Bradley v. Smyth, 7595.
| Decision Date | 25 April 1958 |
| Docket Number | No. 7595.,7595. |
| Citation | 255 F.2d 45 |
| Parties | C. C. (Dock) BRADLEY, Appellant, v. W. Frank SMYTH, Jr., Superintendent of the Virginia State Penitentiary, Appellee. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit |
Joseph E. Baker, Norfolk, Va. (Court appointed counsel), for appellant.
Reno S. Harp, III, Asst. Atty. Gen. of Virginia (A. S. Harrison, Jr., Atty. Gen. of Virginia, and Thomas M. Miller, Asst. Atty. Gen. of Virginia, on brief), for appellee.
Before SOBELOFF, Chief Judge, and SOPER and HAYNSWORTH, Circuit Judges.
In 1939, in the Circuit Court of the County of Russell, Virginia, petitioner was convicted of rape, upon a plea of guilty, and sentenced to forty years imprisonment in the Virginia State Penitentiary. After exhausting his state remedies, he filed in the District Court a petition for a writ of habeas corpus, asserting that he was not represented by counsel, nor offered the services of counsel, in the proceedings in which he was sentenced. The District Judge granted a hearing, appointed able counsel to represent the petitioner, took testimony and, after careful consideration, found that the prisoner, in fact, had been represented by counsel. Accordingly, the petition was dismissed.
The prisoner asserts that he had no counsel in the state court proceedings. The sentencing order, dated September 15, 1939, contains no reference to representation by counsel. The Attorney for the Commonwealth, however, testified that the defendant was represented by A. T. Griffith, Esq., an experienced and competent attorney, and he explains his clear recollection of the matter by reason of the fact that he had known and represented the defendant prior to the commission of the crime and because of the further fact that the nature of the crime was particularly repulsive.1 Mr. Griffith recalled that, as Court appointed counsel, he defended two individuals charged with murder in the September 1939 term of the Circuit Court of Russell County and that, by Court appointment, he also represented another individual who pled guilty, but he did not recall the name of that individual or the nature of the charge. There was a formal order appointing Mr. Griffith to represent the two defendants in the murder case, but there was no record of any such order appointing him to represent any other person tried at that term. The Clerk's minutes, however, while abbreviated, indicate that Mr. Griffith was appointed to represent the petitioner here, in the rape case, as well as the two defendants in the murder case and that he was paid, out of funds of the court, a nominal, but maximum, fee for representing three defendants at that term. Finally, there was testimony that, in 1943, all inmates of the penitentiary were interviewed in order to compile certain information which was not then available in the penitentiary, and the petitioner's "Record of Interview" contains the notation that, at the time of his conviction in 1939, he had been represented by an attorney named "Griffin."
The petitioner readily admits that the evidence, if properly before the District Judge, abundantly justifies the finding that petitioner was represented by counsel when convicted of the charge of rape. He protests, however, that none of such evidence, except the sentencing order of September 15, 1939, should have been received.
Reliance is placed upon Walker v. Commonwealth, 144 Va. 648, 131 S.E. 230, 233, in which the Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia said:
...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
U.S. v. Towne
...deference, but being silent on the subject of our concern, they do not necessarily foreclose our further inquiry." Bradley v. Smith, 255 F.2d 45, 47 (4th Cir.1958). The district court therefore erred in refusing the government's affidavits on the basis of the "no impeachment" The district c......
-
Jordan v. Slayton, Civ. A. No. 71-C-111-R.
...deference to the state court records, but being silent on the issue of counsel, they do not preclude further inquiry. Bradley v. Smyth, 255 F.2d 45, 47 (4th Cir. 1958); compare Walker v. Commonwealth, It also appears that in 1943 a Virginia Court of Record was not required to include in its......
-
Newsom v. Smyth, 7747.
...that all twelve jurors were in fact present at all relevant times during the trial. Council v. Commonwealth, supra; C. C. Bradley v. W. Frank Smyth, Jr., 4 Cir., 255 F.2d 45. Thereafter, upon petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the state court, a further hearing was held before another ......
-
Howard v. State
...proceedings the federal courts are not necessarily bound by the finality which a state court may accord its judgments.--Bradley v. Smyth, 4 Cir., 255 F.2d 45; Crabtree v. Boles, D.C., 229 F.Supp. 427. See Daniel v. United States of America, 107 U.S.App.D.C. 110, 274 F.2d Of course, in a cas......