Antonio Perez v. Louie L. Wainwright, Secretary, Department of Offender Rehabilitation

ALVIN B. RUBIN, Circuit Judge:

Retained counsel for Perez failed to perfect an appeal of Perez’s state court conviction after promising to do so and falsely stating in open court at the time judgment was rendered that an appeal had already been filed. Based on this dereliction, Perez sought habeas corpus. Our original decision denied relief because we were bound by Fitzgerald v. Estelle, 505 F.2d 1334 (5th Cir. 1974) (en banc), cert. denied, 422 U.S. 1011, 98 S.Ct. 2636, 45 L.Ed.2d 678. Applying the rule of that case, under the Sixth Amendment as made applicable to the states by the Fourteenth…