Opinion ID: 222406
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Gabrion's Request to Proceed Without Counsel

Text: In Faretta v. California, the Supreme Court observed that the Sixth Amendment creates a right to self-representation. 422 U.S. 806, 818-32, 95 S.Ct. 2525, 45 L.Ed.2d 562 (1975). However, the right to self-representation is not absolute. Martinez v. Court of Appeal of Cal., 528 U.S. 152, 161, 120 S.Ct. 684, 145 L.Ed.2d 597 (2000) (holding that defendants have no right to self-representation on appeal). Even at the trial level ... the government's interest in ensuring the integrity and efficiency of the trial at times outweighs the defendant's interest in acting as his own lawyer. Id. at 162, 120 S.Ct. 684. In Faretta itself, the Court noted that [t]he right of self-representation is not a license to abuse the dignity of the courtroom. Neither is it a license not to comply with relevant rules of procedural and substantive law. 422 U.S. at 834 n. 46, 95 S.Ct. 2525. For this reason, the trial judge may terminate self-representation by a defendant who deliberately engages in serious and obstructionist misconduct. Id.; cf. Illinois v. Allen, 397 U.S. 337, 342-43, 90 S.Ct. 1057, 25 L.Ed.2d 353 (1970) (holding that a defendant can forfeit his Sixth Amendment right to be present in trial if he insists on being so disorderly, disruptive, and disrespectful of the court that his trial cannot be carried on with him in the courtroom). In Section I above, we set out Gabrion's attempts to disrupt the trial. His attempt to represent himself was part of that effort. Gabrion unequivocally asserted his right to self-representation in a motion filed with the District Court in October 2001. In that motion, he called his appointed counsel evil, corrupt, and liars, and he accused them of stealing $1800 from him. Only two months earlier, during a hearing on whether Gabrion should undergo a competency evaluation, Gabrion interrupted the proceedings and was ejected from the courtroom immediately after the following exchange: DEFENDANT GABRION: Sir, the victim's family and the public deserve to know the truth from me. THE COURT: Sir, I haven't addressed you yet. You'll be quiet if you would, please. [To the government:] You may proceed. [THE GOVERNMENT:] Thank you. DEFENDANT GABRION: [My appointed counsel] has destroyed evidence that Charles Cass murdered Rachel Timmerman. THE COURT: Sir, sir, either you're quiet today or you go upstairs and sit in the cell. The choice is yours. DEFENDANT GABRION: My choice is to fire [my appointed counsel] for being satanic and destroying evidence that Charles Cass murdered Rachel Timmerman. THE COURT: One more question, one more outburst DEFENDANT GABRION: I have no possibility of getting a fair judge THE COURT: Take him upstairs. DEFENDANT GABRION: where the judge had sex with a 14-year-old girl last week and got another 13-year-old pregnant that I know of that I can take these people to right now. I got zero possibility. You're nothing but an evil Hitler. Shit. And why don't you tell the FBI to go arrest that perverted bastard. The District Court denied Gabrion's motion to proceed pro se in a four-page opinion. The opinion asserted that Gabrion's disruptive behavior in this Court, his abusive and obscene language in motions and letters, and his failure to heed the advice of counsel on commonsense issues concerning his pretrial behavior, convince this Court that [Gabrion] will not be willing or able to follow the `ground rules' of trial procedure. One month later, Gabrion filed a motion for reconsideration, in which he apologized and promised to conform his conduct to the rules of the courtroom. Later that same day, however, at a hearing on a motion to suppress, Gabrion consistently interrupted the proceedings. The District Court denied that motion and indicated its grave doubts regarding [Gabrion's] ability to conform himself to minimum standards of courtroom behavior. Given the totality of Gabrion's disruptive behavior, the District Court did not err in precluding Gabrion from representing himself. Gabrion's behavior not only fell below the accepted minimum for courtrooms; it was of such a character that would be unacceptable in any corner of a civil society. The District Court had every reason to believe this conduct would continueand on a more prominent stageif Gabrion were given the opportunity to represent himself. Considering how Gabrion interrupted courtroom proceedings several times only hours after promising to conform, the District Court was entitled to view that promise as empty and simply more manipulative rhetoric. It may be a better practice for trial courts to give the benefit of the doubt to misbehaving defendants who invoke their right to self-representation and then revoke that right if they disrupt the case. But the District Court did not need to do so with Gabrion. [10] At the time he moved to represent himself, he had been persistently disruptive and deeply disrespectful in court. He had filed numerous bizarre motions and letters. He had committed forty major infractions while incarcerated at Calhoun County Jail. Given his unbroken pattern of misconduct both inside and outside of the courtroom, the only possible inference was that his serious misbehavior would continue if he represented himself. Under such circumstances, we do not require the District Court to undertake the empty and time-consuming formality of granting his right to self-representation only to revoke it days later. To do so would be to facilitate the same type of disruptive and abusive conduct the Court condemned in Faretta. Accordingly, the District Court properly denied Gabrion's motion to proceed pro se.