Opinion ID: 1133414
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Trial Court's Inquiry Into Defendant's Complaint About His Counsel

Text: On April 26, 1991, the trial court held a hearing to consider defendant's complaint that he had asked lead counsel Louis Bernstein to investigate something, but that Bernstein had made himself unavailable. Defendant also told the court: I need to spend a lot of time with my counsel on this type of case, and some of the things that has [sic] been done with my witnesses, real important witnesses, one witness is more important than the other ten witnesses in this case. I think [Bernstein] recklessly blew my chance of using that witness.... [4] Attorney Bernstein explained that defendant simply disagreed with counsel's tactical decisions. He noted that for the first year of representing Mr. Earp, Mr. Earp told a particular story, suggesting that defendant's disagreement with counsel's decisions stemmed from a recent change in defendant's version of events. Bernstein added that he had met with defendant eight to ten times and had discussed the case with him via phone on numerous occasions. The trial court found no reason to relieve attorney Bernstein as defendant's counsel. Citing People v. Marsden (1970) 2 Cal.3d 118, 84 Cal.Rptr. 156, 465 P.2d 44, defendant claims that the trial court at that hearing failed to make adequate inquiry into these problems. We reject this contention. In Marsden, we said: [A] judge who denies a motion for substitution of attorneys solely on the basis of his courtroom observations, despite a defendant's offer to relate specific instances of misconduct, abuses the exercise of his discretion to determine the competency of the attorney. A judicial decision made without giving a party an opportunity to present argument or evidence in support of his contention `is lacking in all the attributes of a judicial determination.' ( Spector v. Superior Court (1961) 55 Cal.2d 839, 843 [13 Cal.Rptr. 189, 361 P.2d 909].) ( People v. Marsden, supra, 2 Cal.3d at p. 124, 84 Cal.Rptr. 156, 465 P.2d 44.) A defendant is entitled to have appointed counsel discharged upon a showing that counsel `is not providing adequate representation' or that counsel and defendant `have become embroiled in such an irreconcilable conflict that ineffective representation is likely to result.' ( People v. Memro (1995) 11 Cal.4th 786, 857, 47 Cal.Rptr.2d 219, 905 P.2d 1305.) We review a trial court's decision declining to relieve appointed counsel under the deferential abuse of discretion standard. ( People v. Berryman, supra, 6 Cal.4th 1048, 1070, 25 Cal.Rptr.2d 867, 864 P.2d 40.) We discern no such abuse here. Defendant apparently disagreed with Bernstein's tactical decisions, but the record of the hearing on defendant's request to relieve counsel fails to reveal that the disagreement was irreconcilable or likely to result in ineffective representation. We therefore reject defendant's contention that the trial court here abused its discretion in conducting the inquiry into defendant's complaint about defense attorney Bernstein that preceded the court's decision not to remove Bernstein as counsel. [5]