Essentially factual determinations were made against Condon on the basis of lack of credibility.

*669
This Proceeding

Rebuffed on credibility in the State courts, Condon brought this proceeding in the federal court in which he again attacks his sentencing representation. The requested writ of habeas corpus was denied.

Condon’s Present Arguments

Unfortunately, Condon’s present arguments are based almost entirely on unsupported hypotheses. Thus, he assumes that assigned counsel “without a single word to the appellant stated to the Court, ‘Condon has nothing to say,’ ” and that this silence “could have been cured by the court had it chosen to solicit the remarks either of Mr. Kirby or the appellant as to those circumstances or factors which it might consider in mitigation of the appellant’s punishment, * * But the transcript definitely shows that the judge did solicit remarks from Condon. If there was not a “solicitous attitude” on the part of the judge, it was because of Condon’s ready admission under the judge’s questioning that he had wielded the gun and had had a substantial juvenile record of crime. How in the face of admission of guilt he can now argue that some lawyer in 1942 could have persuaded the judge to have permitted him to withdraw his plea of guilty and to have given him a suspended sentence, is beyond belief. As it was, the judge must have taken youth into consideration because of the material reduction in sentence from the potential maximum.
Even more unrealistic is the argument that there is nothing in the minutes to show a conference between Condon and his counsel. Thus he states that the attorney did not address “a single word” to Condon. The majority say that “The sentencing minutes reveal no consultation between appellant and his newly assigned counsel,” and from this fact draw the conclusion that there was no consultation — a complete non sequitur. ■ Conferences between attorney and client have always been protected by the greatest secrecy and would scarcely be expected to have been recorded on a public record. Absence of such a conference from the stenographer’s transcript is no foundation for the factual assumption that assigned counsel did not fulfill his professional obligation to Court and Bar.
Amongst other hypotheses which Con-don now conjures up are the thoughts that “effective counsel would arrange to confer with the defendant and review the facts and circumstances surrounding the case.” Although there is no proof that this did not happen, the judge on the record did exactly this and Condon quickly enlightened the judge by his ready admissions of crime. Also Condon now thinks that he “forever lost [was] the opportunity to withdraw the plea of guilty.” But had “effective counsel” been so successfully effective as to succeed and had the ease gone to trial and conviction with a ten to thirty years’ sentence imposed, Condon undoubtedly would be importuning a federal court to declare such representation to have been both inadequate and incompetent.
Based upon the inconceivable premise that Condon in 1942 would have received a suspended or a lighter sentence, Condon assumes the possibility of a lesser sentence for his concurrent 1948 sentences of 15-30, 15-30 and 25-30 years imposed in 1948. He, himself, supplies the answer to this argument by saying, “Con-cededly, this is pure conjecture, *
There is no need to comment on Con-don’s right to counsel argument. Of course he had that right and has had it throughout. But on an application for habeas corpus there must be some burden placed upon the applicant to supply a modicum of proof beyond surmise, conjecture and speculation. If “due process of law” be fundamental, Condon has certainly enjoyed its benefits (note the many hearings and appeals in the State courts). Condon’s difficulty, if such it be, is not in lack of due process but in lack of credibility.
Thus, in the face of the fact that the record before us conclusively shows that Condon had counsel on sentencing, I cannot subscribe to the majority’s statement *670that Condon was prejudiced “by the denial of his right to counsel.”
Second, if the majority intend to convey the thought that this counsel was incompetent, in view of Condon’s self-confessed career of crime, what better advice than to say nothing.
Third, the assumption that “effective” counsel could have produced a shorter sentence is wholly unsupported by the record.
Finally, as the majority points out, “the prior felony conviction, rather than the prior sentence, provided the basis for sentencing as a second felony offender.” For these reasons, I would affirm the denial of the writ.