Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/528/152/
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 22:02:50+00:00

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Justia › US Law › US Case Law › US Supreme Court › Volume 528 › Martinez v. Court of Appeal of Cal., Fourth Appellate Dist.
Accused of converting a client's money to his own use while employed as a paralegal, petitioner Martinez was charged by California with grand theft and the fraudulent appropriation of another's property. He chose to represent himself at trial before a jury, which acquitted him of theft but convicted him of embezzlement. He then filed a timely notice of appeal, a motion to represent himself, and a waiver of counsel. The California Court of Appeal denied his motion to represent himself based on its prior holding that there is no constitutional right to selfrepresentation on direct appeal under Faretta v. California, 422 U. S. 806, in which this Court held that a criminal defendant has a constitutional right to conduct his own defense at trial when he voluntarily and intelligently elects to proceed without counsel, id., at 807, 836. The state court had explained that the right to counsel on appeal stems from the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment, not from the Sixth Amendment on which Faretta was based, and held that the denial of self-representation at this level does not violate due process or equal protection. The California Supreme Court denied Martinez' application for a writ of mandate.
ment deals strictly with trial rights and does not include any right to appeal, see Abney v. United States, 431 U. S. 651, 656, it necessarily follows that the Amendment itself does not provide any basis for finding a right to appellate self-representation. Faretta's inquiries into historical English practices, 422 U. S., at 821-824, do not provide a basis for extending that case to the appellate process because there was no appeal from a criminal conviction in England until 1907. Third, although Faretta's conclusion that a knowing and intelligent waiver of the right to trial counsel must be honored out of respect for individual autonomy, id., at 834, is also applicable in the appellate context, this Court has recognized that the right is not absolute, see id., at 835. Given the Court's conclusion that the Sixth Amendment does not apply to appellate proceedings, any individual right to self-representation on appeal based on autonomy principles must be grounded in the Due Process Clause. Under the practices prevailing in the Nation today, the Court is entirely unpersuaded that the risk of disloyalty by a court-appointed attorney, or the suspicion of such disloyalty, that underlies the constitutional right of self-representation at trial, see id., at 834, is a sufficient concern to conclude that such a right is a necessary component of a fair appellate proceeding. The States are clearly within their discretion to conclude that the government's interests in ensuring the integrity and efficiency of the appellate process outweigh an invasion of the appellant's interest in self-representation, although the Court's narrow holding does not preclude the States from recognizing a constitutional right to appellate self-representation under their own constitutions. Pp. 156-164.
STEVENS, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which REHNQUIST, C. J., and O'CONNOR, KENNEDY, SOUTER, THOMAS, GINSBURG, and BREYER, JJ., joined. KENNEDY, J., post, p. 164, and BREYER, J., post, p. 164, filed concurring opinions. SCALIA, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, post, p. 165.
Ronald D. Maines, by appointment of the Court, 526 U. S. 1110, argued the cause and filed briefs for petitioner.
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 imprisonmenU In Faretta v. California, 422 U. S. 806 (1975), we decided that the defendant also "has a constitutional right to proceed without counsel when he voluntarily and intelligently elects to do so." Id., at 807. Although that statement arguably embraces the entire judicial proceeding, we also phrased the question as 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." Ibid. Our conclusion in Faretta extended only to a defendant's "constitutional right to conduct his own defense." Id., at 836. Accordingly, our specific holding was confined to the right to defend oneself at trial. We now address the different question whether the reasoning in support of that holding also applies when the defendant becomes an appellant and assumes the burden of persuading a reviewing court that the conviction should be reversed. We have concluded that it does not.
Martinez describes himself as a self-taught paralegal with 25 years' experience at 12 different law firms. See App. 13.
* Kent S. Scheidegger and Charles L. Hobson filed a brief for the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation as amicus curiae urging affirmance.
Barbara E. Bergman and Ephraim Margolin filed a brief for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers as amicus curiae.
1 See, e. g., Powell v. Alabama, 287 U. S. 45 (1932); Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U. S. 458 (1938); Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U. S. 335 (1963); Argersinger v. Hamlin, 407 U. S. 25 (1972).
"There is no constitutional right to self-representation on the initial appeal as of right. The right to counsel on appeal stems from the due process and equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment, not from the Sixth Amendment, which is the foundation on which Faretta is based. The denial of self-representation at this level does not violate due process or equal protection guarantees." People v. Scott, 64 Cal. App. 4th 550, 554, 75 Cal. Rptr. 2d 315, 318 (1998).
We granted certiorari because Martinez has raised a question on which both state and federal courts have expressed conflicting views.2 526 U. S. 1064 (1999). We now affirm.
The Faretta majority based its conclusion on three interrelated arguments. First, it examined historical evidence identifying a right of self-representation that had been protected by federal and state law since the beginning of our Nation, 422 U. S., at 812-817. Second, it interpreted the structure of the Sixth Amendment, in the light of its English and colonial background, id., at 818-832. Third, it concluded that even though it "is undeniable that in most criminal prosecutions defendants could better defend with counsel's guidance than by their own unskilled efforts," a knowing and intelligent waiver "must be honored out of 'that respect for the individual which is the lifeblood of the law.' Illinois v. Allen, 397 U. S. 337, 350-351 [(1970)]." Id., at 834. Some of the Court's reasoning is applicable to appellate proceedings as well as to trials. There are, however, significant distinctions.
(CA8 1984) (same); Commonwealth v. Rogers, 537 Pa. 581, 583, 645 A. 2d 223, 224 (1994) (same); State v. Van Pelt, 305 Ark. 125, 127, 810 S. W. 2d 27,28 (1991) (same); Webb v. State, 274 Ind. 540, 542, 412 N. E. 2d 790, 792 (1980) (same); Webb v. State, 533 S. W. 2d 780, 784 (Tex. Crim. App. 1976) (same), with United States v. Gillis, 773 F.2d 549, 560 (CA4 1985) (finding no right of self-representation on appeal); Lumbert v. Finley, 735 F.2d 239, 246 (CA7 1984) (same); Hill v. State, 656 So. 2d 1271, 1272 (Fla. 1995) (same); State v. Gillespie, 898 S. W. 2d 738 (Tenn. Crim. App. 1994) (same).
17th century. The prejudice persisted into the 18th century as 'the lower classes came to identify lawyers with the upper class.' The years of Revolution and Confederation saw an upsurge of antilawyer sentiment, a 'sudden revival, after the War of the Revolution, of the old dislike and distrust of lawyers as a class.' " Faretta, 422 U. S., at 826-827 (footnotes omitted).
It has since been recognized, however, that an indigent defendant in a criminal trial has a constitutional right to the assistance of appointed counsel, see Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U. S. 335 (1963). Thus, an individual's decision to represent himself is no longer compelled by the necessity of choosing self-representation over incompetent or nonexistent representation; rather, it more likely reflects a genuine desire to " 'conduct his own cause in his own words.'" Faretta, 422 U. S., at 823 (footnote omitted). Therefore, while Faretta is correct in concluding that there is abundant support for the proposition that a right to self-representation has been recognized for centuries, the original reasons for protecting that right do not have the same force when the availability of competent counsel for every indigent defendant has displaced the need-although not always the desire-for self-representation.
The scant historical evidence pertaining to the issue of self-representation on appeal is even less helpful. The Court in Faretta relied upon the description of the right in § 35 of the Judiciary Act of 1789, 1 Stat. 92, which states that "the parties may plead and manage their own causes personally or by the assistance of such counsel .... " 422 U. S., at 812. It is arguable that this language encompasses appeals as well as trials. Assuming it does apply to appellate proceedings, however, the statutory right is expressly limited by the phrase "as by the rules of the said courts." 1 Stat. 92. Appellate courts have maintained the discretion to allow litigants to "manage their own causes"-and some such litigants have done so effectively.5 That opportunity, however, has been consistently subject to each court's own rules.
749, 750 (Fla. 1968) (finding voluntary and intelligent waiver of right to proceed pro se).
5 See, e. g., SEe v. Sloan, 436 U. S. 103 (1978) (pro se respondent argued, briefed, and prevailed in the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and this Court).
We are not aware of any historical consensus establishing a right of self-representation on appeal. We might, nonetheless, paraphrase Faretta and assert: No State or Colony ever forced counsel upon a convicted appellant, and no spokesman ever suggested that such a practice would be tolerable or advisable. 422 U. S., at 832. Such negative historical evidence was meaningful to the Faretta Court, because the fact that the "[dog] had not barked" 6 arguably demonstrated that early lawmakers intended to preserve the "long-respected right of self-representation" at trial. Ibid. Historical silence, however, has no probative force in the appellate context because there simply was no long-respected right of self-representation on appeal. In fact, the right of appeal itself is of relatively recent origin.
Appeals as of right in federal courts were nonexistent for the first century of our Nation, and appellate review of any sort was "rarely allowed." Abney v. United States, 431 U. S. 651,656, n. 3 (1977). The States, also, did not generally recognize an appeal as of right until Washington became the first to constitutionalize the right explicitly in 1889.7 There was similarly no right to appeal in criminal cases at common law, and appellate review of any sort was "limited" and "rarely used." 8 Thus, unlike the inquiry in Faretta, the historical evidence does not provide any support for an affirmative constitutional right to appellate self-representation.
6 A. Conan Doyle, Silver Blaze, in The Complete Sherlock Holmes 383, 400 (1938).
7 See Lobsenz, A Constitutional Right to An Appeal: Guarding Against Unacceptable Risks of Erroneous Conviction, 8 U. Puget Sound L. Rev. 375, 376 (1985). Although Washington was the first State to constitutionalize an appeal as of right, almost all of the States historically had some form of discretionary appellate review. See generally L. Orfield, Criminal Appeals in America 215-231 (1939).
81 J. Stephen, A History of the Criminal Law of England 308-310 (1883).
in "all criminal prosecutions." They are presented strictly as rights that are available in preparation for trial and at the trial itself. The Sixth Amendment does not include any right to appeal. As we have recognized, "[t]he right of appeal, as we presently know it in criminal cases, is purely a creature of statute." Abney, 431 U. S., at 656. It necessarily follows that the Amendment itself does not provide any basis for finding a right to self-representation on appeal.
The Faretta majority's nontextual interpretation of the Sixth Amendment also included an examination of British criminal jurisprudence and a reference to the opprobrious trial practices before the Star Chamber. 422 U. S., at 821824. These inquiries into historical English practices, however, again do not provide a basis for extending Faretta to the appellate process, because there was no appeal from a criminal conviction in England until 1907. See Griffin v. Illinois, 351 U. S. 12, 21 (1956) (Frankfurter, J., concurring in judgment); 7 Edw. VII, ch. 23 (1907). Indeed, none of our many cases safeguarding the rights of an indigent appellant has placed any reliance on either the Sixth Amendment or on Faretta. See, e. g., Douglas v. California, 372 U. S. 353, 356-358 (1963); Griffin, 351 U. S., at 12.
Finally, the Faretta majority found that the right to selfrepresentation at trial was grounded in part in a respect for individual autonomy. See 422 U. S., at 834. This consideration is, of course, also applicable to an appellant seeking to manage his own case. As we explained in Faretta, at the trial level "[t]o force a lawyer on a defendant can only lead him to believe that the law contrives against him." Ibid. On appellate review, there is surely a similar risk that the appellant will be skeptical of whether a lawyer, who is employed by the same government that is prosecuting him, will serve his cause with undivided loyalty. Equally true on appeal is the related observation that it is the appellant personally who will bear the consequences of the appeal. See ibid.
In light of our conclusion that the Sixth Amendment does not apply to appellate proceedings, any individual right to self-representation on appeal based on autonomy principles must be grounded in the Due Process Clause. Under the practices that prevail in the Nation today, however, we are entirely unpersuaded that the risk of either disloyalty or suspicion of disloyalty is a sufficient concern to conclude that a constitutional right of self-representation is a necessary component of a fair appellate proceeding. We have no doubt that instances of disloyal representation are rare. In both trials and appeals there are, without question, cases in which counsel's performance is ineffective. Even in those cases, however, it is reasonable to assume that counsel's performance is more effective than what the unskilled appellant could have provided for himself.
9 Some critics argue that the right to proceed pro se at trial in certain cases is akin to allowing the defendant to waive his right to a fair trial. See, e. g., United States v. Farhad, 190 F.3d 1097, 1106-1107 (CA9 1999) (Reinhardt, J., concurring specially), cert. pending, No. 99-7127.
10 Decker, The Sixth Amendment Right to Shoot Oneself in the Foot: An Assessment of the Guarantee of Self-Representation Twenty Years after Faretta, 6 Seton Hall Const. L. J. 483, 598 (1996).
422 U. S., at 835 (quoting Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U. S. 458, 464-465 (1938)), and most courts require him to do so in a timely manner.ll He must first be "made aware of the dangers and disadvantages of self-representation." 422 U. S., at 835. A trial judge may also terminate self-representation or appoint "standby counsel"-even over the defendant's objection-if necessary. Id., at 834, n. 46. We have further held that standby counsel may participate in the trial proceedings, even without the express consent of the defendant, as long as that participation does not "seriously undermin[e]" the "appearance before the jury" that the defendant is representing himself. McKaskle v. Wiggins, 465 U. S. 168, 187 (1984). Additionally, the trial judge is under no duty to provide personal instruction on courtroom procedure or to perform any legal "chores" for the defendant that counsel would normally carry out. Id., at 183-184. Even at the trial level, therefore, the government's interest in ensuring the integrity and efficiency of the trial at times outweighs the defendant's interest in acting as his own lawyer.
11 See id., at 544-550 (collecting cases).
but rather to overturn a finding of guilt made by a judge or a jury below." Ross v. Moffitt, 417 U. S. 600, 610 (1974).
In the words of the Faretta majority, appellate proceedings are simply not a case of "hal[ing] a person into its criminal courts." 422 U. S., at 807.
The requirement of representation by trained counsel implies no disrespect for the individual inasmuch as it tends to benefit the appellant as well as the court. Courts, of course, may still exercise their discretion to allow a lay person to proceed pro se. We already leave to the appellate courts' discretion, keeping "the best interests of both the prisoner and the government in mind," the decision whether to allow a pro se appellant to participate in, or even to be present at, oral argument. Price v. Johnston, 334 U. S. 266, 284 (1948). Considering the change in position from defendant to appellant, the autonomy interests that survive a felony conviction are less compelling than those motivating the decision in Faretta. Yet the overriding state interest in the fair and efficient administration of justice remains as strong as at the trial level. Thus, the States are clearly within their discretion to conclude that the government's interests outweigh an invasion of the appellant's interest in self-representation.
Price, 334 U. S., at 285-286. Meanwhile the rules governing appeals in California, and presumably those in other States as well, seem to protect the ability of indigent litigants to make pro se filings. See, e. g., People v. Wende, 25 Cal. 3d 436,440, 600 P. 2d 1071, 1074 (1979); see also Anders v. California, 386 U. S. 738 (1967). In requiring Martinez, under these circumstances, to accept against his will a stateappointed attorney, the California courts have not deprived him of a constitutional right. Accordingly, the judgment of the California Supreme Court is affirmed.
To resolve this case it is unnecessary to cast doubt upon the rationale of Faretta v. California, 422 U. S. 806 (1975). Faretta can be accepted as quite sound, yet it does not follow that a convicted person has a similar right of selfrepresentation on appeal. Different considerations apply in the appellate system, and the Court explains why this is so. With these observations, I join the opinion of the Court.
practice, we are not in a position to reconsider the constitutional assumptions that underlie that case.
I do not share the apparent skepticism of to day's opinion concerning the judgment of the Court (often curiously described as merely the judgment of "the majority") in Faretta v. California, 422 U. S. 806 (1975). I have no doubt that the Framers of our Constitution, who were suspicious enough of governmental power-including judicial power-that they insisted upon a citizen's right to be judged by an independent jury of private citizens, would not have found acceptable the compulsory assignment of counsel by the government to plead a criminal defendant's case. While I might have rested the decision upon the Due Process Clause rather than the Sixth Amendment, I believe it was correct.
That asserting the right of self-representation may often, or even usually, work to the defendant's disadvantage is no more remarkable-and no more a basis for withdrawing the right-than is the fact that proceeding without counsel in custodial interrogation, or confessing to the crime, usually works to the defendant's disadvantage. Our system of laws generally presumes that the criminal defendant, after being fully informed, knows his own best interests and does not need them dictated by the State. Any other approach is unworthy of a free people. As Justice Frankfurter eloquently put it for the Court in Adams v. United States ex rel. McCann, 317 U. S. 269 (1942), to require the acceptance of counsel "is to imprison a man in his privileges and call it the Constitution." Id., at 280.
far as the Federal Constitution is concerned, subject its trial-court determinations to no review whatever, it could a fortiori subject them to review which consists of a nonadversarial reexamination of convictions by a panel of government experts. Adversarial review with counsel appointed by the State is even less questionable than that.
For these reasons, I concur in the judgment of the Court.
Court of Appeals of Cal., Fourth Appellate Dist.

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