Opinion ID: 697732
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Adequacy of the Faretta canvass.

Text: 125 The majority expresses its view in summary fashion that the Faretta canvass was adequate as to both the guilty plea and waiver of counsel. The majority's summary analysis fails to acknowledge that the trial court was required to exercise a heightened degree of care because Mr. Moran was unstable to the point of suicide, because he was under the influence of state-prescribed drugs, and because he was facing the death sentence. Applying the required heightened standard, the canvass was inadequate because Moran's often rote responses to the court's questioning actually raised more questions than they answered. 7 126 I am perplexed by majority's treatment of the Faretta canvass in this case. On the one hand, the majority finds the judge's questioning of Moran to be inadequate to quiet doubts about Moran's competence. On the other hand, it finds the same sequence of questions to be adequate to determine that Moran's waivers were knowing, intelligent, and voluntary, an inquiry which requires competence plus a free and rational choice. The trial court was required to indulge every reasonable presumption against waiver. Brewer, 430 U.S. at 404, 97 S.Ct. at 1242. If the Faretta canvass was inadequate to establish competence, how can it have been adequate to establish waiver? 127 I would find that the Faretta canvass, by itself, is inadequate to establish that Moran's waiver of constitutional rights was knowing, intelligent, and voluntary. 128