governing sixth amendment principle that a timely request for self representation must be honored in doing so the court held that when a criminal defendant clearly and unequivocally declares to a trial judge weeks before trial that he wants to represent himself denial of the court request violates the question as to the reasonableness of the application as for retta but this case is not one of those outlying cases there is no question that under florida and the circuits opinions interpret infrared to a request made sixteen days before hardship to the parties quote outweighed mr randall's hereto rights so at least for the moment that issue remains unresolved there hasn't been a factual determination as to the purpose of the request no but i actually i think i permit him to represent himself which is kind of contrary application ferrata and in fact that the california court of appeals holding otherwise is contrary to an unreasonable application of supreme court precedent that is what this court held in more versed is called this guy was arraigned in july of ninety eight you know continuously if you continue as he finally comes ready for trial a year later the prosecutor has twenty some odd witnesses there these people california court of appeals handled this is the letter actually involves three requests he wants to represent himself he wants a continuance he wants access to the law library the first request is for a letter and if it is timely and unequivocal and knowing voluntary an intelligent which it was the trial court has to grant the request does that mean the track or hasta granted continuance because he's he's couple of the two i think those are the i think those are two separate questions and the trial court runs rush out eventually over mr randall's hereto rights because i think in the back of his mind he's concerned with the second question well but that is understood understandable concern if he said fine you can represent yourself we're starting trial tomorrow or monday in this case right i can imagine the seated on the seventeenth but the case doesn't get called until the twenty eighth doesn't change the problem the trial judge has because even if he makes the request then it's understandably going to take a few days for the court to entertain it and if the request is coupled with a request for a continuance which seems inevitable because you the trial judge could probably figure out that i can't tell this guy's got to start trial on monday then as far as the trial judge is concerned he has these two requests which are linked together and i'm not sure that he should be required to continue the trial and put up with everything else given that the request comes up two days two weeks something like that the clearly at a time when the defendant isn't prepared to start representing himself right away well i do think the difference between two weeks and two days is an important certainly in terms of what is clearly established precedent a lot of this target is but what you're dealing with here is the standard as developed by the supreme court and elaborated upon since mor test that's a problem i do think how the court applied the test in this case is contrary to for right at the wyndham opinion divides request well prior to trial from a trial request it doesn't actually deal with what you know where the contours between the two tests that it applies are but in this case you have a tiny request not made for the purpose of delay and that is for a matter and it is contrary to an unreasonable application of heredity to deny that in this case this court more recently in a villa versus roe actually said that a request made prior to jury impaneled that is timely as a matter of clearly established federal law unless for the purpose of delay and and that is certainly on jhalak to heal the world but again work we're sixteen days grey area this is solidly in the land of parada what the trial court may or may not have done with the second decision about the continuance really it wasn't before this court this deals with the first opinion it's knowing voluntary intelligent and the request was made more than contrary to firat to say i'm worried about the burden on the parties and that quote outweighs your right to self representation because it is clearly established that if it is timely and not for the purpose of the way you have a right to represent yourself assuming that that knowing e standard i don't think that can be done i don't think you can find the california courts ruled unreasonably and i think that we need to look at freddie itself for a moment lots of decisions by this circuit make reference to the weeks before standard and well before trial however there is one other mention of the timeframe in fred in which i think is important in this is that for twenty two us it ate away and in which  frederick court makes note that mr forever when he after he made his original request several weeks passed before he went back into court and ultimately the trial judg self representation request so we do know from ferrari that there were several weeks i looked up the word several in a dictionary it's more than two but i don't think we need to get hung up on any kind of a bright line rule as to when it becomes timely i would point out the justice blackmun in his dissent infrared that poses the question when does it become untimely and if you judge from justice blackman's dissent his questions that he raises can can in defending go pro permit trial obviously then for red it does not establish clearly clear parameters for the timeliness element so i think that in fact the california public courts in the trial courts ruled quite reasonably we would object to the fact that there was no purpose of delay and mr randall's requester he clearly wanted sixty days and it's clear from the freddy hearing transcript that the judge was quite concerned about why mr randall petitioner did not make his request earlier this case had been around for a year  defense counsel about these motions that he wants to file next no expression of the satisfaction that he wants to represent himself and so i think the court quite recently moved was concerned about why petitioner june fourteenth he says after much consideration he's decided to go pro purse been thinking about it a long time he doesn't let his attorney go and but the judge didn't the judge didn't say he brought this motion for an improper purpose well i  agree with counsel in her brief that the judge did not expressly state on the record that this was brought for the purpose of the lie i don't believe that there's any language in forever which requires an expressed finding by the court now we would disagree that there's no implied finding the whole tenor of the trial court's questioning questioning of the petitioner was why didn't you do this sooner he said he claimed by the way to have acted as co counsel he'd been to trial in felony matters three times before this was no rookie in the courtroom here this gentleman knew what he was doing he was buying time i think that the trial court used the five prong windham guy waited too long and his motives were suspect and that it was too far along the proceedings i think it's important that that the friday before the trial is supposed to start on monday both sides have all their witnesses lined up defense counsel is ready to go and that the prosecutor had twenty to thirty witnesses she the prosecutor can you know noted that a lot of these witnesses were college students out on break and that scheduling might be a problem there the rate from expert had been so that i think it's also important and i would like to point out some of the claims that petitioner made at the friday hearing because of the situation in the case and i would sit down and take time to look off into it more deeper i'm the one that can look into the case to my counsel we have sat down and we can't agree on things how he waits almost a full year into the case to complain about the quality of his representation but he also said that the lawyer wasn't visiting him in jail he well there's the lawyer won't file motions he wants them to file this is the first day he makes he'd been to court as the fifth district court of appeal points out the state appellate court he had been to court on three previous occasions where this particular defense counsel had never complained to the court about either the you know we're now we're getting down to the short strokes i mean he says he's shortly approaching trial and he sees it as motions are being filed in the lawyers are visiting him so i mean at this point it's not agreed up in his first counsel did not file these motions in or his first public defender he had for a full six months never complained about her presumably early on in his representation by mr schultz he expressed and by the way these motions that he wants to file do come up in his petition on corpus what he's claiming is that even though he agreed to speak to the officers that his miranda rights were violated because the officers quote lied to him now i think that the trial court had serious preparation we have a victim here it's on the record who was being traumatized by these repeated delays she testified at trial that during this period of time she was having nightmares couldn't sleep at night was  is looking at a case he's ready to go three days later to start trial and and now i don't believe that we should punish petitioner for the fact that he filed his written motion on the fourteenth and the court didn't consider for another ten or eleven days but i think that in that event let me ask you to explain what we can do with the or what you would have us do with with the more decision i understand your argument focuses on supreme court decisions for good reason but were bound by prior decisions of our court interpret in supreme court decisions under after and more seems to say in a situation with a similar number of days that rule that says there is i think it would be a trap for this corner for any court to lock in on the number of days before trial i certainly would concede that there could be a scenario whereby sixteen days before trial it would be entirely appropriate to grant the request but as the fifth district court of appeal pointed out the trial court considered the whole the totality of the circumstances which this court asks the trial judge is doing considering we had the fact that he waited so long to make his request the fact that the case was ready to go to trial i'm not saying that the inconvenience i don't think it was  inconvenience on the attorneys involved the prosecutor had mentioned that she was going to move to another section of the d a s office and that she wanted to complete this case well the trial court rightfully said i'm not giving that much bright line holding is that a request made weeks before trial is timely and must be granted if not for the purpose of delay in williams versus taylor the supreme court makes clear that for the purpose of the d p a supreme court precedent language it is not only the bright line rule that matters but also the generalized legal principles and standards that flow from them and in doing so the court explicitly refused to limit the supreme court precedent language of the e p a to limit the federal court independent interpretive authority with respect to applying that supreme court doctrine and in case in fact in a fairly recent case called robinson decided last year this court spent a great deal of time discussing the williams versus taylor language the relationship between bright line rules of the supreme court and interpretive opinions by the circuit courts applying them it is clear not only i think for more research hauled around but more recently a view of vs roe that for what it is clearly established