Opinion ID: 359861
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Circumstances Here

Text: 90 Reverting to the case at bar, we may first observe that appellant's good faith has not been challenged by the Government nor hardly could it be. He had retained Ms. Roundtree many months before trial, and from aught that appears her last-minute motion to withdraw came as a sudden surprise. Surely the District Court did not believe that the episode was a planned dilatory tactic, for if the court had it should and presumably would merely have denied withdrawal. 42 Appellant had only one business day between the time Ms. Roundtree told him her intentions and the commencement of trial, 43 and his failure to retain replacement counsel during that short interval certainly does not indicate bad faith. In a nutshell, everything points not to an attempt to temporarily sidestep trial but to an endeavor to replace, with reasonable dispatch, counsel whom appellant had long expected to assume a major role at trial. 44 91 The fact that appellant had selected Mr. Hutter as part of his defense team is irrelevant. He had not selected him as his only counsel. And the fact that appellant still had one attorney remaining after Ms. Roundtree's departure is similarly of no significance. 45 During the initial opportunity to retain counsel of one's choice, the accused may engage two attorneys; 46 indeed, he may hire as many as he can afford, although the trial court may limit the number but not the choice of those who actively participate in court. Even if the accused initially retains only one counsel, he is free to add others later so long as he does not thereby substantially inconvenience the trial participants. And if he becomes objectively or subjectively dissatisfied with one important member of his team, his entitlement to a continuance to secure a replacement normally is no different than if the member in question was his only counsel. 92 Here, it is clear that appellant's earlier retention of counsel of choice was rendered nugatory by an event beyond his control. 47 He was denied a fair opportunity to choose his own counsel. . . . 48 Although a continuance might have mildly inconvenienced the court, the prosecution and some of the witnesses, 49 that consequence was hardly appellant's fault. The motion for leave to withdraw was not forthcoming until the trial date was virtually at hand, and the court granted it, effectively negating appellant's opportunity to satisfy an understandable desire for comfort and confidence in his trial representation. 93 More than two decades ago we articulated the legal principle that governs this case. In Lee v. United States, 50 the accused's third retained lawyer appeared before the trial judge on the trial date and disclosed a possible conflict of interest stemming from earlier representation of the chief prosecution witness. The trial judge granted his motion to withdraw and, over objection, appointed as the accused's counsel an attorney in the courtroom whom the accused had discharged earlier. We enforced the accused's right to select his own counsel and, of even greater significance, observed: 94 (A)ppellant bore no responsibility for being without counsel on the eve of his trial. He had appeared for trial with counsel of his own choosing, and the record does not show that he had anything to do with that counsel's withdrawal by leave of court. However that withdrawal may have obstructed the processes of court, such obstruction is clearly not chargeable to the appellant and cannot be made the occasion for denying him his constitutional right to counsel of his own choosing. 51 95 Furthermore, we indicated that in circumstances objectively invalidating the initial choice of counsel as when the accused seeks to replace a withdrawing retained attorney the court cannot force unwanted counsel upon him, however ill-founded his objections to that counsel may be. 52 With subjective sincerity not at issue, the reasons for the particular choice of replacement counsel were of no concern. 96 We recently reaffirmed the objective-grounds rule set down in Lee. Sitting En banc in United States v. Mardian, 53 we held that the trial court had erred in requiring the accused to proceed with only one of his counsel after his lead counsel became ill two weeks into the trial. 54 We pointed to the client's lack of contribution to the loss of his lawyer the loss, we found, was Bona fide and unforeseeable 55 and although cocounsel was certainly skilled, we recognized that the right to choose one's counsel was critical in a difficult conspiracy case featuring disparately condemnatory evidence against several codefendants. 56 We placed considerable reliance on the Government's decision not to resist a continuance, 57 attributing importance to this because it indicated that no undue disruption of the criminal justice system would ensue from a grant of the motion. 58 97 Although Mardian does indicate a wholesome concern for the orderly administration of justice, 59 that concern is controlling only when the accused's reasons for seeking new counsel are purely subjective that is, when the accused is merely unhappy with how he utilized his initial opportunity to choose counsel and not when that opportunity has been debased by subsequent events. As I read Lee and Mardian together, they teach that the District Court should have exercised its discretion in favor of appellant's good faith effort to reacquire a defense team of his own choice. 60 D. The Absence of Any Proper Reasons for Denying Appellant's Request 98 The foregoing analysis establishes both the limited number of justifications for denying a requested continuance in these circumstances and the rigorous scrutiny to which such a denial must be subjected. Even if inconvenience to trial participants could ever outweigh appellant's objectively-grounded assertion that his earlier Sixth Amendment choice of counsel had become ineffectual, I am not persuaded that the Government made a sufficient showing. The record does not indicate that any of the Government's witnesses were from afar, nor does it specify any inconvenience to those in the vicinity, many of whom were local police officers or informants. 61 The main argument advanced by the Government against any sort of continuance was that the prosecutor himself had spent many days preparing for trial. I note, however, that the prosecutor did not indicate any conflict in his schedule that would have precluded trial within a reasonable time of its original date, and I am unable to see why his preparation would not have served him almost if not fully as well at a trial in May as at one in April. 62 Even in dealing with run-of-the-mill motions for continuance, the trial court's discretion though indubitably broad is not unlimited, and at the very least some plausible reason for refusing an honest and meritorious request must appear. 63 99 Moreover, even if my colleagues were correct that a denial of the continuance sought by appellant could have been supported on the basis of inconvenience, the District Court gave no indication that it perceived the salient factors and evaluated them. . . . 64 Though the court was in a good position to judge the inconvenience to the litigants, the witnesses, counsel, and the court, 65 the simple fact is that it never used that approach to make such a judgment. On the contrary, the District Court predicated its disposition on its disapproval of what it deemed to be a singular desire on appellant's part to engage a black trial attorney as one of his counsel. 66 It seems worth mentioning that appellant was at least as much concerned about Ms. Roundtree's experience as her color, a matter to which the court did not speak. 67 More importantly, however, as I have explained, the reasons for a litigant's choice of counsel are a personal matter, and become relevant to a judicial ruling only so far as they might indicate bad faith or insincerity of subjective grounds for the request. 68 The trial court gave not so much as a hint that appellant's reasons suggested that; instead, it articulated only its opinion that appellant's bid for a black lawyer was simply improper. 69 That ground for denial lay beyond the domain of trial-court discretion, and a decision bottomed on it is unsustainable. And by relying upon a totality-of-thecircumstances standard never employed by the trial court, the majority is exercising its own discretion, not affirming that of the District Court. 100 One further consideration merits brief discussion. Even if it had been the District Court's function to judge any more than the sincerity of appellant's reasons, the court would still have erred. The majority apparently agrees that a feeling that black counsel might do better than white counsel with black witnesses and jurors is no more improper than one that ofttimes prompts a litigant to retain a handsome lawyer, a glib lawyer or a famous lawyer. 70 That jurors should not be swayed by the color of lawyers and others appearing before them is a proposition with which all would agree, but it does not mean that an accused who believes that juries sometimes do such things must surrender the prerogative of taking that opinion into account. 71 The District Court perhaps felt that a grant of appellant's request would have brought about some sort of equal protection violation. Such a position I would not share, for I am unable to see whose rights could thereby have been denied. 101 I would find, then, that the District Court denied appellant's motion for continuance in the erroneous view that the reason behind it was unworthy. 72 Beyond that, I would conclude that had it fully exercised its discretion on the record then before it, the request could not have justifiably been refused. I accordingly would hold that the court infringed appellant's Sixth Amendment right to a renewed opportunity to retain counsel, but that does not end my task. It is still necessary to determine whether appellant waived his right and, if he did not, whether its deprivation was harmless error.