Opinion ID: 2216210
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: dual limitations on self-representation and confrontation

Text: There is sparse authority addressing the propriety of limiting a criminal defendant's sixth amendment rights to both self-representation and to personally confront and cross-examine witnesses. In Fields v. Murray, 49 F.3d 1024 (4th Cir.1995), a majority of an en banc Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals held that the trial court did not err in refusing to allow the defendant, assuming he had invoked his Faretta self-representation right, to personally cross-examine the young girls who were witnesses against him in his criminal trial on sexual abuse charges. The majority of the court applied the Supreme Court's confrontation clause analysis from Craig in the context of a defendant's right to self-representation under Faretta, and concluded that if a defendant's confrontation right could be limited in the manner provided in Craig, so too could a defendant's self-representation right. Fields, 49 F.3d at 1035. The court said that the defendant's self-representation right to personally cross-examine the witnesses could be restricted if the purposes of the self-representation right would have been otherwise assured, and if denial of personal cross-examination was necessary to further an important public policy. Fields, 49 F.3d at 1035. The court reasoned: The elements of a defendant's self-representation right include `control[ling] the organization and content of his own defense,... mak[ing] motions, ... argu[ing] points of law, ... participat[ing] in the voir dire, ... question[ing] witnesses, and ... address[ing] the court and the jury at appropriate points in the trial.' McKaskle, 465 U.S. at 174, 104 S.Ct. at 949. As in Craig, one of these numerous elements, the right to question, or cross-examine, certain witnesses personally, was denied to Fields while the others would have been preserved. Denying personal cross-examination may have inhibited Fields' dignity and autonomy to some degree by affecting `the jury's perception that [he was] representing himself,' id. at 178, 104 S.Ct. at 951, but, as he would have conducted every other portion of the trial, his dignity and autonomy would have been `otherwise assured.' Craig, 497 U.S. at 850, 110 S.Ct. at 3166; see McKaskle, 465 U.S. at 182, 104 S.Ct. at 953 (allowing trial court to require standby counsel for pro se defendant even though it `may erode the dignitary values the right to self-representation is intended to promote'). Similarly, while Fields' ability to present his chosen defense may have been reduced slightly by not being allowed personally to cross-examine the girls, it would have been otherwise assured because he could have personally presented his defense in every other portion of the trial and could even have controlled the cross-examination by specifying the questions to be asked. As a result, we are convinced that the purposes of the self-representation right were better `otherwise assured' here, despite the denial of personal cross-examination, than was the purpose of the Confrontation Clause right in Craig when the defendant was denied face-to-face confrontation with the witnesses. As to Craig 's second prong, the State had an extremely important interest in preventing Fields from personally cross-examining the young girls here. The Court in Craig determined that `a State's interest in the physical and psychological well-being of child abuse victims' was `sufficiently important to outweigh ... a defendant's right to face his or her accusers in court' if denial of this face-to-face confrontation was necessary to protect the children from `emotional trauma.' Craig, 497 U.S. at 853-55, 110 S.Ct. at 3167-69. The State's interest here in protecting child sexual abuse victims from the emotional trauma of being cross-examined by their alleged abuser is at least as great as, and likely greater than, the State's interest in Craig of protecting children from the emotional harm of merely having to testify in their alleged abuser's presence. We have little trouble determining, therefore, that the State's interest here was sufficiently important to outweigh Fields' right to cross-examine personally witnesses against him if denial of this cross-examination was necessary to protect the young girls from emotional trauma. Fields, 49 F.3d at 1035-1036. Some state courts have similarly ruled that requiring a pro se defendant in a criminal case to submit questions of a child witness to the court or to standby counsel instead of allowing personal cross-examination is not constitutional error if the child would be emotionally or mentally harmed by personal cross-examination. See State v. Taylor, 562 A.2d 445, 454 (R.I.1989); State v. Estabrook, 68 Wash.App. 309, 842 P.2d 1001, 1006 (1993). Contra Commonwealth v. Conefrey, 410 Mass. 1, 570 N.E.2d 1384, 1391 (1991). Whatever the proper resolution of this issue in a criminal prosecution, in this civil proceeding to terminate parental rights, we do not believe the trial court committed constitutional error by denying Jack a personal appearance in court, thereby limiting both his right of self-representation and his right to cross-examine witnesses. The constitutionality of the procedure used here depends on a balancing of interests.