Williams v. Martin
| Decision Date | 06 March 1980 |
| Docket Number | Nos. 77-1058,78-6569,s. 77-1058 |
| Parties | Robert WILLIAMS, Appellant, v. J. R. MARTIN, Warden, and the Attorney General of the State of South Carolina, Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit |
Timothy W. Bouch, Third Year Law Student (Walter Reiser, Randall M. Chastain, University of South Carolina Law Center, Columbia, S. C., on brief), for appellant.
Katherine W. Hill, Asst. Atty. Gen., Columbia, S. C. (Daniel R. McLeod, Atty. Gen and Emmet H. Clair, Asst. Atty. Gen., Columbia, S. C., on brief), for appellees.
Before BUTZNER, HALL and PHILLIPS, Circuit Judges.
The critical issue in this appeal is whether a state court's refusal to furnish an indigent prisoner an expert for the preparation and presentation of his defense was constitutional error. The district court held that it was not and dismissed Robert Williams' petition for a writ of habeas corpus. We reverse because we believe that the appointment of an expert was constitutionally required for Williams' adequate defense against a charge of murder.
Williams shot Phoebe Maybank during a family quarrel over a missing wallet. The wound paralyzed Maybank, and eight months later she died. Williams was initially charged with assault and battery with intent to kill and later with murder. The indictments were consolidated for trial in the General Sessions Court, Charleston County, South Carolina.
Williams was indigent. Before trial his court-appointed attorney moved for the appointment, at the state's expense, of an independent forensic pathologist to evaluate medical evidence concerning the cause of Maybank's death. The motion disclosed that the county medical examiner believed Maybank died from a pulmonary embolism resulting from a thrombosis that formed in her leg due to immobilization caused by her paralysis from the gunshot wound. The motion explained that while Williams' attorney had learned from medical books that there are numerous causes of a pulmonary embolism, he was not professionally able to evaluate the evidence and question the medical examiner without consulting a pathologist. He therefore sought authorization to engage a pathologist to examine the autopsy report and perhaps to testify about the "probability that events unrelated to assault and battery" caused Maybank's death. The motion concluded with an estimate that a minimum fee for consultation with a pathologist and for his appearance as a witness would be $400.
At the pretrial hearing on the motion, Williams' attorney elaborated on the necessity of consultation with a pathologist because of the eight-month interval between the infliction of the wound and death. He said:
There is a rather complex issue of medical causation involved. As best I understand it from my research, there is the cause of death was a blood clot which formed in the leg of the decedent and then was detached and lodged in the pulmonary artery, I believe. I don't know exactly the detail, but the difficulty is that the blood clot in the leg can be caused by a variety of means. The medical examiner informed me that he did not observe any of these other things in his examination of the body and the specimens that he preserved, but it is impossible for counsel to examine those specimens and determine whether or not his assessment is correct and it's important, therefore, that the defendant be appraised and afforded the assistance of the competent expert witnesses to assist counsel in determining whether or not the cause of death as stated by the medical examiner is in fact the true cause of death . . . .
After counsel presented the motion, the following colloquy occurred:
Judge: I have read your motion. As I understand it, your request, what you are in need of are funds to obtain this information, whether it is good or bad, and you ask the Court to direct that funds be paid? Is that correct?
Defense Attorney: Be made available, yes, sir.
Judge: Well, I don't have that authority.
Defense Attorney: Well, Your Honor, if it pleases the Court, I think the situation is in all respects similar to the situation of a defendant who needs to have a transcript provided for appeal or for other purposes.
Judge: Well, that is provided for by law.
Defense Attorney: The constitutional principle is the same, I believe, Your Honor, and I submit the motion to the Court.
Judge: Well, I can say to you that I can't issue an order directing the Treasurer of Charleston County to pay out this sum of money because, in my opinion, if I issued the order it would be ignored and I know of no funds available to pay for this type of evidence or testimony. So, I am not going to hold out to you that I can do that because I am satisfied that I can't. All I can tell you is what my understanding of the law is, and that is I don't have the authority to direct any money be paid to obtain this type of evidence or testimony from this type of witness. And, lacking that authority, I certainly can't mislead you or your client by stating that I can provide those funds. Now, if you can talk to someone in authority who has funds available and they are agreeable, based on an order of the Court, to pay the money, I will so order it.
Defense Attorney: I'll investigate that, Your Honor.
Williams' attorney did not renew his motion or advise the court about any further investigations concerning a source of funds to pay the pathologist.
At trial the state presented evidence that Williams shot Maybank, that she was unarmed, and that she presented no danger to him. The forensic pathologist testifying on behalf of the state said that Maybank's body was embalmed and buried. Nine days after death the body was exhumed, and he conducted an autopsy. He testified that in his opinion Maybank's death was due to a clot or thrombosis in her leg migrating to her lungs and cutting off the supply of blood to the lungs; her paralysis from the gunshot wound caused the clot; and her body exhibited no other cause for the clot in her leg. The autopsy report stated, "this thrombosis was most probably secondary to her paraplegia which resulted from a gunshot wound of the neck." The doctor explained that the phrase "most probably" indicated the highest degree of medical certainty, although he could not be 100% sure about anything in medicine.
Williams contended that Maybank's death did not result from the gunshot wound. He also asserted that he shot in self-defense when Maybank attacked him with a knife. The jury convicted him of voluntary manslaughter, and the court sentenced him to 15 years in prison.
Williams' appeal to the Supreme Court of South Carolina assigned error to the trial court's denial of his motion for funds to retain a pathologist. The Court held that a statute 1 authorizing payment of expenses of counsel appointed to represent indigents encompassed compensation for expert witnesses when the assistance of an expert is reasonably necessary for a proper defense. It noted that Williams' motion had been denied because of the trial court's erroneous conclusion that funds were not available, but it held that the failure to provide funds did not prejudice Williams. It based its ruling on testimony of the state's pathologist that the autopsy demonstrated to the highest possible degree of medical certainty that the gunshot wound caused death and that Williams had not shown that another pathologist would have aided his defense. See State v. Williams, 263 S.C. 290, 300, 210 S.E.2d 298, 303 (1974).
Williams subsequently unsuccessfully sought a writ of habeas corpus in the state courts on the ground that he was denied effective representation because his counsel did not bring to the attention of the trial court the statute authorizing payment of expert witnesses.
Williams then twice applied for writs of habeas corpus in the federal district court. In the first he alleged that the denial of his motion for funds to retain a pathologist deprived him of due process of law and denied him equal protection of the law in violation of the fourteenth amendment. In his second petition he alleged that his counsel was ineffective because he did not obtain a pathologist to assist with his defense. With respect to the first petition, the district court held that Williams had not been prejudiced because he had shown only that "he might have found a pathologist who did not share the opinion of the pathologist who testified for the State as to the cause of death." It ruled that the constitution does not mandate "the expenditure of public funds for an indigent defendant to go shopping for a favorable expert witness." The district court denied the second writ, involving the competency of counsel, for essentially the same reasons: Williams had not shown that medical evidence in his behalf was available and "if so, the substance of such testimony." The appeals from denials of both writs were consolidated in this proceeding.
There can be no doubt that an effective defense sometimes requires the assistance of an expert witness. This observation needs little elaboration. Had Williams been financially able to afford his own defense, competent counsel undoubtedly would have consulted a pathologist. Moreover, provision for experts reasonably necessary to assist indigents is now considered essential to the operation of a just judicial system. The American Bar Association standards on providing defense services state:
The plan (for providing competent counsel to indigents) should provide for investigatory, expert and other services necessary to an adequate defense. These should include not only those services and facilities needed for an effective defense at trial but also those that are required for effective defense participation in every phase of the process . . . .
The accompanying commentary notes that "(t)he quality of representation at trial may be excellent and yet valueless to the...
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