Morris v. Slappy
| Decision Date | 20 April 1983 |
| Docket Number | No. 81-1095,81-1095 |
| Citation | 103 S.Ct. 1610,461 U.S. 1,75 L.Ed.2d 610 |
| Parties | John Paul MORRIS, Warden, Petitioner, v. Joseph D. SLAPPY |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
When respondent was charged in California Superior Court with various crimes, including rape, robbery, and burglary, all concerning the same female victim, the court assigned the Deputy Public Defender to defend respondent. The Deputy Public Defender represented respondent at the preliminary hearing and supervised an extensive investigation. Shortly before the trial, the Deputy Public Defender was hospitalized for surgery, and six days before the scheduled trial date a senior trial attorney in the Public Defender's Office was assigned to represent respondent. After the trial was under way, respondent moved for a continuance, claiming that his newly assigned attorney did not have time to prepare the case. The attorney, however, told the court that he was fully prepared and "ready" for trial, and the court denied a continuance. Respondent was convicted on some counts but there was a mistrial on other counts on which the jury could not agree. A second trial, during which respondent refused to cooperate with his lawyer, also resulted in convictions. The California Court of Appeal affirmed the convictions on all counts, and the California Supreme Court denied review. Thereafter, respondent filed a habeas corpus petition in Federal District Court, alleging that the California Superior Court abused its discretion in denying a continuance. The District Court denied the writ. The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that the Sixth Amendment guarantees a right to counsel with whom the accused has a "meaningful attorney-client relationship," and that the state trial judge abused his discre- tion and violated this right by arbitrarily denying a continuance that would have permitted the Deputy Public Defender to try the case.
Held: The state trial court did not violate respondent's Sixth Amendment right to counsel by denying a continuance. Pp. 11-15.
(a) Broad discretion must be granted trial courts on matters of continuances. Here, in the face of an unequivocal and uncontradicted statement by a responsible officer of the court that he was fully prepared and "ready" for trial, it was far from an abuse of discretion to deny a continuance. Nor is there any merit to the claim that the denial of a continuance prevented the substituted attorney from being fully prepared for trial. Pp.11-12
(b) In holding that the trial judge violated respondent's right to counsel by arbitrarily refusing a continuance that would have permitted the Deputy Public Defender to try the case, the Court of Appeals misread the record and the controlling law and announced a new constitutional standard—"meaningful attorney-client relationship"—that is unsupported by any authority. The court erred in reading the record as indicating that respondent timely and in good faith moved for a continuance to permit the Deputy Public Defender to represent him. On the contrary, the record shows that the trial court was abundantly justified in denying respondent's midtrial motion for a continuance so as to have the Deputy Public Defender represent him. The Sixth Amendment does not guarantee a "meaningful relationship" between an accused and his counsel. No court could possibly guarantee that an accused will develop the kind of rapport with his attorney that the Court of Appeals thought to be part of the Sixth Amendment guarantee of counsel. Pp. 12-14.
(c) In creating a novel Sixth Amendment right to counsel with whom the accused has a "meaningful relationship," and ordering retrial, the Court of Appeals failed to take into account the interest of the victim in not undergoing the ordeal of yet a third trial. There is nothing in the record to support the conclusion that respondent was entitled to a new trial, and the District Court properly denied relief. Pp. 14-15.
649 F.2d 718, reversed and remanded.
Dane R. Gillette, San Francisco, Cal., for petitioner.
Michael B. Bassi, San Francisco, Cal., for respondent.
The question presented is whether it was error for the Court of Appeals to hold that the state trial court violated respondent's Sixth Amendment right to counsel by denying respondent's motion for a continuance until the Deputy Public Defender initially assigned to defend him was available. We granted certiorari, 456 U.S. 904, 102 S.Ct. 1748, 72 L.Ed.2d 160 (1982), and we reverse.
The issues raised arise out of two trials in the state court, the second trial having been held on two counts on which the first jury could not agree. Respondent was convicted of robbery, burglary, and false imprisonment in the first trial; he was convicted of rape and forcible oral copulation in the second. On review of all five counts, the California Court of Appeal, First Appellate District, affirmed the convictions, and the California Supreme Court denied review. Thereafter the United States District Court denied respondent's petition for a writ of habeas corpus. This denial was reversed by the United States Court of Appeals, which held that the Sixth Amendment guarantees a right to counsel with whom the accused has a "meaningful attorney-client relation- ship," and that the trial judge abused his discretion and violated this right by denying a motion for a continuance based on the substitution of appointed counsel six days before trial. 649 F.2d 718 (CA9 1981).
Respondent's pro se petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court set forth two grounds for relief: (a) that the state "[t]rial court abused its discretion by failing to order a substitution of counsel after [respondent and counsel became] embroiled in irreconcilable conflict," Record 3; and (b) that the trial court had not permitted him to testify in his own behalf in the second trial. Ibid. The facts shown by the record conclusively rebut both these claims and are alone dispositive, independent of the correctness of the novel Sixth Amendment guarantee announced by the Court of Appeals.
After midnight on July 7, 1976, the victim, a young woman, left her apartment to shop at a nearby grocery store in San Francisco. There she was accosted by respondent and when she complained to the store manager, he ordered respondent to leave. Respondent waited for the victim outside; when the victim left the store, respondent threw a beer bottle at her. She asked the store manager to call the police, but he told her just to walk away. She then walked home taking the long way around the block, but when she entered her apartment house, respondent was waiting for her in the lobby. From this fact, the jury could have inferred that respondent had been stalking the victim from the time she first left her apartment. Respondent forced the victim into the basement, where, she testified, he raped and sodomized her and then robbed her.
The victim managed to escape from respondent and fled from the building into a nearby all-night diner, where she was sheltered until the police came. She gave the police a description of her assailant; he was apprehended two blocks away. He was wearing the green fatigue jacket with fur-trimmed hood and the "Afro" style wig that the victim had described to the police. On his person the police found jewelry taken from the victim. The respondent told the booking officer that he had been given the jewelry by a woman whose last name he did not recall and whose address he did not know. Police found the victim's clothing scattered on the floor of the basement of her apartment building and a button from respondent's jacket on the basement steps.
Respondent was charged in San Francisco Superior Court with five felonies.1 The court appointed the San Francisco Public Defender's Office to represent respondent and Deputy Public Defender Harvey Goldfine was assigned to defend the accused. Goldfine represented respondent at the preliminary hearing and supervised an extensive investigation. The trial was scheduled for Thursday, September 23, 1976. Shortly prior to trial, however, Goldfine was hospitalized for emergency surgery. On Friday, September 17, six days before the scheduled trial date, the Public Defender assigned Bruce Hotchkiss, a senior trial attorney in the Public Defender's Office, to represent respondent.
On the day he was assigned the case, Hotchkiss interviewed respondent in jail and advised him of the substitution. Between that date and the following Tuesday, September 21, Hotchkiss reviewed the files and investigation prepared by his colleague. On Tuesday, he conferred with respondent for three hours; on the following day he again met with respondent in the morning and afternoon.
The first trial began as scheduled on Thursday, September 23. At the opening of trial, respondent told the court, App. 7.
Construing respondent's remarks as a motion for a continuance, the court denied the motion, noting that the case had been assigned to Hotchkiss the previous Friday, six days before the trial date, and that Hotchkiss stated he had "investigated the case, [and] studied it." Id., at 8. In reply, respondent repeated his claim that Hotchkiss had only been on the case for a day and a half.
Respondent then stated:
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