Kowalak v. United States, Crim. No. 76-80052.

• Decision Date: 15 January 1982
• Docket Number: Crim. No. 76-80052.
• Citation: 534 F. Supp. 186
• Parties: Tomas L. KOWALAK, Petitioner, v. UNITED STATES of America, Respondent.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Michigan

534 F. Supp. 186

Tomas L. KOWALAK, Petitioner, v. UNITED STATES of America, Respondent.

Crim. No. 76-80052.

United States District Court, E. D. Michigan, S. D.

January 15, 1982.

Edward C. Wishnow, Bornstein, Wishnow, Shaye & Schneiderman, Southfield, Mich., for petitioner.

Martha Ellen Dennis, Asst. U. S. Atty., Leonard R. Gilman, U. S. Atty., Detroit, Mich., for respondent.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

CHURCHILL, District Judge.

On April 9, 1976, the petitioner, Tomas L. Kowalak, pleaded guilty to a charge of armed bank robbery in the federal district court. On March 9, 1978, while the petitioner was in custody, he filed a motion to vacate his sentence pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2255. In this motion the petitioner challenged his conviction on various bases, including a violation of his rights under Article IV(e) of the Interstate Agreement on Detainers, 18 U.S.C.App. hereinafter "IAD". This Court found that although the provisions of the IAD were violated, the petitioner waived his rights under the IAD by voluntarily pleading guilty. United States v. Palmer, 574 F.2d 164 (3d Cir.), cert. denied, 437 U.S. 907, 98 S.Ct. 3097, 57 L.Ed.2d 1138 (1978); see United States v. Eaddy, 595 F.2d 341 (6th Cir. 1979).

The petitioner appealed, and the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit accepted the Court's determination that the provisions of the IAD were violated. 645 F.2d 534, 536 (6th Cir. 1981). The Sixth Circuit also found that the entry of a guilty plea constitutes a waiver of the right to raise IAD violations. Id. 537. The Court of Appeals, however, reversed and remanded the case for an evidentiary hearing to consider the petitioner's contention that he was deprived of effective assistance of counsel in not being advised of the applicability of the IAD. Id. 538. The Court of Appeals emphasized that the order of remand "should not be interpreted as expressing or intimating a view on the question whether the failure of counsel to advise her client of his rights under the IAD is per se ineffective assistance of counsel." Id.

Pursuant to the remand order, an evidentiary hearing was held at which the Court received testimony from the petitioner, the petitioner's counsel, and the Assistant United States Attorney assigned to the petitioner's case. Although the Court permitted the petitioner to make a separate record with respect to other areas of alleged ineffective assistance of counsel, the Court finds that the remand order of the Sixth Circuit is limited in scope to the sole issue of whether the failure to raise the IAD defense rendered the legal assistance afforded the petitioner ineffective.

The testimony at the hearing revealed the following undisputed facts. During the relevant time period the petitioner's attorney was employed as a Deputy Defender in the Federal Defender Office, an office that primarily handles federal criminal defense work.¹ In April of 1976, at the time of the entry of the guilty plea, the petitioner's attorney was not aware of the existence of the IAD. The IAD had not been raised at the attorneys' weekly office meetings during which the staff members of the Federal Defender Office continually discussed new matters of legal interest. The first time that a member of this office became aware of the IAD was in the fall of 1976, when the applicability of the Act was raised as a defense in the case of United States v. Dixon, Criminal Action 46674 (E.D.Mich. 1976).

The Assistant United States Attorney assigned to the case was also unaware of the applicability of the IAD to the petitioner's case at the time the guilty plea was entered. The first time that a member of the United States Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Michigan became aware of the IAD was in the fall of 1976 when it was raised in Dixon, supra. As soon as the Assistant United States Attorney became aware of the IAD issue, he circulated a memo regarding this Act to the other members of his office.

From the foregoing facts elicited at the hearing and from the absence of any testimony to the contrary,² the Court concludes that during the spring and summer of 1976, there was a general lack of awareness of the IAD in the legal community. The petitioner, however, urges the Court to find that the failure to raise the IAD claim constituted per se ineffective assistance of counsel. In the alternative, the petitioner argues that the petitioner's counsel should be held to a higher standard of effectiveness, since she was associated with an office that specialized in federal criminal defense work.

For reasons stated below the Court rejects both contentions.

The burden of proof in a claim for ineffective assistance of counsel lies with the defendant. Kowalak, supra, at 536. In Beasley v. United States, 491 F.2d 687 (6th Cir. 1974), the Sixth Circuit rejected the "farce and mockery of justice" test previously applicable to claims of ineffective assistance of counsel. The Beasley court held that the "assistance of counsel required under the Sixth Amendment is counsel reasonably likely to render and rendering reasonably effective assistance." Id. 696. See Annot., 26 A.L.R.Fed. 204 (1976). The Sixth Circuit emphasized that "defense counsel must perform at least as well as a lawyer with ordinary training and skill in the criminal law and must conscientiously protect his client's interest, undeflected by conflicting considerations." Id. Although the Beasley standard has been applied in several subsequent Sixth Circuit opinions, these decisions are not controlling on the issue before this Court because of the inapposite fact pattern of each of the cases. See Caldwell v. United States, 651 F.2d 429 (6th Cir. 1981); Wiley v. Sowders, 647 F.2d 642 (6th Cir. 1981); Isble v. United States, 611 F.2d 173 (6th Cir. 1979); United States v. Renfro, 600 F.2d 55 (6th Cir.), cert. denied, 444 U.S. 941, 100 S.Ct. 294, 62 L.Ed.2d 307 (1979); Canary v. Bland, 583 F.2d 887 (6th Cir. 1978); Wilson v. Cowan, 578 F.2d 166 (6th Cir. 1978); United States v. LaRiche, 549 F.2d 1088 (6th Cir.), cert. denied, 430 U.S. 987, 97 S.Ct. 1687, 52 L.Ed.2d 383 (1977).

Although the precise issue before the Court has not been addressed by the Sixth Circuit, three courts from other jurisdictions have considered the claim of ineffective assistance of counsel with respect to the failure to raise an IAD violation defense. United States v. Hach, 615 F.2d 1203 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 446 U.S. 912, 100 S.Ct. 1843, 64 L.Ed.2d 266 (1980); United States v. Williams, 502 F.Supp. 721 (W.D.Pa.1980); Gray v. Benson, 458 F.Supp. 1209 (D.Kan.1978), aff'd on other grounds, 608 F.2d 825 (10th Cir. 1979). All three cases involved a violation of Art. IV(e) of the Act, which is the claim asserted before this Court.

In Hach the defendant pleaded guilty to kidnapping and appealed from his conviction, alleging, inter alia, that his attorney's failure to raise a defense based upon the IAD deprived him of effective assistance of counsel. The Eighth Circuit held that an attorney's failure to anticipate an IAD violation defense did not constitute ineffective assistance of counsel because the attorney's conduct was not "outside the range of the `customary skills and diligence that a reasonably competent attorney would exercise under similar circumstances.'" Hach, supra, at 1206 quoting United States v. McMillan, 606 F.2d 245, 247 (8th Cir. 1979). The court noted that at the time the defendant in Hach pleaded guilty, in 1973, the IAD had not been held applicable to the transfer of prisoners pursuant to a writ of habeas corpus ad prosequendum where a detainer had been previously lodged against a prisoner. Since the application of the IAD to writs had not been specifically recognized until the 1978 decision of United States v. Mauro, 436 U.S. 340, 98 S.Ct. 1834, 56 L.Ed.2d 329 (1978), the Eighth Circuit concluded that the failure to anticipate this defense did not violate the defendant's Sixth Amendment right to effective counsel.

In Gray v. Benson, supra, the defendant, in an action for habeas corpus relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2255, asserted the invalidity of his guilty plea on the basis of his counsel's failure to inform him of an IAD defense at the time his plea was entered in August of 1976. Emphasizing that the validity of a guilty plea depends upon whether the advice of counsel "`was within the range of competence demanded of attorneys in criminal cases,'" the court found that the defendant's counsel could not be faulted for failing to recognize a potential defense when the Mauro decision was not issued until two years after the plea was entered. Id. 1214 quoting McMann v. Richardson, 397 U.S. 759, 771, 90 S.Ct. 1441, 1449, 25 L.Ed.2d 763 (1970). The Benson court also found that the failure to anticipate the defense "was not outside the range of contemporary, competent legal assistance." Id. 1214.

Finally, in United States v. Williams, supra, the court conducted an evidentiary hearing on the defendant's claim that his counsel had failed to inform him of a potential defense under the IAD. Applying the Third Circuit standard of "customary skill and knowledge which normally prevails at the time and place," Moore v. United States, 432 F.2d 730, 736 (3d Cir. 1970), the court followed the reasoning of the decisions in Hach and Benson and found that the defendant had not been deprived of effective assistance.

Although all three courts characterized the alleged ineffectiveness as a failure to anticipate an advance in the law, the court in Williams recognized that the advance was not wholly unanticipated, since two district courts had ruled on the issue of the application of the IAD to writs of habeas corpus ad prosequendum. United States v. Sorrell, 413 F.Supp. 138 (E.D.Pa.1976), aff'd, 562 F.2d 227 (3d Cir. 1977), cert. denied, 436 U.S. 949, 98 S.Ct. 2858, 56 L.Ed.2d 793 (1978); United States v. Mauro, 414 F.Supp. 358 (S.D.N.Y.), aff'd, 544 F.2d 588 (2d Cir. 1976), rev'd, 436 U.S. 340, 98 S.Ct. 1834...