Alvarez v. Wainwright
| Decision Date | 29 October 1975 |
| Docket Number | No. 74-2796,74-2796 |
| Citation | 522 F.2d 100 |
| Parties | Manuel Jesus ALVAREZ, Petitioner-Appellee, v. Louie L. WAINWRIGHT, Director, Division of Corrections, Respondent-Appellant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit |
Robert L. Shevin, Atty. Gen., Joel D. Rosenblatt, Asst. Atty. Gen., Miami, Fla., for respondent-appellant.
Edward R. Shohat, Donald I. Bierman, Miami, Fla., for petitioner-appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida.
Before BROWN, Chief Judge, and MURRAH * and WISDOM, Circuit judges.
Alvarez was convicted in a Florida state court of breaking and entering and grand larceny. Alvarez v. State, 261 So.2d 200 (3d D.C.A.Fla.App.), Cert. denied, 266 So.2d 348 (Fla.1972). After denial of state post conviction relief, 287 So.2d 121 (3d D.C.A.Fla.App.1973), Alvarez sought a writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court claiming ineffective assistance of his retained counsel due to a conflict of interest. After an evidentiary hearing the District Court granted the petition and the state of Florida appeals. This takes us immediately to Fitzgerald v. Estelle, 5 Cir., 1974, 505 F.2d 1334 (en banc), Overruling, 1973, 479 F.2d 420. We affirm.
Alvarez was charged and tried with co-defendants De La Cruz and Torres. Gino Negretti was retained by Alvarez and De La Cruz as their attorney. Shortly after the trial started the Assistant State Attorney spoke with Negretti and offered Alvarez a sentence of six months in the county stockade in exchange for a guilty plea and testimony for the state against De La Cruz and Torres. Negretti informed Alvarez of the plea offer but advised him against taking it on the grounds that Alvarez had a meritorious defense and that Alvarez' testimony would be detrimental to De La Cruz, Negretti's co-client. The plea offer was rejected, Alvarez did not testify, and he was found guilty and sentenced to 20 years and five years to run concurrently.
After appeal to the Florida appellate courts, Alvarez through new counsel brought a motion for postconviction relief under Florida Rule 3.850. Fla.R.Crim.P. 3.850. Alvarez and Negretti testified at the evidentiary hearing on the motion to vacate judgment on the grounds of ineffective assistance of counsel. At this hearing Negretti testified that he advised Alvarez not to take the plea offer because his testimony would be harmful to De La Cruz. 1 Alvarez also testified concerning Negretti's advice to him and about his own desire to take the stand at the trial. 2 In answer to a question from the Court, Alvarez stated that Negretti did not inform him of any conflict of interest and that he would not have hired Negretti if he understood the conflict. 3 The state judge denied the motion for Rule 3.850 relief.
Alvarez then filed his federal petition for habeas. At the habeas evidentiary hearing only Alvarez testified, 4 but the transcript from the state hearing and affidavits by Alvarez and Negretti in support of the state motion were made part of the record. 5 Again Alvarez stated that Negretti advised him against testifying at the trial because he would hurt the other defendants, but that Negretti did not discuss the conflict. 6 At the hearing the state questioned Alvarez about a post-arrest statement he made to the police. The state attempted to establish that this statement was possibly damaging to Alvarez and was the basis of Negretti's advice to reject the offer. 7 Alvarez' testimony, however, indicates that the statement was exculpatory as to him because it gave another explanation for his presence in the area of the break-in, but that it could be used by the state to place De La Cruz in the neighborhood of the crime. 8 Alvarez stated that he also wanted to testify at the trial to explain a witness' identification of someone at the scene wearing a gold colored jacket. 9
At the conclusion of Alvarez' testimony the District Court found that Alvarez was denied effective assistance of counsel as guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment and applied to the states by the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court found that there was state action because of the activities of the prosecutor in offering the negotiated plea to one defendant with full knowledge that Alvarez' attorney also represented another defendant and that his advice was based on the purpose of protecting the co-defendant. The District Court also found that the conflict of interest constituted a breach of legal duty.
This case was decided by the District Court before our recent decision enunciating the requirements for finding ineffective assistance of retained counsel, Fitzgerald v. Estelle, supra. In rejecting earlier cases implying that there was no difference in the standard applied to appointed and retained counsel, 10 we held in Fitzgerald that there are two instances in which the federal court has the power in a state case to inquire into the effectiveness of representation of retained counsel.
In the first instance state action can be established by finding that the trial was so fundamentally unfair as to deprive the defendant of due process under the Fourteenth Amendment. Under the second approach, even if the conduct of the trial is not so unfair as to rise to the level of a Due Process violation, requisite state action can be shown where there is significant involvement of the state through knowledge or awareness of the ineffectiveness of the retained counsel by functionaries of the state judicial system such as the trial judge or the prosecutor. 11 Under this second prong, once the state action is found, counsel is judged by traditional Sixth Amendment standards. 12
Although we can assume without deciding that the decision in this case could be based on a denial of Fitzgerald due process, because we find the Sixth Amendment facts so strong here we do not need to rest our holding on the due process ground. Finding that there was state action through the knowledge and involvement of the prosecutor we are compelled to find that the assistance provided to Alvarez by Negretti was ineffective by Sixth Amendment standards because of the basic conflict of interest in which Negretti played the rights of one defendant against those of the other and decided himself whose advantage was to be served.
Requisite state action is present here because the Assistant State Attorney was actively involved in the facts creating the conflict of interest. He had knowledge, as did the trial judge from what was going on before him, of Negretti's joint representation. The very nature of the plea offer was that Alvarez turn on his co-defendant. The purpose of the prosecutor's trade was to damage De La Cruz' position. The prosecutor knew that any advice counsel gave to Alvarez as to the plea bargain inescapably involved De La Cruz. Indeed a predominant factor in Negretti's advice was his emphasis to Alvarez that the testimony exacted of him by the trade would harm De La Cruz.
Once the requisite state action is found, the conduct of retained counsel is judged by the standards of the Sixth Amendment. 13 Since Glasser v. United States, 1942, 315 U.S. 60, 62 S.Ct. 457, 86 L.Ed. 680 it has been the rule that an attorney must offer untrammeled and unimpaired assistance free of any detrimental conflict of interest. Glasser, supra, at 70, 62 S.Ct. 457; Fitzgerald, supra, at 1336 n. 2; Holland v. Henderson, 5 Cir., 1972,460 F.2d 978, 981; Porter v. United States, 5 Cir., 1962, 298 F.2d 461, 464. 14
The state argues that Negretti was motivated in his advice to Alvarez not to testify by his fear that the suppressed post-arrest statement, if used for impeachment, would be harmful to Alvarez. There is no contradiction in the record before us, however, as to Negretti's primary motive protection of De La Cruz. 15
As counsel frankly acknowledged both in his affidavit and at the Rule 3.850 hearing, Alvarez had a good defense and during the trial asked to be put on the witness stand. Without his testimony Alvarez' only defense was the weakness of the state's case. By urging rejection of the bargain and advising him against testifying Negretti was protecting the co-defendant at the risk of great harm to Alvarez. Although the record does not show the prosecution then privy to these communications the effect was ultimately revealed before the Court by the simple fact that Alvarez did not take the stand.
At the habeas hearing the state entered the Rule 3.850 transcript as evidence that Alvarez acknowledged that Negretti informed him of the conflict. But in view of the testimony of Negretti 16 and his affidavit 17 the District Court was not bound by Alvarez' equivocal answers at the state hearing. Any statements by Alvarez or Negretti that there was disclosure of the conflict were not of such positiveness that they compelled the federal court to accept them. 18 See Von Moltke v. Gillies, 1948, 332 U.S. 708, 720, 68 S.Ct. 316, 92 L.Ed. 309; Larry Buffalo Chief v. South Dakota, 8 Cir., 1970, 425 F.2d 271, 280; Baker v. Wainwright, supra, at 149. Looking at the record as a whole and in view of Negretti's candid admission that his primary motive was to protect De La Cruz, 19 any conclusory statement that Alvarez was informed of the conflict did not compel the Federal Judge to find full disclosure. 20
Affirmed.
* Honorable Alfred P. Murrah, Senior Circuit Judge of the Tenth Circuit, sitting by designation.
1 To Negretti:
Q. Did a time come when Mr. Williams in behalf of the State offered you a negotiated plea of six months confinement for Mr. Alvarez, in return for his testimony and plea of guilty?
A. That is correct, your Honor.
Q. And what did you advise Mr. Alvarez with regard to this?
A. I advised Mr. Alvarez that if he did testify he would hurt his Co-Defendant and I advised him against taking the offer, your Honor.
Q. Was the main reason, Mr. Negretti, that you advised him not to accept this plea negotiation that it would...
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