Court Opinion

ID: 9764084
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 03:09:34.402364+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:53.267802
License: Public Domain

*594FERREN, Associate Judge,
concurring in the result of Part II and otherwise concurring in the opinion of the court:
This case reflects a tug of war between the trial court’s responsibility to bring to trial a case for which counsel and the defendant had announced they were ready two months earlier, and the defendant’s new found desire for a continuance immediately before trial. The defendant claimed ineffectiveness of counsel and wanted a new lawyer to help him present additional witnesses. After the trial court denied the defendant’s pretrial motion, the request for a continuance was transmuted into a different question: whether defense counsel, apparently confronted with a client now wishing to present perjured testimony through new witnesses,1 should be permitted to withdraw before the jury had been sworn, resulting in a continuance for a theoretically different reason based on substantially the same facts.
I agree a remand is required for further inquiry into counsel’s reasons for seeking to withdraw. I write separately, however, for three reasons: to suggest procedures for conducting a timely pretrial (or midtrial) inquiry in future cases; to stress that the analysis may be different when counsel seeks to withdraw because his client, not another defense witness, intends to testify falsely; and to express my belief that the single relevant inquiry is whether the lawyer has an “actual conflict of interest” that will “adversely affect [the] lawyer’s performance.” Cuyler v. Sullivan, 446 U.S. 335, 350, 100 S.Ct. 1708, 1719, 64 L.Ed.2d 333 (1980). The client’s manipulations and the court’s own interest in expediting the trial are not part of that calculus.
I.
First, there are procedural concerns. The trial court had a responsibility to inquire once counsel, as an officer of the court, represented that he had an ethical basis for withdrawal. See Singley v. United States, 548 A.2d 780 (D.C.1988); Douglas v. United States, 488 A.2d 121, 136 (D.C.1985). There are three obvious problems with such an inquiry: how to protect client confidences and secrets; how to protect the client-defendant’s fifth amendment privilege against self-incrimination should he choose to speak at the hearing; and how to avoid tainting the trial judge with adverse information about the client-defendant.2 The only solution to the last concern is to have a different judge hear and decide the withdrawal motion. This will not necessarily force a continuance of the trial. The “judge in chambers” designated to hear emergency matters, see Super.Ct. Civ.R. 12-I(b), can be called upon to conduct the inquiry during a recess; a continuance will be necessary only if counsel’s request to withdraw has merit.
Preserving the lawyer’s obligation not to reveal client confidences and secrets, see DR 4-101(B),3 is more problematic. There *595is only one way to assure a meaningful hearing on the withdrawal motion: permit the attorney freely to disclose all relevant facts to the judge designated to hear the motion, without fear of violating any ethical obligation to the client, just as the attorney is entitled to do when the client accuses the attorney of constitutional ineffectiveness. See DR 4-101(C)(4); Butler v. United States, 414 A.2d 844, 854-55 (D.C.1980) (en banc) (Ferren, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).4 Concomitantly, the client-defendant must be protected against any subpoenaed or volunteered testimony by the hearing judge (or by any other witness to the motion hearing) that would disclose what otherwise is a lawyer-client confidence or secret. See Butler, 414 A.2d at 855-56 & 856 n. 4 (Ferren, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).
The fifth amendment protects the client-defendant against any compelled response to the attorney’s accusations. But, if the client-defendant does wish to speak, the hearing judge may wish to assure the defendant access to independent counsel to evaluate and monitor that decision. The judge in any event must assure that any such statement is not later admitted against the defendant at trial, except, perhaps, by way of impeachment in some circumstances. Cf. Simmons v. United States, 390 U.S. 377, 394, 88 S.Ct. 967, 976, 19 L.Ed.2d 1247 (1968). My hunch is that, given fifth amendment problems and the likely credibility of most attorneys, the withdrawal motion will be decided primarily by reference to what the lawyer, not the client-defendant, has to say.
In this case, of course, we are no longer at the stage where a trial judge is trying to arrange for an appropriate hearing on defense counsel’s pretrial motion to withdraw. We confront a post-conviction challenge alleging a violation of the sixth amendment right to counsel. I therefore turn to the substantive issues.
II.
Ordinarily, as the majority notes, to obtain reversal an appellant must show that “an actual conflict of interest adversely affected his lawyer's performance.” Cuyler, 446 U.S. at 350, 100 S.Ct. at 1719. If an actual conflict of interest is shown, however, an adverse impact is conclusively presumed and reversal is required; the appellant need not demonstrate that the conflict prejudiced the outcome of the trial. Id. at 349-50, 100 S.Ct. at 1718-19. Furthermore, the kind of actual conflict warranting reversal is not limited to cases, such as Cuyler, in which a lawyer has engaged in multiple representation; all personal conflicts of interest that might prejudice the representation are to be considered. See, e.g., Douglas, 488 A.2d at 136-37 (counsel subject of disciplinary complaint by client-defendant pending trial); United States v. Cancilla, 725 F.2d 867, 868-71 (2d Cir.1984) (counsel may have engaged in criminal activity, similar to charges against client-defendant, involving possible common co-conspirator).
Accordingly, whether we focus on the proper disposition of counsel’s pretrial motion to withdraw or on appellant’s constitutional argument on appeal based on denial of counsel’s motion, the concern is the same: the existence of an “actual conflict of interest.” Cuyler, 446 U.S. at 350, 100 S.Ct. at 1719. If there is such a conflict, then the trial court must grant counsel’s motion to withdraw; otherwise, on direct appeal reversal will be required under the sixth amendment.
If the trial court had conducted a pretrial inquiry, the central question apparently would have been whether there was an “actual conflict of interest,” requiring the judge to grant counsel’s motion to withdraw once the judge learned that counsel knew one or more witnesses proffered by the defendant intended to give false testimony. See supra note 1.
DR 7-102(A) provides, where relevant:
In his [or her] representation of • a client, a lawyer shall not:
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*596(4) Knowingly use perjured testimony or false evidence.
(5) Knowingly make a false statement of law or fact.
(6) Participate in creation or preservation of evidence when he [or she] knows or it is obvious that the evidence is false.
See also Rules of PROFESSIONAL Conduct, 3.3(a)(4) (Proposed Rules) (published in BaR Report (Supp. Aug./Sept.l988)). An attorney, therefore, may ignore a client-defendant’s request to call a witness (other than the defendant) who intends to lie. Counsel is duty-bound not to offer evidence he or she knows to be false, and the client-defendant has no basis for claiming ineffective assistance of counsel if the lawyer refuses to call the proffered witness. See United States v. Curtis, 742 F.2d 1070, 1074 (7th Cir.1984) (implicitly acknowledges propriety of district court finding that defense counsel, because of ethical obligation, refused to call alibi witnesses who he knew would present false testimony). In this situation, therefore, I see no legally cognizable conflict between lawyer and client and, thus, no basis for withdrawal; the lawyer is ethically and legally in charge of the situation.
There may be situations where client insistence on using apparently perjurious witnesses, coupled with the lawyer’s refusal to do so, creates enough deterioration of the lawyer-client relationship that withdrawal, even midtrial, should be permitted, for example, under DR 2-110(C)(l)(d) (conduct rendering it unreasonably difficult for lawyer to carry out employment effectively).5 But, the ground for withdrawal would have to be something more than client insistence on calling perjurious witnesses as such, since the lawyer can properly moot that particular conflict by simply refusing to call the witnesses.
It is important to keep in mind, however, that the ethical situation may be different when the client-defendant insists on taking the stand to testify falsely. Whereas a defendant has no right to relief when counsel, for ethical reasons, refuses to call some other perjurious witness, the defendant may have a constitutional right to testify in his or her own defense.6 If so, counsel *597may not be able to waive that right for the client. Compare Winters v. Cook, 489 F.2d 174, 179 (5th Cir.1973) (dicta) (defendant’s right to testify is inherently a personal fundamental right that can be waived only by defendant, not by attorney) with United States v. Curtis, 742 F.2d at 1076 (although counsel, as matter of trial strategy, may not waive defendant’s personal constitutional right to testify truthfully, defendant has no constitutional right to testify falsely and thus counsel was not ineffective for refusing to allow defendant to take stand to testify falsely).
It follows that, in such a case, counsel may not be able to avoid associating in one way or another at trial with a lying witness — the client — unless the court grants counsel’s motion to withdraw.7 The client will therefore have a measure of control over the lawyer that is not present when, as in the instant case, the client wants the lawyer to call some other witness who the lawyer knows intends to lie. The question thus would become: whether the defendant’s right to testify and the lawyer’s duty to provide representation can create an “actual conflict of interest,” Cuyler, 446 U.S. at 350, 100 S.Ct. at 1719, entitling, and in fact even requiring, counsel to seek to withdraw.
This is not the place to elaborate very much on this most vexing of ethical issues, but it is important to recognize that this court has announced an acceptable approach to ease the conflict — indeed, one that presupposes counsel in a criminal case will not be in a position to waive a perjurious client’s election to testify. We have held that, if a defendant’s lawyer deals with the defendant’s perjurious testimony by following the procedure outlined in Proposed Standard 7.7(c) of the ABA Standards por Criminal Justice: The Defense Function (1971),8 the client-defendant will *598not be deprived of the sixth amendment right to the effective assistance of counsel. See Butler, 414 A.2d at 850; Thornton v. United States, 357 A.2d 429, 437-38 (D.C.), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 1024, 97 S.Ct. 644, 50 L.Ed.2d 626 (1976); cf. Johnson v. United States, 404 A.2d 162, 163-65 (D.C.1979) (where defense counsel did not believe his client’s testimony was untrue the trial court could not force him to follow Standard 7.7). See also Proposed Rule 3.3(b), supra note 8, and official Comment thereto.
I do not believe, however, that the availability of Proposed Standard 7.7 or of Proposed Rule 3.3(b) necessarily moots the conflict between lawyer and perjurious client in the way that DR 7-102 does by empowering the lawyer to ignore the client’s demand to call other perjurious witnesses. Despite the availability of Proposed Standard 7.7 or Proposed Rule 3.3(b), the lawyer cannot altogether avoid a sense of participation when the client takes the stand and lies. Thus, without an opportunity to withdraw, the lawyer with a client who intends to lie may not be able to avoid an intense personal conflict.9 Accordingly, there will be room for the argument that, absent serious harm to the client, a judge should not compel a lawyer, over the lawyer’s objection, to associate further in a criminal case with a client-defendant who the lawyer knows intends to commit perjury at trial.10 In my judgment, the trial court’s eagerness to move its calendar, including an understandable desire not to permit a defendant’s proposed perjury to force a continuance, is not a proper basis for compelling a lawyer to continue the association if the lawyer honestly believes and credibly represents that he or she cannot tolerate it and thereby conveys a serious personal conflict between serving the *599client and honoring the lawyer’s own principles.
Even if most criminal defense lawyers are hardened to expect lying clients — or at least have trained themselves not to “know” when lies under oath are taking place — I believe there still are lawyers who simply do not want to be associated with perjury in any way. I respect that. To be so associated — even on the limited basis of Proposed Standard 7.7, as we have permitted under Butler and Thornton — may cause in some lawyers an understandable emotional reaction creating a profound personal conflict between lawyer and client that adversely affects the representation within the meaning of Cuyler v. Sullivan, supra. Under these circumstances, absent serious harm to the client, see supra note 10, I believe the lawyer should be allowed to withdraw, even if, as in this case, the defendant initiated the effort for a continuance to force withdrawal and the trial court thinks the lawyer is the pawn of a manipulative client. The fact that a client may be manipulative does not imply that a lawyer who honestly seeks to withdraw for ethical reasons is a party to that manipulation.
Furthermore, to force a lawyer to represent a client who plans to lie under oath in a criminal case is obviously at odds with an ethical scheme that tells the lawyer to ask the court for permission to withdraw under such circumstances unless withdrawal is not “feasible,” Proposed Standard 7.7(b) and (c), or would “seriously harm [] the client,” Proposed Rule 3.3(b). Failure to grant a credible withdrawal motion, absent serious harm to the client, would make this particular ethical obligation a useless gesture. Finally, we are not talking about the last lawyer in town. Many counsel will acknowledge that they can provide adequate representation, without personal, prejudicial qualms about the client’s behavior, if they follow the testimonial procedure outlined in Proposed Standard 7.7(c) and in Proposed Rule 3.3(b), supra note 8. If withdrawal is permitted, the client will not be without a competent lawyer.
III.
In the present case, counsel was in a position ethically and constitutionally to refuse to call the witnesses his client wanted to present; thus, counsel did not have a conflict in the same sense he might have had if forced to be associated at trial with a client who took the stand to lie. But this is not to say the trial court is foreclosed, on remand, from considering among other things the deterioration of the lawyer-client relationship that may have been caused by contention over the client’s demand to use perjurious witnesses. See DR 2-110(C)(1)(d) (permissive withdrawal). I do not believe that a lawyer who credibly represents he or she cannot continue the representation without a personal conflict that adversely affects the lawyer’s performance should be automatically denied withdrawal merely because the court wants to move its calendar and finds the client to be manipulative. It is the nature of the lawyer’s conflict, not the client’s machinations or the court’s own convenience, that determines whether sixth amendment rights have, or have not, been honored.

.Counsel’s reference to DR 2-110(C)(1)(c), in addition to DR 2-110(C)(1)(d), was the tip-off here. The court's obligation to hold a hearing, as well as the procedures for doing so, will be the same when counsel seeks to withdraw for ethical reasons without intimating why.

. Even though, in this case, a jury is the fact-finder, the judge may be unduly affected in his or her rulings, as well as in eventual sentencing, if the judge learns from defense counsel (instead of merely from surmise) that the defendant plans to lie. See Butler v. United States, 414 A.2d 844, 854 n. 1 (D.C.1980) (en banc) (Ferren, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).

. The present Code of Professional Responsibility is published as Appendix A to D.C. Bar R.X. See also Rules of Professional Conduct Rule 1.6 (Proposed Rules) (published in Bar Report (Supp. Aug./Sept.l988)).

. See also Proposed Rule 1.6(d)(3).

. If the jury has been sworn, the level of conflict must have created a manifest necessity for permitting withdrawal in a situation (unlike this one) where the client wants the lawyer to continue; otherwise, absent client consent, double jeopardy concerns would haunt the proceeding. See Nix v. Whiteside, 475 U.S. 157, 170, 106 S.Ct. 988, 996, 89 L.Ed.2d 123 (1986).

. Although the Supreme Court has never directly held that a criminal defendant has a constitutional right to testify, it has acknowledged that right many times in dicta. See Faretta v. California, 422 U.S. 806, 819 n. 15, 95 S.Ct. 2525, 2533 n. 15, 45 L.Ed.2d 562 (1975) ("It is now accepted ... that an accused has a right ... to testify in his own behalf_’’); Brooks v. Tennessee, 406 U.S. 605, 612, 613, 92 S.Ct. 1891, 1895, 1896, 32 L.Ed.2d 358 (1972) (whether criminal defendant is to testify is "matter of constitutional right" under "guiding hand of counsel"); Harris v. New York, 401 U.S. 222, 225, 91 S.Ct. 643, 645, 28 L.Ed.2d 1 (1971) (every criminal defendant “privileged to testify in his own defense”). Federal courts of appeals and state supreme and appellate cotuts have expressly found such a right. United States v. Bifield, 702 F.2d 342, 347-49 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 461 U.S. 931, 103 S.Ct. 2095, 77 L.Ed.2d 304 (1983); Alicea v. Gagnon, 675 F.2d 913, 923 (7th Cir.1982); People v. Freeman, 76 Cal.App.3d 302, 310, 142 Cal.Rptr. 806, 810-11 (1977); State v. Smith, 299 N.W.2d 504, 506 (Minn.1980); Commonwealth v. Lincoln, 270 Pa.Super. 489, 494, 411 A.2d 824, 827 (1979). See also 1 ABA Standards for Criminal Justice — The Defense Function —§ 4 — 5.2(a)(iii) (1979) ("whether to testify in his or her own behalf’ is decision to be made by the accused). See generally Rieger, Client Perjury: A Proposed Resolution of the Constitutional and Ethical Issues, 70 Minn.L.Rev. 121, 128-143 (1985) (broad discussion of right to testify).
The Supreme Court has also held in certain contexts that a criminal defendant does not have a constitutional right to testify falsely, at least not without certain sanctions. Nix v. Whiteside, 475 U.S. 157, 106 S.Ct. 988, 89 L.Ed. 2d 123 (1986) (counsel’s threat to inform court and to seek to withdraw if client-defendant lied on witness stand did not violate sixth amendment right to effective assistance of counsel); United States v. Havens, 446 U.S. 620, 100 S.Ct. 1912, 64 L.Ed.2d 559 (1980) (prosecutor may use illegally seized evidence to impeach perjurious testimony by defendant on cross-examination); Harris v. New York, supra (statements of defendant taken in violation of Miranda rights admissible to impeach statements by defendant on direct examination). None of these cases, however, addresses the question whether counsel has a right, because of anticipated perjury, to waive the client’s right to testify.

. It is an open question in this jurisdiction whether, after a client testifies falsely, tin attorney can reveal the perjury to the court and thereby disassociate himself or herself from the lying witness without violating the disciplinary rules. But see Board of Overseers of the Bar v. Dineen, 481 A.2d 499 (Me.1984) (disciplinary action against an attorney for not revealing client’s false testimony to the court), cert. denied, 476 U.S. 1141, 106 S.Ct. 2248, 90 L.Ed.2d 694 (1986); In re King, 7 Utah 2d 258, 322 P.2d 1095 (1958) (same). In Butler, however, concerning the alleged ineffectiveness of counsel, we stressed the importance of the protection of a client's confidences and wrote that “in such a dilemma, advice, disassociation, and even passive representation, may be resorted to in lieu of exposure.” 414 A.2d at 849. By endorsing the American Bar Association’s Proposed Standard 7.7, see Butler, 414 A.2d at 850, we allow an attorney, consistent with the disciplinary rules, to choose passive representation.

. Proposed Standard 7.7 (1971) provides:
Testimony by the defendant.
(a) If the defendant has admitted to his lawyer facts which establish guilt and the lawyer’s independent investigation establishes that the admissions are true but the defendant insists on his right to trial, the lawyer must advise his client against taking the witness stand to testify falsely.
(b) If, before trial, the defendant insists that he will take the stand to testify falsely, the lawyer must withdraw from the case, if that is feasible, seeking leave of the court if necessary.
(c) If withdrawal from the case is not feasible or is not permitted by the court, or if the situation arises during the trial and the defendant insists upon testifying falsely in his own behalf, the lawyer may not lend his aid to the perjury. Before the defendant takes the stand in these circumstances, the lawyer should make a record of the fact that the defendant is taking the stand against the advice of counsel in some appropriate manner without revealing the fact to the court. The lawyer must confine his examination to identifying the witness as the defendant and permitting him to make his statement to the trier or the triers of the facts; the lawyer may not engage in direct examination of the defendant as a witness in the conventional manner and may not later argue the defendant’s known false version of facts to the jury as worthy of belief and he may not recite or rely upon the false testimony in his closing argument.
This court has not expressly dealt with the requirement of Standard 7.7(b) that a lawyer must seek leave to withdraw "if feasible" before using the Standard 7.7(c) procedure, but in Butler we strongly implied that Standard 7.7 in its entirety reflected an acceptable, even preferred, approach to the problem of client peijury in criminal cases. See Butler, 414 A.2d at 850.
In 1979, the American Bar Association House of Delegates withdrew Proposed Standard 7.7 after rejecting suggested amendments, including one that would have made the 7.7(b) withdrawal requirement permissive rather than mandatory. 1 ABA Standards for Criminal Justice — The Defense Function — § 4-7.7 (Supp.1986). The House referred Proposed Standard 7.7 to the ABA’s Special Commission on Evaluation of Professional Standards which eventually proposed the ABA Model Rules of Professional Con*598duct, adopted as amended on August 2, 1983, that form the basis for the proposed Rules of Professional Conduct now under consideration by this court. See id.; Coleman v. State, 621 P.2d 869, 881 n. 21 (Alaska 1980), cert. denied, 454 U.S. 1090, 102 S.Ct. 653, 70 L.Ed.2d 628 (1981); supra note 3. The ABA House of Delegates, the District of Columbia Bar Model Rules of Professional Conduct Committee, and the Board of Directors of the District of Columbia Bar all have addressed the problem reflected by Proposed Standard 7.7 and have made a variety of recommendations. This court, in publishing proposed Rules of Professional Conduct for comment, see supra note 3, has proposed to adopt in Proposed Rule 3.3(b) essentially the approach of Standard 7.7.
Proposed Rules 3.3(h) provides:
(b) When the witness who intends to give evidence that the lawyer knows to be false is the lawyer’s client and is the accused in a criminal case, the lawyer shall first make a good faith effort to dissuade the client from presenting the false evidence; if the lawyer is unable to dissuade the client, the lawyer shall seek leave of the tribunal to withdraw. If the lawyer is unable to dissuade the client or to withdraw without seriously harming the client, the lawyer may put the client on the stand to testify in a narrative fashion, but the lawyer shall not examine the client in such manner as to elicit testimony which the lawyer knows to be false, and shall not argue the probative value of the client’s testimony in closing argument.
The ABA and District of Columbia Bar proposals for Rule 3.3(b) differ from the one this court has published for comment.

. Even if counsel could ethically expose the client’s perjury to the court, see supra note 7, unless the court allows counsel to withdraw, that lawyer would be forced to go forward with representation of a client while planning to expose the client’s perjury to the court later, a situation frought with conflict.

. Obviously, the question whether a lawyer can be said to "know” the client or other witness intends to commit perjury, see Johnson v. United States, 404 A.2d at 163-65, as well as the question whether, in context, withdrawal would "seriously harm” the client, may be difficult to answer. The "serious harm” criterion is a new formulation. Proposed Standard 7.7, supra note 8, talks about withdrawal "if feasible." Proposed Rule 3.3(b) instead provides more specifically for withdrawal if possible "without seriously harming the client.” The official Comment to Proposed Rule 3.3(b) discusses what is meant by “serious harm” and says the term should be "construed narrowly to preclude withdrawal only where the special circumstances of the case tire such that the client would be significantly prejudiced, such as by express or implied divulgence of information otherwise protected by [proposed] Rule 1.6” on confidential information. I would not find a violation of client confidentiality by use of the Standard 7.7 or the Rule 3.3(b) approach in itself or by use of the suggested procedure for permitting counsel to tell the motions judge of the details underlying the motion to withdraw. See supra Part I.