Cash v. Culver/Opinion of the Court

The petitioner is serving a 15-year prison sentence imposed by a Florida court after conviction by a jury of burglary. He was not represented by counsel at the trial. No appeal was taken, and the Supreme Court of Florida denied without a hearing a petition for habeas corpus which he later filed. Certiorari was granted to determine whether the circumstances alleged in the habeas corpus petition make this a case where the denial of counsel's assistance at the trial operated to deprive the defendant of the due process of law guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. 357 U.S. 904, 78 S.Ct. 1153, 2 L.Ed.2d 1155. For reasons to be stated, we hold that this is such a case.

The record here consists only of the habeas corpus petition and the Florida Supreme Court's bare order of denial. With the case in that posture, the factual allegations of the petition must for present purposes be accepted as true. Hawk v. Olson, 326 U.S. 271, 273, 66 S.Ct. 116, 117, 90 L.Ed. 61. Composed in the penitentiary, the petition, like many such documents, is heavily larded with irrelevant innuendos, unsupported conclusions, and pretentious legalisms. Within its confines, however, are to be found allegations of a chain of events which we now relate.

On December 6, 1954, the petitioner, an uneducated farm boy of 20, was first tried by a jury on the burglary charge. At that trial he was represented by experienced counsel of his own choice. At the conclusion of the evidence, the jury was unable to agree on a verdict, and a mistrial resulted.

The petitioner was then immediately placed in solitary confinement, where he remained awaiting retrial. He first learned on the evening of February 20, 1955, that his new trial was to take place the next day. Only a few days earlier he had learned through a prison official that his former lawyer had withdrawn from the case. The petitioner's mother on his behalf had tried to engage a number of other lawyers to represent him, but they had all refused, telling her that the fee she could offer was inadequate, and the time for preparation too short.

At the opening of the second trial the petitioner asked the court for a continuance to give him time to employ a new lawyer, or in the alternative that the court appoint counsel for him. In making these requests the petitioner called the trial judge's attention to his youth, his lack of education and courtroom experience, and the sudden withdrawal of prior counsel. The requests were denied, and the trial proceeded at once, with the petitioner left to conduct his own defense.

His co-defendant, Allen, an alleged accomplice, pleaded guilty and testified for the State. Allen stated, among other things, that he and the petitioner in the company of two others had burglarized stores, stolen a truck, and engaged in a running gun battle with police. He further testified that he (Allen) had 'pulled a $180,000 robbery' in New Orleans with two of the petitioner's older brothers, in which the petitioner had taken no part, and that one of these brothers had also participated in the crime for which the petitioner was on trial. Physical evidence was introduced, including a revolver stolen from the store the petitioner was charged with burglarizing, which had been found in Allen's possession. No evidence in the case except Allen's testimony connected Allen and the petitioner. It is not clear what, if any, objections were made to Allen's testimony, or whether he was cross-examined.

On conviction, the petitioner, a first offender, was sentenced to the 15-year prison term he is now serving. Allen, an ex-convict, was sentenced to 10 years, but placed on probation. No charges were brought against the petitioner's brother or the fourth person named by Allen as a participant in the crime for which the petitioner was convicted.

In the 17 years that have passed since its decision in Betts v. Brady, 316 U.S. 455, 62 S.Ct. 1252, 86 L.Ed. 1595, this Court, by a traditional process of inclusion and exclusion has, in a series of decisions, indicated the factors which may render state criminal proceedings without counsel so apt to result in injustice as to violate the Fourteenth Amendment. The alleged circumstances of the present case so clearly make it one where, under these decisions, federal organic law required the assistance of counsel that it is unnecessary here to explore the outer limits of constitutional protection in this area.

'Where the gravity of the crime and other factors-such as the age and education of the defendant, the conduct of the court or the prosecuting officials, and the complicated nature of the offense charged and the possible defenses thereto-render criminal proceedings without counsel so apt to result in injustice as to be fundamentally unfair,' the Constitution requires that the accused must have legal assistance at his trial. Uveges v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 335 U.S. 437, 441, 69 S.Ct. 184, 186, 93 L.Ed. 127. Of particular relevance here are the decisions of the Court which have held the appointment of counsel necessary to a fair trial because of the complexity of the proceedings. Rice v. Olson, 324 U.S. 786, 65 S.Ct. 989, 89 L.Ed. 1367; Gibbs v. Burke, 337 U.S. 773, 69 S.Ct. 1247, 93 L.Ed. 1686; and see Williams v. Kaiser, 323 U.S. 471, 475-476, 65 S.Ct. 363, 366, 89 L.Ed. 398.

All that stood between the petitioner and a verdict of acquittal was a testimony of Allen-an admitted accomplice. Although Florida law does not require corroboration of an accomplice's testimony to sustain a conviction, Land v. State, Fla., 59 So.2d 370, the defendant has a right to demand that the trial judge instruct the jury that the 'evidence of an accomplice should be received by the jury with great caution.' Varnum v. State, 137 Fla. 438, 449, 188 So. 346, 351. The Florida decisions also establish the right to cross-examine an accomplice witness as to whether he is testifying under an agreement for leniency, and even as to whether he believes that his testimony will be in his best interest. Leavine v. State, 109 Fla. 447, 147 So. 897; Henderson v. State, 135 Fla. 548, 555, 185 So. 625, 627, 120 A.L.R. 742 (concurring opinion). A layman would hardly be familiar with these rights.

Moreover, Allen's testimony concerning the petitioner's commission of other crimes and the commission of a crime by the petitioner's brother, who allegedly also participated in the burglary which was the subject of the trial, if not inadmissible in its entirety, certainly raised serious questions under Florida law. As the Florida Supreme Court has recently noted, 'There are literally thousands of cases in this country discussing the admission of such evidence.' Padgett v. State, Fla., 53 So.2d 106, 108. The problems which this testimony raised were thus beyond the ken of a layman, and it was clearly the kind of testimony that could seriously damage a defendant in the eyes of a jury. Finally, the transcript of the petitioner's previous trial would have offered a lawyer opportunities for impeachment of prosecution witnesses, opportunities of which we cannot assume that a layman would be aware.

For these reasons, the requirements of due process made necessary the assistance of a lawyer if the circumstances alleged in the habeas corpus petition are true. On the present record there is no way to test their truth. But the allegations themselves made it incumbent upon the Florida courts to determine what the true facts were.

Reversed.