Court Opinion

ID: 9682045
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 08:04:16.714859+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:37.186068
License: Public Domain

MORRISON, Judge
(Dissenting).
Since the rendition of our original opinion, my attention has been called to several cases which hold that the failure to appoint counsel for an indigent accused charged with a misdemeanor (which provides as punishment confinement in jail) raises a constitutional question. I would favor following the reasoning of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in Glenn v. United States, 303 F.2d 536, wherein they said, “The public is not obliged to furnish free legal help for a defendant who is earning sufficient income to provide his own”, but find that in the case at bar appellant testified that he was unable to employ counsel, that he had been unemployed from the time he made bond until the trial and that when he was able to gain employment, it was “relief work” on “the boats”. The State offered no evidence in rebuttal.
The Supreme Court of Indiana as early as 1951 in Bolkovac v. State, 229 Ind. 294, 98 N.E.2d 250, recognized such rule and reversed a misdemeanor conviction where the punishment had been assessed at 180 days confinement in jail on the grounds that the accused had been deprived of a right to counsel. The court based their opinion upon their State and the Federal Constitutions, even though they recognized that the Supreme Court of the United States had not at that time passed upon the question of the constitutional necessity of appointment of counsel for an indigent accused in a case where the possible punishment was confinement in jail.
The question was before the Appellate Department, Superior Court of California, during the following year in People v. Agnew, 114 Cal.App.2d Supp. 841, 250 P.2d 369, and the Court based their opinion on the Federal Constitution and held that there was no distinction between misdemeanors and felonies as to the right to have counsel appointed.
The question was also before the Supreme Court of Maryland in 1961 in Patterson v. State of Maryland, 227 Md. 194, 175 A.2d 746. In that case the Court held no reversible error was reflected by the court’s refusal to appoint counsel in a misdemeanor case where the punishment was by confinement. When the Patterson case reached the Supreme Court of the United States by writ of certiorari (Patterson v. Warden, Maryland Penitentiary, 372 U.S. 776, 83 S.Ct. 1103, 10 L.Ed.2d 137, the judgment was vacated and the case remanded to the Supreme Court of Maryland for further consideration in the light of Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335, 83 S.Ct. 792, 9 L.Ed.2d 799. Upon remand, the Supreme Court of Maryland reversed the conviction (231 Md. 509, 191 A.2d 237).
The majority relies upon waiver and failure to request the appointment of counsel in affirming this conviction. The Supreme Court of the United States struck a death knell to such reasoning in the recent case of Carnley v. Cochran, 369 U.S. 506, 82 S.Ct. 884, 8 L.Ed.2d 70, wherein they said “that when the Constitution grants protection against criminal proceedings without the assistance of counsel, counsel must be furnished ‘whether or not the accused requested the appointment of counsel. Uveges v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 335 U.S. 437, 441, 69 S.Ct. 184, 185, 93 L.Ed. 127.’ ” The court further stated that “Presuming waiver from a silent record is impermissible. The record must show, or there must be an allegation and evidence which show, that an accused was offered counsel but intelligently and understandingly rejected the offer. Anything less is not waiver.”
*449In view of the above, I can bring myself to no other conclusion hut the appointment of counsel for indigent accused in misdemeanor cases where the possible punishment is confinement in jail is mandatory under the Federal Constitution as interpreted by the Supreme Court of the United States.
I respectfully dissent to the overruling of appellant’s motion for rehearing.