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• Title: Eskridge v. Washington State Board Prison Terms and Paroles
• Author : Supreme Court of the United States
• Release Date : January 16, 1958
• Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
• Pages : * pages
• Size : 73 KB

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[ 357 U.S. Page 214] The Constitution of the State of Washington provides: "In criminal prosecutions, the accused shall have
. . . the right to appeal in all cases . . . ." Wash. Const., Amend. 10. In 1935, after petitioner was convicted of murder
in a Washington state court and sentenced to life [ 357 U.S. Page 215] imprisonment, he gave timely notice of appeal to
the Supreme Court of the State. Washington law authorizes a trial judge to have a stenographic transcript of trial proceedings
furnished an indigent defendant at public expense "if in his opinion justice will thereby be promoted." Remington's Wash.
Rev. Stat., 1932, § 42-5. Alleging substantial errors in his trial petitioner moved for a free transcript. The trial judge
denied this motion, finding that "justice would not be promoted . . . in that defendant has been accorded a fair and impartial
trial, and in the Court's opinion no grave or prejudicial errors occurred therein." Petitioner then moved in the State Supreme
Court for writ of mandate ordering the trial judge to have a transcript furnished for the prosecution of his appeal. The Supreme
Court denied this petition and simultaneously granted the State's motion to dismiss petitioner's appeal for failure to file
a certified "statement of facts" and "transcript of record." In 1956 petitioner applied for habeas corpus in the Washington
Supreme Court charging that failure to furnish a free transcript of the proceedings had violated the Due Process and Equal
Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. His petition was denied without opinion
and we granted certiorari. 353 U.S. 922. In this Court the State does not deny petitioner's allegations of poverty, the substantiality of the trial errors he alleges,
or the necessity for him to have some record of the proceedings in order to prosecute his appeal properly. It does argue that
petitioner might have utilized notes compiled by someone other than the official court reporter. Assuming that under some
circumstances such notes could be an adequate substitute for a court reporter's transcript there is nothing in this record
to show that any were available to petitioner, and the Washington courts appear to have proceeded on the [ 357 U.S. Page
216] assumption that he could not effectively prosecute his appeal unless the motion for a free transcript was granted. The
State concedes that the reporter's transcript from the 1935 trial is still available. In Griffin v. Illinois, 351 U.S. 12,
we held that a State denies a constitutional right guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment if it allows all convicted defendants
to have appellate review except those who cannot afford to pay for the records of their trials. We hold that Washington has
denied this constitutional right here. The conclusion of the trial judge that there was no reversible error in the trial cannot
be an adequate substitute for the right to full appellate review available to all defendants in Washington who can afford
the expense of a transcript. We do not hold that a State must furnish a transcript in every case involving an indigent defendant.
But here, as in the Griffin case, we do hold that, "destitute defendants must be afforded as adequate appellate review as
defendants who have money enough to buy transcripts." Griffin v. Illinois, 351 U.S. 12, 19.

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