Geza De Kaplany v. J. J. Enomoto, Director of California Department of Corrections

This case comes before us on appeal from the district court’s denial of de Kaplany’s habeas corpus petition seeking relief from his 1963 state conviction. The petitioner asserts that his constitutional rights were violated in four separate respects. The first such respect is that the failure of the trial court to conduct a hearing on de Kaplany’s competence to stand trial constituted a denial of due process. The second is that his mental, illness substantially impaired his ability to make a reasoned choice with respect to whether to plead guilty or not and that as a consequence his plea of guilty during the “guilt phase” 1 was not knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily made. The third respect in which de Kaplany alleges his constitutional rights were impaired is that ineffective counsel deprived him of a fair trial. Finally, he contends that the massive, pervasive, and prejudicial publicity that attended his prosecution deprived him of a fair trial.

The district court, after a thorough and comprehensive hearing, denied the petition in all respects. We affirm the district court in all respects.

*977 I.

Absence of Hearing On Competency To Stand Trial.

Much of…

dissenting, with whom Circuit Judge ELY concurs.

My disagreement with the majority opinion stems not from its restatement of the rule of Pate v. Robinson (1966) 383 U.S. 375 , 86 S.Ct. 836 , 15 L.Ed.2d 815 , but from the majority’s application of the rule to the facts of this case. I believe that the majority agrees that in determining whether a state trial court’s failure to hold a hearing on a criminal defendant’s competence to stand trial violated Pate , the district court in a habeas proceeding is confined to the record before the state trial court made during the course of the state criminal proceedings anteceding the petitioner’s conviction and sentence, unless the trial court record is not available, accurate, or complete. 1 A hearing for the purpose of taking evidence on matters that were not before the state trial court is inappropriate; what was not before the trial court is irrelevant to the issue of whether what was before the trial court created a Pate doubt. Thus, testimony at the evidentiary hearing before the district court from de Kaplany’s lawyer and from psychiatrists about observations and events that were not part of the record before the state trial court is…

(concurring).

I concur briefly. I have no disagreement with most of my Brother Sneed’s opinion; on the contrary, I join in his general analysis as well as the result. My primary exception is to the unnecessary en banc approval of our panel decision in Sieling v. Eyman, 478 F.2d 211 (9th Cir. 1973). Judge Sneed has called our attention to the criticism leveled at the Sieling decision “both for recognizing a state of semi-competence which permits a trial but denies a defendant the opportunity to plea bargain, and for providing an additional ground fraught with psychiatric uncertainties for collateral attack on guilty pleas . . .” Majority opinion, p. 985. For those reasons, I believe Sieling was wrongly decided.

Since the facts of this case actually meet the more stringent test of Sieling , they also meet a less restrictive standard. Thus it is unnecessary and, in my judgment, improvident, to give Sieling en banc approval here. See United States v. Demma, 523 F.2d 981, *988 987 (9th Cir. 1975) (Wallace, J., concurring and dissenting). Since the majority has chosen to consider the continuing vitality of Sieling , I therefore express my view that Sieling should be overruled.

540 F.2d 975 38 A.L.R.Fed. 215 Geza de KAPLANY, Petitioner-Appellant, v. J. J. ENOMOTO, * Director of California Department of Corrections, Respondent-Appellee. No. 73-2955. United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit. July 9, 1976. Joseph M. Malkin (argued), Los Angeles, Cal., for petitioner-appellant. Karl S. Mayer, Deputy Atty. Gen. (argued), San Francisco, Cal., for respondent-appellee. OPINION Before CHAMBERS, KOELSCH, BROWNING, DUNIWAY, ELY, HUFSTEDLER, WRIGHT, TRASK, CHOY, GOODWIN, WALLACE and SNEED, Circuit Judges. SNEED, Circuit Judge: 1 This case comes before us on appeal from the district court's denial of de Kaplany's habeas corpus petition seeking relief from his 1963 state conviction. The petitioner asserts that his constitutional rights were violated in four separate respects. The first such respect is that the failure of the trial court to conduct a hearing on de Kaplany's competence to stand trial constituted a denial of due process. The second is that his mental illness substantially impaired his ability to make a reasoned choice with respect to whether to plead guilty or not and that as a consequence his plea of guilty during the "guilt phase" 1 was not…