good morning or on his tennis reared for petitioner an appellant bradley as the court is well aware this case raises two separate constitutional claims otherwise i suspect that the ultimate resolution of both claims will turn on the court's view of the of an extraordinary pretrial hearing that was held that had which from which the defendant was excluded and which the right to retain counsel was terminated without or either being present or allowed to participate through a legal representative an attorney who had been retained for that expressed purpose as to the broad steps the men men claim the right to the deprivation of retained counsel were the facts only those that existed at that at the time of this hearing six weeks before trial retained counsel comes in says he has been fully compensated says he is prepared to try the case on the day that it's set for six weeks  in advance and this is a case in which the appointed counsel has then in the case as the clear conflict of interest and said he cannot effectively represent his his client were those the only facts i think it would be clear the court's refusal to permit retained counsel into the case at that point would be a denial of the constitutional right to retain counsel and sufficiently agree just denial that it is certainly and reasonable for the purposes of  decision i don't think any of us has found a case where retained counsel comes in six weeks before says they're ready to try the case and is not permitted to enter the case but any argument that there was a compelling purpose in the now retained coun entry necessarily turns the contents of this extraordinary in camera hearing and i've never seen anything like it it's a case in which a prosecutor is vigorously arguing jurisprudence the defendant is not there she's not allowed to speak even though the content of that hearing is constantly focused on her counsel who seeking to withdraw is saying you must terminate her right to retain counsel make sure you appoint a lawyer it's in her best interest to do this these are her desires this is what's going on in the case  excuse me made about the conduct of her father all of these are or factual extraordinarily important factual assertions that are going on challenge because no one in that hearing not the defendant nor her representative and she had a lawyer there prepared to argue for her so if the memory none of those people are allowed to neither she nor that were allowed to speak and everyone in that room is attempting to terminate her right to morgan comes in fully prepared to try the case the government will say however that in some other circumstance of course he has a right to mr jordan six weeks before the case but the contents of that hearing show that things with retain comes in and says i've been paid and am prepared to try this case on that particular day and i'm prepared to make the financial showing and the judge says look quite literally we don't need to go there it's not to say that the judge allowed him to make a showing you  gotten paid well if you're on of that the court the first thing that the court says is you know i don't need to get into that and about one second later in the transcript he says but make your record  is well established supreme court precedent and your honor when he did the judge denied it then i did on the basis and the court has just referred to it problems with funding that were made at this in camera proceeding where the defense was never allowed to present the fact that mr steigerwald had been well compensated he had been paid seventy thousand dollars that the defense was not allowed to demonstrate that the father of this defendant w this process that there there wasn't any attempt to retard it as i said i think the validity it would be finding that there was compelling purposes to mr jordan necessarily turns on the validity here's our question is for the u s supreme court but the u s supreme court has certainly said your honor it is certainly said that you may not ever hold a proceeding in a criminal case where the defendant has a role to contribute without the defendant there and that is well established federal constitutional law and we have a hearing with the defendants presence was critical if people are making the solutions about what she wants and her state of mind and what's going on i what do you think that happened what do you think the result of that concept that if you keep returning if you don't get rid of the attorney your life may be in danger well first of all the way that that that happen didn't that there was a there was an incompetent discussion with respect to the problems associated with representing the front in this case the two attorneys wanted withdraw all they wanted to get out of that case they were concerned the darn thing in the judge's jacket you're out of the contract and that ever happened in american jurisprudence in your life i don't know judge but that certainly has never happened in contract law i don't know what judge one party could walk in and void the contract without the other party being the choice of counsel issue is different we're talking about the failure or the absence of the defendant to be present at a conference in which the attorneys who are representing her wanted to withdraw he wanted to get out of his for exactly how can you get out of a contract unless you have a trial parties or i have no question that they may once she may want to sue them the question here is whether you can overturn a state judgment with respect to the failure to be present at a hearing in which the defendant has no constitutional right there is no constitutional right to an attorney who doesn't want to represent you that the i don't want guns out of the judge  the question then is whether she has a constitutional right to be president is there a critical is this a critical proceeding by which under the e p a she is required as a matter of constitutional law to be present the court and asking to be able to remove himself or herself from representation in this case that you're going to have a constitutional right to force a lawyer to represent you there is no law that i'm aware of there's no court for crisis when the government can say you can avoid a contract w right by a defendant to have an attorney who doesn't want to represent her have to represent her mother and as a result and even if you soon that there was there what is the what is the prejudice is not she had another turning point you could represent throughout the entire trial she has never claimed that any proceeding state or federal that there was ineffective assistance of counsel or that there was ever any error during the trial itself to who are trying to get out but who represented the past two who were going to be pointed to represent her in the future all of them were concerned about her interests and she wanted them or use that you can never wri the security danger every other year the security danger of having her there was her telling her father what was happening who then apparently from what we read in the transcript do things that were very questionable information people well there was information here on if in the record there was a discussion on the record with respect to the security of the prosecutor there we don't see it was said is a security and what we don't know well we don't know but we also know that there was all sorts of well there are errors associated with the judicial proceeding which doesn't necessarily involve a structural error in fact most of them do not if you have an evidentiary error for example in a preliminary hearing or does that attorney who was retained after three years and i think he was ninth or tenth attorney who had been involved in this case for three years and had been so many substitute there had been so many there is no unequivocal constitutional right to choice of counsel you have a constitutional right to choice of counsel but you also have of the court needing to preserve the integrity of the judicial system and courts that often wary of the ploy to effect a delay or hinder the efficient administration of justice and those courts have substantial latitude in granting a right of counsel of choice there is no unequivocal it has to be appointed counsel so mr dunne levy is saying terminate the right to obtain constitutional rights retained counsel the prosecutor of all people is saying terminate the right to the defendant's right to retain counsel that is a hearing  his constitute federal constitutional rights to be terminated at which the defendant has an absolute constitutional right to be present it is a critical stage of the trial at that hearing i submit allegations were made that were complete rubbish they were absolutely false the security threat was false the assertions made about the dependents wishes were false the court can fairly say is that off it does in the case counsel you're making assertions where is your showing in the record that's precisely the point there is no showing in the record that this security stuff was complete rubbish because no one was there to present that side of the truth to the court so it's a critical stage  allegations of being made that can't be refuted the question is prejudice the prejudice here aside from this being structural errors simply because it denied the defendant the ability to make the proper record in this as a result of that hearing the defendant was forced to trial with appointed counsel who had told the court i cannot defend this person adequately as opposed to retain counsel the reason we have a constitutional right to retain counsel is that the constitution believes that you're better defended with someone you choose and represent if you have the ability to hire them so this court would have to declare that in any situation no matter how blatantly the right to retain counsel is violated it is harmless provided you have appointed counsel which would render the constitutional right to retain counsel nugget torrie because without a remedy there is no right there would never be a right for the violation of retained counsel such as occurred here and certainly if there ever was going to be a harmless case it's not one in which the appointed counsel has said to the court on the record by the way i can't adequately defend this person i don't have a confidence she didn't get to testify which is something that would have happened i believe if she had been other cases that a critical stage at which you have a right to be present is any stage where the presence of the defendant or or through a counsel would make a difference and so under those cases and  his defendant even over night over night session he learns to stand there so you can talk to your lawyer is a per se violation of the right to counsel that requires immediate reversal under together is we have a stage here that that's an 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