# Browning v. State

> Court of Criminal Appeals of Alabama · December 16, 1975 · 57 Ala. App. 217

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9687497

## Case

- **Full name:** Robert Dennis BROWNING, Junior, Alias v. STATE
- **Court:** Court of Criminal Appeals of Alabama
- **Decided:** December 16, 1975
- **Citations:** 57 Ala. App. 217; 326 So. 2d 778; 1975 Ala. Crim. App. LEXIS 1260
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Cates
- **Judges:** Bowen W. Simmons
- **Cited by:** 10 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9687497

## Opinion text

CATES, Presiding Judge
(concurring) :
In deference to Judge DeCarlo’s dissent, I have reexamined the original record in Browning v. State, 51 Ala.App. 632 , 288 So.2d 170 . Judge Simmons shows — as the record before Judge Clark did not — that Mr. Shumaker was appointed to “a dock brief” for a single occasion, i. e., arraignment which occurred September 13, 1972.
Being under this limitation, Mr. Shumaker was thereafter naturally under no duty to Browning. Indeed, under the canons of ethics, he could run afoul of the prohibitions against officiously intermeddling in the defense of a case in which another lawyer was already ostensibly employed.
Perhaps, pre-appeal appointments of counsel for indigents ought, by rule, all *221 be made of indeterminate and continuing duration rather than being ad hoc ad hodiem. See ARAP Rule 24(b)(1) and ABA Crim. Justice Standards, Providing Defense Services, § 5.2.
Judge Clark did not (and could not) have the benefit of the subsequent testimony of Mr. Shumaker at the coram nobis hearing. Cases such as this are troublesome: vide Davis v. State, 292 Ala. 210 , 291 So.2d 346 ; Faretta v. California, 422 U.S. 806 , 95 S.Ct. 2525 , 45 L.Ed.2d 562 (June 30, 1975).

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9687497. Public record. Not legal advice.