Court Opinion

ID: 9492145
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 14:33:01.835773+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:55:07.906135
License: Public Domain

KOZINSKI, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
If we were writing on a clean slate, I might agree that Lopez’s dogged insis-fence that he counsel and represent himself was enough to waive his right to counsel. However, the Supreme Court and numerous Ninth Circuit cases have made it clear that a judge must inform a defendant in no uncertain terms of, among other things, “the dangers and disadvantages of self-representation.” Faretta v. California, 422 U.S. 806, 835, 95 S.Ct. 2525, 45 L.Ed.2d 562 (1975). The majority says Lopez was so advised, but I can find nothing in the record that satisfies the high standard our previous cases have announced for what constitutes an adequate warning.1
Although we’ve stopped short of articulating a precise litany on the dangers and disadvantages of self-representation, see United States v. Keen, 104 F.3d 1111, 1114 (9th Cir.1996), we’ve made it clear that a judge must ensure “that the defendant understood his or her ‘constitutional right to have [a] lawyer perform certain core functions,’ and that he or she ‘appreciate^] the possible consequences of mishandling these core functions and the lawyer’s superior ability to handle them.’” United States v. Mohawk, 20 F.3d 1480, 1484 (9th Cir.1994) (quoting United States v. Kimmel, 672 F.2d 720, 721 (9th Cir.1982)). We’ve held that telling a defendant he will have to handle sentencing himself isn’t enough. See United States v. Balough, 820 F.2d 1485, 1486 n. 1, 1488 (9th Cir.1987). Nor is informing a defendant that he’ll have to argue and cross-examine witnesses. See Keen, 104 F.3d at 1115. The judge here didn’t even get this specific. He told Lopez: “[E]ven when a lawyer represents himself, he has a fool *1129for a client”; “[Yjou’re going to put a noose around your neck”; and “You have ... to make a strong pitch when you argue.” If the colloquies in Balough and Keen were not sufficient to uphold the defendants’ waivers, the exchange here, rich with aphorisms and hyperbole but with no specific mention of a lawyer’s “core functions,” is certainly not.2
This being said, I agree that this court’s formalistic approach “unduly burdens the very rights guaranteed by Faretta.” Ba-lough, 820 F.2d at 1490 (Kozinski, J., concurring). However, a three-judge panel doesn’t have the power to reverse the circuit’s course. Under our precedent, the judge needed to advise Lopez of the ways in which a lawyer could have assisted him before accepting his Faretta waiver. The judge failed to do so, and we must therefore vacate Lopez’s sentence.

. Another panel recently held that the three-part colloquy set out in United States v. Balough, 820 F.2d 1485 (9th Cir.1987), is not constitutionally compelled and therefore cannot be required in section 2254 cases. See Moreno v. Stewart, 171 F.3d 658, 661 (9th Cir.1999). However, the requirement that a court inform a defendant of the dangers and disadvantages of self-representation comes directly from Faretta, and applies with equal force in state and federal cases. Thus, even in this state habeas action, our precedent about what constitutes an adequate warning on the dangers and disadvantages of self-representation-written mostly in federal appeals-is binding. I happen to believe that Moreno conflicts with our earlier cases like Harding v. Lewis, 834 F.2d 853 (9th Cir.1987), and Snook v. Wood, 89 F.3d 605 (9th Cir.1996). See Moreno, at 671-72 (Tashima, J., dissenting). But even if Moreno is correct, our case differs from Moreno because petitioner here was not warned at all about the dangers of self-representation.

. Had it been announced in open court, see Balough, 820 F.2d at 1488, the information provided in the waiver form surely would have been sufficient, but it was not.