Source: https://scocal.stanford.edu/opinion/people-v-maddox-22595
Timestamp: 2020-07-02 18:22:42
Document Index: 736924871

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 13', '§ 13', '§ 686', '§ 1049', '§ 1050', '§ 859', '§ 860', '§ 1018']

People v. Maddox - 67 Cal.2d 647 - Thu, 11/09/1967 | California Supreme Court Resources
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Citation 67 Cal.2d 647
People v. Maddox , 67 Cal.2d 647
On December 27, an information was filed charging defendant [67 Cal.2d 649] with attempted escape and battery on Officer Sanders. He was not represented by counsel, and requested continuances until January 10, 1966.
"The Defendant: Well, your Honor, I would like the [67 Cal.2d 650] record to show I have running objections as to prohibit any further proceedings in this case. ...
The taking of testimony began after the noon recess, and the People's case was concluded the same day. The following morning defendant was able to put on the stand only one useful witness, his former codefendant West, who had been easy to find as he was incarcerated in the building in which the courtroom was situated. Most of defendant's other witnesses, however, could not be located by the process servers in time for resumption of the proceedings that day. The court [67 Cal.2d 651] denied defendant's request for a list of the names of the deputy sheriffs assigned to the Brunswig Building on November 10, 1965, whom he wished to call as witnesses to establish Officer Sanders' hostility towards him, and also denied his request for a transcript of the previous day's testimony for impeachment purposes.
[1] The defendant in a criminal case has the constitutional right to waive counsel and represent himself if he knowingly and intelligently elects to do so. (Cal. Const., art. I, § 13; People v. Carter (1967) 66 Cal.2d 666, 672 [58 Cal.Rptr. 614, 427 P.2d 214], and cases there cited.) fn. 1 No question has ever been raised in this case as to defendant's competence to make that decision. Accordingly, the court erred in denying his motion to proceed in propria persona on January 14, 1966; and the error was repeated each time the subsequent efforts of defendant or the public defender to secure the observance of this right were frustrated.
The court finally allowed defendant to represent himself, but its sudden about-face on this issue occurred on the very [67 Cal.2d 652] morning the trial was to begin. The dispositive question, therefore, is whether defendant was entitled to a reasonable continuance at that point to prepare himself for trial.
[2] The problems posed by defense requests for continuances at the start or in the course of trial have recently engaged our attention in varying contexts. (See, e.g., Jennings v. Superior Court (1967) 66 Cal.2d 867 [59 Cal.Rptr. 440, 428 P.2d 304]; People v. Carter (1967) supra, 66 Cal.2d 666; People v. Crovedi (1966) 65 Cal.2d 199 [53 Cal.Rptr. 284, 416 P.2d 868].) In Jennings we reiterated that " 'While the determination of whether in any given case a continuance should be granted "normally rests in the discretion of the trial court" (People v. Buckowski (1951) 37 Cal.2d 629, 631 [233 P.2d 912]), that discretion may not be exercised in such a manner as to deprive the defendant of a reasonable opportunity to prepare his defense. "That counsel for a defendant has a right to reasonable opportunity to prepare for a trial is as fundamental as is the right to counsel." (People v. Sarazzawski (1945) 27 Cal.2d 7, 17 [161 P.2d 934]; accord, Cooper v. Superior Court (1961) 55 Cal.2d 291, 302 [10 Cal.Rptr. 842, 359 P.2d 274].)' " (Jennings v. Superior Court (1967) supra, at pp. 875-876 of 66 Cal.2d, quoting from People v. Murphy (1963) 59 Cal.2d 818, 825 [31 Cal.Rptr. 306, 382 P.2d 346].)
The rationale, of course, is that a counsel who has been denied the opportunity to prepare is the equivalent of no counsel at all: "the denial of opportunity for appointed counsel to confer, to consult with the accused and to prepare his defense, could convert the appointment of counsel into a sham and nothing more than a formal compliance with the Constitution's requirement that an accused be given the assistance of counsel." (Avery v. Alabama (1940) 308 U.S. 444, 446 [84 L.Ed. 377, 379, 60 S.Ct. 321].) Such an accused has not been "accorded the right of counsel in any substantial sense. ... The prompt disposition of criminal cases is to be commended and encouraged. But in reaching that result a defendant, charged with a serious crime, must not be stripped of his right to have sufficient time to advise with counsel and prepare his defense." (Powell v. Alabama (1932) 287 U.S. 45, 58, 59 [77 L.Ed. 158, 165, 166, 53 S.Ct. 55, 84 A.L.R. 527].)
[3] In short, just as a defendant may not be brought to trial too late (Cal. Const., art. I, § 13; Pen. Code, §§ 686, [67 Cal.2d 653] 1382; Klopfer v. North Carolina (1967) 386 U.S. 213 [18 L.Ed.2d 1, 87 S.Ct. 988]), he may also not be brought to trial too soon, i.e., without adequate opportunity for preparation of his defense (see, e.g., In re Newbern (1960) 53 Cal.2d 786, 790 [3 Cal.Rptr. 364, 350 P.2d 116]; Cornell v. Superior Court (1959) 52 Cal.2d 99, 102-103 [338 P.2d 447]; In re Ochse (1951) 38 Cal.2d 230, 231 [238 P.2d 561]; People v. Sarazzawski (1945) supra, 27 Cal.2d 7, 17; cf. People v. Douglas (1964) 61 Cal.2d 430, 434 [38 Cal.Rptr. 384, 392 P.2d 964]). Implementing this rule, the Legislature has provided that "After his plea, the defendant is entitled to at least five days to prepare for trial." (Pen. Code, § 1049.) A violation of this statute is not just a procedural deficiency, but an error of constitutional dimensions: "forcing petitioner to trial in less than the minimum time provided by statute to prepare a defense, despite requests for a continuance, resulted in a denial of due process of law." (In re Newbern (1960) supra, 53 Cal.2d 786, 791.)
These principles are equally applicable to a defendant who competently elects to serve as his own attorney. It is true that such a defendant "is not entitled either to privileges and indulgences not accorded attorneys or to privileges and indulgences not accorded defendants who are represented by counsel." (People v. Mattson (1959) 51 Cal.2d 777, 794 [336 P.2d 937].) But neither is he entitled to less consideration than such persons. In particular he must be given, if he requires it, as much time to prepare for trial as an attorney; and if a reasonable continuance is necessary for this purpose, it must be granted upon timely request. To deny him that opportunity would be to render his right to appear in propria persona an empty formality, and in effect deny him the right to counsel.
Thus in People v. Moss (1967) 253 Cal.App.2d 248 [61 Cal.Rptr. 107], the public defender was relieved at the defendant's request at the outset of trial because of an irreconcilable difference of opinion which had suddenly arisen over trial tactics. The court "assumed" there were no other counsel available, ordered the defendant to represent himself, and denied a continuance "at this late date because the jury is impaneled and ready to proceed." (Id at p. 249.) Reversing the ensuing judgment of conviction, the Court of Appeal correctly held that the "denial of a continuance for a reasonable time in which to organize the presentation of his [67 Cal.2d 654] defense" deprived the defendant "of his constitutional right to be represented by counsel" (id at pp. 249-250, 251). fn. 2
[5] The People also urge that defendant did not sufficiently show the need for a continuance either to obtain witnesses or to undertake legal research. The argument misses [67 Cal.2d 655] the mark. We are not here concerned with the validity of those or any other particular statutory grounds for continuing the trial; we vindicate, rather, defendant's general constitutional right to adequate time for the preparation of his defense. fn. 5
We do not condone the device of claiming the right to appear in propria persona for the purpose merely of delaying the trial (see, e.g., People v. Duncan (1959) 175 Cal.App.2d 372, 381-382 [346 P.2d 521]), but there is neither allegation nor evidence of such abuse here. Nor do we overlook the legislative policy in favor of prompt disposition of criminal cases and against unnecessary continuances (Pen. Code, § 1050); that policy, however commendable in intent, does not transcend any of the basic elements of due process of law. As we observed in People v. Crovedi (1966) supra, 65 Cal.2d 199, 209, "We do not demand prescience of trial courts faced with decisions involving the right of representation by counsel--but we must require of them a resourceful diligence directed toward the protection of that right to the fullest extent consistent with effective judicial administration."
Traynor, C. J., Peters, J., Tobriner, J., Burke, J., and Sullivan, J., concurred. [67 Cal.2d 656]
I dissent. I would affirm the judgment for the reasons expressed by Mr. Justice Fourt in the opinion prepared by him for the Court of Appeal in People v. Maddox (Cal.App.) 59 Cal.Rptr. 500.
­FN 1. We are not here concerned with the practical qualifications to that rule in cases in which the defendant wishes to enter a guilty plea to a charge of felony before the arraigning magistrate (Pen. Code, § 859a), a waiver of his right to a preliminary examination (Pen. Code, § 860), or a guilty plea to a crime punishable by death or life imprisonment without possibility of parole (Pen. Code, § 1018). For the relation between these statutes and the defendant's constitutional right to represent himself, see People v. Ballentine (1952) 39 Cal.2d 193 [246 P.2d 35].
­FN 2. We express no opinion as to the soundness of the Court of Appeal's alternate holding that the right to counsel "encompasses the right to the appointment of different counsel when a legitimate difference of opinion develops between a defendant and his appointed counsel as to a fundamental trial tactic." (Id at p. 251.) Here, defendant did not seek "the appointment of different counsel" but simply the right to represent himself.
­FN 3. The 60-day continuance first requested by defendant was probably excessive; but the court was not bound by the figure specified, and in any event defendant subsequently reduced his request to five days.
­FN 4. On cross- examination Mr. Spencer explained:
­FN 5. In any event, defendant's showing on each of the two grounds mentioned was sufficient as a matter of law. As to the first, although the court ordered subpoenas for all the witnesses actually named by defendant, the record establishes that most of them could not be reached in the few hours available to the process servers. Nor, in the case of the list of deputy sheriffs assigned to the Brunswig Building on November 10, 1965, was defendant asking the court to locate private persons whose names and addresses were unknown (see, e.g., People v. Sullivan (1962) 206 Cal.App.2d 36, 41 [23 Cal.Rptr. 558]); instead, the reference was to the sheriffs on duty at a specific facility on a specific date, facts which should have been easily ascertainable from official records.
As to the use of the law library, the present case is controlled not by the rule that a convict in prison has no enforceable right to engage in legal research (In re Allison (1967) 66 Cal.2d 282, 289 [57 Cal.Rptr. 593, 425 P.2d 193]), but by the very different rule that a defendant awaiting trial in propria persona should, "at a minimum, be allowed reasonable access to such legal materials as are available at the facility in which he is confined" and "in many felony cases the minimum may not be sufficient" (People v. Carter (1967) supra, 66 Cal.2d 666, 672). The latter requirement was not fulfilled here by the circumstance that defendant had been allowed to use the law library on March 23-25, 1966, to prepare himself in another pending case, as it was not until March 28 that he learned he would be permitted to proceed in propria persona in the case at bar.
Thu, 11/09/1967 67 Cal.2d 647 Review - Criminal Appeal Opinion issued
Nov 9 1967 Opinion: Reversed
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