Twiford v. Peyton
Decision Date | 06 February 1967 |
Docket Number | No. 10741.,10741. |
Citation | 372 F.2d 670 |
Parties | Norman F. TWIFORD, Appellant, v. C. C. PEYTON, Superintendent of the Virginia State Penitentiary, Appellee. |
Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit |
John J. Kirby, Jr., (Court-assigned counsel), Charlottesville, Va., for appellant.
Reno S. Harp, III, Asst. Atty. Gen. of Virginia (Robert Y. Button, Atty. Gen. of Virginia, on brief), for appellee.
Before HAYNSWORTH, Chief Judge, and WINTER and CRAVEN, Circuit Judges.
Whether effective assistance of counsel was denied appellant, not from any lack of competency on the part of his court-appointed attorney, but from the combination of his late appointment and the denial of a continuance to allow a proper investigation of the defense, is the question to be decided. The district court thought not and denied habeas corpus. We think otherwise and reverse.
Appellant is confined in the service of two consecutive sentences of ten years imposed April 30, 1954 in the Circuit Court of Princess Anne County, Virginia, upon his being found guilty by a jury of two charges of storebreaking. In 1964, he unsuccessfully sought a writ of habeas corpus from the Circuit Court of the City of Richmond, where he obtained a plenary hearing; when the Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia refused review, he petitioned the court below. After obtaining the state court transcript of the habeas corpus hearing, the district court denied the writ. Numerous grounds for relief were alleged but those of substance all related to differing aspects of the right to effective assistance of counsel guaranteed by the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Federal Constitution.
The facts, as reflected in the state court transcript and as found by the district judge from it, are not in dispute. Appellant was arrested February 12, 1954 and tried April 30, 1954. Not until April 29, 1954, the day before the trial and seventy-six days after initial incarceration, was counsel appointed to represent him. His attorney, a respected member of the bar and now a judge of a court of record of the State of Virginia, the Honorable Linwood Tabb, interviewed his client promptly. The interview began between 2:00 and 3:00 P.M. April 29. The district court's summary of the evidence adduced at the state habeas corpus hearing succinctly summarizes what occurred after Judge Tabb was appointed:
Appellant and his counsel were aware that a certain Lloyd C. Padgett was involved in some degree in the two offenses charged against appellant and intended to testify as a witness for the prosecution. The district court's findings as to the sequence of events continue:
1 2 (footnotes added)
At appellant's state post-conviction hearing, appellant's testimony that Frances Randall, if called as a witness, could supply evidence that, as to at least one charge he was not in the county when one of the offenses was committed, and that there was bias on the part of one of the prosecution's key witnesses toward appellant was not controverted. Indeed, it was corroborated in part by the testimony of Judge Tabb, as the district judge found. Neither appellant nor the Commonwealth produced, or made any effort to produce, Frances Randall to determine what her testimony would have been had she been summoned as a witness for appellant at his trial.
In two recent decisions, Martin v. Commonwealth of Virginia, 365 F.2d 549 (4 Cir. 1966), and Braxton v. Peyton, 365 F.2d 563 (4 Cir. 1966), we have had occasion to restate what does and what does not constitute a denial of effective assistance of counsel. We there reviewed and cited our principal prior decisions on the subject. Extensive restatement of legal principles is thus unnecessary for a decision in this case. It suffices to say that an unnecessary and an unexplained delay between incarceration and the appointment of counsel gives rise to a substantial possibility of prejudice to an accused because defense...
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