Court Opinion

ID: 9734110
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 17:25:36.464902+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:45.736012
License: Public Domain

CONCURRING OPINION
KEM THOMPSON FROST, Justice.
The court arrives at the correct conclusion in affirming the trial court’s judg*923ment; however, the majority improperly relies on Faretta v. California, 422 U.S. 806, 820, 95 S.Ct. 2525, 2534, 45 L.Ed.2d 562 (1975), to support its conclusion. The majority asserts that appellant’s trial counsel’s explanation, “[Tjhat’s the route we decided to take,” strengthens the contention that waiver occurred because a defendant “is bound by the strategy decisions of his trial counsel.”1 Faretta more accurately pertains to an accused’s constitutional right to proceed at trial without counsel when he voluntarily elects to do so.2 Under Faretta, the state may not force trial counsel upon an accused for representation when the accused insists on conducting his own defense.3 Faretta is not on point on the facts of this case as the majority suggests. For this reason, I do not join the majority’s analysis but I respectfully concur in the court’s judgment.

. See ante at p. 922.

. Faretta, 422 U.S. at 820, 95 S.Ct. at 2533 ("The language and spirit of the Sixth Amendment contemplate that counsel, like other defense tools guaranteed by the Amendment, shall be an aid to a willing defendant — not an organ of the State interposed between an unwilling defendant and his right to defend himself personally.”).

. Faretta, 422 U.S. at 834, 95 S.Ct. at 2540-41.