Court Opinion

ID: 9450099
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 16:35:12.4291+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:08.962648
License: Public Domain

CHAMBERS, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
We write here on a slate on which the Supreme Court has not written. I would follow a nunc pro tunc approach and direct a hearing now after another examination. I would not now upset the judg-' ment of conviction. In the end, appellant is entitled to due process, but I consider he would get it just the same if the hearing is held after trial as well as before. A hearing at the end, instead of the beginning, ought to be considered harmless error, if error it be.
As I read 18 U.S.C. § 3500, a defendant is entitled to any pertinent statement in the government file at the moment during the trial when he has become entitled to them and thereafter asks for them. This does not mean after the trial.
Yet the Supreme Court in Killian v. United States, 368 U.S. 231, 82 S.Ct. 302, 7 L.Ed.2d 256, ordered a hearing to explore what Killian had been deprived of. It did not forthwith reverse the ease. We followed the same procedure in Ogden v. United States, 9 Cir., 303 F.2d 724, 323 F.2d 818. I would think it equally appropriate under 18 U.S.C. § 4244, Meador’s section.
As the record shows, Meador has a previous history in the district court where the same claim for examination under § 4244 was made. Shall we delay each of his trials with a motion under § 4244 close to the trial date ?