Opinion ID: 2270912
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Application of Ake To Defendants who Represent Themselves.

Text: Finally, and importantly, Mr. Davis's claim is not encompassed within Ake because Ake was represented by counsel and it was counsel who sought the funds for or appointment of a psychiatric expert. Here, Mr. Davis does not claim that the public defender system did not have the funds to provide him with access to the kinds of investigative and trial preparation tools he desired. Rather, Mr. Davis sought to represent himself and claimed that Ake requires not just that he be provided the basic tools for a defense but also that he be provided them personally rather than through counsel. Nothing in Ake indicates that the State must offer a defendant his choice of whether to receive these tools through counsel or himself. Indeed, Ake suggests to the contrary. At the same time it said that the State may be required to provide a psychiatric expert in some circumstances, Ake cautioned that an indigent defendant does not have a constitutional right to choose a psychiatrist of his personal liking or to receive funds to hire his own. 470 U.S. at 83, 105 S.Ct. 1087. Instead, the concern is that the indigent defendant have access to a competent psychiatrist, and Ake left to the State the decision on how to implement this right. Id. Given this language, it is perhaps not surprising that few courts even have considered applying Ake principles in the self-represented litigant context. In Moore, 889 A.2d at 329 & n. 3, the indigent defendant had only enough assets to retain counsel and then sought provision of a DNA expert from the state. The Maryland Court of Appeals held that it was permissible to tie the provision of the basic tools of an adequate defense to provision of appointed counsel so that if the indigent defendant declined to accept state-provided counsel, he also waived state provision of Ake tools  in that case, a DNA expert. Moore, 889 A.2d at 343-44. As Mr. Davis notes, one pre- Ake state case recognized an indigent defendant's right to additional state-furnished resources despite the fact that the indigent defendant had retained private counsel hired by his mother and rejected appointed public defenders. English v. Missildine, 311 N.W.2d 292, 293-94 (Iowa 1981). English is not persuasive authority that there is a federal constitutional rather than a prudential reason for so providing; it pre-dates Ake and instead of grounding the right to defense tools in fundamental fairness under the Due Process Clause, as had Ake, English read a right to the resources in the Sixth Amendment. Id. The remaining cases Mr. Davis cites purporting to bolster the notion that Ake gives a self-represented litigant the right to all tools that are provided through counsel are rooted in a state statute or constitutional provision or independent federal right rather than in Ake. See United States v. Sarno, 73 F.3d 1470, 1491-92 (9th Cir. 1995) (not citing Ake, court notes right of self-represented litigant to some resources balanced against security considerations but finds that access was not unduly restricted); State v. Burns, 4 P.3d 795, 799-800 (Utah 2000) (invoking Utah indigent defense statutes); State v. Silva, 107 Wash.App. 605, 27 P.3d 663, 669-77 (2001) (invoking Washington state constitutional provision). This Court has no occasion today to address what additional situations might require the provision of certain additional basic tools of defense to a defendant who decides to represent himself, for a showing sufficient to take such a significant step has not been made here. The burden was on Mr. Davis to make a particularized showing that there was a reasonable probability both that the tools he requested would be of assistance to his defense and that denial of such tools would result in his trial being fundamentally unfair. Moore, 809 F.2d at 712. He failed to make any such showing. [9] Therefore, he has failed to show that the court erred in rejecting his requests and in stating he would not be entitled to the funding he sought should he proceed without counsel. As such, Mr. Davis' Faretta argument, based on his claim that the trial court misinformed him as to his entitlements under Ake, also fails.