Opinion ID: 3050723
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Right to be Present at March 4, 1998 Conference

Text: I agree that Bradley’s due process rights were violated by her exclusion from the March 4, 1998 in-chambers conference. Any hearing that threatens a defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to representation by retained counsel must be a fortiori a “critical stage” of the criminal proceeding, requiring the defendant’s presence. Kentucky v. Stincer, 482 U.S. 730, 745 (1987). However, the error is subject to review for harmlessness. See Campbell v. Rice, 408 F.3d 1166, 1172 (9th Cir. 2005) (en banc). The California Court of Appeal made a harmlessness determination: “Given the age of the case and the trial court’s own observations of a parade of retained attorneys passing through its court as counsel for Bradley, we cannot imagine anything that Bradley could have said that would have changed the court’s ruling.” In support of this conclusion, the court found that Bradley had no personal knowledge of her father’s financial arrangements with Dunlevy, nor any direct knowledge about her father’s alleged interference with the case. Absent clear and convincing evidence to the contrary, we must presume the correctness of these findings. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(1). In her opening brief, Bradley now argues that, had she been present and allowed to speak at the conference, she would have presented contrary evidence that Dunlevy had been adequately paid, that her father had not hired an investigator to harass the prosecutor, and that her father had not interfered BRADLEY v. HENRY 16529 with the attorney-client relationship. This is nothing more than the argument of counsel — speculation unsupported by testimony, affidavit or declaration.1 Lacking any such evidence, Bradley cannot now meet her burden of rebutting the factual findings underlying the Court of Appeal’s harmlessness determination.