Court Opinion

ID: 9621685
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 06:03:32.915833+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:44:29.458356
License: Public Domain

*372STEPHENS, Judge,
concurring.
In light of the decision of the United States Supreme Court in Indiana v. Edwards, 554 U.S. 164, 171 L. Ed. 2d 345 (2008), I concur fully in the result reached by the majority in this case. I also concur in most of the reasoning of the majority in reaching this result. I write separately for two reasons: (1) to acknowledge the exceptionally difficult position of our trial judges in assessing and dealing with situations like those created by behavior similar to the behavior of this defendant, and (2) to express my lack of the conviction apparently felt by the majority that this defendant’s behavior was motivated by his mental incompetence. While I agree that defendant’s misconduct, based on the decisions of this Court and our Supreme Court upon which the majority relies, was not so serious as to lead to forfeiture of his right to counsel, I am not convinced that defendant did not engage in purposeful misbehavior designed to thwart the trial court in the orderly conduct of its business. My view that defendant acted with full awareness of the impropriety of his antics, at least on some occasions, is informed by the following description of his conduct at the 5 February 2008 pretrial hearing, over which Judge Bridges presided:
Defendant repeatedly interrupted Judge Bridges, despite being admonished time and again by Judge Bridges to “let me finish a sentence without interrupting me[.]”
Defendant persisted in arguing with the attorney who was representing him at the time about the way the attorney was handling the case. This attorney no longer wanted to try to help defendant. He explained to Judge Bridges that “I don’t know if I want to listen to [defendant] over the course of this trial with the kind of language he’s used toward me and the kind of attitude he’s displayed toward[] me.” He advised that defendant had accused him of “entering into a conspiracy” with defendant’s previous attorney and the district attorney to keep defendant in jail. Following an extended argument between defendant and the attorney over when the attorney had visited defendant, the attorney told the court, “See, he contradicts everything I say, Judge.”
Defendant made gestures with his hands when the Judge was addressing him on at least two occasions. In addition, he “appeared to make faces” when the Judge was talking to him. This behavior was independently observed and recorded by the court reporter.
*373I conclude from the transcript of this hearing that, at least on this occasion, defendant was disruptive and inappropriate. I further conclude from this transcript that defendant’s misconduct and misbehavior resulted from more than his apparent obsession with his belief that he was wrongly incarcerated and charged only with misdemeanors. I cannot conclude that the evidence establishes only that defendant may be mentally incompetent. I conclude that there is some evidence that he was intentionally engaging in inappropriate behavior designed to disrupt court proceedings. As for defendant’s behavior at the other pretrial hearings, which the majority characterizes as defendant’s ‘“apparent obsession’ with irrelevancies, rather than abusive or disruptive actions [,]” I note that at the appellate level, we are at a serious disadvantage to completely understand what goes on in a trial courtroom. The cold written record on appeal does not adequately capture the live environment of the courtroom, nor can we on this level, without the aid of experienced and observant court reporters who have the wherewithal to record non-verbal conduct, fully appreciate the demeanor and body language that helps the trial judge decide whether misconduct represents incompetence or shenanigans.
Behavior such as that at issue in this case puts our trial judges in frustrating and tenuous positions when they must try to maintain order in the courtroom and nonetheless assure that the rights of those who appear before them charged with crimes are not abridged. In my view, the able and respected trial judges who tried to deal with this defendant’s behavior displayed enormous patience and bent over backward to ensure that defendant understood not only the nature of the charges against him, but also the consequence of his behavior regarding the issue of his representation — an issue which defendant made difficult, at best, for the judges to handle. Indeed, despite defendant’s behavior ai the 5 February 2008 pretrial hearing and the fact that, by that time, defendant “ha[d] been through three of the best lawyers in Cleveland County[,]” Judge Bridges appointed yet another attorney to assume defendant’s representation. Not surprisingly to this writer, that attorney-client relationship did not last either.
Accordingly, while I concur that, under Edwards, certain of defendant’s behavior raises an issue of defendant’s competence to represent himself which must be addressed by the trial court, and while I reluctantly agree that not all of defendant’s conduct was “sufficiently egregious to warrant forfeiture of his right to counself,]” I sympathize with this State’s trial judges who must walk that fine line *374between the right and the need to exercise control over courtroom proceedings, and the obligation to protect to the utmost the rights of criminal defendants in their courtrooms, especially the paramount right to competent legal representation.