Brown v. State, 2 Div. 465

• Decision Date: 07 January 1965
• Docket Number: 2 Div. 465
• Citation: 277 Ala. 353,170 So.2d 504
• Parties: Wallace Allen BROWN v. STATE of Alabama.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

Page 504

170 So.2d 504

277 Ala. 353

Wallace Allen BROWN v. STATE of Alabama.

2 Div. 465.

Supreme Court of Alabama.

Jan. 7, 1965.

Richmond M. Flowers, Atty. Gen., and John C. Tyson, III, Asst. Atty. Gen., for petitioner.

Wallace Allen Brown, pro se.

LAWSON, Justice.

This is a petition for writ of certiorari filed by the State of Alabama through its Attorney General to reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals in the case of Brown v. State of Alabama.

Brown was indicted in the Fall of 1960 by a grand jury of Sumter County of the offense of burglary. On or about October 12, 1960, Brown entered a plea of guilty to the offense of burglary in the second degree. Judgment of guilt was duly entered and Brown was sentenced to a term of five years imprisonment in the penitentiary.

On July 25, 1963, Brown filed in the Circuit Court of Sumter County a petition for writ of error coram nobis wherein he attacked his conviction and sentence on the ground, among others, that he 'was forced to plead guilty because he did not have the assistance of counsel for his defense.'

After a hearing at which Brown was represented by counsel, the trial court rendered a judgment denying the relief sought by Brown in his petition for writ of error coram nobis. From that judgment Brown appealed to the Court of Appeals, which court on October 6, 1964, reversed the judgment of the Circuit Court of Sumter County. The Court of Appeals rendered its judgment of reversal without an opinion by placing on the record the following entry: 'October 6, 1964. Reversed and Remanded on the Authority of Pickelsimer v. Wainwright, 375 U.S. 2, 84 S.Ct. 80, 11 L.Ed.2d 41. Per Curiam. No op.' Application for rehearing filed in the Court of Appeals by the State having been overruled, the State has filed in this court a petition for writ of certiorari.

The threshold question is whether this court can review the judgment of the Court of Appeals because that court failed to render an opinion in support of its action. We have said in many cases that where the Court of Appeals does not render an opinion, a review by this court cannot be undertaken. Smith v. State, 241 Ala. 99, 1 So.2d 313; Honeycutt v. State, 264 Ala. 70, 84 So.2d 362, and cases cited; Crawford v. State, 276 Ala. 98, 159 So.2d 457.

But in State v. Parrish, 242 Ala. 7, 5 So.2d 828, we said that where the question as to the correctness of the judgment of the Court of Appeals is primarily a federal question, it 'must be determined from the whole record before us on petition for certiorari,' irrespective of the fact that the Court of Appeals did not write an opinion. See Espey v. State, 263 Ala. 207, 82 So.2d 270; Lindsay v. State, 273 Ala. 325, 139 So.2d 119.

It appears from the judgment of the Court of Appeals here sought to be reviewed that a federal question is presented, for that judgment shows that the reversal of the Court of Appeals of the judgment of the Sumter Circuit Court was predicated solely on the authority of a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, Pickelsimer v. Wainwright, 375 U.S. 2, 84 S.Ct. 80, 11 L.Ed.2d 41.

The Pickelsimer case is one of ten cases which the Supreme Court of the United States reversed and remanded to the Supreme Court of Florida for further consideration in light of the holding of the Supreme Court of the United States in Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335, 83 S.Ct. 792, 9 L.Ed.2d 799, 93 A.L.R.2d 733. The Per Curiam decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in Pickelsimer and related cases does not show the nature of the question presented. But the dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Harlan shows that the question was whether the denial of an indigent defendant's right to court-appointed counsel in a state criminal trial, as established in Gideon v. Wainwright, supra, invalidates his pre-Gideon conviction. The action of the Supreme Court in reversing and remanding the Pickelsimer case and related cases shows that the question was answered in the affirmative. The Court of Appeals of Alabama in Barnes v. State, 169 So.2d 313, expressed the same view. We denied certiorari Ala., 169 So.2d 313.

Since the Court of Appeals based its action in the case at bar on the Pickelsimer case, supra, it evidently found from the record that Brown was indigent at the time he was convicted of the offense of burglary in the second degree in the Circuit Court of Sumter County and that he was denied the right to State-appointed counsel.

We have gone to the record in accordance with our holding in State v. Parrish, supra, and we are constrained to hold that Brown was an indigent at the time he was convicted in the Circuit Court of Sumter County and that he was denied the right of court-appointed counsel.

It is without dispute in the record...