Fields v. United States

• Decision Date: 11 May 1983
• Docket Number: No. 81-1153.,81-1153.
• Citation: 466 A.2d 822
• Parties: James B. FIELDS, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES, Appellee.
• Court: D.C. Court of Appeals

Page 822

466 A.2d 822

James B. FIELDS, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES, Appellee.

No. 81-1153.

District of Columbia Court of Appeals.

Argued October 26, 1982.

Decided May 11, 1983.

Richard S. McMillin, Washington, D.C., with whom Stephen G. Milliken, Washington, D.C., was on the briefs, for appellant.

Katherine Winfree, Asst. U.S. Atty., Washington, D.C., with whom Stanley S. Harris, U.S. Atty., John A. Terry, Asst. U.S. Atty., Washington, D.C., at the time the brief was filed, and John R. Fisher, Asst. U.S. Atty., Washington, D.C., were on the brief, for appellee.

Before NEBEKER, PRYOR and BELSON, Associate Judges.

BELSON, Associate Judge:

On October 6, 1976, a jury found appellant guilty of one count of armed robbery, D.C.Code § 22-2901, -3202 (1973), and two counts of assault with a dangerous weapon, id. -502. The following January appellant was sentenced to consecutive prison terms of eight to thirty years for armed robbery, and one to five years for each assault count. Appellant thereafter noted an appeal in which he challenged only the legality of his sentence, and in Fields v. United States, 396 A.2d 990 (D.C.1979) (per curiam), we ruled that appellant improperly had been sentenced as a recidivist. On remand appellant was resentenced to the same periods of incarceration. Appellant began serving his sentence in January 1980.

On May 22, 1981, appellant filed a motion to vacate pursuant to D.C.Code § 23-110 (1981), alleging ineffective assistance of counsel. On August 20, 1981, the trial court denied the motion, and this appeal followed. We affirm.

The gravamen of appellant's argument on this collateral appeal is that the trial court failed to conduct the hearing that we mandated in Monroe v. United States, 389 A.2d 811 (D.C.), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 1006, 99 S.Ct. 621, 58 L.Ed.2d 683 (1978), and Farrell v. United States, 391 A.2d 755 (D.C.1978), for addressing pretrial claims of ineffective assistance of counsel. Under what has become known as the Monroe/Farrell rule, when an accused raises pretrial claims of ineffective assistance the court must conduct an on-the-record hearing to determine whether counsel is providing representation within the range of competence demanded in criminal cases. Monroe, supra, 389 A.2d at 819, 821; Farrell, supra, 391 A.2d at 760-61. In addition, the court must make on-the-record findings sufficient to permit meaningful appellate review on the issue of the ability and preparedness of counsel to render effective assistance under the prevailing circumstances. Id. It is undisputed that the trial court failed to follow the Monroe/Farrell procedure when, before trial, appellant charged that his attorney's preparation was deficient.¹

Monroe, of course, was not decided until July 18, 1978, nearly two years after appellant's trial.² Although appellant's direct appeal was pending at that time, appellant did not raise the ineffective assistance issue, and thus the question was not before us when we disposed of appellant's direct appeal. Appellant nevertheless claims entitlement to the Monroe/Farrell procedure on two grounds. First, he contends that Monroe did not articulate a new constitutional doctrine, and hence no retroactivity question confronts us. Under this theory, if we were to rule in appellant's favor we would not be giving retroactive effect to a new constitutional doctrine, but simply finding that the trial court failed to adhere to 1976 standards for handling pretrial ineffective assistance claims.

Under his second theory appellant argues that even if Monroe/Farrell did announce a new constitutional doctrine, he is entitled to the benefit of that doctrine because his conviction was not yet final when Monroe was decided.

The government's counterarguments center upon the fact that this is a collateral appeal. First, the government insists that the Monroe/Farrell rule does not represent a new constitutional doctrine. Rather, the government maintains that in Monroe and Farrell we simply promulgated a rule pursuant to our supervisory authority over the administration of justice in the Superior Court. Because under this theory the right to a Monroe/Farrell hearing is not constitutionally required, the government argues that a motion premised upon failure to comply with Monroe/Farrell is not cognizable under § 23-110(a)(1).³

Alternatively, the government maintains that even if the Monroe/Farrell rule did announce a new constitutional doctrine and, therefore, claims such as appellant's may be raised on an appeal under § 23-110(a)(1), appellant is not entitled to retroactive application of a new constitutional doctrine because his is a collateral appeal. Under the government's alternative argument, therefore, whether an appeal was direct or collateral would be the decisive factor in determining whether to accord retroactive effect to a newly announced constitutional doctrine.

I

The retroactivity issue, generally speaking, resolves itself into the question of whether a case that announces a new doctrine should be given: 1) purely prospective effect (governing neither the parties before the court nor previous or pending cases); 2) nonretroactive effect (governing future cases, as well as the litigants at bar, but not previous or pending cases), or 3) retroactive effect (governing litigants at bar and appeals pending when the new doctrine was announced).⁴ See generally Beytagh, Ten Years of Non-Retroactivity: A Critique and a Proposal, 61 VA.L.REV. 1557 n. 2 (1975). In this appeal we are concerned with only the third classification: that is, whether the Monroe/Farrell rule should be applied retroactively to appellant, whose direct appeal was pending when the rule was announced. Before turning to the issue of whether the Monroe/Farrell rule should be applied retroactively, however, it is necessary to address appellant's first contention: whether, in fact, a true retroactivity question exists at all.

The Supreme Court recently explained in United States v. Johnson, 457 U.S. 537, 102 S.Ct. 2579, 73 L.Ed.2d 202 (1982), that certain cases that announce rules for criminal proceedings receive full retroactive effect because they merely apply settled precedents to new and different factual situations. See id. 102 S.Ct. at 2587. In such cases, the Court stated, "it has been a foregone conclusion that the rule of the later case applies in the earlier case because the later decision has not in fact altered that rule in any material way." Id. Appellant's first theory is that the Monroe/Farrell rule represented such an application of established precedents to new facts, and hence no true retroactivity question confronts us. We disagree.

It is true, as appellant points out, that certain pre-Monroe decisions in this and other jurisdictions recognized that trial courts should conduct some type of inquiry into pretrial claims of ineffective assistance. See, e.g., Brown v. Craven, 424 F.2d 1166, 1169-70 (9th Cir.1970) (when trial court, inter alia, summarily rejected accused's pretrial claims of ineffective assistance, new trial required); United States v. Young, 482 F.2d 993, 995-96 (5th Cir.1973) (although trial court should have inquired into claims of ineffective assistance raised during trial, reversal not warranted when record demonstrates insubstantiality of appellant's claims); Sawicki v. Johnson, 475 F.2d 183, 184-85 (6th Cir.1973) (when trial court conducted no investigation into accused's pretrial claim of ineffective assistance case remanded for evidentiary hearing); United States v. Morrissey, 461 F.2d 666, 669-70 & n. 6 (2d Cir.1972) (when accused raised claims of ineffective assistance before and during trial, trial court's failure to inquire would constitute reversible error if record did not demonstrate insubstantiality of appellants's claims); Brown v. United States, 105 U.S.App.D.C. 77, 83, 264 F.2d 363, 369 (en banc) (Burger, J., concurring) (when accused, without stating reasons, advises court of dissatisfaction with counsel, court must inquire into basis for complaints), cert. denied, 360 U.S. 911, 79 S.Ct. 1299, 3 L.Ed.2d 1262 (1959).

Monroe and Farrell, however, cannot be said merely to have applied settled precedents to a new factual situation. Although the Sixth Amendment has long been recognized as imposing a generalized duty upon trial courts to monitor the effectiveness of defense counsels' assistance at trial, Monroe for the first time explicitly stated what procedure trial courts in this jurisdiction should use to meet that responsibility in the context of pretrial ineffective assistance claims. By mandating a regularized, on-the-record inquiry into the validity of pretrial ineffective assistance claims, Monroe articulated a new rule that was designed to offer an alternative to the judiciary's more traditional post-conviction exercise of control over the quality of defense advocacy. See Monroe, supra, 389 A.2d at 819.⁵

II

Turning to the government's arguments, we conclude that it is unnecessary for us to determine whether the Monroe/Farrell procedure is constitutionally required.⁶ Even assuming that the Sixth Amendment does require such a procedure and that retroactivity might be appropriate were this a direct appeal, it is our conclusion that retroactive application of Monroe/Farrell would be inappropriate in this case, which comes to us on collateral appeal.

We realize that the appropriateness of retroactivity on collateral appeals is an unsettled issue that has generated considerable debate among both members of the Supreme Court⁷ and commentators.⁸ Indeed, Johnson, supra, the Court's most recent interpretation of the retroactivity doctrine, serves to illustrate the problem. In Johnson the Court held that new decisions construing the Fourth Amendment should be applied retroactively to "all convictions not yet final" when the decisions were announced. 102 S.Ct. at 2594. Having stated this holding, however, the Johnson Court then expressly left...