Opinion ID: 2582516
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Whether appellant's request for self-representation was equivocal

Text: The district court found Gallego's request to be equivocal because Gallego also asked the court for substitution of counsel. The pertinent facts are the following. In September 1998, the district court appointed the Nevada State Public Defender to represent Gallego. Gallego filed a motion for permission to represent himself on October 8, 1998. This motion unequivocally asked the court to allow Gallego to represent himself. When Gallego first appeared before the district court on October 16, 1998, he informed the court, I am my attorney. Gallego's counsel, McGuire, then asked for a determination of Gallego's competency, and for most of a year the proceedings in district court largely related to this issue. During a competency hearing in November 1998, Gallego told the court that his appointed attorneys were trying to kill him and he wanted another lawyer. The court asked, Are you saying you don't want to represent yourself? Gallego said, I want another lawyer, one I can talk to, a real lawyer like [the State] got. The court said, it appears for the record that you want an attorney, you just don't want the attorneys you have right now; is that correct, sir? Gallego said, I want an attorney that is going to represent me. It's just that simple. In July 1999, the district court found that Gallego was competent. In August 1999, McGuire filed a brief supporting Gallego's motion for self-representation. McGuire asserted that if a canvass under Faretta showed that Gallego had made his decision with a clear comprehension of the attendant risks, then he had the right to waive counsel and represent himself. Around the same time, Gallego submitted a pro per request for discharge of McGuire and substitution of counsel. At a hearing on August 24, 1999, as the district court began to canvass Gallego on his request to represent himself, he asked the court to first address his motion for substitute counsel. The court agreed to do so. Gallego said that McGuire had a conflict of interest and there was a lack of trust and total breakdown of communications. He therefore asked the court to terminate Mr. McGuire and appoint new counsel. Gallego insisted that the motion for substitute counsel was not connected to his motion to represent himself. He said, I don't know how the court is going to rule on my motion to represent myself, but either way I would object to Mr. McGuire. Gallego acknowledged that because he was indigent he was not entitled to counsel of his choice, but he asked the court for any counsel other than McGuire or anyone from his office. McGuire agreed that there had been an irremediable breakdown in the attorney-client relationship and joined in Gallego's motion. Without addressing the motion for self-representation or conducting a Faretta canvass, the court denied Gallego's motion to represent himself, finding it equivocal. We conclude that the record does not support this finding. During the August 1999 hearing, the district court, Gallego, McGuire, and the prosecutor all to some degree obscured the discussion of the motion for substitute counsel with references to the motion for self-representation. It was reasonable, however, for Gallego to ask the court to first decide the motion for substitution of new counsel because granting it would have rendered the motion for self-representation moot. And although Gallego stated more than once that his motion for substitute counsel was a separate request, the court never distinguished it from the motion for self-representation. Thus, the court saw the request for new counsel as nothing more than an equivocal element in the motion for self-representation. However, this equivocation might have been eliminated if the court had addressed the motions separately. There is no question that Gallego sought to have new counsel appointed. Though relevant to a request for self-representation, this is not dispositive. Numerous courts have recognized that a request to proceed without counsel can be unequivocal even if in the alternative the defendant would prefer a different attorney. [12] The Ninth Circuit's analysis in Adams v. Carroll is apt. Although [Adams's] two self-representation requests were sandwiched around a request for counsel, this was not evidence of vacillation. To the contrary, each of these requests stemmed from one consistent position: Adams first requested to represent himself when his relationship with Carroll broke down. He later requested counsel, but with the express qualification that he did not want Carroll. When Carroll was reappointed, Adams again asked to represent himself. Throughout the period before trial, Adams repeatedly indicated his desire to represent himself if the only alternative was the appointment of Carroll. While his requests no doubt were conditional, they were not equivocal. [13] Here, it appears that Gallego's requests to represent himself and for substitute counsel also stemmed from one consistent position: his desire to discharge McGuire as his counsel. Although an unequivocal request for self-representation can be conditional, it must speak to self-representation and not simply to a dissatisfaction with current counsel, and a court can insist that the defendant explicitly cho[o]se to proceed pro se once informed that a substitution of counsel will not be permitted. [14] Gallego's request went beyond dissatisfaction with counsel and expressly sought self-representation, but he was never presented the explicit choice to proceed in proper person. The question is whether Gallego wanted to represent himself if he could not have new counsel. We do not have a definitive answer to this because no record was made on the issue. The district court's conclusion that Gallego's request was equivocal was, at best, premature. The court should have denied the request for substitute counsel and then ascertained whether Gallego nevertheless wanted to represent himself. The record as it stands suggests that Gallego would have preferred to represent himself rather than be represented by McGuire and the State Public Defender. Therefore, the district court erred in finding the request equivocal simply because Gallego preferred to have new counsel.