Opinion ID: 1467267
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Constitutional Right to Self-Representation

Text: Although courts are most frequently called upon to deal with and to enforce the Sixth Amendment guaranty that every criminal defendant facing potential incarceration has the right to counsel at all critical stages of the criminal process ( United States v. Wade, 388 U.S. 218, 223-27, 87 S.Ct. 1926, 18 L.Ed.2d 1149 (1967); Argersinger v. Hamlin, 407 U.S. 25, 92 S.Ct. 2006, 32 L.Ed.2d 530 (1972)), the Constitution also affordswith equal importancethe right to self-representation ( Faretta v. California, 422 U.S. 806, 95 S.Ct. 2525, 45 L.Ed.2d 562 (1975)). [2] Those two rights are mutually exclusive, and invocation of one is necessarily intertwined with waiver of the other. Just as had earlier been done with the right to counsel ( Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335, 83 S.Ct. 792, 9 L.Ed.2d 799 (1963)), Faretta incorporated against the states a criminal defendant's right to self-representation via the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause. Faretta, 422 U.S. at 819-20, 95 S.Ct. 2525 (footnote omitted), the only clearly established federal law (within the meaning of Section 2254(d)(1)) that is relevant to this habeas petition, confirmed that right in these straightforward terms: Although not stated in the Amendment in so many words, the right to self-representationto make one's own defense personallyis thus necessarily implied by the structure of the Amendment. The right to defend is given directly to the accused; for it is he who suffers the consequences if the defense fails. Waiver of the right to counsel by an accused must be knowing, voluntary and intelligent ( Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U.S. 458, 464-65, 58 S.Ct. 1019, 82 L.Ed. 1461 (1938)). For any such waiver to be effective, the accused should be made aware of the dangers and disadvantages of self-representation, so that the record will establish that `he knows what he is doing and his choice is made with eyes open' ( Faretta, 422 U.S. at 835, 95 S.Ct. 2525, quoting Adams v. United States ex rel. McCann, 317 U.S. 269, 279, 63 S.Ct. 236, 87 L.Ed. 268 (1942)). For his part, Haviland contends that Moore's request to proceed pro se was unclear and equivocal, so that the trial judge was not required to engage in any further exploration of the matter. To the contrary, Moore twice expressly asked the judge whether he could go pro se. Instead of responding directly or promptly launching the necessary Faretta -based inquiry, the judge responded by warning Moore that he had never seen a successful pro se defendant and by then asking Moore to draft a letter over the lunch break outlining his competence and trial strategy. Moore did so, but his attorneywith the court's permissiondid not tender the letter to the court until the following morning. Moore's letter set out four alternative scenarios, the fourth of which was to proceed pro se. [3] With the trial judge having failed to grant any of Moore's first three alternatives, he was duty bound to treat the letter as a clear request to proceed pro se, written by the accused after the court had cautioned him against the soundness of that decision. Moore's request to proceed pro se was no less voluntary because it was contingent on the denial of other options that he might also find palatable ( Jones v. Jamrog, 414 F.3d 585, 592-93 (6th Cir.2005)). While the state appellate court did not explicitly hold that Moore asked unequivocally to proceed pro se, it did state that he wished to proceed pro se and requested permission to proceed pro se in his letter to the court ( State v. Moore, No. 78751, 2002 WL 664104, at - (Ohio App. Apr. 18, 2002)). Although the trial judge expressed an initial concern as to the timeliness of Moore's request, he backed off that track and instead told Moore to write him a letter outlining his proposed self-representation. For the judge then to have waited to read the letter until Moore had already taken the witness stand, rather than addressing the issue promptly, gave Moore no choice but to proceed with counsel conducting direct examination. Then for the judge not to have engaged Moore in a Faretta -compliant colloquy upon reading the letter was an unreasonable application of Faretta. Moore had made not one but two clear requests to proceed pro sethe second in a letter written after cautionary statements by the courtand it was clearly contrary to Faretta for the court to have failed to address those requests promptly and fully. Warden Haviland argues that Moore's requests were untimely and that a trial court has discretion over whether to grant a request to proceed pro se mid-trial. But Moore's requests were not rejected for untimeliness, either at trial or by the state appellate court. Although the state courts did not do so, our dissenting colleague would reject Moore's exercise of his Faretta right on untimeliness grounds. We have no quarrel of course with the notion that a defendant's invocation of the right of self-representation must be timelybut here it was not until the trial was well under way that Moore's grounds for dissatisfaction with counsel's representation arose  and he then acted swiftly. Moore can scarcely be faulted on some concept of tardiness under those circumstances. If he had not acted when he didif he had waited for the trial to conclude and then sought post-conviction relief on the basis of constitutionally ineffective representation by his appointed counselwe can be quite certain that he would have been met not only with arguments as to asserted substantive inadequacies of that contention but with the added argument that he should have raised that issue when it first arose at trial. To return to the treatment at the trial court level of Moore's requests to represent himself, the trial court flat-out failed to exercise its discretion and ultimately did not rule on those requests, but let the issue go by default instead. Such failure to make a ruling on a criminal defendant's unequivocal request to proceed pro se was objectively unreasonable in light of Faretta. Contrary to Haviland's assertions and to the state appellate court's analysis, McKaskle v. Wiggins, 465 U.S. 168, 104 S.Ct. 944, 79 L.Ed.2d 122 (1984) is not on point here. McKaskle addresses the constitutional boundaries of standby counsel's involvement in criminal proceedings against the wishes of a pro se defendant. Moore never became a pro se defendant, nor was his attorney standby counsel. Moore does not complain that his attorney overstepped his bounds as standby counselrather he complains that he was denied his right of self-representation. For the state appellate court to read McKaskle to find a waiver of Moore's right to self-representation was an objectively unreasonable application of that decision. Moore did take the stand and respond to questions from his attorney after his requests to proceed pro se. But by contrast with McKaskle, no presumption of acquiescence attaches to that representation by counsel, because Moore was never permitted to proceed pro se. Without having ruled on Moore's two requests for self-representation, the trial judge told Moore's attorney to call the next witness and Moore was called to testify. It would be wholly unreasonable to require Moore, in order to preserve his requests to proceed pro se, to refuse the trial court's orders to continue with the trial, especially in light of the court's having previously admonished him for disrupting the trial. Moore's responsiveness to questions posed by his attorney was neither a withdrawal of his previous requests to proceed pro se or a waiver of his right to self-representation.