Opinion ID: 2064646
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Waiver in This Case

Text: The nub of the problem in this case is that the record does not reflect that appellant understood the likely consequences  in a perjury-felony case  of attempting to represent himself. At his arraignment on June 30, 1976, after being informed of his right to counsel or self-representation, appellant expressed a desire to represent myself, pro se. The trial judge made no inquiry at all; he permitted appellant to proceed with his own defense. Almost two months later, at a motions hearing on August 20, 1976, appellant called the case in my opinion a trivial matter. A few minutes later, the trial judge made his first  and only  inquiry about appellant's understanding of what he was getting into. THE COURT: . . . Now, have you seen jury trials? Are you generally familiar with how they go? DR. HSU: Yes. In landlord tenant cases. I have several times. THE COURT: Okay. If you have any questions about rights or procedures at any time just stop and come up here and I will go over them with you because I want to make sure that you understand them. However, I have to treat both sides equally in the process, but if there are any problems about proof or how things come in or anything like that, we can discuss it at the bench and straighten it out. The complete inquiry by the court, therefore, was limited to one question about appellant's familiarity with jury trials in general  to which appellant gave a limited response, referring to civil landlord tenant cases. The court did not attempt to broaden appellant's understanding by contrasting a criminal felony trial with a landlord-tenant proceeding. It follows, therefore, that if a valid waiver is to be found, it must derive from facts and circumstances of record outside the colloquy between the judge and Dr. Hsu. [12] Perhaps the most obvious question is whether Dr. Hsu's educational credentials  a Ph.D. in engineering  coupled with his unhesitating, unequivocal decision to proceed pro se, should conclusively support the proposition that he waived the right to counsel knowingly and intelligently. While perhaps appealing, this argument is actually beguiling, for intellectual acumen in one field does not imply knowledge or valid perceptions about another. General intelligence and education do not equip one to cope with the science of law. Johnson v. Zerbst, supra at 463, 58 S.Ct. 1019. We cannot say, absent searching inquiry on the record, that Dr. Hsu, because he had a Ph.D. in engineering, should be deemed intelligent enough to have waived counsel knowingly and intelligently. Were we to take such an automatic approach, we should have to think through the relevance of a master's degree  or a bachelor's degree, an I.Q. test, a book one has written, or a professional accomplishment. We do not believe that judicial approval of the waiver of a constitutional right can be premised automatically on unrelated intellectual achievements. This point is especially important because one's degree of intellectuality has no certain bearing on the question whether one has made an informed judgment about the risks of conducting a felony trial pro se. If a waiver is to be knowing and intelligent, a defendant must have the necessary information. Dr. Hsu's Ph.D. did not give it to him. The government argues, next, that appellant's extensive experience as a pro se litigant provides substantial evidence of a knowing and intelligent waiver. Previous experience, it is true, is relevant to the inquiry, United States ex rel. Konigsberg v. Vincent, supra ; and it is true that appellant has represented himself on numerous landlord-tenant, housing-code violation, and traffic cases. Putting aside the fact that the record does not show the trial court relied on this experience as a basis for accepting appellant's waiver, we conclude that this evidence does not sufficiently support the government's position to sustain its burden to demonstrate waiver. There is precedent for an appellant court's taking judicial notice of the existence of other proceedings involving a defendant, in order to show his general familiarity with criminal procedure as that may bear  along with other evidence  on the question of waiver. See Hensley v. United States, 108 U.S.App.D.C. 242, 245 n.6, 281 F.2d 605, 608 n.6 (1960) (waiver of jury trial). Our case, however, is different from Hensley in two critical respects. First, Hensley used judicial notice as supplementary evidence of waiver. Here, however, to affirm the government's position we would have to use judicial notice of Dr. Hsu's other proceedings as virtually the entire record of a knowing and intelligent waiver, given the inadequacy of the trial court's colloquy with appellant on that question. Second, Hensley concerned waiver of a jury by a defendant who had been acquitted in two previous jury trials; his prior experience was thus directly in point. See United States ex rel. Konigsberg, supra ; United States v. Rosenthal, supra . Dr. Hsu's previous pro se experience, however, was in relatively less serious cases of a sort unrelated to the present felony prosecution; thus, we would have to note not only the existence of the other proceedings but also their details, in order to evaluate whether Dr. Hsu had acquired enough acumen to justify our imputing to him a knowledgeable waiver. We conclude that we would be temporizing with appellant's constitutional rights were we to do so. We would be creating precedent for upholding waivers based on less-than-compelling evidence almost entirely outside the record  evidence not dealt with at all, so far as the record shows, by the trial judge. We decline to do so. Yet, even if we were to evaluate Dr. Hsu's other experiences in court for the purpose of discerning waiver, we would have to say that his other trials appear to refute the government's position as much as support it. To the extent that the record in this case reflects these other proceedings, we must acknowledge the possibility that Dr. Hsu's pro se experience with minor civil and criminal matters actually may have misled him. There is no evidence that he previously had defended a serious felony charge; and his remarks to the trial judge indicate that his extensive experience with lesser matters may have led him to believe  erroneously  that his perjury prosecution, involving a jury trial, was trivial. One can respond to this point, of course, by arguing that Dr. Hsu's comments and responses calling his predicament trivial should be read, instead, as reflecting not ignorance but arrogance  as complete disdain for the legal system. (As the dissent at note 8, infra, indicates, the trial judge apparently believed, on the basis of other, unspecified Superior Court cases, that Dr. Hsu was a deceitful, disrespectful person.) Although this could be the case, one's character and motivation behind the choice to act pro se  even if uncommendable  cannot be said to reflect whether the decision is an informed one. [13] We simply cannot tell from the record whether Dr. Hsu's pro se election was a shrewd tactical maneuver, calculated in event of conviction to achieve the very result we reach here; or, instead, whether Dr. Hsu, with his extensive but narrow legal experience, was a victim of his own arrogance and ignorance. If we were to assume the former, we would be presuming a knowing and intelligent waiver without a record basis  in fact, contrary to the plain language of the interchange between Dr. Hsu and the court. We therefore would be finding a waiver based virtually on appellant's other minor trial experience alone. This we cannot do. See Carnley v. Cochran, supra ; cf. Hawkins v. United States, D.C. App., 385 A.2d 744, 746-47 (1978) (valid waiver of jury trial requires both a written waiver and oral assent in open court on the record). Our dissenting colleague finds a knowing and intelligent waiver based in part on a perception that appellant manifested some skill in handling his case and was financially able to hire counsel if he had truly needed one. We do not believe that a defendant's pro se performance at trial is relevant to the question whether he made a knowing and intelligent waiver prior to trial. The existence of a constitutional pretrial waiver cannot be made to turn on an appellate court's view as to whether, in retrospect, the defendant used relatively good judgment in representing himself at trial. A valid waiver, if there was one, was made prior to trial  or not at all. Nor do we believe, finally, that appellant's ability to afford counsel has a bearing on the existence of a valid waiver. No case has so held. Nor can we perceive how money in the bank, any more than a Ph.D. credential, suggests a basis for finding that a defendant made an informed waiver decision. In thinking through the waiver issue, we have been aware that waivers of fundamental constitutional rights  particularly the right to counsel  are not favored. Forty years ago, the Supreme Court observed: It has been pointed out that courts indulge every reasonable presumption against waiver of fundamental constitutional rights and that we do not presume acquiescence in the loss of fundamental rights. [ Johnson v. Zerbst, supra, 304 U.S. at 464, 58 S.Ct. at 1023 (footnotes omitted).] See Carnley v. Cochran, supra . As Justice Black emphasized again ten years later in Von Moltke, supra : To discharge [his or her] duty properly in light of the strong presumption against waiver of the constitutional right to counsel, a judge must investigate as long and as thoroughly as the circumstances of the case . . . demand. The fact that an accused may tell [the judge] that he is informed of his right to counsel and desires to waive this right does not automatically end the judge's responsibility. [ Id., 332 U.S. at 723-24, 68 S.Ct. at 323.] Faretta, supra, obviously forces a court to consider the waiver question in a new light, now that an accused has a constitutional right to self-representation, as well as to assistance of counsel. And yet Faretta does not relax the historic standard for judging whether an effort to waive the right to counsel has been knowingly and intelligently made. Because the record of this case does not evidence that the trial judge investigate[d] as long and as thoroughly as the circumstances of the case before him demand[ed], Von Moltke, supra at 723-24, 68 S.Ct. at 323, and because there are no adequate bases of record on which to conclude that appellant chose his course with his eyes open, we cannot hold that appellant waived his right to counsel. We turn, therefore, to our disposition. Because the Supreme Court has concluded that the assistance of counsel is among those `constitutional rights so basic to a fair trial that their infraction can never be treated as harmless error,' Chapman v. California [386 U.S. 18, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705], we conclude that reversal is automatic. Holloway v. Arkansas, 435 U.S. 475, 489, 98 S.Ct. 1173, 1181, 55 L.Ed.2d 426 (1978). [14] We note, in conclusion, that this case highlights one of the concerns of Justice Blackmun who, dissenting in Faretta, opined that among the future procedural problems and questions engendered by Faretta would be the standards of waiver and the treatment of the pro se defendant, [which matters] will haunt the trial of every defendant who elects to exercise his right to self-representation. Id., 422 U.S. at 852, 95 S.Ct. at 2549 (Blackmun, J., dissenting). We do not, however, find these problems insuperable. Once a pro se defendant makes a valid waiver of counsel, we do not believe that a trial court needs to treat that defendant any differently from a defendant represented by counsel. The fact that a defendant represents himself does not alter the judicial role nor does it impose any new obligation on the trial judge. The defendant under those circumstances must assume the responsibility for his inability to elicit testimony. As stated by [the Ninth Circuit] in United States v. Dujanovic, supra, 486 F.2d at 188, `. . . one of the penalties of the appellant's self-representation is that he is bound by his own acts and conduct and held to his record.' [ United States v. Trapnell, 512 F.2d 10, 12 (9th Cir. 1975) (per curiam).] In any event, as long as a trial judge makes an inquiry sufficient to demonstrate a voluntary and intelligent waiver and preserves the foundation for his conclusion on the record, no waiver problem should arise. The record here is not sufficient. If Dr. Hsu's conviction were affirmed, this decision would stand for the proposition that an ostensibly intelligent person, experienced in minor court cases, can be deemed  without court inquiry  to have waived the fundamental constitutional right to counsel in a major felony trial. Supreme Court authority forbids such a result. We reverse and remand for a new trial. Reversed and remanded. KELLY, Associate Judge, concurring in part and dissenting in part: