Caudill v. Peyton, 10553.
| Decision Date | 21 September 1966 |
| Docket Number | No. 10553.,10553. |
| Citation | 368 F.2d 563 |
| Parties | George H. CAUDILL, Appellant, v. C. C. PEYTON, Superintendent of the Virginia State Penitentiary, Appellee. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit |
Edwin P. Munson, Richmond, Va. (Court-assigned counsel) Williams, Mullen & Christian, Richmond, Va., on brief, for appellant.
James Parker Jones, Asst. Atty. Gen. (Robert Y. Button, Atty. Gen., and Reno S. Harp, III, Asst. Atty. Gen., on brief), for appellee.
Before HAYNSWORTH, Chief Judge, and SOBELOFF and J. SPENCER BELL, Circuit Judges.
This is an appeal from the district court's denial of a writ of habeas corpus after a plenary hearing. The petitioner contends that he lacked the assistance of counsel at critical stages of his pre-trial and the effective assistance of counsel at his trial because the issues of capacity to stand trial and of his mental status at the time of the alleged offense were not raised at his trial. The record itself, as pointed out by the district judge, raises the question of whether the petitioner received a public trial.
The petitioner, who is of extremely low mentality,1 shot and killed one Robert Dixon, a person of "bad reputation" in the community. Dixon, who was drinking at the time, had gone to the petitioner's cabin in the mud creek section of Mill Creek Community in Tazewell County in the mountains of western Virginia. They quarreled over the sale of some chickens. Caudill ordered Dixon to leave. There was uncontradicted evidence that Dixon had a knife and a gun and that Caudill was afraid of him. After the shooting Caudill turned himself in to the police. The next day he gave a long, incoherent and rambling confession which was introduced in evidence. Shortly thereafter, upon motion of the prosecutor, who had known Caudill for years, he was committed to a state mental institution to determine his capacity to stand trial. Approximately 60 days later the institution reported that "* * * he is not now psychotic or insane and has not been psychotic or insane since admission * * *" and that he was competent to stand trial. Thereafter on January 8, 1960, counsel was appointed, and on February 4th the petitioner in open court waived indictment by a grand jury and his right to trial by jury and consented to trial by the court. The trial, which was completed in one day, took place in the judge's chambers; the petitioner was found guilty of murder in the first degree and subsequently sentenced to 40 years in prison.
We think the case raises serious questions both as to the lack of counsel at the critical stage in the proceedings when the petitioner was committed to a state hospital for 60 days, cf. Timmons v. Peyton, 360 F.2d 327 (4 Cir. 1966), and the adequacy of his representation at the in-chambers trial before the judge. The questions with respect to the trial fall into two broad categories: first, whether the defendant had the mental capacity knowingly and intelligently to waive his right to indictment and his right to a trial before a petit jury, and secondly, whether he had constitutionally adequate service of counsel in permitting him to waive these rights and in failing to raise the questions of his client's capacity to stand trial or his mental status at the time he committed the alleged offense. Neither his own counsel nor any of the state's witnesses who testified at the state and federal habeas hearings was willing to make the statement that he felt certain Caudill understood the significance of his conduct before or at the trial. His trial counsel, who testified for the state on direct examination at the federal habeas hearing, said:
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Aaron v. Capps
...68 S.Ct. 499, 92 L.Ed. 682 (1948); see also, as an example of proceedings incompatible with the demand for public trial, Caudill v. Peyton, 4 Cir., 1966, 368 F.2d 563 (trial conducted in judge's chambers). We conclude that the denial of one's right to a public trial is not at issue where 't......
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...when a proceeding is totally closed to the public. Cf. In re Oliver, 333 U.S. 257, 68 S.Ct. 499, 92 L.Ed. 682 (1948); Caudill v. Peyton, 368 F.2d 563 (4th Cir.1966). C. The Reason for the As noted above, also crucial to a determination of whether the right to a public trial is violated is t......
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...his representation of Owsley ineffective to the point of depriving him of his Constitutional right to counsel. In Caudill v. Peyton, 368 F.2d 563 (4th Cir. 1966), a habeas petitioner who had been convicted of first degree murder contended, inter alia, that his counsel had failed to investig......
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Brizendine v. Swenson
...* * * prejudice to the defendant" 433 S.W.2d at 334. For a case with a strikingly similar factual situation, see Caudill v. Peyton (4th Cir. 1966), 368 F.2d 563.8 Under the circumstances, we find and determine that petitioner was denied the effective assistance of counsel guaranteed him by ......