566 F.2d 469 - Howell v. Thomas — 566 F.2d 469

How this case has been cited

Cited by 8 later decisions — most recently April 2011

5 federal appellate · 2 state decisions

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

¶1Summary Calendar.*

¶2Tom S. McCorkle, Jr., Melvyn Carson Bruder, Dallas, Tex., for plaintiff-appellant.

¶3Henry Wade, Crim. Dist. Atty., John B. Tolle, Asst. Dist. Atty., Dallas, Tex., for defendant-appellee.

¶4Before THORNBERRY, RONEY and RUBIN, Circuit Judges.

¶6PER CURIAM:

¶7Appellant Charles Ben Howell, a Texas attorney, was cited for contempt in a Texas state court for failure to disclose collateral legal proceedings when questioned by the judge during default proceedings in a divorce case. A second contempt charge occurred during the hearing on the first contempt charge when appellant refused to name any of the four attorneys he had allegedly approached to defend him. This Court examined the case and denied relief in a former appeal from a denial of a 28 U.S.C.A. § 2254 petition. Howell v. Jones, 516 F.2d 53 (5th Cir. 1975), cert. denied, 424 U.S. 916, 96 S.Ct. 1116, 47 L.Ed.2d 321reh. denied, 425 U.S. 945, 96 S.Ct. 1687, 48 L.Ed.2d 189 (1976).

¶8The issues presented here have not been presented to the state courts. The district court ruled that “requiring Howell to resort to State procedures would deny him any effective relief. The requirement of exhaustion is therefore satisfied.”

¶9Appellant argues that in a disbarment proceeding following his conviction for contempt, a jury found in his favor on *470essentially the same facts. He contends the enforcement of the contempt order is thus collaterally estopped. No cases have been found which support the novel contention that the outcome of a second proceeding can collaterally estop the effect of an already concluded prior proceeding.

¶10Appellant makes several further contentions: due process principles of fundamental fairness prohibit punishment in this case, the record fails to reflect that the state judge convicted petitioner of obstruction of justice, or, alternatively, the record is inadequate to stand in opposition to the jury verdict, and there was a variance between the charges and the evidence. None of these contentions are sufficient to justify relief in a federal court. The argument that the factual basis of the Fifth Circuit’s prior opinion is incorrect misconceives both the prior opinion and the authority of one panel to overrule the decision of another panel of this Court.

¶11A thorough examination of all appellant’s contentions on appeal lead to the conclusion that the denial of Howell’s petition for § 2254 relief must be

¶12AFFIRMED.