United States v. James Price

436 F.2d 303, 141 U.S. App. D.C. 149, 1970 U.S. App. LEXIS 5924

• Court: Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit
• Decided: December 17, 1970
• Docket: 23217_1
• Status: Published

Opinions

PER CURIAM:

The judgment is affirmed.

Judge DAVIS has filed an opinion and Chief Judge BAZELON has filed a dissenting opinion.

DAVIS, Judge:

I vote to affirm. On the point discussed by Chief Judge Bazelon, this ease should not be viewed, in my opinion, as if the trial court had rejected the defendant’s proffer of a plea of guilty to a lesser included offense after the judge learned that the defendant maintained innocence. As I understand the record, defense counsel made no such proffer. He simply informed the court of a conversation he had had with the appellant on the matter of such a plea, and the judge then indicated his agreement with the attorney’s position. This was not the proffer of a guilty plea, but the exact opposite. In the circumstances, the judge was not required to probe further, to disabuse the lawyer of his views, or to insist that a plea be presented by counsel or discussed again with the defendant. I see the case, in other words, as no different than if the plea-discussion had never been reported to the judge, or if he had remained silent when counsel "told him of that conversation. On that basis, the only remaining issue (on this point) is whether the lawyer’s advice to his client amounted to such inadequate assistance as to call for reversal of the conviction. In the state of the law at the time of the occurrence, I do not think that counsel’s actions reached that level. Even if the advice was erroneous, it did not, in my judgment, breach the Sixth Amendment’s requirement of assistance.