Court Opinion

ID: 9482501
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:52:07.686841+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:49:01.957108
License: Public Domain

CLARK, Senior Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
I agree with the majority that a criminal defendant has a fundamental constitutional right to testify on his or her own behalf and that this right is personal to the defendant and cannot be waived by his or her counsel. I do not agree, however, that a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel is the appropriate vehicle for analyzing the alleged violation of this fundamental constitutional right. In analyzing claims involving those constitutional rights that are *1542fundamental and personal, courts have consistently employed the procedural safeguard of an on-the-record waiver. The right to testify should be treated no differently. Accordingly, when a criminal defendant has not testified on his or her own behalf at trial, the trial record should reflect that the defendant’s waiver of his or her right to testify was knowing and intelligent. As there is no such on-the-record waiver in this case, I would reverse Teag-ue’s conviction. Moreover, even if I were to agree with the majority that the ineffective assistance of counsel analysis is appropriate for this case, I would find that Teag-ue’s trial counsel rendered deficient performance in that she prevented Teague from exercising his right to testify and he was prejudiced thereby. Thus, under either the analysis I propose or the analysis employed by the majority, I would hold that Teague’s conviction should be reversed and remanded for a new trial.
I .A.
The majority correctly concludes that the right to testify is among that class of constitutional rights that is fundamental and, therefore, must be personally waived by the defendant. Included in this class of fundamental, personal rights are the right to elect to be represented by counsel, the right to choose to go to trial or plead guilty, and the right to decide to be tried by a jury or a judge.1 The Supreme Court has never addressed the waiver of the right to testify. It has, however, addressed the waiver of these other fundamental, personal rights. Its treatment of these other rights is instructive.
The Supreme Court’s seminal case on waiver of a fundamental constitutional right is Johnson v. Zerbst,2 In that case, the defendant alleged that his conviction was unconstitutional because he had been denied his Sixth Amendment right to counsel. Addressing the state’s argument that the defendant had waived this right, the Supreme Court stated:
It has been pointed out that ‘courts indulge every reasonable presumption against waiver’ of fundamental constitutional rights and that we ‘do not presume acquiescence of the loss of fundamental rights.’ A waiver is ordinarily an intentional relinquishment or abandonment of a known right or privilege.
While an accused may waive the right to counsel, whether there is a proper waiver should be clearly determined by the trial court, and it would be fitting and appropriate for that determination to appear upon the record.3
And in Carnley v. Cochran,4, which also involved the waiver of the right to counsel, the Supreme Court held:
Presuming waiver from a silent record is impermissible. The record must show, or there must be allegation and evidence which show, that an accused was offered counsel but intelligently and understandingly rejected the offer. Anything less is not waiver.5
Thus, for a criminal conviction to survive a challenge based on denial of the right to counsel, the record must show that the defendant’s waiver of this right was knowing and intelligent.
The Supreme Court has treated other fundamental constitutional rights similarly. Even when a criminal defendant is represented by counsel, the Supreme Court has determined that the record must show that the defendant’s waiver of a fundamental constitutional right is personal, knowing, and intelligent. The most significant example of this determination is the Supreme *1543Court’s decision in Boykin v. Alabama6. In that case, the defendant challenged his conviction, which was based on his guilty plea, on the grounds that the record did not affirmatively show that he had validly waived those constitutional rights necessarily waived by entry of a guilty plea, including the right to go to trial and the right to trial by jury. Noting that “[t]he requirement that the prosecution spread on the record the prerequisites of a valid waiver is no constitutional innovation,”7 the Court reversed the defendant’s conviction, stating:
We cannot presume a waiver of these ... important federal rights from a silent record.
What is at stake for an accused facing death or imprisonment demands the utmost solicitude of which courts are capable in canvassing the matter with the accused to make sure he has a full understanding of what the plea connotes and of its consequence. When the judge discharges that Junction, he leaves a record adequate for any review that may be later sought [citations omitted] and forestalls the spin-off of collateral proceedings that seek to probe murky memories.8
The Supreme Court mandated that trial courts establish on the record the valid waiver of those fundamental rights waived during a guilty plea; the Court also noted the practical advantage of its mandate: it forecloses subsequent collateral proceedings.
As these cases demonstrate, the Supreme Court has recognized the need for a trial court to establish on the record the valid waiver of those constitutional rights that are fundamental and personal to the defendant. As the Court stated in Barker v. Wingo:
[W]e do not depart from our holdings in other cases concerning the waiver of fundamental rights, in which we have placed the entire responsibility on the prosecution to show that the claimed waiver was knowingly and voluntarily made.9
If the record does not establish a valid waiver of the defendant’s fundamental constitutional rights, then the prosecution and the trial judge have failed to carry out their charge, and the defendant’s conviction must be reversed.
The majority correctly acknowledges that the constitutional right to testify is a fundamental right personal to the defendant. The majority fails, however, to treat this right as fundamental in that it fails to require that the record reflect a valid waiver of the right. Instead, the majority concludes that it is appropriate to apply an ineffective assistance of counsel analysis to claims involving the right to testify. This conclusion is wholly unsupported by Supreme Court authority. The Supreme Court has not relied on the ineffective assistance of counsel analysis to protect criminal defendants’ fundamental constitutional rights; rather, to protect these critically important rights, the Court has required an on-the-record waiver of fundamental constitutional rights. The fundamental right to testify should be treated no differently. As the commentators have recognized, the ineffective assistance of counsel analysis simply does not adequately protect a defendant’s fundamental right to testify:
Ineffective assistance ... is not a useful appellate recourse for criminal defendants as it puts the onus back on the attorney to establish retrospectively why his or her client did not testify. In view of counsel’s imprecise anticipation of client perjury or projection of a winning trial strategy, and the lack of a trial record on the issue, the ineffective assistance standard fails to address whether the defendant’s desire to testify was overridden by counsel’s decision that he *1544or she should not testify. The defendant may be deprived of the right to testify by counsel who otherwise provided effective assistance.
Given the wide range of ‘reasonably effective’ assistance and the virtually insurmountable ‘but for’ test, the Strickland10 standard rarely yields favorable results for defendants restrained from testifying at trial. Moreover, the Strickland analysis disregards the personal nature of the right to testify and fails to acknowledge that it is the defendant’s decision whether to take the stand.11
The majority attempts to have it both ways: it acknowledges that the right to testify is a fundamental constitutional right personal to the defendant, but it refuses to treat it as such. Rather than applying the ineffective assistance of counsel analysis to such claims, this court should do as the Supreme Court has done in analogous situations involving other fundamental constitutional rights: it should mandate that trial courts establish on the trial record the valid waiver of a defendant’s fundamental constitutional right to testify.
Not only is this conclusion constitutionally mandated by the fundamental nature of the right to testify, but it also has the practical advantage of “forestallpng] the spin-off of collateral proceedings.” 12 One of our obligations as an appellate court is to prevent unnecessary future litigation. With this case, this court had the opportunity to discharge this obligation by averting collateral claims based on alleged violations of the right to testify. As one commentator has recognized:
[O]n-the-record procedures not only ensure the effective waiver of defendants’ fundamental constitutional rights, but also prevent post-conviction attorney-client disputes and facilitate appellate review.13
The certainty provided by an on-the-record waiver of a defendant’s right to testify would foreclose a later claim by that defendant that counsel failed to advise of the right to testify or declined to allow the defendant to make the choice as to whether to testify. Unfortunately, the majority’s opinion does not provide for such certainty; rather, it opens the door for an after-the-fact swearing contest between the defendant and counsel as to whether the defendant validly waived the right to testify.
Accordingly, I would hold that a criminal defendant’s waiver of his fundamental constitutional right to testify is not valid unless the trial record affirmatively shows that the defendant knew of this right and personally and intelligently waived the right. I would not proscribe a specific procedure for this on-the-record waiver. The state and federal trial courts are undoubtedly anxious to forestall collateral claims based on the denial of the right to testify. I would, therefore, leave it to these courts to fashion a procedure that ensures that the trial record reflects the defendant’s valid waiver of this right. The procedure may entail a colloquy between the trial judge and the defendant14, a colloquy between defense counsel and the de*1545fendant in the presence of the trial judge15, a statement by defense counsel in the presence of the trial judge and an acknowledgement by the defendant that the statement is accurate, or a written waiver signed by the defendant and filed with the trial court. Whatever the procedure, it is sufficient if the trial record reflects (1) that defense counsel advised the defendant of his or her constitutional right to testify and (2) that the defendant personally and intelligently made the choice not to testify.
B.
This case amply illustrates the problem with adjudicating a claim based upon an alleged violation of the right to testify when the trial record is silent as to the defendant’s waiver of this right. Here, the post-trial evidentiary hearing was held less than ten weeks after Teague’s trial; this period of time is far shorter than the time between trial and subsequent collateral proceedings in the typical criminal case. Nevertheless, at the post-trial evidentiary hearing in this case, Teague’s defense counsel could not clearly recall the events critical to the resolution of the factual issues underlying Teague’s right to testify claim. For example, counsel initially testified that she had a conversation with Teag-ue regarding his testifying shortly before she rested the case for the defense and that she felt he had assented to her decision not to put him on the stand.16 After reviewing the trial transcript, however, counsel corrected her testimony, deciding that her conversation with Teague occurred after she rested the case for the defense, not before; she then testified unequivocally that she “didn’t consult [Teague] at all” regarding whether he should testify.17 I conclude that counsel’s testimony demonstrates that she failed to discharge her obligation to advice Teague of his right to testify and to solicit from him his personal decision as to whether to testify.18 Counsel’s testimony is sufficiently ambiguous, however, that my colleagues do not agree. This case, then, demonstrates the need for an on-the-record waiver of a criminal defendant’s right to testify. Because there is no such on-the-record waiver in this case, I would reverse Teague’s conviction and remand the case for a new trial.
II.
Even if I were to agree with the majority that a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel is the appropriate vehicle for analyzing the alleged violation of the right to testify, I would conclude that Teague’s conviction must be reversed. In reaching its conclusion that counsel’s performance was not deficient, the majority relies heavily on counsel’s testimony at the post-trial hearing that, “when she rested the defense case, she believed that Teague had assented or acceded to her recommendation” not to put him on the stand.19 Reliance on this testimony is inappropriate for two reasons. First, counsel gave this testimony before she realized that her conversation with Teague regarding his testifying occurred after, not before, she rested the defense case. Accordingly, this testimony was based on counsel’s erroneous perception of the chronology of the events; after counsel corrected her perception, she testified that she “didn’t consult [Teague] at all” as to whether he should testify.20 Second, a fair reading of counsel’s entire testimony reveals that any conclusion on her part that Teague intelligently and voluntarily assented to her decision not to put him on the stand was unreasonable.
Three days after Teague was convicted, his trial counsel filed a motion for new trial. She represented that Teague had been “denied his constitutional right to tes*1546tify in his own behalf by the actions of' his trial attorney.” Two months later, at the post-trial evidentiary hearing on the motion for new trial, counsel testified that she “probably did” inform Teague the week before trial that the ultimate decision as to whether to testify was his to make.21 Counsel further testified, however, that she told Teague that they would postpone the decision as to whether he would testify until the trial.
During the course of the trial, Teague repeatedly asked counsel when he would testify. Notwithstanding these repeated requests, counsel had only one conversation with Teague during the trial regarding his testifying, and this conversation was initiated not be counsel, but by Teague. Counsel’s testimony makes clear that, during the course of this one conversation, she did not solicit Teague’s personal decision whether to testify:
It wasn’t as though I took him out, sat down and discussed it with him. I was pretty much — my belief was — I mean, my opinion was he didn’t need to and shouldn’t [testify], and I certainly made that clear to him. I don’t know — I’m sure I didn’t solicit from him are you satisfied with this, or do you want to discuss this any further. I kind of just stated what I thought he should do.
I never asked him whether — well, one thing I feel confident about at this point that I did not do was remind him it was ultimately his decision. I feel that I probably did that in the meeting that we had in my office the week before the trial started, but at that point during the trial, I don’t think I ever reaffirmed that to him or reminded him that I wasn’t making that decision. He was. I think he kind of was letting me know that he was willing, and I was just deciding — telling him very forcefully, you know, you don’t need to do that.22
Counsel initially testified that this conversation with Teague occurred before she rested the defense case; while under this mistaken impression, she testified as follows:
Q. Ms. Kearns, if the decision was made, did you feel that Mr. Teague had assented to your decision not to put him on the stand?
A. I’m sorry. At what point?
Q. I guess at the point before you rested, did you believe that Mr. Teague had assented to or acceded to your position?
A. Yes, at that point. Not before the trial started. I mean, I had clearly left it open for further discussion when the trial had started.23
It is upon this testimony that the majority bases its conclusion that counsel’s performance was not deficient. The majority conveniently ignores, however, that counsel changed her view of the events after correcting her mistaken impression as to when her conversation with Teague took place. During the course of her testimony, counsel discovered that this conversation could not have occurred before she rested the defense case because there was no recess in the trial proceedings at that time. Upon this discovery, counsel testified:
THE WITNESS: Your honor, if there was no recess after Mr. Patterson testified and the time I rested, then the discussion that I had with Mr. Teague was after I had rested, and I obviously didn’t consult him at all.24
Thus, counsel unequivocally admitted that she did not consult Teague before she made the final decision that he would not testify.
There is further evidence that counsel, not Teague, made the ultimate decision that he would not testify. Counsel testified that, even after the trial was over, Teague continued to ask her when he would testify:
He started calling me. He called me several times at home late, obviously *1547very distressed, and his first question to me was, “When do I get to tell my side of the story?”
[I]t was then that I started looking back on it and became concerned that I may not have made clear to him that it was his choice, and that this was something that he could decide to do or not decide to do....25
Counsel’s testimony indicates that she did not allow Teague to make the ultimate decision as to whether he would testify; rather, she imposed upon him her decision that he would not testify. Accordingly, I would hold that the district court’s conclusion that Teague’s will was not “overborne” by counsel is clearly erroneous and that counsel’s performance was constitutionally deficient.
I would further hold that Teague can demonstrate prejudice resulting from counsel’s deficient performance. This was a close case. The government’s case against Teague was based entirely upon the undercover agent’s perception of Teague during the few moments immediately before his arrest. The agent concluded that Teague intended to participate in the crime; Teag-ue could have testified otherwise. Teague had no prior convictions, and counsel admitted that, had Teague testified, he would have “come across as truthful, open, and sincere.”26 Under these circumstances, counsel’s error in declining to allow Teague to exercise his right to testify was “so serious as to deprive the defendant of a fair trial, a trial whose result is reliable.”27 Accordingly, even if I were to agree with the majority that the ineffective assistance of counsel analysis is appropriate for this case, I would reverse Teague’s conviction and remand this case for a new trial.
APPENDIX
Excerpt from the direct testimony of Teague’s trial counsel, given during the February 3, 1989 post-trial hearing:
[By Mr. Morrison]
Q. Now, do you remember in your final meeting with him anything specific about what you told him about testifying, or what he asked you about it?
A: Well, what we basically did during the meeting was go through a mock direct and cross-examination, and I also updated him on his witnesses, but that was what we did, and I’m confident that at the end of that my advice to Mr. Teague was that he shouldn’t be testifying, but we weren’t going to decide that right then.
Q: When you told him that it was your advice that he wouldn’t be testifying, did he seem a little bit concerned about that position?
A: Yes, because there was another aspect to this, and that was Kenny Patterson. Kenny Patterson had assured Mr. Teague that he would be testifying and exonerating Mr. Teague. I was not getting that impression from Glenn Zell who represented Mr. Patterson.
So, I kept — I kept telling Mr. Teague we would deal with that when we knew exactly what Mr. Patterson was going to do, although to some extent I think it was my way of appeasing Mr. Teague because my firm belief was he shouldn’t testify.
Q. Now, at the trial itself, did Mr. Teag-ue make it known to you his desire to tell his story or to testify or whatever, however, you want to describe it?
A. During the trial, there were a couple times when he asked me was he going to be testifying, or am I going to tell my side, and I at that point knew Mr. Patterson would be testifying, and I said, why don’t we wait and see how the evidence develops?
During Mr. Patterson’s testimony, he started — there were several times when Mr. Teague was literally pulling on my sleeve saying, “That’s not true. That’s not true,” and I said, “We will talk about it when he gets off the stand.”
*1548He asked me again sometime during the defense case whether he was going— when he was going to get to tell his side of it, and I said, “What do you want to tell? What do you think you need to tell?”
And one of his big concerns was what Mr. Patterson had testified to concerning the gun, because Mr. Teague felt strongly — not felt strongly — he was adamant that Agent Augustine had told the truth about the gun and when the gun was removed from the bag whereas Mr. Patterson had changed that when he testified, and I said to Mr. Teague something like if that’s what your concern is, don’t worry about it because I don’t think that is a significant fact.
THE COURT: Would you refresh my recollection about the discrepancy in the testimony at trial? I’m vague about it at this point.
THE WITNESS: Agent Augustine had testified that when he went up to the cab of the truck with Mr. Patterson, that there was a bag, and that when he looked in — he was shown the bag, and he is allowed to glance in the bag, and when he looked into the bag, there was a gun in the bag, and at some point Mr. Patterson removed the gun and put it on the seat of the car between the passenger and the driver’s side, and that is where it stayed.
Mr. Patterson testified that he had removed the gun at the bake shop, placed it on top of the bag, and that when he came to the scene of the transaction, that the gun was already outside on top of the bag, and Mr. Teague had told me all along that the gun was inside the bag, and he had not seen the gun until after Augustine had come to the cab of the truck and taken the gun out, and I told Mr. Teague I just didn’t think that was significant and, therefore, if that was what he was feeling so strongly about, he didn’t need to testify.
Q. Now, did Mr. Teague make any response to what you relayed to him as your feeling about the necessity of his testimony?
A. I think he probably said something like well, if I should, I will, or I’m willing to do it. I’ll do it, and I said you don’t need to, something like that, and I know we had the conversation here in the courtroom. It wasn’t as though I took him out, sat down and discussed it with him. I was pretty much — my belief was — I mean, my opinion was he didn’t need to and shouldn’t, and I certainly made that clear to him. I don’t know— I’m sure I didn’t solicit from him are you satisfied with this, or do you want to discuss this any further. I kind of just stated what I thought he should do.
THE COURT: Can you try to recall what words were spoken in that conversation? This was like at a break?
THE WITNESS: It would have been during a break, and it would have been the beginning of the break because I know Mr. Teague was still sitting down, and he brought it up to me, “Well, am I going to testify?”
THE COURT: And this was during the defense case?
THE WITNESS: This was during the defense case. It was after Mr. Patterson testified. I don’t recall — I looked at my notes, and my trial notes are by page, and the pages are out of order, so I don’t know when Mr. Patterson testified, whether it was before or after our character witnesses, but by—
MR. MORRISON: If I might interject to refresh everyone’s recollection, Mr. Patterson was the last witness to testify.
THE WITNESS: I might be wrong about this, but then I would assume that there was a break before I had to rest because it seems to me that there was a break, and Mr. Teague is sitting down and I was standing up to leave, and Mr. Teag-ue kind of said to me, “Well, am I going to testify?”
And that’s when I said, “What do you feel you need to testify about?
And he was very concerned about the testimony regarding the gun because that was, of course, the only new devel*1549opment. There was nothing else really that was not — that was that new to us about what Mr. Patterson had said, and I said, “Well, Mr. Augustine has already testified about that. They are going to believe Augustine over Patterson on that. Don’t worry about that. You don’t need to testify.”
And I’m sure he said something like well, I will, or I will if it will help, or I’m ready and willing to do it. He told me many times that he was not afraid to testify and he was willing to testify, and I was probably walking out and said, “Don’t worry about it, Donald. You don’t have to,” but I didn’t solicit from him. I never asked him whether — well, one thing I feel confident about at this point that I did not do was remind him it was ultimately his decision. I feel that I probably did that in the meeting that we had in my office the week before the trial started, but at that point during the trial, I don’t think I ever reaffirmed that to him or reminded him that I wasn’t making that decision. He was. I think he kind of was letting me know that he was willing, and I was just deciding — telling him very forcefully, you know, you don’t need to do that.
THE COURT: Could you expand a little bit? You said there were demeanor considerations. Be more specific.
THE WITNESS: We went through direct and a cross-examination in my office, and Mr. Teague was very scared because — I mean, he was protesting and he was very scared about what he was facing, not the time in prison but the conviction, the fact of a felony conviction, so when I would ask him questions, he would not listen to the entire question. He would start to cut me off and respond to what he thought I was asking him, and my fear was particularly on cross-examination if he kept jumping the gun, that Mr. O’Leary would be asking a question and he would give a response to the wrong thing, and that he, in fact, could be twisted around that way and essentially make admissions that probably weren’t even true because he wasn’t listening to what was being said and, you know, he had difficulty maintaining his composure. He cried quite a bit during my asking him questions and, you know, that emotion that he had I thought prevented him from listening to what was going on and prevented him from responding intelligently.
THE COURT: How did you think he would come across in terms of would he seem open, direct? Was there a risk he would seem evasive?
THE WITNESS: No, no. I think he would have come across as truthful, open, and very sincere.
[By MR. MORRISON]
Q. Ms. Kearns, If the decision was made, did you feel that Mr. Teague had assented to your decision not to put him on the stand?
A. I’m sorry. At what point?
Q. I guess at the point before you rested, did you believe that Mr. Teague had assented to or acceded to your position?
A. Yes, at that point. Not before the trial started. I mean, I had clearly left it open for further discussion when the trial had started.
Q. Now, do you remember at the end of the trial whether or not you stated in open court in the presence of Mr. Teague to the court that Mr. Teague would not be testifying?
A. I don’t recall that.
Q. So, Mr. Teague never had an opportunity to hear you take that position with the court and then object to it?
A. To my knowledge, he didn’t.
THE COURT: Was there a point — I’m just trying to think back — where perhaps out of the jury’s presence there was some statement about he might or might not be called?
THE WITNESS: I don’t remember that. I don’t remember — if there was a break after Mr. Patterson’s testimony, I don’t remember why there was a break, or whether there was just, you know, the court said this is a good point to recess and nothing was said by us. I just remember that we discussed it during the recess, and if Mr. Patterson was the last *1550witness, there had to be a recess right on the heels of that.
MR. MORRISON: That’s correct, the day ended. That was the end of the day after Patterson testified. There was some discussion about the charges, and I’m not sure if there was a charge conference, but they came back the next day for the closing and the charge, and then the jury deliberated and rendered a verdict.
THE WITNESS: Was there a recess before the charge conference or before I rested?
MR. MORRISON: I believe there was a brief recess before the charge conference. It is in the record, and I can refer to that, but there was a complete overnight recess between the time — there is no — in the transcript there is not any portion in it where it says I rest, but as we often do in trial, you just stop and go into the charge conference.
THE WITNESS: I would have thought the court would have asked, “Are there any further witnesses?”
MR. O’LEARY: I’m not finding such a recess.
MR. MORRISON: Your honor, we are looking at page 113 of the transcript, and there does not appear to have been any appreciable recess or any recess at all . after the jury was excused. Ms. Kearns moved again on Rule 29, and it was denied, and then there appears to be a brief charge conference, and then there was a recess overnight.
THE WITNESS: Your honor, if there was no recess after Mr. Patterson testified and the time I rested, then the discussion that I had with Mr. Teague was after I had rested, and I obviously didn’t consult him at all.

. See Barker v. Wingo, 407 U.S. 514, 529, 92 S.Ct. 2182, 2191, 33 L.Ed.2d 101 (1972); United States v. Joshi, 896 F.2d 1303, 1307 (11th Cir.), cert denied, - U.S. -, 111 S.Ct. 523, 112 L.Ed.2d 534 (1990).

. Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U.S. 458, 58 S.Ct. 1019, 82 L.Ed. 1461 (1938).

. Id. at 464-65, 58 S.Ct. at 1023 (footnotes omitted) (emphasis added).

. Carnley v. Cochran, 369 U.S. 506, 82 S.Ct. 884, 8 L.Ed.2d 70 (1962).

. Id. at 516, 82 S.Ct. at 890.

. Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U.S. 238, 89 S.Ct. 1709, 23 L.Ed.2d 274 (1969).

. Id. at 242, 89 S.Ct. at 1712.

. Id. at 243-44, 89 S.Ct. at 1712-13 (footnotes omitted) (emphasis added).

. Barker v. Wingo, 407 U.S. at 529, 92 S.Ct. at 2191.

. Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984).

. Majorie L. Rifkin, The Criminal Defendant’s Right to Testify: The Right to Be Seen But Not Heard, 21 Colum.Hum.Rts.L.Rev. 253, 273-74 (1989); see also Seth Dawson, Note, Due Process v. Defense Counsel’s Unilateral Waiver of the Defendant’s Right To Testify, 3 Hastings Const. L.Q. 517, 532 (1976).

. Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U.S. at 244, 89 S.Ct. at 1713.

. Rifkin, supra note 11, at 265.

. See Hollenbeck v. Estelle, 672 F.2d 451, 452-53 (5th Cir.) (noting that state trial judge’s colloquy with defendant regarding waiver of right to testify was "a model of appropriate judicial concern for the constitutional rights of a criminal defendant”), cert. denied, 459 U.S. 1019, 103 S.Ct. 383, 74 L.Ed.2d 514 (1982). The majority expresses concern over requiring the trial court to discuss the right to testify with the defendant because such a requirement “would unnecessarily intrude into the attorney-client relationship and could unintentionally influence the defendant in his or her choice.” Majority opinion at 1533 n. 8. This concern may be allayed by carefully drafting the colloquy between the trial judge and the defendant or by employing one of the other on-the-record waiver procedures mentioned above.

. See Timothy P. O’Neill, Vindicating the Defendant’s Constitutional Right to Testify at Criminal Trial: The Need for an On-the-Record Waiver, 51 U.Pitt.L.Rev. 809, 836-38 (1990).

. R3-19.

. R3-21.

. See Part II of this dissent. The pertinent portion of counsel’s direct testimony is set out in the appendix to this dissent.

. Majority opinion at 1535. See R3-19.

. R3-21.

. R3-18.

. R3-16, R3-18 (emphasis added).

. R3-19.

. R3-21 (emphasis added).

. R3-26 through R3-27.

. R3-19.

.Strickland, v. Washington, 466 U.S. at 687, 104 S.Ct. at 2064.