Opinion ID: 4306158
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Failure to Obtain Valid Waiver of Counsel

Text: The Sixth Amendment provides a criminal defendant both “the right . . . to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence,” U.S. CONST. amend. VI, as well as “the right to selfrepresentation—to make one’s own defense personally,” Faretta, 422 U.S. at 819. Although defendants have both the right to counsel and the right to waive their right to counsel, “[i]t is undeniable that in most criminal prosecutions defendants could better defend with counsel’s guidance than by their own unskilled efforts,” and defendants who opt to go it alone “relinquish[], as a purely factual matter, many of the traditional benefits associated with the right to counsel.” Id. at 834–35. For this reason, the Sixth Amendment “require[s] that any waiver of the right to counsel be knowing, voluntary, and intelligent.” Iowa v. Tovar, 541 U.S. 77, 87–88 (2004). Critically, “[p]resuming waiver [of the right to counsel] from a silent record is impermissible.” Carnley v. Cochran, 369 U.S. 506, 516 (1962). Rather, “[t]he record must show, or there must be an allegation and evidence which show, that an accused was offered counsel but intelligently and understandingly rejected the offer. Anything less is not waiver.” Id. In light of the above principles, the Kentucky Supreme Court acted contrary to clearly established federal law when it held that trial courts need not “obtain a waiver of counsel” from “criminal defendants who are experienced criminal trial attorneys.” See Ayers, 435 S.W.3d at 628–29. The Kentucky court derived its decision from the correct premise that the Sixth Amendment’s waiver requirements apply only to uncounseled defendants and the incorrect premise that defendants who happen to be criminal trial attorneys are never without counsel. Every defendant—regardless of his profession—is entitled to counsel unless he waives his right to counsel. See Carnley, 369 U.S. at 513 (“[I]t is settled that where the assistance of counsel is a constitutional requisite, the right to be furnished counsel does not depend on a request.”). If a defendant is proceeding pro se, the record must reveal a defendant’s “affirmative acquiescence” No. 17-5038 Ayers v. Hall Page 7 in his uncounseled state. Id. at 516–17. By expressly declining to “comb[] the record for some shred of [such] evidence” in this case, and by attempting to exempt uncounseled attorneydefendants from a rule that plainly applies to all uncounseled defendants, the Kentucky Supreme Court acted contrary to clearly established law. Ayers, 435 S.W.3d at 629. Because a state-court decision that runs contrary to binding Supreme Court precedent is no longer owed deference, we now review de novo Ayers’s Sixth Amendment claim. See Dyer, 465 F.3d at 284. Here, the record is devoid of any indication that Ayers was told of his right to counsel or that he affirmatively declined to exercise that right. Indeed, counsel for Kentucky conceded at oral argument that Ayers never “invoke[d] his right to proceed pro se” and never “validly waive[d] his Sixth Amendment right to counsel.” Oral Arg. at 19:35–19:46, 22:19– 22:35. As Kentucky seemed to recognize at oral argument, these facts decide the case.1 Perhaps seeking to bypass the above conclusion, counsel for Kentucky suggested at oral argument that Ayers had not raised this “waiver” argument earlier. We disagree. In his brief to the Kentucky Court of Appeals, Ayers made clear that he had “never ever indicated that his prose status was voluntary. Mr. Ayers wanted counsel, he used counsel in his other criminal proceedings and he wanted counsel again in this proceeding.” R. 11-2 (Ayers Br. to the Ky. Ct. App. at 8–9) (Page ID #130–31). In the brief that he submitted to the Supreme Court of Kentucky, Ayers insisted that he was not informed of his right to counsel at his arraignment, and he argued that he “never affirmatively asserted his desire, willingness or intention of proceeding pro-se,” and that “there is nothing in the record to substantiate the conclusion Ayers knowingly, 1JUDGE: So, you concede there’s no waiver on the record? KENTUCKY: It’s not on the record, no. JUDGE: And you concede no warnings are given. KENTUCKY: Right, no explicit warnings. JUDGE: So why doesn’t [Carnley v. Cochran] require we reverse the Kentucky Supreme Court? KENTUCKY: Because he didn’t waive his right to counsel; he was counsel, and he appeared as counsel. He had counsel— JUDGE: What if we reject that? What if we just flat-out reject that? Do we have to reverse? KENTUCKY: I’m not certain, it sounds—I believe you probably would. Oral Arg. at 24:43–25:11. No. 17-5038 Ayers v. Hall Page 8 intelligently and voluntarily waived his right to counsel.” R. 11-2 (Ayers Br. to the Ky. S. Ct. at 2–3) (Page ID #286–87). He reiterated these points in his habeas petition and in his briefing before this court, stressing that he had never “file[d] a notice of appearance of any kind, appear[ed] with a co-counsel for any purpose, or file[d] a motion to be allowed to proceed pro se” and insisting that the trial judge had never “obtained a waiver of Ayers’s right to be represented by counsel.” R. 1-1 (Mem. in Support of Pet. for a Writ of Habeas Corpus at 2) (Page ID #17); Appellant Br. at 5, 34. And Ayers asserted, as we now hold, that a trial court may not “assume the accused’s silence constitutes a knowing and intelligent waiver of the right to counsel.” Appellant Br. at 23. Ayers properly raised his ineffective-waiver claim, and the Kentucky Supreme Court improperly resolved it. We recognize that defendants may waive their right to counsel through their conduct as well as through their words. See Beatty v. Caruso, 64 F. App’x 945, 951 (6th Cir. 2003). Defendants who fire or refuse to hire attorneys even after being warned that they may be required to proceed pro se if they continue their dilatory conduct, for instance, may be deemed to have validly waived their right to counsel. See, e.g., King v. Bobby, 433 F.3d 483, 492 (6th Cir. 2006). But those are not the facts of this case, nor does the Commonwealth argue that Ayers waived his right to counsel through his conduct. To affirm the Kentucky Supreme Court’s decision in this case, we would need to hold that a defendant who was allegedly never informed of his right to counsel, never spoke of a desire to represent himself, and was never asked if he wanted to proceed pro se, had nonetheless waived his right to counsel simply by appearing alone. Such a holding would contradict Carnley’s prohibition against assuming waiver simply because the defendant appeared without counsel, 369 U.S. at 514, and would counter the Supreme Court’s requirement that “courts indulge every reasonable presumption against waiver of fundamental constitutional rights and . . . not presume acquiescence in the loss of fundamental rights,” id. (quoting Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U.S. 458, 464 (1938)). Longstanding constitutional principles require defendants to do more than appear without counsel before they will be deemed to have waived their Sixth Amendment rights. Kentucky nevertheless argues that Ayers’s experience as a criminal defense attorney and his competent performance before and during trial establish that he waived his right to counsel No. 17-5038 Ayers v. Hall Page 9 “with eyes open.” Faretta, 422 U.S. at 835 (quoting Adams v. United States ex rel. McCann, 317 U.S. 269, 279 (1942)); see Appellee Br. at 33 (“[B]y virtue of his law license and experience, it is beyond ken that [Ayers] would not have understood the pitfalls of self-representation.”). This argument misses the mark. It is true, of course, that courts must consider “the background, experience, and conduct of the accused” when assessing whether a waiver of the right to counsel was knowing, intelligent, and voluntary, Zerbst, 304 U.S. at 464, and may “look to the entire record” to “assess the defendant’s understanding of the risks of self-representation,” Glass v. Pineda, 635 F. App’x 207, 215 (6th Cir. 2015). But such questions go to whether a waiver of counsel was valid, not whether a waiver was obtained in the first place. Kentucky would have us conclude from Ayers’s assertedly able performance at trial that he did not need a lawyer, and thereby infer that he never wanted one. The Supreme Court endorsed a similar approach, once, in Betts v. Brady, 316 U.S. 455 (1942), by asking whether “the totality of facts in a given case” showed that a defendant who had been denied legal representation had nevertheless performed well enough to render his trial fundamentally fair. Id. at 462. The Supreme Court then overruled Betts in Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963). Thus, Betts is no longer good law. At bottom, the record in this case simply does not allow the conclusion that Ayers validly waived his right to counsel. Indeed the government concedes the point. The Supreme Court has made clear that such a waiver was necessary before Ayers could proceed pro se. We therefore REVERSE the district court’s denial of Ayers’s habeas petition on this ground.