Court Opinion

ID: 9469920
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 02:52:04.453468+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:41:37.783000
License: Public Domain

SLOVITER, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I agree with the majority that the state trial proceedings in this case were “unusual” and “unorthodox.” In fact, that is a restrained understatement. Possibly as a result of the “unusual” nature of the proceedings, the usual precautions which have evolved to guarantee a defendant’s constitutional rights were not followed. Therefore, I agree with the district court that a new trial is required.
Without detailing all of the proceedings of the trial, some of which are referred to in the majority’s opinion, I highlight the salient events. Contrary to the prevailing view, the state trial judge was apparently under the impression that the- defendant has an obligation to take the witness stand1 *962and invited him to do so. Defendant declined, indicating that he recognized that if he gave up his constitutional right to remain silent, the prosecutor could cross-examine him on matters which otherwise would not be admissible. Following defendant’s outburst at the conclusion of the trial, the trial court, sua sponte, offered to defendant the opportunity to “make as many speeches as you want to the jury if you elect to do so.” The trial court apparently regarded this jury speech conjointly with or as an alternative to defendant taking the witness stand. The court stated to defendant:
Now, Mr. Bontempo, of course you have a right to be heard, and I am going to hear you, and you can make as many speeches as you want to the jury if you elect to do so.
My recollection is Friday I specifically asked you in the presence of your attorney if you wanted to take the stand. You indicated that you did not.
I suppose my further question should have been, and I’ve asked this of several defendants, do you yourself want to say anything to the jury which you have a right to say?
I am going to let you say whatever you want to to the jury, but before you do so, I thought I owed you the courtesy to first of all discuss what you want to say with your attorney, indicate to him what you want to say, get his best advice on it, and if you want to say to me first, so that I can give you the benefit of my advice on it, you may.
On the other hand, if you want to say whatever you want to say without discussing it with anybody, you have a right to say it.
That is up to you, sir.
I am not trying to foreclose you from being heard. I just felt that you owed it to yourself and to your own case to discuss it with your attorney.
After some colloquy between the defendant and the judge, during which the judge on several occasions offered to reopen the case so that defendant could take the stand, the proceedings recessed so defendant could confer with his counsel.
At the post-conviction hearing, defendant’s trial counsel testified that during the recess he never “advised” defendant on the idea of an unsworn statement or closing argument, and that the conference focused on the judge’s reference to the possibility of reopening the case, taking the stand, and calling witnesses. When they returned to the courtroom, trial counsel reported to the court that he advised defendant not to take the stand, and asked the court to question defendant on that option once again. Again defendant declined, and the court then repeated its offer to defendant to speak to the jury. Defendant hesitated at this “opportunity” until his trial counsel told him “[t]he Judge is giving you an unusual opportunity.” The judge assured the defendant his statement would not be testimonial, stating “I’ll tell the jury that everything you say they don’t have to believe, because it won’t be under oath.” Having thus been alternately invited and/or encouraged, defendant delivered to the jury a rambling pro se statement which amalgamated evidence and argument and during which defendant made some significant admissions.
After the defendant’s statement, the prosecutor addressed the jury and repeatedly and vigorously commented upon the gaps and the omissions in the defendant’s jury statement. The prosecutor, asking a series of rhetorical questions, told the jury that defendant’s statement was ‘‘not subject to cross examination” and that “[tjhese are all questions which could have been but were not answered.” In addition to commenting on the episodes to which defendant had alluded in his pro se statement, the prosecutor hammered away at defendant’s failure to discuss the events in the grocery store where the murder was committed, telling the jury, “Mr. Bontempo had his opportunity to speak to you. He never told you what went on there. Mr. Sena [the victim], he doesn’t have an opportunity to tell you what went on there because he’s dead.... ” (emphasis added). Notwithstanding these *963remarks, the trial judge failed to give any precautionary instructions to the jury regarding the prosecutor’s comments with regard to defendant’s failure to deny material facts.
As the majority notes, the district court found that defendant’s Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights were violated by these “unusual” proceedings. In arguing on appeal that the district court correctly held that defendant’s Fifth Amendment rights were violated, defendant claims this case presents “a catch-22 for the state.” He argues, “If the [defendant’s] remarks are ‘testimony’, thereby permitting rebuttal from the prosecution as if defendant had provided evidence under oath and subject to cross-examination, then the defendant had a constitutional right to have the jury instructed that his remarks were to be considered as evidence. Instead, the jury (and defendant) were specifically instructed by the court that the remarks were not evidence. ... On the other hand, if defendant’s ‘closing argument’, to use the trial judge’s characterization ... was nothing more than a pro se summation which could not properly be considered as evidence, then the prosecutor’s comments on defendant’s silence violated the Fifth Amendment as applied to the states by Griffin v. California, [380 U.S. 609, 85 S.Ct. 1229, 14 L.Ed.2d 106 (1965)].” Bontempo’s brief at 23-24 (emphasis in original). The majority’s conclusion on this issue is that it is “not persuaded that ... the prosecution did comment on Bontempo’s failure to testify”, but that even if the prosecutor’s remarks did constitute comment on the failure to take the stand, this was not a constitutional violation because Bontempo had already drawn the jury’s attention to the fact that he had not testified.
Admittedly, the sui generis nature of the trial proceedings makes it difficult to find an analytic mold for Fifth Amendment purposes. I find it both regrettable and troublesome that the majority does not adopt the well-reasoned approach used in a similar situation by Judge Weinstein who held that since there was unsworn testimony in the pro se summation of the defendant, the prosecutor was permitted to respond by commenting that such “testimony” had not been given under oath and was therefore less weighty than sworn testimony. United States ex rel. Miller v. Follette, 278 F.Supp. 1003, 1007 (E.D.N.Y.), aff’d on other theory, 397 F.2d 363 (2d Cir.1968) (prosecutor merely repeated fact already emphasized by defendant), cert. denied, 393 U.S. 1039, 89 S.Ct. 660, 21 L.Ed.2d 585 (1969). In this case, the prosecutor’s comments on Bontempo’s failure to discuss the events in the grocery store went far beyond the facts to which Bontempo referred in his pro se summation and far beyond the comments made by the prosecutor in the Miller case. Nonetheless, because I agree with the district court that defendant’s Sixth Amendment rights were violated, I need not reach the district court’s holding that the prosecutor’s rebuttal to defendant’s statement constituted impermissible comment on his failure to testify under Griffin v. California, 380 U.S. 609, 85 S.Ct. 1229, 14 L.Ed.2d 106 (1965).
I begin the Sixth Amendment consideration by reviewing several well-established principles. A defendant has a constitutional right to counsel at each critical stage of the proceeding. See United States v. Wade, 388 U.S. 218, 226-27, 87 S.Ct. 1926, 1931-32, 18 L.Ed.2d 1149 (1967); see also Argersinger v. Hamlin, 407 U.S. 25, 92 S.Ct. 2006, 32 L.Ed.2d 530 (1972); Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335, 83 S.Ct. 792, 9 L.Ed.2d 799 (1963). Argument to the jury at the conclusion of the trial is such a “critical” stage. A criminal defendant also has a constitutional right to conduct his or her own self-defense. Faretta v. California, 422 U.S. 806, 95 S.Ct. 2525, 45 L.Ed.2d 562 (1975). Before a judge may honor a defendant’s decision to proceed by self-representation, the judge must ascertain whether the defendant has knowingly and intelligently elected to relinquish the benefits of counsel. See Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U.S. 458, 464-65, 58 S.Ct. 1019, 1023, 82 L.Ed. 1461 (1938). The requirement that the waiver must be made “knowingly and intelligently” inheres in the constitutional right to counsel. It is therefore applicable in *964state criminal trials as well as federal criminal trials. See Faretta v. California, supra.
The majority resolves the contention that defendant’s Sixth Amendment rights were violated by noting that Bontempo was “represented before, during and after his statement by an experienced defense' attorney”, majority op. at 960; that “Bontempo’s decision was reached only after he had consulted with counsel”, id. at 960; and that “[h]is decision to address the jury was taken with the approval of his experienced counsel,” id. at 961.
The majority characterizes the unusual statement by Bontempo to the jury as a pro se summation and I agree. As such, it must be treated as a waiver of counsel for that critical portion of the proceedings. The fact that Bontempo’s trial counsel handled all of the other aspects of the trial including a summation does not alter the fact that a second summation was delivered by Bontempo rather than his lawyer. This pro se summation can be regarded as nothing less than a partial waiver of counsel. A partial waiver of counsel may be no less hazardous than a full waiver of counsel. In this case, for example, the pro se summation provided the last opportunity to speak to the jury on behalf of the defendant. What defendant said and did during that summation not only may have influenced the jury’s view of the case but, as the majority concludes, opened the door for the prosecutor’s subsequent comments on the factual omissions in defendant’s statement. In considering a partial waiver of counsel, we must make the same inquiry into whether the defendant’s waiver of counsel was made knowingly and intelligently as we would in a full waiver case. Other courts considering “hybrid” arrangements where a criminal defendant has conducted some or all of his own defense have also held that the validity of the partial waiver depends on whether defendant knowingly and intelligently waived his rights. See United States v. Kimmel, 672 F.2d 720, 721 (9th Cir.1982); United States v. King, 582 F.2d 888 (4th Cir.1978); Maynard v. Meachum, 545 F.2d 273, 277 (1st Cir.1976).
The polestar on waiver of counsel is provided by Faretta v. California, where the Court held that before a waiver of counsel can be accepted, the defendant must be “made aware of the dangers and disadvantages of self-representation, so that the record will establish that ‘he knows what he is doing and his choice is made with eyes open.’ ” 422 U.S. at 835, 95 S.Ct. at 2540. In this case the “dangers and disadvantages of self-representation” as to the summation were exceptional. Defendant, a lay person with no legal background or experience suffering from an apparent medical history of memory loss due to an earlier bullet wound, undertook to address the jury without any preparation and to make incriminating statements without the guiding hand of counsel who might have been able either to shift him away from the precipices or to elicit some ameliorating circumstances. There is absolutely no evidence in the record to show that defendant was ever advised by his experienced trial counsel that there were serious risks to defendant in undertaking his pro se summation; there is no evidence in the record that his counsel advised him as to how to proceed in a pro se summation or to steer away from comments of a testimonial nature and to limit himself to the evidence already admitted; and there is no evidence in the record to show defendant was informed that if he undertook a pro se summation which included some testimony, the prosecutor would be able to comment not only on what he did say but on what he did not say.
The majority apparently believes that the mere fact that the state court found “that defense counsel did, during the recess, discuss the possibility of Bontempo giving an unsworn statement” showed satisfaction of the Faretta standard. See majority op. at 960 n. 3. Even if the finding of such a discussion were “fairly supported by the record”, 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d), which I question, the majority can point to nothing on record, because there is nothing, to show that the discussion was anything more than a passing reference to the trial court’s offer to defendant to address the jury.
*965Because the substance of counsel’s discussion with defendant is crucial to defendant’s constitutional argument, I set forth here some of the relevant testimony of trial counsel in the state post-conviction hearing on this point:
[Trial Counsel:] Well, at any interruption of a trial — Judges are individual, and in Judge Fusco’s court the defendant was told to either speak through counsel or to keep quiet. He was told that under the cases if he interrupted a trial and persists, there are certain' sanctions, and in this particular case, it appeared to me that the Court got into a colloquy with the defendant. It appeared as though the Court led the defendant to believe that he could give a statement to the jury.
Q. I asked you before whether the statement was made on your advice? A. No, no it was not. I couldn’t contemplate — as a matter of fact, even when Judge Fusco mentioned the word statement, that a statement would be an unsworn statement. I think, and this is recollection, that I told Mr. Bontempo that if he elected to make a statement, that he would be putting himself in jeopardy. He said he didn’t want to put himself in jeopardy.
I told him that he would be subject to cross-examination and whatever occurred to me at the time was my obligation to advise him as to the law. The question of an unsworn statement, that was never consulted about. The idea apparently originated with the Judge, who had at this point took charge of the trial.
[A.] If I may for the record, I indicated that I did not know then, and I don’t think even now despite what happened in this trial what might have happened in the Appellate Division that any Judge has a right to have any witness in the case, let alone the defendant, make an unsworn statement to a jury.
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Q. [To Trial Counsel:] [Y]ou have already testified that this Bontempo’s reaction was not the result of your advice. Did you discuss an extemporaneous unsworn statement with him at all in an attempt to prepare him to make such a statement?
A. No.
Q. The statement, which I gather— the statement which he did make to the jury then, was being heard by you for the first time?
A. Yes.
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Q. Okay. Are you testifying that this, despite the fact that Judge Fusco laid this option out to you and told you to discuss it when you took that recess, the idea of an unsworn statement or a closing argument was never discussed?
A. I can’t say that it was never discussed. I never advised him on it. What I did advise him was that it was a general statement that so far as the opening was concerned, I had opened. So far as the closing was concerned, I had closed. So far as his taking the stand or calling witnesses, he was being afforded an attempt. I went over what his exposure would be to cross-examination, and to the admittance of the record against him. I can’t remember every word that was said. I do believe that we went back into the courtroom, and then the trial resumed.
Q. So, is it your testimony that you may have discussed with him his giving a closing statement to the jury?
A. I didn’t discuss it with him in the sense of advising him.
Q. That’s not my question. I’m sorry. My question is was the issue discussed of him giving a closing statement?
A. No. Not in that fashion.
Q. So, you didn’t discuss the idea of him giving a closing statement to the jury because you didn’t think the Court would permit it?
A. I didn’t think that that really was the issue. The Judge mentioned opening statements of what he had done in other *966trials, and he permitted this to this defendant. He mentioned the closing statements and additional statements. He had permitted this to the defendant, and he mentioned the possibility of reopening the case, taking the stand, and calling witnesses.
Q. Do you remember just before he gave the statement you were discussing with him, or on the record there was a discussion about what he was going to do, and you said to Mr. Bontempo you can talk to the jury, the Judge has given you an unusual opportunity. At that point, you knew that he was going to give a statement to the jury, did you not?
A. I knew he was going to talk to the jury, but I never pictured him being able to talk to the jury not under oath, and I thought ... I still can’t picture it though it happened, permitting a defendant after the Court closes — after the close of a case to address a jury.
Q. So, you thought that he was going to testify at that point?
A. I thought that he would get up and the Court will tell him he would have to be sworn, and that if he wanted to say anything to the jury, it would have to be under oath and from the witness box.
Q. Even when you said to him the Judge is going to let you talk to the jury, he’s given you an unusual opportunity? A. That’s right.
It is apparent that counsel never advised the defendant of the “dangers and disadvantages” of a pro se summation, because counsel did not contemplate that such a procedure would be permitted. Even if counsel had mentioned the possibility to defendant during the recess, that would fall far short of imparting the information needed for a knowing and intelligent waiver.
Furthermore, the obligation to ascertain whether there has been a knowing and intelligent waiver is that of the trial court. In Von Moltke v. Gillies, 332 U.S. 708, 723-24, 68 S.Ct. 316, 323, 92 L.Ed. 309 (1948) (plurality opinion), the Supreme Court admonished that “in light of the strong presumption against waiver of the constitutional right to counsel, a judge must investigate as long and as thoroughly as the circumstances of the case before him demand” (footnote omitted). In our recent decision in United States v. Welty, 674 F.2d 185, 187, 188-89 (3d Cir.1982), we held that the obligation of the trial court (in that case the district court) is to ensure that any decision by the defendant to represent himself was made intelligently and competently. We stated that, “It is vital that the district court take particular pains in discharging its responsibility to conduct these inquiries concerning substitution of counsel and waiver of counsel. Perfunctory questioning is not sufficient.” Id. at 187.
Other federal courts considering waiver of counsel in the context of a habeas corpus proceeding have made clear that a state trial judge is required to talk to the defendant on the record to determine whether his waiver of counsel is knowing and competent. See Brown v. Wainwright, 665 F.2d 607, 611-12 (5th Cir.1982) (en banc); id. at 615 (Hatchett, J., dissenting); Badger v. Cardwell, 587 F.2d 968, 972 n. 3 (9th Cir. 1978); Ford v. Wainwright, 526 F.2d 919, 921-22 (5th Cir.1976); Shawan v. Cox, 350 F.2d 909, 912 (10th Cir.1965); Hall v. Dorsey, 534 F.Supp. 507, 508-09 n. 4 (E.D.Pa. 1982); Martin v. Wyrick, 433 F.Supp. 921, 927-29 (W.D.Mo.1977), rev’d on other grounds, 568 F.2d 583 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 435 U.S. 975, 98 S.Ct. 1623, 56 L.Ed.2d 69 (1978). But see Maynard v. Meachum, 545 F.2d at 277.
In this case the following constitutes the total of the relevant colloquy between defendant and the trial judge after the recess at which Bontempo conferred with his lawyer:
THE COURT: Mr. Bontempo, you still have the right to take the stand if you wish to, sir.
THE DEFENDANT: I can’t take it without my doctors.
THE COURT: Do you want to take the stand, sir?
THE DEFENDANT: No, I can’t.
*967THE COURT: Do you want to say anything to this jury?
THE DEFENDANT: How can I say something to the jury? I’m not a lawyer.
THE COURT: I’ll let you say — you started to, sir, and I stopped you because I thought you wanted to discuss it with your lawyer. Now I’m not trying to foreclose you. Everybody has a right.
It is your freedom that is at stake.
If you want to say something to the jury I will permit you to do so, sir. [Trial Counsel:] You can talk to the jury. The Judge is giving you an unusual opportunity.
THE DEFENDANT: I know, I know. I’m trying to think.
[Trial Counsel:] But it is your decision to make.
He will give you time to think.
He will give you an opportunity.
THE DEFENDANT: I know, I am trying to think.
Yeah, all right, I’ll talk to them. Yes, your Honor.
THE COURT: Pardon me?
THE DEFENDANT: Yes, I’ll talk to them.
THE COURT: You want to talk to the jury?
THE DEFENDANT: Yes.
THE COURT: You realize the Prosecutor will have an opportunity to answer what you have to say?
THE DEFENDANT: Can he go first? THE COURT: You go first.
THE DEFENDANT: Let him go first. THE COURT: You go first. I’ll tell the jury that everything you say they don’t have to believe because it won’t be under oath. That’s what I’ll tell the jury.
THE DEFENDANT: All right, yeah, what the hell. What have I got to lose? THE COURT: All right, bring in the jury, please.
The trial court’s failure to give defendant any guidance with regard to the subjects which may legitimately be discussed in summation, failure to inquire whether such guidance had been provided by his counsel, failure to warn defendant that if his remarks touched upon evidence, the prosecutor could respond to that testimony and could also comment on his failure to discuss other events fell far short of meeting the obligation imposed on trial courts. It fell far short of the advice and warnings given by other trial courts in somewhat analogous situations. Thus, for example, in United States ex rel. Miller v. Follette, the defendant had received “an explicit warning not to testify or comment on matters not in evidence.” 278 F.Supp. at 1006. Judge Weinstein reasoned that a defendant would be adequately protected by “a clear and direct warning by the court that such limited comment [by the prosecutor on the unsworn ‘testimony’] might follow if he continued to give what amounted to unsworn testimony.” Id. at 1007. In United States v. King, 582 F.2d at 889, the trial judge had “engaged in a lengthy colloquy with King in an attempt to dissuade him from self-representation.” In this case, there was no dissuasion, but what appears instead to have been encouragement. Defendant began his rambling untutored summation to the jury saying “I feel like a yo-yo” and ending it with saying “Go ahead. Sink me. I can go home dead now.”
I agree with the following analysis by Judge Sarokin, the district judge who held that the habeas corpus writ should issue:
One wonders what would have motivated the trial court not only to permit the summation by petitioner, but to encourage it. It was clearly an invitation to the petitioner to bury himself. No competent counsel would ever make closing argument to a jury in any case, no less a murder trial, without long and thorough preparation. How or why the court would have encouraged a defendant with his limited intelligence and illness to render an unprepared closing argument without review with counsel is beyond comprehension. One cannot help wonder whether the offer made to petitioner was made to advance his rights or to defeat them. The helping hand which the court purportedly was extending to the petitioner, in reality held a noose.
*968It is no argument to say that the court merely honored the petitioner’s request. The court exists to protect the constitutional rights of those who appear before it. We all err in that quest, but the active role of the court in this particular deprivation of rights mandates the granting of the petition (footnote omitted).
For the foregoing reasons, I respectfully dissent and would affirm the judgment of the district court.

. THE COURT: There is no God given right not to take the stand ... and the Prosecutor has a right to call for it.
The defendant doesn’t have to take the stand.
[TRIAL COUNSEL:] We have a Constitutional Right not to take the stand.
THE COURT: Zicarelli says that it is not a God given right.
The only one who can rebut a fact is the defendant, then he ought to take the stand, and that is how the cases have held (emphasis added).
The view expressed by the trial court is at variance with the view expressed by the Supreme Court in Hoffman v. United States, 341 U.S. 479, 490, 71 S.Ct. 814, 819, 95 L.Ed. 1118 (1951), “The immediate and potential evils of compulsory self-disclosure transcend any difficulties that the exercise of the privilege may impose on society in the detection and prosecution of crime.” The Zicarelli case to which the trial court referred was apparently Zicarelli v. New Jersey State Comm’n of Investigation, 406 U.S. 472, 92 S.Ct. 1670, 32 L.Ed.2d 234 (1972), where the Court upheld compulsory testimony in return for statutory use and derivative use immunity. It does not support the trial court’s view that a defendant has an obligation to give testimony in the absence of such immunity.