Opinion ID: 587015
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Adequate Inquiry by the Trial Court

Text: 30 We also find that the trial court inadequately inquired into the possibility of a conflict of interest. The court's inquiry consisted solely of commenting in a colloquy during the first day of trial that it doubted that defense counsel wished to elaborate how there was a conflict of interest. Defense counsel did not respond because the comment was made in open court. The court then stated that it had read the trial file in relation to an unrelated motion and did not see how a conflict of interest could arise. No further inquiry was made. 31 We find that the reading of a file for an unrelated purpose is inadequate exploration of the possibility of conflict. Further, by asking defense counsel to disclose trial strategy in open court, the trial court improperly placed counsel in a situation where in order to adequately respond he would have had to disclose client confidences, thereby breaching attorney/client confidentiality. As the Supreme Court stated in Holloway, [O]ur holding [does not] preclude a trial court from exploring the adequacy of the basis of defense counsel's representations regarding a conflict of interest without improperly requiring disclosure of the confidential communications of the client. 435 U.S. at 487, 98 S.Ct. at 1179 (emphasis added). We therefore hold that the trial court inadequately investigated the possibility of conflict in this case.