Opinion ID: 1225871
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Whether the district court denied Franklin his right to counsel at two hearings in which defense counsel moved to withdraw.

Text: Franklin argues that the district court denied him his right to counsel by not appointing a separate attorney to appear on his behalf at two hearings in which his defense counsel moved to withdraw. The first hearing occurred when Franklin's retained counsel, Linda Wagoner, made a motion to withdraw from her representation. The district court conducted a hearing on this motion on July 10, 2006, with only defense counsel and Franklin present. The district court granted the motion and appointed William Marsh from the Community Defender to represent Franklin. In October 2006, Franklin, through Marsh, requested that the district court appoint new counsel, after Marsh refused to file a motion to suppress that Franklin had prepared. The district court denied the motion because the disagreement did not threaten Marsh's ability to serve as an effective advocate. Franklin's position is that at both hearings he was essentially forced to represent himself, and that the district court did not conduct an investigation into his competence to do that (Franklin cites Faretta v. California, 422 U.S. 806, 95 S.Ct. 2525, 45 L.Ed.2d 562 (1975), on this point). Franklin admits that there is no case defining a hearing on a defense counsel's motion to withdraw as a critical stage of the proceeding entitling a defendant to counsel. Before taking up the question of whether a withdrawal motion is a critical stage, it is worth noting that at no time was Franklin without counsel; when the district court held the first hearing on Wagoner's motion to withdraw, Wagoner was still serving as Franklin's counsel and was only allowed to withdraw after the hearing, at which point the district court gave Franklin a choice between having counsel appointed or hiring another attorney. Marsh never withdrew as Franklin's counsel. Thus, aside from the brief interval between Wagoner's withdrawal and Marsh's appointment that is not at issue here, Franklin had representation for the entire proceeding. Franklin is apparently arguing that he was entitled to additional counsel to represent him at the hearings on his own defense counsel's motion to withdraw. Franklin cites no authority for this interpretation of his Sixth Amendment right to counsel. Nor, objectively, does a defense counsel's motion to withdraw qualify as a critical stage of the proceedings for Sixth Amendment purposes, as the proceeding is simply not the sort of trial-like confrontation between the accused and the state that gives an accused a Sixth Amendment right to counsel (or, in this case, additional counsel). See United States v. Ash, 413 U.S. 300, 312, 93 S.Ct. 2568, 37 L.Ed.2d 619 (1973) (reviewing the historical expansion of the counsel guarantee to trial-like confrontations ...); see also United States v. Jackson, 886 F.2d 838, 843 (7th Cir.1989) (critical stage is one where absence of defense counsel or lack of advice may derogate from the accused's right to a fair trial.). Indeed, the attorneys for the government were asked to leave the courtroom during the hearing on Wagoner's motion to withdraw, and while the government was present for the colloquy on the motion regarding Marsh's appointment, the government was not involved in the discussion of that motion. Franklin had the assistance of counsel at all times in the proceeding below and was not entitled to additional counsel during the hearings on his own counsel's motion to withdraw. Accordingly, we find no denial of Franklin's Sixth Amendment rights during the proceedings below.