Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/422/806
Timestamp: 2019-04-26 13:57:01+00:00

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The Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments of our Constitution guarantee that a person brought to trial in any state or federal court must be afforded the right to the assistance of counsel before he can be validly convicted and punished by imprisonment. This clear constitutional rule has emerged from a series of cases decided here over the last 50 years. 1 The question before us now is whether a defendant in a state criminal trial has a constitutional right to proceed without counsel when he voluntarily and intelligently elects to do so. Stated another way, the question is whether a State may constitutionally hale a person into its criminal courts and there force a lawyer upon him, even when he insists that he wants to conduct his own defense. It is not an easy question, but we have concluded that a State may not constitutionally do so.
* Anthony Faretta was charged with grand theft in an information filed in the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, Cal. At the arraignment, the Superior Court Judge assigned to preside at the trial appointed the public defender to represent Faretta. Well before the date of trial, however, Faretta requested that he be permitted to represent himself. Questioning by the judge revealed that Faretta had once represented himself in a criminal prosecution, that he had a high school education, and that he did not want to be represented by the public defender because he believed that that office was 'very loaded down with . . . a heavy case load.' The judge responded that he believed Faretta was 'making a mistake' and emphasized that in further proceedings Faretta would receive no special favors. 2 Nevertheless, after establishing that Faretta wanted to represent himself and did not want a lawyer, the judge, in a 'preliminary ruling,' accepted Faretta's waiver of the assistance of counsel. The judge indicated, however, that he might reverse this ruling if it later appeared that Faretta was unable adequately to represent himself.
Several weeks thereafter, but still prior to trial, the judge sua sponte held a hearing to inquire into Faretta's ability to conduct his own defense, and questioned him specifically about both the hearsay rule and the state law governing the challenge of potential jurors. 3 After consideration of Faretta's answers, and observation of his demeanor, the judge ruled that Faretta had not made an intelligent and knowing waiver of his right to the assistance of counsel, and also ruled that Faretta had no constitutional right to conduct his own defense. 4 The judge, accordingly, reversed his earlier ruling permitting self-representation and again appointed the public defender to represent Faretta. Faretta's subsequent request for leave to act as co-counsel was rejected, as were his efforts to make certain motions on his own behalf. 5 Throughout the subsequent trial, the judge required that Faretta's defense be conducted only through the appointed lawyer from the public defender's office. At the conclusion of the trial, the jury found Faretta guilty as charged, and the judge sentenced him to prison.
The California Court of Appeal, relying upon a then-recent California Supreme Court decision that had expressly decided the issue, 6 affirmed the trial judge's ruling that Faretta had no federal or state constitutional right to represent himself. 7 Accordingly, the appellate court affirmed Faretta's conviction. A petition for rehearing was denied without opinion, and the California Supreme Court denied review. 8 We granted certiorari. 415 U.S. 975, 94 S.Ct. 1559, 39 L.Ed.2d 870.
In the federal courts, the right of self-representation has been protected by statute since the beginnings of our Nation. Section 35 of the Judiciary Act of 1789, 1 Stat. 73, 92, enacted by the First Congress and signed by President Washington one day before the Sixth Amendment was proposed, provided that 'in all the courts of the United States, the parties may plead and manage their own causes personally or by the assistance of such counsel . . ..' The right is currently codified in 28 U.S.C. 1654.
'. . . When the administration of the criminal law . . . is hedged bout as it is by the Constitutional safeguards for the protection of an accused, to deny him in the exercise of his free choice the right to dispense with some of thse safeguards . . . is to imprison a man in his privileges and call it the Constitution.' Id., at 279280, 63 S.Ct., at 241 242. (emphasis added).
The United States Court of Appeals have repeatedly held that the right of self-representation is protected by the Bill of Rights. In United States v. Plattner, 330 F.2d 271, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit emphasized that the Sixth Amendment grants the accused the rights of confrontation, of compulsory process for witnesses in his favor, and of assistance of counsel as minimum procedural requirements in federal criminal prosecutions. The right to the assistance of counsel, the court concluded, was intended to supplement the other rights of the defendant, and not to impair 'the absolute and primary right to conduct one's own defense in propria persona.' Id., at 274. The court found support for its decision in the language of the 1789 federal statute; in the statutes and rules governing criminal procedure, see 28 U.S.C. 1654, and Fed.Rule Crim.Proc. 44; in the many state constitutions that expressly guarantee selfrepresentations and in this Court's recognition of the right in Adams and Price. On these grounds, the Court of Appeals held that implicit in the Fifth Amendment's guarantee of due process of law, and implicit also in the Sixth Amendment's guarantee of a right to the assistance of counsel, is 'the right of the accused personally to manage and conduct his own defense in a criminal case.' 330 F.2d, at 274. See also United States ex rel. Maldonado v. Denno, 348 F.2d 12, 15 (CA2); MacKenna v. Ellis, 263 F.2d 35, 41 (CA5); United States v. Sternman, 415 F.2d 1165, 11691170 (CA6); Lowe v. United States, 418 F.2d 100, 103 (CA7); United States v. Warner, 428 F.2d 730, 733 (CA8); Haslam v. United States, 431 F.2d 362, 365 (CA9); compare United States v. Dougherty, 154 U.S.App.D.C. 76, 86, 473 F.2d 1113, 1123 (intimating right is constitutional but finding it unnecessary to reach issue) with Brown v. United States, 105 U.S.App.D.C. 77, 7980, 264 F.2d 363, 365366 (plurality opinion stating right is no more than statutory in nature).
This Court's past recognition of the right of self-representation, the federal-court authority holding the right to be of constitutional dimension, and the state constitutions pointing to the right's fundamental nature form a consensus not easily ignored. '(T)he mere fact that a path is a beaten one,' Mr. Justice Jackson once observed, 'is a persuasive reason for following it.' 13 We confront here a nearly universal conviction, on the part of our people as well as our courts, that forcing a lawyer upon an unwilling defendant is contrary to his basic right to defend himself if he truly wants to do so.
Because these rights are basic to our adversary system of criminal justice, they are part of the 'due process of law' that is guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment to defendants in the criminal courts of the States. 14 The rights to notice, confrontation, and compulsory process, when taken together, guarantee that a criminal charge may be answered in a manner now considered fundamental to the fair administration of American justicethrough the calling and interrogation of favorable witnesses, the cross-examination of adverse witnesses, and the orderly introduction of evidence. In short, the Amendment constitutionalizes the right in an adversary criminal trial to make a defense as we know it. See California v. Green, 399 U.S. 149, 176, 90 S.Ct. 1930, 1944, 26 L.Ed.2d 489 (Harlan, J., concurring).
The Sixth Amendment does not provide merely that a defense shall be made for the accused; it grants to the accused personally the right to make his defense. It is the accused, not counsel, who must be 'informed of the nature and cause of the accusation,' who must be 'confronted with the witnesses against him,' and who must be accorded 'compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor.' Although not stated in the Amendment in so many words, the right to self-representationto make one's own defense personally is thus necessarily implied by the structure of the Amendment. 15 The right to defend is given directly to the accused; for it is he who suffers the consequences if the defense fails.
The counsel provision supplements this design. It speaks of the 'assistance' of counsel, and an assistant, however expert, is still an assistant. The language and spirit of the Sixth Amendment contemplate that counsel, like the other defense tools guaranteed by the Amendment, shall be an aid to a willing defendantnot an organ of the State interposed between an unwilling defendant and his right to defend himself personally. To thrust counsel upon the accused, against his considered wish, thus violates the logic of the Amendment. In such a case, counsel is not an assistant, but a master; 16 and the right to make a defense is stripped of the personal character upon which the Amendment insists. It is true that when a defendant chooses to have a lawyer manage and present his case, law and tradition may allocate to the counsel the power to make binding decisions of trial strategy in many areas. Cf. Henry v. Mississippi, 379 U.S. 443, 451, 85 S.Ct. 564, 569, 13 L.Ed.2d 408; Brookhart v. Janis, 384 U.S. 1, 78, 86 S.Ct. 1245, 12481249, 16 L.Ed.2d 314; Fay v. Noia, 372 U.S. 391, 439, 83 S.Ct. 822, 849, 9 L.Ed.2d 837. This allocation can only be justified, however, by the defendant's consent, at the outset, to accept counsel as his representative. An unwanted counsel 'represents' the defendant only through a tenuous and unacceptable legal fiction. Unless the accused has acquiesced in such representation, the defense presented is not the defense guaranteed him by the Constitution, for, in a very real sense, it is not his defense.
In the long history of British criminal jurisprudence, there was only one tribunal that ever adopted a practice of forcing counsel upon an unwilling defendant in a criminal proceeding. The tribunal was the Star Chamber. That curious institution, which flourished in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, was of mixed executive and judicial character, and characteristically departed from common-law traditions. For those reasons, and because it specialized in trying 'political' defenses, the Star Chamber has for centuries symbolized disregard of basic individual rights. 17 The Star Chamber not merely allowed but required defendants to have counsel. The defendant's answer to an indictment was not accepted unless it was signed by counsel. When counsel refused to sign the answer, for whatever reason, the defendant was considered to have confessed. 18 Stephen commented on this procedure: 'There is something specially repugnant to justice in using rules of practice in such a manner as to debar a prisoner from defending himself, especially when the professed object of the rules so used is to provide for his defence.' 1 J. Stephen, A History of the Criminal Law of England 341342 (1883). The Star Chamber was swept away in 1641 by the revolutionary fervor of the Long Parliament. The notion of obligatory counsel disappeared with it.
With the Treason Act of 1695, there began a long and important era of reform in English criminal procedure. The 1695 statute granted to the accused traitor the rights to a copy of the indictment, to have his witnesses testify under oath, and 'to make . . . full Defence, by Counsel learned in the Law.' 23 It also provided for court appointment of counsel, but only if the accused so desired. 24 Thus, as new rights developed, the accused retained his established right 'to make what statements he liked.' 25 The right to counsel was viewed as guaranteeing a choice between representation by counsel and the traditional practice of self-representation. The ban on counsel in felony cases, which had been substantially eroded in the courts, 26 was finally eliminated by statute in 1836. 27 In more recent years, Parliament has provided for court appointment of counsel in serious criminal cases, but only at the accused's request. 28 At no point in this process of reform in England was counsel ever forced upon the defendant. The common-law rule, succinctly stated in R. v. Woodward, (1944) K.B. 118, 119, (1944) 1 All E.R. 159, 160, has evidently always been that 'no person charged with a criminal offence can have counsel forced upon him against his will.' 29 See 3 Halsbury's Laws of England 1141, pp. 624625 (4th ed. 1973); R. v. Maybury, 11 L.T.R.(n.s.) 566 (Q.B.1865).
The colonists brought with them an appreciation of the virtues of self-reliance and a traditional distrust of law-years. When the Colonies were first settled, 'the lawyer was synonymous with the cringing Attorneys-General and Solicitors-General of the Crown and the arbitrary Justices of the King's Court, all bent on the conviction of those who opposed the King's prerogatives, and twisting the law to secure convictions.' 30 This prejudice gained strength in the Colonies where 'distrust of lawyers became an institution.' 31 Several Colonies prohibited pleading for hire in the 17th century. 32 The prejudice persisted into the 18th century as 'the lower classes came to identify lawyers with the upper class.' 33 The years of Revolution and Confederation saw an upsurge of antilawyer sentiment, a 'sudden revival, after the War of th Revolution, of the old dislike and distrust of lawyers as a class.' 34 In the heat of these sentiments the Constitution was forged.
The recognition of the right of self-representation was not limited to the state lawmakers. As we have noted, § 35 of the Judiciary Act of 1789, signed one day before the Sixth Amendment was proposed, guaranteed in the federal courts the right of all parties to 'plead and manage their own causes personally or by the assistance of . . . counsel.' 1 Stat. 92. See 28 U.S.C. 1654. At the time James Madison drafted the Sixth Amendment, some state constitutions guaranteed an accused the right to be heard 'by himself' and by counsel; others provided that an accused was to be 'allowed' counsel. 41 The various state proposals for the Bill of Rights had similar variations in terminology. 42 In each case, however, the counsel provision was embedded in a package of defense rights granted personally to the accused. There is no indication that the differences in phrasing about 'counsel' reflected any differences of principle about self-representation. No State or Colony had ever forced counsel upon an accused; no spokesman had ever suggested that such a practice would be tolerable, much less advisable. If anyone had thought that the Sixth Amendment, as drafted, failed to protect the long-respected right of self-representation, there would undoubtedly have been some debate or comment on the issue. But there was none.
There can be no blinking the fact that the right of an accused to conduct his own defense seems to cut against the grain of this Court's decisions holding that the Constitution requires that no accused can be convicted and imprisoned unless he has been accorded the right to the assistance of counsel. See Powell v. Alabama, 287 U.S. 45, 53 S.Ct. 55, 77 L.Ed. 158; Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U.S. 458, 58 S.Ct. 1019, 82 L.Ed. 1461; Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335, 83 S.Ct. 792, 9 L.Ed.2d 799; Argersinger v. Hamlin, 407 U.S. 25, 92 S.Ct. 2006, 32 L.Ed.2d 530. For it is surely true that the basic thesis of those decisions is that the help of a lawyer is essential to assure the defendant a fair trial. 43 And a strong argument can surely be made that the whole thrust of those decisions most inevitably lead to the conclusion that a State may constitutionally impose a lawyer upon even an unwilling defendant.
When an accused manages his own defense, he relinquishes, as a purely factual matter, many of the traditional benefits associated with the right to counsel. For this reason, in order to represent himself, the accused must 'knowingly and intelligently' forgo those relinquished benefits. Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U.S., at 464465, 58 S.Ct., at 1023. Cf. Von Moltke v. Gillies, 332 U.S. 708, 723724, 68 S.Ct. 316, 323, 92 L.Ed. 309 (plurality opinion of Black, J.). Although a defendant need not himself have the skill and experience of a lawyer in order competently and intelligently to choose self-representation, he should be made aware of the dangers and disadvantages of self-representation, so that the record will establish that 'he knows what he is doing and his choice is made with eyes open.' Adams v. United States ex rel. McCann, 317 U.S., at 279, 63 S.Ct., at 242.
Here, weeks before trial, Faretta clearly and unequivocally declared to the trial judge that he wanted to represent himself and did not want counsel. The record affirmatively shows that Faretta was literate, competent, and understanding, and that he was voluntarily exercising his informed free will. The trial judge had warned Faretta that he thought it was a mistake not to accept the assistance of counsel, and that Faretta would be required to follow all the 'ground rules' of trial procedure. 47 We need make no assessment of how well or poorly Faretta had mastered the intricacies of the hearsay rule and the California code provisions that govern challenges of potential jurors on voir dire. 48 For his technical legal knowledge, as such, was not relevant to an assessment of his knowing exercise of the right to defend himself.
This case, like Herring v. New York, 422 U.S. 853, 95 S.Ct. 2550, 45 L.Ed.2d 593, announced today, is another example of the judicial tendency to constitutionalize what is thought 'good.' That effort fails on its own terms here, because there is nothing desirable or useful in permitting every accused person, even the most uneducated and inexperienced, to insist upon conducting his own defense to criminal charges. 1 Moreover, there is no constitutional basis for the Court's holding, and it can only add to the problems of an already malfunctioning criminal justice system. I therefore dissent.
* The most striking feature of the Court's opinion is that it devotes so little discussion to the matter which it concedes is the core of the decision, that is, discerning an independent basis in the Constitution for the supposed right to represent oneself in a criminal trial. 2 See ante, at 818-821, and n. 15. Its ultimate assertion that such a right is tucked between the lines of the Sixth Amendment is contradicted by the Amendment's language and its consistent judicial interpretation.
'We . . . hold that failure to afford the petitioner a reasonable opportunity to defend himself against the charge of false and evasive swearing was a denial of due process of law. A person's right to reasonable notice of a charge against him, and an opportunity to be heard in his defensea right to his day in courtare basic in our system of jurisprudence; and these rights include, as a minimum, a right to examine the witnesses against him, to offer testimony, and to be represented by counsel.' Id., at 273, 68 S.Ct., at 507.
See also Argersinger v. Hamlin, 407 U.S. 25, 2733, 92 S.Ct. 2006, 20072011, 32 L.Ed.2d 530 (1972); Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335, 344, 83 S.Ct. 792, 796797, 9 L.Ed.2d 799 (1963).
Obviously, these considerations do not vary depending upon whether the accused actively desires to be represented by counsel or wishes to proceed pro se. Nor is it accurate to suggest, as the Court seems to later in its opinion, that the quality of his representation at trial is a matter with which only the accused is legitimately concerned. See ante, at 834. Although we have adopted an adversary system of criminal justice, see Gideon v. Wainwright, supra, the prosecution is more than an ordinary litigant, and the trial judge is not simply an automaton who insures that technical rules are adhered to. Both are charged with the duty of insuring that justice, in the broadest sense of that term, is achieved in every criminal trial. See Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 87, and n. 2, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 11961197, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963); Berger v. United States, 295 U.S. 78, 88, 55 S.Ct. 629, 633, 79 L.Ed. 1314 (1935). That goal is ill-served, and the integrity of and public confidence in the system are undermined, when an easy conviction is obtained due to the defendant's ill-advised decision to waive counsel. The damage thus inflicted is not mitigated by the lame explanation that the defendant simply availed himself of the 'freedom' 'to go to jail under his own banner . . ..' United States ex rel. Maldonado v. Denno, 348 F.2d 12, 15 (CA2 1965). The system of criminal justice should not be available as an instrument of self-destruction.
In short, both the 'spirit and the logic' of the Sixth Amendment are that every person accused of crime shall receive the fullest possible defense; in the vast majority of cases this command can be honored only by means of the expressly guaranteed right to counsel, and the trial judge is in the best position to determine whether the accused is capable of conducting his defense. True freedom of choice and society's interest in seeing that justice is achieved can be vindicated to reject any attempted waiver of counsel and insist that the accused be tried according to the Constitution. This discretion is as critical an element of basic fairness as a trial judge's discretion to decline to accept a plea of guilty. See Santobello v. New York, 404 U.S. 257, 262, 92 S.Ct. 495, 498499, 30 L.Ed.2d 427 (1971).
In Adams v. United States ex rel. McCann, 317 U.S. 269, 63 S.Ct. 236, 87 L.Ed. 268 (1942), and Carter v. Illinois, 329 U.S. 173, 67 S.Ct. 216, 91 L.Ed. 172 (1946), the defendants had competently waived counsel but later sought to renounce actions taken by them while proceeding pro se. In both cases this Court upheld the convictions, holding that neither an uncounseled waiver of jury trial nor an uncounseled guilty plea is inherently defective under the Constitution. The language which the Court so carefully excises from those opinions relates, not to an affirmative right of self-representation, but to the consequences of waiver. 4 In Adams, for example, Mr. Justice Frankfurter was careful to point out that his reference to a defendant's 'correlative right to dispense with a lawyer's help' meant only that '(h)e may waive his Constitutional right to assistance of counsel . . .,' 317 U.S., at 279, 63 S.Ct., at 242. See United States v. Warner, 428 F.2d 730, 733 (CA8 1970). But, as the Court recognizes, the power to waive a constitutional right does not carry with it the right to insist upon its opposite. Singer v. United States, 380 U.S. 24, 3435, 85 S.Ct. 783, 789 790, 13 L.Ed.2d 630 (1965).
'The discretionary nature of the power in question grows out of the fact that a prisoner has no absolute right to argue his own appeal or even to be present at the proceedings in an appellate court. The absence of that right is in sharp contrast to his constitutional prerogative of being present in person at each significant stage of a felony prosecution, and to his recognized privilege of conducting his own defense at the trial. Lawful incarceration brings about the necessary withdrawal or limitation of many privileges and rights, a retraction justified by the considerations underlying our penal system. Among those so limited is the otherwise unqualified right given by § 272 of the Judicial Code, 28 U.S.C. 394 (now § 1654), to parties in all the courts of the United States to 'plead and manage their own causes personally." Id., at 285286, 68 S.Ct., at 1060 (citations omitted).
Like Mr. Justice BLACKMUN, I hesitate to participate in the Court's attempt to use history to take it where legal analysis cannot. Piecing together shreds of English legal history and early state constitutional and statutory provisions, without a full elaboration of the context in which they occurred or any evidence that they were relied upon by the drafters of our Federal Constitution, creates more questions than it answers and hardly provides the firm foundation upon which the creation of new constitutional rights should rest. We are well reminded that this Court once employed an exhaustive analysis of English and colonial practices regarding the right to counsel to justify the conclusion that it was fundamental to a fair trial and, less than 10 years later, used essentially the same material to conclude that it was not. Compare Powell v. Alabama, 287 U.S., at 6065, 53 S.Ct., at 6063, with Betts v. Brady, 316 U.S. 455, 465471, 62 S.Ct. 1252, 12571261, 86 L.Ed. 1595 (1942).
There is no way to reconcile the idea that the Sixth Amendment impliedly guaranteed the right of an accused to conduct his own defense with the contemporaneous action of the Congress in passing a statute explicitly giving that right. If the Sixth Amendment created a right to self-representation it was unnecessary for Congress to enact any statute on the subject at all. In this case, therefore, history ought to lead judges to conclude that the Constitution leaves to the judgment of legislatures, and the flexible process of statutory amendment, the question whether criminal defendants should be permitted to conduct their trials pro se. See Betts v. Brady, supra. And the fact that we have not hinted at a contrary view for 185 years in surely entitled to some weight in the scales. 6 Cf. Jackman v. Rosenbaum Co., 260 U.S. 22, 31, 43 S.Ct. 9, 10, 67 L.Ed. 107 (1922).
The Court suggests that thrusting counsel upon the accused against his considered with violates the logic of the Sixth Amendment because counsel is to be an assistant not a master. The Court seeks to support its conclusion by historical analogy to the notorious procedures of the Star Chamber. The potential for exaggerated analogy, however, is markedly diminished when one recalls that petitioner is seeking an absolute right to self-representation. This is not a case where defense counsel, against the wishes of the defendant or with inadequate consultation, has adopted a trial strategy that significantly affects one of the accused's constitutional rights. For such overbearing conduct by counsel, there is a remedy. Brookhart v. Janis, 384 U.S. 1, 86 S.Ct. 1245, 16 L.Ed.2d 314 (1966); Fay v. Noia, 372 U.S. 391, 439, 83 S.Ct. 822, 849, 9 L.Ed.2d 837 (1963). Nor is this a case where distrust, animosity, or other personal differences between the accused and his would-be counsel have rendered effective representation unlikely or impossible. See Brown v. Craven, 424 F.2d 1166, 11691170 (CA9 1970). See also Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738, 87 S.Ct. 1396, 18 L.Ed.2d 493 (1967). Nor is this even a case where a defendant has been forced, against his wishes to expend his personal resources to pay for counsel for his defense. See generally Fuller v. Oregon, 417 U.S. 40, 94 S.Ct. 2116, 40 L.Ed.2d 642 (1974); James v. Strange, 407 U.S. 128, 92 S.Ct. 2027, 32 L.Ed.2d 600 (1972). Instead, the Court holds that any defendant in any criminal proceeding may insist on representing himself regardless of how complex the trial is likely to be and regardless of how frivolous the defendant's motivations may be. I cannot agree that there is anything in the Due Process Clause or the Sixth Amendment that requires the States to subordinate the solemn business of conducting a criminal prosecution to the whimsicalalbeit voluntarycaprice of every accused who wishes to use his trial as a vehicle for personal or political self-gratification.
The paucity of historical support for the Court's position becomes far more profound when one examines it against the background of two developments in the more recent history of criminal procedure. First, until the middle of the 19th century, the defendant in a criminal proceeding in this country was almost always disqualified from testifying as a witness because of his 'interest' in the outcome. See generally Ferguson v. Georgia, 365 U.S. 570, 81 S.Ct. 756, 5 L.Ed.2d 783 (1961). Thus, the ability to defend 'in person' was frequently the defendant's only chance to present his side of the case to the judge or jury. See, e.g., Wilson v. State, 50 Tenn. 232 (1871). Such Draconian rules of evidence, of course, are now a relic of the past because virtually every State has passed a statute abrogating the common-law rule of disqualification. See Ferguson v. Georgia, 365 U.S., at 575577, 596, 81 S.Ct. at 759. With the abolition of the common-law disqualification, the right to appear 'in person' as well as by counsel lost most, if not all, of its original importance. See Grano, The Right to Counsel: Collateral Issues Affecting Due Process, 54 Minn.L.Rev. 1175, 1192 1194 (1970).
When Sharp was tried the California Constitution expressly provided that the accused in a criminal prosecution had the right 'to appear and defend, in person and with counsel.' Cal.Const., Art. 1, § 13. In an earlier decision the California Supreme Court had held that this language meant that the accused had the right to appear by himself or with counsel. People v. Mattson, 51 Cal.2d 777, 336 P.2d 937. This view was rejected in Sharp, the California Supreme Court there holding that the defendant in a criminal prosecution has no right under the State or the Federal Constitution to represent himself at trial. See generally Y. Kamisar, W. LaFave & J. Israel, Modern Criminal Procedure 5760 (4th ed. 1974); Note, 10 Calif.Western L.Rev. 196 (1973); Note, 24 Hastings L.J. 431 (1973); Comment, 64 J.Crim.L. 240 (1973).
The California courts' conclusion that Faretta had no constitutional right to represent himself was made in the context of the following not unusual rules of California criminal procedure: An indigent criminal defendant has no right to appointed counsel of his choice. See Drumgo v. Superior Court, 8 Cal.3d 930, 106 Cal.Rptr. 631, 506 P.2d 1007; People v. Miller, 7 Cal.3d 562, 574, 102 Cal.Rptr. 841, 849, 498 P.2d 1089, 1097; People v. Massie, 66 Cal.2d 899, 910, 59 Cal.Rptr. 733, 740741, 428 P.2d 869, 876877; People v. Taylor, 259 Cal.App.2d 448, 450 451, 66 Cal.Rptr. 514, 515517. The appointed counsel manages the lawsuit and has the final say in all but a few matters of trial strategy. See, e.g., People v. Williams, 2 Cal.3d 894, 905, 88 Cal.Rptr. 208, 471 P.2d 1008, 1015; People v. Foster, 67 Cal.2d 604, 606607, 63 Cal.Rptr. 288, 289290, 432 P.2d 976, 977978; People v. Monk, 56 Cal.2d 288, 299, 14 Cal.Rptr. 633, 638639, 363 P.2d 865, 870871; see generally Rhay v. Browder, 342 F.2d 345, 349 (CA9). A California conviction will not be reversed on grounds of ineffective assistance of counsel except in the extreme case where the quality of representation was so poor as to render the trial a 'farce or a sham.' People v. Ibarra, 60 Cal.2d 460, 34 Cal.Rptr. 863, 386 P.2d 487; see People v. Miller, supra, 7 Cal.3d, at 573, 102 Cal.Rptr., at 848849, 498 P.2d, at 10961097; People v. Floyd, 1 Cal.3d 694, 709, 83 Cal.Rptr. 608, 617, 464 P.2d 64, 73; People v. Hill, 70 Cal.2d 678, 689, 76 Cal.Rptr. 225, 230, 452 P.2d 329, 334; People v. Reeves, 64 Cal.2d 766, 774, 51 Cal.Rptr. 691, 695, 415 P.2d 35, 39.
Jackson, Full Faith and CreditThe Lawyer's Clause of the Constitution, 45 Col.L.Rev. 1, 26 (1945).
The inference of rights is not, of course, a mechanical exercise. In Singer v. United States, 380 U.S. 24, 85 S.Ct. 783, 13 L.Ed.2d 630, the Court held that an accused has no right to a bench trial, despite his capacity to waive his right to a jury trial. In so holding, the Court stated that '(t)he ability to waive a constitutional right does not ordinarily carry with it the right to insist upon the opposite of that right.' Id., at 3435, 85 S.Ct., at 790. But that statement was made only after the Court had concluded that the Constitution does not affirmatively protect any right to be tried by a judge. Recognizing that an implied right must arise independently from the design and history of the constitutional text, the Court searched for, but could not find, any 'indication that the colonists considered the ability to waive a jury trial to be of equal importance to the right to demand one.' Id., at 26, 85 S.Ct., at 785. Instead, the Court could locate only 'isolated instances' of a right to trial by judge, and concluded that these were 'clear departures from the common law.' Ibid.
Such a result would sever the concept of counsel from its historic roots. The first lawyers were personal friends of the litigant, brought into court by him so that he might 'take 'counsel' with them' before pleading. 1 F. Pollock & F. Maitland, The History of English Law 211 (2d ed. 1909). Similarly, the first 'attorneys' were personal agents, often lacking any professional training, who were appointed by those litigants who had secured royal permission to carry on their affairs through a representative, rather than personally. Id., at 212213.
'The court of star chamber was an efficient, somewhat arbitrary arm of royal power. It was at the height of its career in the days of the Tudor and Stuart kings. Star chamber stood for swiftness and power; it was not a competitor of the common law so much as a limitation on ita reminder that high state policy could not safely be entrusted to a system so chancy as English law. . . .' L. Friedman, A History of American Law 23 (1973). See generally 5 W. Holdsworth, A History of English Law 155214 (1927).
'The proceedings before the Star Chamber began by a Bill 'engrossed in parchment and filed with the clerk of the court.' It must, like the other pleadings, be signed by counsel . . .. However, counsel were obliged to be careful what they signed. If they put their hands to merely frivolous pleas, or otherwise misbehaved themselves in the conduct of their cases, they were liable to rebuke, suspension, a fine, or imprisonment.' Holdsworth, supra, n. 17, at 178179. Counsel, therefore, had to be cautious that any pleadings they signed would not unduly offend the Crown. See 1 J. Stephen, A History of the Criminal Law of England 340341 (1883).
'The procedure in this case appears to me to have been as harsh as the sentence was severe, though I do not think it has been so much noticed. . . . Star Chamber defendants were not only allowed counsel, but were required to get their answers signed by counsel. The effect of this rule, and probably its object was, that no defence could be put before the Court which counsel would not take the responsibility of signinga responsibility which, at that time, was extremely serious. If counsel would not sign the defendant's answer he was taken to have confessed the information. Prynne's answer was of such a character that one of the counsel assigned to him refused to sign it at all, and the other did not sign it till after the proper time. Bastwick could get no one to sign his answer. Burton's answer was signed by counsel, but was set aside as impertinent. Upon the whole, the case was taken to be admitted by all the three, and judgment was passed on them accordingly. . . .' Stephen, supra, 340341.
That Prynne's defense was foreclosed by the refusal of assigned counsel to endorse his answer is all the more shocking when it is realized that Prynne was himself a lawyer I. Brant, The Bill of Rights 106 (1965). On the operation of the Star Chamber generally, see Barnes, Star Chamber Mythology, 5 Am.J.Legal Hist. 111 (1961), and Barnes, Due Process and Slow Process in the Late Elizabethan-Early Stuart Star Chamber, 6 Am.J.Legal Hist. 221249, 315346 (1962).
'(T)he trial became a series of excited altercations between the prisoner and the different counsel opposed to him. Every statement of counsel operated as a question to the prisoner, . . . the prisoner either admitting or denying or explaining what was alleged against him. The result was that . . . the examination of the prisoner . . . was the very essence of the trial, and his answers regulated the production of the evidence . . .. As the argument proceeded the counsel (for the Crown) would frequently allege matters which the prisoner denied and called upon them to prove. The proof was usually given by reading depositions, confessions of accomplices, letters, and the like . . .. When the matter had been fully inquired into . . . the presiding judge 'repeated' or summed up to the jury the matters alleged against the prisoner, and the answers given by him; and the jury gave their verdict.' Id., at 325326.
Holdsworth, supra, n. 17, at 195196.
In Mary Blandy's 1752 murder trial, for example, the court declared that counsel for the defendant could not only speak on points of law raised by the defense, but could also examine defense witnesses and cross-examine those of the Crown. 18 How.St.Tr. 1117. Later in that century judges often allowed counsel for the accused 'to instruct him what questions to ask, or even to ask questions for him, with respect to matters of fact . . . (or) law.' 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries *355356.
'Our ancestors, when they first enacted their laws respecting crimes, influenced by the illiberal principles which they had imbibed in their native country, denied counsel to prisoners to plead for them to any thing but points of law. It is manifest that there is as much necessity for counsel to investigate matters of fact, as points of law, if truth is to be discovered.' 2 Z. Swift, A System of the Laws of the State of Connecticut 398399 (1796).
See, e.g., id., at 8990.
Statutes providing for appointment of counsel on request of the accused were enacted by Delaware in 1719, 1 Laws of State of Delaware, 17001797, p. 66 (Adams 1797); by Pennsylvania in 1718, 3 Stats. at Large of Pennsylvania 199 (Busch 1896); and by South Carolina in 1731, Laws of the Province of South Carolina 518 519 (Trott 1736). Appointment was also the practice in Connecticut in the latter part of the 18th century; appointment apparently was sometimes made even when the accused failed to request counsel, if he appeared in need of a lawyer, but there is no indication appointment was ever made over the objection of the accused. See Swift, supra, n. 35, at 392. Free-choice appointment remained the rule as the new Republic emerged. See the 1791 statute of New Hampshire, Laws of New Hampshire 247 (Melcher 1792), and the 1795 statute of New Jersey, § 2, Acts of the Nineteenth General Assembly of the State of New Jersey 1012.
In ratifying the Constitution, three States urged that a right-to-counsel provision be added by way of amendment. Virginia and North Carolina proposed virtually identical packages of a defendant's rights, each including the provision that an accused be 'allowed' counsel. 2 Schwartz 841, 967. The package proposed by New York provided that the accused 'ought to . . . have . . . the assistance of Counsel for his defense.' Id., at 913. The idea of proposing amendments upon ratification had begun with the Pennsylvania dissenters from ratification, whose proposed package of a defendant's rights provided for the accused's 'right . . . to be heard by himself and his counsel.' Id., at 664665. It can be seen that Madison's precise formulation'the right . . . to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence'varied in phrasing from each of the proposals. 'The available debates on the various proposals throw no light on the significance or the interpretation which Congress attributed to the right to counsel.' W. Beaney, The Right to Counsel in American Courts 23 (1955).
We are told that many criminal defendants representing themselves may use the courtroom for deliberate disruption of their trials. But the right of self-representation has been recognized from our beginnings by federal law and by most of the States, and no such result has thereby occurred. Moreover, the trial judge may terminate self-representation by a defendant who deliberately engages in serious and obstructionist misconduct. See Illinois v. Allen, 397 U.S. 337, 90 S.Ct. 1057, 25 L.Ed.2d 353. Of course, a State mayeven over objection by the accusedappoint a 'standby counsel' to aid the accused if and when the accused requests help, and to be available to represent the accused in the event that termination of the defendant's self-representation is necessary. See United States v. Dougherty, 154 U.S.App.D.C. 76, 87 89, 473 F.2d 1113, 11241126.
Indeed, the portion of the Court's quotation which warns against turning constitutional protections into 'fetters' refers to the right to trial by jury, not the right to counsel. See Adams v. United States ex rel. McCann, 317 U.S. 269, 279, 63 S.Ct. 236, 241242, 87 L.Ed. 268 (1942). This Court has, of course, squarely held that there is no constitutional right to dispense with a jury. Singer v. United States, 380 U.S. 24, 85 S.Ct. 783, 13 L.Ed.2d 630 (1965).
The fact that Congress has retained a statutory right to self- representation suggests that it has also assumed that the Sixth Amendment does not guarantee such a right. See 28 U.S.C. 1654.
Dan V. McKASKLE, Acting Director, Texas Department of Corrections, Petitioner, v. Carl Edwin WIGGINS.
William Stewart McDOWELL v. UNITED STATES.

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